Blood Bowl!!!!!!

As most do, I dropped out of the hobby around 18/19 years old as reali life began to assert itself with full time work, girls, beer, bills etc. I never truly lost touch (still picking up White Dwarf for example), but my actual participation in it was very minimal - I imagine I painted about 3 models in 7 years and didn't game at all. 

When I began to the slow return, my gateway drug was of course Games Workshop, and the first offering was Blood Bowl. A mate, Simon, and I picked up a copy and started playing. For us, it was the ultimate game for playing with a beer or two (or eight). Many games followed, but if died off a few years ago when my hobby took the parent hood hit. 

Anyway, the other day we dusted it all off and got our first game in for quite while:

We played our usual teams, I opted for my Skaven team, known as the Sewer Skutters, whilst Simon bought his Wissenland Wolverine human team out of retirement. Both these teams are arch rivals. We haven't kept an exact track but I think honours are roughly even over the years. The Skaven's speed often leads to two-turn touch downs, whilst Simon's humans can be quite good at squashing rats. 

Here is the table at the start of the game:

Simon was receiving and it was fair to say the dice were diabolical for him to start with. His thrower couldn't pick up the ball, all his blocks led to his guys falling over and it just went horribly wrong, leading to the Gutter Runners tearing through the lines, picking up the ball and making it 1-0. Here's the Gutter Runner receiving a handoff and about to score:

After that, his rolls got a little better and his chaps battered there way through the Skaven lines to leave it 1-1 at the end of the first half. 

At the start of the second half, the Skaven team received the kick off, but despite making a run for it, the gutter runners got smacked down, and Simon managed to turn it around and go 2-1 up:

The Skaven then got to receive the kick again. This time I managed to pull off a two turn touch down and even the score. You can see here that my team have made a hole and got three gutter runners through with plenty of support:

Getting at them would prove troublesome and marking/blocking all three is near impossible. Even when I am defending I try to get at least two gutter runners into the opponents half as they are dsitracting and can cause mayhem.

The last section of the game was a propper scrap. With Simon receiving he was able to batter a couple of my guys off the field and force his way into my half. I realised at this stage I was playing for a draw so used my speed to surround my his blitzer:

This left the whole fate of the game resting on a single roll. If he got a natural 6, his throw was accurate and he would just need a 2+ with a reroll to touchdown. To both our surprises, the dice came good for him when it mattered and he took the game 3-2!

The whole game was great fun, and I think it's fair to say the Blood Bowl bug has bitten again. It's a real shame that GW canned the whole specialist game range a few years ago as otherwise I would pick up another team in a heart beat. Oh well, I have already found a couple of alternate sources for teams that I think I will be investing in soon.

To keep up with all my Blood Bowl shennanigans, visit my facebook page: A Cardboard Fortress