Enter Hacker-Pschorr

Named for the excellent beer, this Chaos Blood Bowl team hails from the north. Game night was going to be Wednesday night this week, but we had a last minute switch-up. At such short notice though, we didn't have anything planned, so we dusted off Blood Bowl, truly one of the greatest miniatures games...ever. Basically it's football, played with fantasy monsters and races, easy enough. It's got a set of rules that a newbie will know the ins and outs of by halftime, the replay value is high, and overall, it's just awesome to play. I truly forgot how much fun and how great of a game this is.

Maybe it's because fall is here, and I've been watching a lot of pro football, maybe it's because I am absolutely getting my butt kicked in our money fantasy football league, or maybe it's just because it's simply overdue, but we decided to kick it off Blood Bowl style, hopefully we can get the players on board. Back in the day, I think we hit our heyday in a pretty massive league; we numbered twelve players and had a deep league with tournies, a great commissioner who put out weekly newsletters, and updated league results at the local comic shop on the wall. There were some great times to be had back then, this was about twelve years ago or so. We've always had something going with Blood Bowl to one extent or another however, just like now. Here's a match report!


Here's the setup for the kickoff at the beginning of the second half. My team is a Chaos team, Andy's was a Human team. They're unfinished/unpainted because neither of us had ever played our prospective teams before. In the past Andy has been a stalwart Skaven player, and myself usually Wood Elves or Humans, and yeah, those teams are painted, heh.


Up top we've got a scramble for the ball. It doesn't look good for me since Andy's got a Sure Hands Catcher up there, with the Dodge skill too, no doubt. A pick up, a dodge or two, and it's open ground to the end zone...


...it didn't happen though! We burned through some reroll counters and had a few bad rolls. Needless to say, Horns on my Beastmen were kind of a saving grace thanks to the extra strength on a blitz. My Chaos Warriors already had the increased strength, so I was able to clear out some breathing room. Agility scores of three aren't too bad, but I don't have any of the specialized types like on a human team, so no Pass, Catch, or Sure Hands skills. I got the job done though and flung the ball down field. I had a Beastman make a quick pass to the Chaos Warrior seen here, who's making a mad dash to the end zone as fast as his speed five will let him.


Andy managed to get some of his team around my guy, much to my surprise, but they didn't have enough move to put me in multiple tackle zones. All I had to do was make a single dodge roll and I'm home free...which I did, woohoo! It was a grinding game without a lot of scoring, but still a lot of action. Possession of the ball changed hands more than a couple of times, and had a few good hits, one human getting taken out of the game. I'll hang with Chaos too, they'll take some getting used to, I like my fast and agile Elves, and my multi-purpose Humans, but a change of pace will be nice. Plus, as you can see from the pics, I can add a new project to the minis queue, which is refurbish my Chaos team. Oh, and I'd like to add a Minotaur.


A sight for sore eyes! Any Blood Bowl player will recognize this circle, it's part of the post-game ritual. We only had one player on either team earn enough star player points to get a skill roll, my TD scoring Chaos Warrior was the candidate. After much deliberation, I took the rather vanilla, but imperative, Block skill.