Blood Bowl
Encyclopedia
Blood Bowl is a Fantasy Football game
created by Jervis Johnson
for the British
games company Games Workshop
(but now under the aegis of their Specialist Games
division) as a parody of American Football
. The game was first released in 1987 and has been re-released in new editions since. Blood Bowl is set in an alternate version of the Warhammer Fantasy
setting, populated by traditional fantasy
elements such as human warriors, goblin
s, dwarfs, elves
, orc
s and troll
s.
The most recent purchasable edition of the game contains a printed copy of Living Rulebook 1.0. However, the most up-to-date version of the game's rules is the Competition Rules Pack, which is available as a downloadable file from Games Workshop's website (formerly known as LRB6 or Living Rule Book 6.0).
The "Blood" in Blood Bowl is represented by the violent actions available to players. Game play is based on a hybrid of American Football
and Rugby
. Players may attempt to injure or maim the opposition in order to make scoring easier by reducing the number of enemy players on the field.
The player races are drawn from the ranks of fantasy races and have characteristics that reflect the abilities of those races. Elves tend to be agile and good at scoring, while Dwarfs and Orcs are more suited to a grinding, physical style of play. Players are also divided up into positions suited to their role on the field, including Throwers, Catchers, and Linemen.
In league play, players gain additional skills and abilities based on their accumulation of experience points. Players face potential injury or even death on the field throughout their careers. Teams improve by the purchase of off-field staff such as cheerleaders, assistant coaches, and apothecaries
.
In addition, players may have special skills that affect any number of circumstances in play. Some of the more commonly used skills are Block (for fighting), Dodge (for dodging out of an opponents tackle zone), Sure Hands (for picking up the ball), Pass (for throwing the ball), and Catch (for catching the ball). These skills are not necessary to perform their corresponding actions, but will give the player an advantage.
In his or her turn, a coach may have each player take one of the following actions:
In addition, the following four actions may be taken by one player per team turn:
Some skills also allow for special player actions.
If a player action fails, the team turn ends immediately (with some minor exceptions). This defining game mechanic is called the turnover rule. The turnover rule makes every action tense for the coaches, and together with the four-minute rule (a team turn must be completed within four minutes) it can make the game very fast-paced. Some rules such as the eleven player limit may be broken as long as the opposing coach does not notice; other rules are strictly off-limits. (For example: Failing to move the re-roll counter in order to get a free re-roll)
.
The game box supplies the coaches with players enough to field Human
and Orc teams, which are also the teams recommended to newcomers for ease of learning.
The different races progress at different rates, so not all teams start at equal strength. Some become more dominant only after they accrue some experience. Certain teams, such as the Halfling
s and the Ogres, are designed to provide more of a challenge for experienced players due to their built-in weaknesses.
s, the ability for large teammates to throw small teammates down field (even while they possess the ball), as well as in-game effects like fans throwing rocks and injuring players prior to kickoff.
Blood Bowl includes numerous tongue in cheek references to real life products and companies. The deity overseeing Blood Bowl is Nuffle - a pun on the pronunciation of NFL
. The game spoofs at least three real-world companies, including McDonald's
(McMurty's), Budweiser
(Bloodweiser), and Adidas
(Orcidas). Many team names in the game's background are spoofs as well such as the Orcland Raiders (Oakland Raiders
) and the Darkside Cowboys (Dallas Cowboys
). Famous sporting personalities are parodied as well, with the most famous (and oldest) coach in Blood Bowl's background being Tomolandry the Undying (Tom Landry
), and one of the most recently added stars being the Ogre thrower, Brick Far'th (Brett Favre
).
With the advent of the 3rd edition, Blood Bowl moved closer to the traditional Warhammer Fantasy Battle world by changing the miniatures to look more similar to their Warhammer Fantasy Battle counterparts. Jervis Johnson
, designer of the game, has admitted this was not the best direction for the game, and has since stated that the Blood Bowl world is similar to, but definitely not the same as, the Warhammer world. Recent changes to the rules reflect this, and newer miniatures for the game look more sporty in nature.
did release metal miniatures to represent players for 1st edition.
In 1982, TSR
published a game called Monsters of the Midway
which was very similar in concept to Blood Bowl but significantly different in-game play. Discussions with Jervis Johnson at the Chaos Cup tournament in 2006 revealed that he had never seen Monsters of the Midway until after Blood Bowl was published and that the concept of a fantasy football board game was simply a concept whose time had come in the 1980s.
board, and the boxed set included plastic 28 mm miniatures of Orcs and Humans, with another set of metal miniatures available from Citadel Miniatures to represent most (but not all) of the other races. Games Workshop later provided a boxed supplement Dungeonbowl, dealing with subterranean play and dwarvish and elvish teams, and, later, two source books, Blood Bowl Star Players (1989) and the Blood Bowl Companion (1990), which added to the basic rules, creating games with greater variation which could easily last several hours.
The third edition also featured a completely new range of miniatures, including new versions of plastic 28 mm humans and orcs in the boxed set. The new range closely resembled Warhammer Fantasy Battle miniatures. Combined with the newly-available races mirroring Warhammer armies, Blood Bowl moved much closer to Warhammer Fantasy Battle. In 1995, the Third Edition Blood Bowl won the Best Miniatures Rules of 1994 Origins Award
.
The Living Rulebook, currently in its sixth edition which is said by the BBRC to be the final version, is available from the official Blood Bowl site under the name "Blood Bowl Competition Rules Pack" or "CRP". Originally there were plans to release a printed version for Blood Bowls 20th anniversary, but this has since been cancelled.
Tournaments are one-off events where large numbers of Blood Bowl teams gather to play against each other and try to become the tournament champion. This form of play differs from a recreational league. Games Workshop holds four major tournaments across the world each year. The Blood Bowl was held at Warhammer World from 2003 until 2010 at Games Workshop's HQ in Nottingham
, England in the spring and attracted around 200 players to play in the two-day event. The Dungeonbowl is held in Germany, the Spike! Magazine Trophy is held in Surrey, British Columbia
, Canada
in early September, and the Chaos Cup is held in Chicago
, Illinois
, USA in late September. Numerous other events are held throughout the world at Games Workshop stores and events or independently. In January 2003, a website was opened for the purpose of helping people organize their own Blood Bowl tournaments, to promote Blood Bowl to the wargaming world, and to rank players' performance at tournaments. The organization took the name NAF, after the fictional rules body in the Blood Bowl history.
In October 2007, the NAF held a "World Cup" Tournament in Nottingham, England over three days, with teams coming from as far afield as the United States and Australia
. 272 players attended, making it not only the largest Blood Bowl event ever held, but the largest Games Workshop related event in history. In the end, victory was awarded to a team from France, whilst a German coach won the individual coaching award.
In 2010, GW announced they were going to stop running the Blood Bowl tournament, but allowed the NAF to take over the running of the event, renamed as the NAF Championship.
. However, Tynesoft went into bankruptcy before the game was released.
In 1995, an MS-DOS version of Blood Bowl was developed by Strategic Simulations, Inc.
and released by MicroLeague, featuring the base teams as well as many of the free agents.
In 2004, French-based Cyanide Studios
developed a game called Chaos League
(and, later, a subsequent expansion Chaos League : Sudden Death) which bore a heavy resemblance to Blood Bowl in its style and rules, even though it was a real-time game (rather than turn-based, like Blood Bowl).
Games Workshop sued over the similarities, but later announced that Cyanide Studios had been granted a license to create computer games based on Blood Bowl, and that "Any differences between Games Workshop and Cyanide have been amicably settled for an undisclosed sum, and as part of the settlement the Chaos League title has been assigned to Games Workshop". This settlement led directly to Cyanide's release of an official new version for Windows computers on June 26, 2009 (with both "classic" turn-based mode and real-time mode). The playable races in the original video game version of Blood Bowl included Dwarfs, Wood Elves, Humans, Goblins, Orcs, Chaos, Skaven, and Lizardmen. With a subsequent patch, Dark Elves were added to the game as a playable race.
On November 14, 2007, the Nintendo DS
, PlayStation Portable
, and Xbox 360
versions were announced. These were subsequently released, and followed very closely the tabletop rules at that time.
On October 28, 2010, Cyanide Studios
released the Legendary Edition of Blood Bowl for PC only. The game includes a reworked interface in the menu screens and a large number of new races added to the game, including Undead, Khemri, Norse, Elves, Halfling, Amazon, Ogre, Necromantic, Nurgle, Vampire and High Elves. This brings the total races represented to 20, meaning the digital game is only missing the Chaos Dwarf race from the list of teams available in the CRP.
Fantasy football (board games)
Fantasy football is a genre of board game or wargame which normally involves two teams of fantasy races competing in an extremely violent variant of American football. Violent future sports such as Rollerball may also be classified as fantasy football. However, this is less likely...
created by Jervis Johnson
Jervis Johnson
Jervis Johnson is a game designer for Games Workshop.He is currently one of Game Workshop's long-term strategy managers, having previously been employed as head of its Specialist Games division.Jervis is credited with creating the following games:...
for the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
games company Games Workshop
Games Workshop
Games Workshop Group plc is a British game production and retailing company. Games Workshop has published the tabletop wargames Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000...
(but now under the aegis of their Specialist Games
Specialist Games
Specialist Games is division of Games Workshop which sells tabletop wargames that are no longer part of Games Workshop's core market ....
division) as a parody of American Football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
. The game was first released in 1987 and has been re-released in new editions since. Blood Bowl is set in an alternate version of the Warhammer Fantasy
Warhammer Fantasy (setting)
Warhammer Fantasy is a fantasy setting, created by Games Workshop, which is used by many of the company's games. Some of the best-known games set in this world are: the table top wargame Warhammer Fantasy Battle, the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay pen-and-paper role-playing game, and the MMORPG...
setting, populated by traditional fantasy
Fantasy literature
Fantasy literature is fantasy in written form. Historically speaking, literature has composed the majority of fantasy works. Since the 1950s however, a growing segment of the fantasy genre has taken the form of films, television programs, graphic novels, video games, music, painting, and other...
elements such as human warriors, goblin
Goblin
A goblin is a legendary evil or mischievous illiterate creature, a grotesquely evil or evil-like phantom.They are attributed with various abilities, temperaments and appearances depending on the story and country of origin. In some cases, goblins have been classified as constantly annoying little...
s, dwarfs, elves
Elf
An elf is a being of Germanic mythology. The elves were originally thought of as a race of divine beings endowed with magical powers, which they use both for the benefit and the injury of mankind...
, orc
Orc (Warhammer)
Orcs are one of the races in Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy universe, and are related to goblins. The brutish orcs, though less intelligent, tend to dominate the meeker goblins...
s and troll
Troll
A troll is a supernatural being in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore. In origin, the term troll was a generally negative synonym for a jötunn , a being in Norse mythology...
s.
The most recent purchasable edition of the game contains a printed copy of Living Rulebook 1.0. However, the most up-to-date version of the game's rules is the Competition Rules Pack, which is available as a downloadable file from Games Workshop's website (formerly known as LRB6 or Living Rule Book 6.0).
Gameplay
Blood Bowl is a two-player, turn-based board game that typically uses 28 mm miniatures to represent a contest between two teams on a playing field. A board containing a grid overlay represents the field. Using dice, cards, and counters, the players attempt to score higher than each other by entering the opponent's end zone with a player who possesses the ball.The "Blood" in Blood Bowl is represented by the violent actions available to players. Game play is based on a hybrid of American Football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
and Rugby
Rugby football
Rugby football is a style of football named after Rugby School in the United Kingdom. It is seen most prominently in two current sports, rugby league and rugby union.-History:...
. Players may attempt to injure or maim the opposition in order to make scoring easier by reducing the number of enemy players on the field.
The player races are drawn from the ranks of fantasy races and have characteristics that reflect the abilities of those races. Elves tend to be agile and good at scoring, while Dwarfs and Orcs are more suited to a grinding, physical style of play. Players are also divided up into positions suited to their role on the field, including Throwers, Catchers, and Linemen.
In league play, players gain additional skills and abilities based on their accumulation of experience points. Players face potential injury or even death on the field throughout their careers. Teams improve by the purchase of off-field staff such as cheerleaders, assistant coaches, and apothecaries
Apothecary
Apothecary is a historical name for a medical professional who formulates and dispenses materia medica to physicians, surgeons and patients — a role now served by a pharmacist and some caregivers....
.
Rules
Teams consist of eleven to sixteen players, of which eleven are allowed on the pitch at any one time. Each player is represented by an appropriate miniature and has statistics and skills that dictate his or her effect on play. There are four player statistics:- MA (Move Allowance) indicates how fast the player is.
- ST (Strength) indicates the player's basic fighting ability.
- AG (Agility) indicates how well the player handles the ball and evades opposing players.
- AV (Armor Value) indicates how difficult it is to injure the player.
In addition, players may have special skills that affect any number of circumstances in play. Some of the more commonly used skills are Block (for fighting), Dodge (for dodging out of an opponents tackle zone), Sure Hands (for picking up the ball), Pass (for throwing the ball), and Catch (for catching the ball). These skills are not necessary to perform their corresponding actions, but will give the player an advantage.
In his or her turn, a coach may have each player take one of the following actions:
- Move - Move the player through empty squares (opposing players may try to trip the moving player if he or she moves close to them).
- Block - Fight an adjacent opposing player who is standing.
In addition, the following four actions may be taken by one player per team turn:
- Blitz - Move and then Block an adjacent opposing player who is standing (or Block and then Move).
- Foul - Move and then foul an adjacent opposing player who is prone (or just foul an adjacent player who is prone).
- Pass - Move and then throw the ball (or just throw the ball).
- Hand-Off - Move and then give the ball to an adjacent player (or just give the ball to an adjacent player).
Some skills also allow for special player actions.
If a player action fails, the team turn ends immediately (with some minor exceptions). This defining game mechanic is called the turnover rule. The turnover rule makes every action tense for the coaches, and together with the four-minute rule (a team turn must be completed within four minutes) it can make the game very fast-paced. Some rules such as the eleven player limit may be broken as long as the opposing coach does not notice; other rules are strictly off-limits. (For example: Failing to move the re-roll counter in order to get a free re-roll)
Teams
Each team represents one race (with lesser allies) typically equivalent to the armies in Warhammer Fantasy BattleWarhammer Fantasy Battle
Warhammer: The Game of Fantasy Battles is a tabletop wargame created by Games Workshop. It is the origin of the Warhammer Fantasy setting....
.
The game box supplies the coaches with players enough to field Human
The Empire (Warhammer)
In Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy fictional universe, The Empire is one of the human political factions and armies, and is featured in many games and novels. In terms of location, language, culture, and society, it bears a strong resemblance to the Holy Roman Empire...
and Orc teams, which are also the teams recommended to newcomers for ease of learning.
The different races progress at different rates, so not all teams start at equal strength. Some become more dominant only after they accrue some experience. Certain teams, such as the Halfling
Halfling
Halfling is another name for J. R. R. Tolkien's Hobbit which can be a fictional race sometimes found in fantasy novels and games. In many settings, they are similar to humans except about half the size. Dungeons & Dragons began using the name halfling as an alternative to hobbit for legal reasons...
s and the Ogres, are designed to provide more of a challenge for experienced players due to their built-in weaknesses.
Background
The Blood Bowl universe has its own fictional background story which establishes the tone and spirit of the game. Additional background exists to describe the demeanor and character of the Blood Bowl players with frequent reference to rule breaking and excessive violence in a lighthearted manner. The over-the-top nature of the game is reflected through the game's mechanics, including the use of stylized secret weaponSecret weapon
A secret weapon is either a concealed weapon, or a weapon that is not officially confirmed by the owner.In terms of large-scale weapons, a secret weapon may refer to a newly-designed or invented weapon that the government denies the existence of...
s, the ability for large teammates to throw small teammates down field (even while they possess the ball), as well as in-game effects like fans throwing rocks and injuring players prior to kickoff.
Blood Bowl includes numerous tongue in cheek references to real life products and companies. The deity overseeing Blood Bowl is Nuffle - a pun on the pronunciation of NFL
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
. The game spoofs at least three real-world companies, including McDonald's
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948...
(McMurty's), Budweiser
Budweiser (Anheuser-Busch)
Budweiser is a 5.0% abv American-style lager introduced in 1876 by Adolphus Busch and one of the highest selling beers in the United States. It is made with up to 30% rice in addition to hops and barley malt. Budweiser is produced in various breweries located around the world...
(Bloodweiser), and Adidas
Adidas
Adidas AG is a German sports apparel manufacturer and parent company of the Adidas Group, which consists of the Reebok sportswear company, TaylorMade-Adidas golf company , and Rockport...
(Orcidas). Many team names in the game's background are spoofs as well such as the Orcland Raiders (Oakland Raiders
Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders are a professional American football team based in Oakland, California. They currently play in the Western Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
) and the Darkside Cowboys (Dallas Cowboys
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football franchise which plays in the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference of the National Football League . They are headquartered in Valley Ranch in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas...
). Famous sporting personalities are parodied as well, with the most famous (and oldest) coach in Blood Bowl's background being Tomolandry the Undying (Tom Landry
Tom Landry
Thomas Wade "Tom" Landry was an American football player and coach. He is ranked as one of the greatest and most innovative coaches in National Football League history, creating many new formations and methods...
), and one of the most recently added stars being the Ogre thrower, Brick Far'th (Brett Favre
Brett Favre
Brett Lorenzo Favre is a former American football quarterback who spent the majority of his career with the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League . He was a 20-year veteran of the NFL, having played quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons , Green Bay Packers , New York Jets and Minnesota...
).
With the advent of the 3rd edition, Blood Bowl moved closer to the traditional Warhammer Fantasy Battle world by changing the miniatures to look more similar to their Warhammer Fantasy Battle counterparts. Jervis Johnson
Jervis Johnson
Jervis Johnson is a game designer for Games Workshop.He is currently one of Game Workshop's long-term strategy managers, having previously been employed as head of its Specialist Games division.Jervis is credited with creating the following games:...
, designer of the game, has admitted this was not the best direction for the game, and has since stated that the Blood Bowl world is similar to, but definitely not the same as, the Warhammer world. Recent changes to the rules reflect this, and newer miniatures for the game look more sporty in nature.
History
Blood Bowl has evolved through a series of rules revisions, boxed set releases, and electronic media.First Edition
Released in 1986, the first edition of Blood Bowl was a simple game that used many of the elements of Games Workshop's existing tabletop games. Players in the first edition boxed set were represented by small pieces of cardboard illustrated with their likeness. Citadel MiniaturesCitadel Miniatures
Citadel Miniatures Limited is a company which produces metal, resin and plastic miniature figures for tabletop wargames such as Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000....
did release metal miniatures to represent players for 1st edition.
In 1982, TSR
TSR, Inc.
Blume and Gygax, the remaining owners, incorporated a new company called TSR Hobbies, Inc., with Blume and his father, Melvin Blume, owning the larger share. The former assets of the partnership were transferred to TSR Hobbies, Inc....
published a game called Monsters of the Midway
Monsters of the Midway
The "Monsters of the Midway" is most widely known as the nickname for the National Football League's Chicago Bears—particularly the dominant teams of 1940 and 1941...
which was very similar in concept to Blood Bowl but significantly different in-game play. Discussions with Jervis Johnson at the Chaos Cup tournament in 2006 revealed that he had never seen Monsters of the Midway until after Blood Bowl was published and that the concept of a fantasy football board game was simply a concept whose time had come in the 1980s.
Second Edition
The second edition of Blood Bowl, released in 1988, began to move Blood Bowl away from the battlefield mechanics of other Games Workshop systems and toward more brutal sports-oriented play. The game was played on a pitch represented by a polystyrenePolystyrene
Polystyrene ) also known as Thermocole, abbreviated following ISO Standard PS, is an aromatic polymer made from the monomer styrene, a liquid hydrocarbon that is manufactured from petroleum by the chemical industry...
board, and the boxed set included plastic 28 mm miniatures of Orcs and Humans, with another set of metal miniatures available from Citadel Miniatures to represent most (but not all) of the other races. Games Workshop later provided a boxed supplement Dungeonbowl, dealing with subterranean play and dwarvish and elvish teams, and, later, two source books, Blood Bowl Star Players (1989) and the Blood Bowl Companion (1990), which added to the basic rules, creating games with greater variation which could easily last several hours.
Kerrunch
In 1991, Games Workshop released Kerrunch, a light version of Blood Bowl, developed by Andy Jones. It was released along with Mighty Warriors, Ultra Marine and Space Fleet, and was predominantly aimed at the younger gamer as an introduction to the Games Workshop hobby. The rules are a simplified version of those from Blood Bowls second edition. The game came with 24 plastic miniatures, and is considered a collector's item.Third Edition
A new edition was released in 1994, radically changing the game play from the complex, lengthy second edition game to the simpler, more dramatic third edition game. Key changes were a set number of turns and the turnover rule. These changes increased the pace of the game and allowed it to be played within the span of around 2 hours.The third edition also featured a completely new range of miniatures, including new versions of plastic 28 mm humans and orcs in the boxed set. The new range closely resembled Warhammer Fantasy Battle miniatures. Combined with the newly-available races mirroring Warhammer armies, Blood Bowl moved much closer to Warhammer Fantasy Battle. In 1995, the Third Edition Blood Bowl won the Best Miniatures Rules of 1994 Origins Award
Origins Award
The Origins Awards are American awards for outstanding work in the game industry. They are presented by the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design at the Origins Game Fair on an annual basis for the previous year, so the 1979 awards were given at the 1980 Origins.The Origins Award is commonly...
.
Fourth Edition
Jervis Johnson produced a new official Fourth Edition of Blood Bowl and presented it in the Fanatics Game's Official Blood Bowl magazine issue 1, with follow-up rules presented in issue 2. The new rules were a large departure from the previous edition with numerous changes, and Johnson later admitted that, "some of the changes would have benefited from rather more rigorous playtesting". In 2001 the 4th edition rules, with corrections and retitled 4th Edition Gold, were placed on the Games Workshop website as a downloadable pdf file, and Johnson announced that the rules were now "experimental" and announced the creation of the Blood Bowl Rules Committee (BBRC), a group of Blood Bowl players, some GW staff, most not, that would look at the rules once a year and produce new official rules changes and experimental rules for possible inclusion in the future rules changes. The BBRC would meet in October each year, and their first release was the Living Rule Book 1 (LRB1).Living Rulebook Since its release, the third edition of Blood Bowl has experienced many changes, largely driven by the large and vociferous player base. These changes have been combined into the current version of the rules, known as the Living Rulebook. The majority of Blood Bowl is now played by these rules, though variants do exist due to house rules or the transition to online play.
The Living Rulebook, currently in its sixth edition which is said by the BBRC to be the final version, is available from the official Blood Bowl site under the name "Blood Bowl Competition Rules Pack" or "CRP". Originally there were plans to release a printed version for Blood Bowls 20th anniversary, but this has since been cancelled.
Leagues and tournaments
League play is the foundation upon which Blood Bowl games are based. There are many kinds of league activity, but they all tie in to a general campaign where teams battle each other over a period of time, developing new abilities and suffering injuries or worse while attempting to earn the crown of league champion.Tournaments are one-off events where large numbers of Blood Bowl teams gather to play against each other and try to become the tournament champion. This form of play differs from a recreational league. Games Workshop holds four major tournaments across the world each year. The Blood Bowl was held at Warhammer World from 2003 until 2010 at Games Workshop's HQ in Nottingham
Nottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
, England in the spring and attracted around 200 players to play in the two-day event. The Dungeonbowl is held in Germany, the Spike! Magazine Trophy is held in Surrey, British Columbia
Surrey, British Columbia
Surrey is a city in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It is a member municipality of Metro Vancouver, the governing body of the Greater Vancouver Regional District...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
in early September, and the Chaos Cup is held in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, USA in late September. Numerous other events are held throughout the world at Games Workshop stores and events or independently. In January 2003, a website was opened for the purpose of helping people organize their own Blood Bowl tournaments, to promote Blood Bowl to the wargaming world, and to rank players' performance at tournaments. The organization took the name NAF, after the fictional rules body in the Blood Bowl history.
In October 2007, the NAF held a "World Cup" Tournament in Nottingham, England over three days, with teams coming from as far afield as the United States and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. 272 players attended, making it not only the largest Blood Bowl event ever held, but the largest Games Workshop related event in history. In the end, victory was awarded to a team from France, whilst a German coach won the individual coaching award.
In 2010, GW announced they were going to stop running the Blood Bowl tournament, but allowed the NAF to take over the running of the event, renamed as the NAF Championship.
Video games
Games Workshop first announced a series of video games based on their properties in 1990, to include a conversion of Blood Bowl by UK company TynesoftTynesoft
Tynesoft Computer Software was a software developer and publisher in the 1980s and early 1990s.- History :The company was originally set up in 1983 to release educational software but soon moved into the video games market on which it concentrated for most of its time...
. However, Tynesoft went into bankruptcy before the game was released.
In 1995, an MS-DOS version of Blood Bowl was developed by Strategic Simulations, Inc.
Strategic Simulations, Inc.
Strategic Simulations, Inc. was a video game developer and publisher with over 100 titles to its credit since its founding in 1979. It was especially noted for its numerous wargames, its official computer game adaptations of Dungeons & Dragons, and for the groundbreaking Panzer General...
and released by MicroLeague, featuring the base teams as well as many of the free agents.
In 2004, French-based Cyanide Studios
Cyanide (studio)
Cyanide is a game development studio, based in the western suburbs of Paris, France, with offices in Montreal, Canada and Chengdu, China. The studio was created in 2000 by 8 ex-UbiSoft employees and in 2007 has a headcount of 70...
developed a game called Chaos League
Chaos League
Chaos League is a fantasy-based sports management game developed by Cyanide and published by Digital Jesters in 2004. The game is a fantasy satire of American Football, loosely based on Games Workshop's Blood Bowl franchise...
(and, later, a subsequent expansion Chaos League : Sudden Death) which bore a heavy resemblance to Blood Bowl in its style and rules, even though it was a real-time game (rather than turn-based, like Blood Bowl).
Games Workshop sued over the similarities, but later announced that Cyanide Studios had been granted a license to create computer games based on Blood Bowl, and that "Any differences between Games Workshop and Cyanide have been amicably settled for an undisclosed sum, and as part of the settlement the Chaos League title has been assigned to Games Workshop". This settlement led directly to Cyanide's release of an official new version for Windows computers on June 26, 2009 (with both "classic" turn-based mode and real-time mode). The playable races in the original video game version of Blood Bowl included Dwarfs, Wood Elves, Humans, Goblins, Orcs, Chaos, Skaven, and Lizardmen. With a subsequent patch, Dark Elves were added to the game as a playable race.
On November 14, 2007, the Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
, PlayStation Portable
PlayStation Portable
The is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Corporation Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on , 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...
, and Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
versions were announced. These were subsequently released, and followed very closely the tabletop rules at that time.
On October 28, 2010, Cyanide Studios
Cyanide (studio)
Cyanide is a game development studio, based in the western suburbs of Paris, France, with offices in Montreal, Canada and Chengdu, China. The studio was created in 2000 by 8 ex-UbiSoft employees and in 2007 has a headcount of 70...
released the Legendary Edition of Blood Bowl for PC only. The game includes a reworked interface in the menu screens and a large number of new races added to the game, including Undead, Khemri, Norse, Elves, Halfling, Amazon, Ogre, Necromantic, Nurgle, Vampire and High Elves. This brings the total races represented to 20, meaning the digital game is only missing the Chaos Dwarf race from the list of teams available in the CRP.