Blood Bowl
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This game was created by Jervis Johnson. 'nuff said.
Blood Bowl is a game set in the Warhammer Fantasy Battle universe. In-universe, it is a sports game somewhat like American Football but with a level of violence more akin to Canadian Ice Hockey. The in-universe explanation of the game is that during a battle between Dwarfs and Night Goblins, they found a chest of rulebooks, magazines, and brochures detailing "Amorikan Footbowl" and after the Dwarf sage interpreted them (going mad in the process) they played the game to settle the battle, the game then growing in popularity and entirely replacing war in the Warhammer universe during seasons. Otherwise it's the same setting as Warhammer Fantasy, and may even be the exact same if you want to think that it is. It is played by teams from each of the major factions who set aside their differences for the duration of the season. Out-of-universe, it is a game where each player manages a Blood Bowl team as they accumulate experience and injuries.
During seasons all wars in the world stop since Blood Bowl takes precedence above all other facets of life, even in the Warp. There used to be multiple leagues, but now only one survives. High Elves and the wizards of the Empire maintain crystal ball networks similar to television stations that show programs filmed with Campaigns for Real Arcanery (or Camras) with recorded images and sounds sent via a spell called Cabalvision. Each station is named with the same acronyms as real world stations with them meaning more humorous things (NBC=Necromancers Broadcasting Circle, Channel 7 CBS=Crystal Ball Service, and so on), although only one (ABC=Association of Broadcasting Conjurers) has the rights to broadcast Blood Bowl games. The announcers of all league Blood Bowl matches are a vampire named Jim, and an Ogre retired player named Bob Bifford. In the vidya the two talk CONSTANTLY to the point of annoyance. On the tabletop, they do absolutely nothing but had little minis you could buy to make your playing table look more complete (although with the advent of the vidya players sometimes imitate them to mock the opposing player, resulting in a well deserved mini down the windpipe).
It was produced by Specialist Games for a long time, but now like all the other Specialist Games it is on Games Workshop's back burner. Thankfully, there's a couple of computer games based on it (with a sequel to the most recent in the works!) that is almost the exact same as the tabletop (going as far as to use the Blood Bowl tabletop handbook for the rules in the vidya), and a card game by Fantasy Flight Games.
The Game Itself
Blood Bowl is a game where the player assumes the role of a team manager and trainer. The objective of the game is simple on paper: score as much "Touchdowns" (that's reaching the rival's deepest row of squares with a player controlling the ball) while you try to the opponent not score any. The reality is a fucking mess. With the abilities of the different players, the high risk of losing turn (even a bad pace that makes your player kiss the field WILL make you lose your turn) and the match random events (you thought that Daemons are random? THINK AGAIN) who can fuck your shit in no time. Even with that, Blood Bowl is a long favorite and awesome, because of the sheer levels of humor the rulebook has and the said random events who can fuck you, fuck your opponent, or both.
The game is very oriented to continued game, not individual matches. With A LOT of abilities (even mutations) and a streamlined but good promotion system it's easy and fun make your own league between friends, while accumulating "Star Player points" (exp. points) and injuries.
Da Teamz
There are a FUCKING LOT (21 in the board game, 23 in the Vidya) of teams out there. While many of them are mere variations of other teams, some have their own play-styles and players. Almost all are races of Warhammer Fantasy, so little surprises there. All teams have cheerleader options which can influence the random events, and are purchased like players.
Amazons: They may not get even mentioned in Warhammer Fantasy Battles, but the lovely ladies of Lustria get their own Blood Bowl team! Their armor is pretty low and they're below average in speed, but can dodge better than Dark Elves. Otherwise they play like Humans, including their player choices (except Lineman is Linewoman). Dwarfs fuck them up royally but otherwise they're a pretty good team. Probably one of the strongest teams to start with and hands down the easiest for new players to learn the game with. Amazons tend have problems when the Tackle skill becomes common, or when any member of their team takes a permanent injury as they have decidedly average stats and are considered the defining midrange team: They play heavy bashing against elves, skaven and goblins but play passing and running against Chaos or Khemri.
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Amazon Linewoman as seen in the vidya.
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Amazon Blitzer as seen in the vidya.
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Amazon Thrower as seen in the vidya.
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Amazon Catcher as seen in the vidya.
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Zara The Slayer as seen on the Amazon team.
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Morth'n'Thorg as seen on the Amazon team.
Chaos Dwarfs: As Dwarfs, they're very slow. They have stronger players than the Dwarfs as well as some much less skilled, fragile, and cheaper players if you need them. This mix makes them more like Undead, though they have more starting skills and more highly armoured players. They have low agility and have trouble getting or keeping the ball. The Minotaur likes to do whatever the fuck he wants. That said they can do some crazy stuff like run a heavy line of Chaos Dwarfs that will fuck up the enemy line and then make what would otherwise be a crazy mad pass and dash using the Hobgoblins and Bull Centaur.
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Chaos Dwarf Blocker as seen in the vidya.
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Chaos Dwarf Bull Minotuar as seen in the vidya.
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Chaos Dwarf Bull Centaur as seen in the vidya.
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Chaos Dwarf Hobgoblin as seen in the vidya.
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Morg'n'Thorg as seen on the Chaos Dwarf team.
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Grashnak Blackhoof as seen on the Chaos Dwarf team.
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Zzharg Madeye, a Chaos Dwarf specific character.
Chaos: The rulebook states that Chaos teams only worries about scoring touchdowns when more than half of the opponent team are either unconscious, injured or dead; and the reality isn't far from that. Maybe one of the heaviest-hitters of the game, Chaos is focused in crippling the enemy team and has the potential to do so. Their players are the Beastmen(crossover between meatshield and hitting support) and Warriors of Chaos (multipurpose, but better in defense and hitting). Their big guy is the Minotaur, who will ignore you unless you order him to crush someone's spine or crack open his skull. Often the terms Claw-POMB, Murder Chaos and Blackbox Chaos get thrown around with Chaos, it refers to a powerful build (both player and team) that Chaos can easily get that translates to making mildly bruising hits into brutal executions on the pitch, they come from one particular online community that has a special Bloodbowl league that functions as a fight club for Blood Bowl fans. Noteable is that their original cheerleader mini was a Daemonette with 4 boobs wearing a Commissar hat.
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Chaos Warrior as seen in the vidya.
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Chaos Beastmen as seen in the vidya.
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Chaos Minotaur as seen in the vidya.
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Grashnak Blackhoof as seen on the Chaos team.
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Lord Borak the Despoiler, a Chaos specific character.
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Morg'n'Thorg as seen on the Chaos team.
Dark Elves: All four Elven teams share some common traits: they're squishy, even more than the Humans; and are extremely agile (read: ANNOYING). It's hard to keep an Elf stopped, but when you do most surely they will end in the medical tent. Dark Elves not the fastest Elf team, but they have the agility scores to ensure it's unlikely you'll get to actually hit or even touch them coupled with armor making it unlikely you'll damage them either. Their passing is kinda bad, so it's more of a running and avoiding game. Dark Elves share a fair bit of commonality with Amazons, despite being wussy elves they can hit very hard with their Assassins and Witch Elves when played right, though they still tend towards a more nimble game to the team of psychotic bitches.
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Dark Elf Lineman as seen in the vidya.
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Dark Elf Blitzer as seen in the vidya.
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Dark Elf Runner as seen in the vidya.
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Dark Elf Assassin as seen in the vidya.
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Dark Elf Witch Elf as seen in the vidya.
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Horkon Heartripper, a Dark Elf specific character.
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Eldril Sidewinder as seen on the Dark Elf team.
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Morg'n'Thorg as seen on the Dark Elf team.
Dwarfs: Highest armor. The dorfs like to keep their pace, which is a nice way of saying they run slower than molasses uphill. They're not fast or agile, but strong and resistant. They favor defensive or conservative tactics, and have the prowess to stop Chaos on their tracks. But like said they're not agile or fast, so any Elf can outflank them and ignore them as they're not there. Their players are the Longbeard (meatshield? and defenders), Runner (the guy who get the ball and toddle along a bit before snails catch up to him), Blitzer (offensive) and Slayer (HIGHLY offensive). Their big guy is a squat on a Deffrolla, which is illegal according to the rules but since the rules actually make a point of saying that there's a system for referee bribing and how much illegal weapons you can bring onto the field don't expect the Dwarf players so leave it at home. Refs won't look the other way for too long though, so it's an ace in your sleeve rather than a Bloodthirster on the field.
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Dwarf Blocker as seen in the vidya.
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Dwarf Blitzer as seen in the vidya.
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Dwarf Runner as seen in the vidya.
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Dwarf Slayer as seen in the vidya.
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Deathroller as seen in the vidya.
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Grim Ironjaw, a Dwarf specific character.
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Zara the Slayer as seen on the Dwarf team.
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Morg'n'Thorg as seen on the Dwarf team.
Elves: The Elf team from older editions that survives to the current day. Representative of all the Elves being in one team, they have low armor, high speed, and high dodge. Cheap as far as Elf teams go. Best catching in all the Elf teams, allowing a decent pass to be caught in the middle of a crowd of Ogres. Generally held to be the best elf team as they are suited for a variety of plays that elf teams can run without being wholly dependant on any one style. Except bashing. Not even "Pro-Elves" can run bashing teams.
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Elf Lineman as seen in the vidya.
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Elf Blitzer as seen in the vidya.
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Elf Thrower as seen in the vidya.
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Elf Catcher as seen in the vidya.
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Jordell Freshbreeze as seen on the Elf team.
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Eldril Sidewinder as seen on the Elf team.
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Morg'n'Thorg as seen on the Elf team.
Goblins: In addition to being present in the Orcs team, Goblins have their own team too. Terrible at literally everything other than catching (fat lot of good catching without knowing how to pass does you). They get two Trolls (which can throw a Goblin, resulting in a one-turn touchdown at times), and they get to bring weapons to the field. Goblins bring chainsaws onto the pitch. Reread that a few times. They also get to bring in a lot of replacements, making them second to Undead teams for tournament play. They also benefit from being small and hard to tackle. Goblins work well in smaller leagues, that aren't filled with Murder Chaos, by pretty much stopping any player from having a highly developed goal scorer by dint of focusing with that chainsaw upon said player's spinal cord.
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Goblin Goblin as seen in the vidya.
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Goblin Fanatic as seen in the vidya.
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Goblin Bombadier as seen in the vidya.
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Goblin Pogoer as seen in the vidya.
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Goblin Looney as seen in the vidya.
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Goblin Troll as seen in the vidya.
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Goblin Ripper as seen in the vidya.
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Scrappa Sorehead, a Goblin specific character.
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Morg'n'Thorg as seen on the Goblin team.
Halflings: The halflings of the Moot in the Empire (AKA mini Ogres) are the hardest team to play. Terrible at literally everything, other than the same small bonus Goblins have as well as having a lot of replacements. They also get more Treemen than Wood Elves do, similar to Goblins getting two Trolls. If you are playing Halflings its because you do not care about winning, you care about renaming them after LOTR hobbits and then having their stoner asses beaten to death by skinks and goblins.
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Halfling as seen in the vidya.
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Halfling Treeman as seen in the vidya.
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Deeproot Strongbranch, a Halfling specific character.
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Zara the Slayer as seen on the Halfling team.
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Morg'n'Thorg as seen on the Halfling team.
High elves: The Humans of the Elf teams in the sense they have the more moderate numbers, and hence less outright weaknesses. Campaigns and tournaments where money is a thing have them with the most starting funds of any team. If you're playing High Elves, you're probably doing a LOT of passing and running. (Or, in other words, playing actual football.) High Elves are the best of the elf teams for newcomers to play as they have the most reliable passing game and decent stats for elves. That said you should never let a newbie play them right out of the gate as they will never learn what blitzing and throwing blocks are.
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High Elf Lineman as seen in the vidya.
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High Elf Blitzer as seen in the vidya.
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High Elf Thrower as seen in the vidya.
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High Elf Catcher as seen in the vidya.
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Eldril Sidewinder as seen on the High Elf team.
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Zara the Slayer as seen on the High Elf team.
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Morg'n'Thorg as seen on the High Elf team.
Humans: As in almost all other games, the humans are the "medium grade". Not good in anything, but not bad either. This versatility makes them good for every tactic you imagine, but watch out, the WILL be bested in the preferred style of the rival. Their players are the Blitzer (for melee fighting), Thrower (the passing guy), Catcher (the guy who receives said passes) and Lineman (meatshields). Mostly these guys represent the Empire, but since Bretonnia has no Blood Bowl equivalent it's not a far throw to paint them in heraldry either. In the videogame they also have an Ogre as their "Big guy".
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Human Lineman as seen in the vidya.
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Human Blitzer as seen in the vidya.
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Human Thrower as seen in the vidya.
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Human Catcher as seen in the vidya.
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Human Ogre as seen in the vidya.
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Griff Oberwald, a Human specific character.
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Zara the Slayer as seen on the Human team.
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Morg'n'Thorg as seen on the Human team.
Khemri The Tomb Kings Blood Bowl army team. VERY fucking tough mummies, cheap skeletons, and they regenerate. HORRIBLE agility, if they lose the ball your only hope is to kill the motherfucker who picked it up and hold it by his severed hand. Khemri boasts some of the best big guys on the basis that they do not spend three quarters of the match staring blankly into space, Tomb Guardians are reliable, except for when they get the ball, then you should do whatever you can to get them to score as they cannot be trusted with the ball. On the plus side, the odds of your opponent being able to tackle the ball off him are practically zero as you have full control over your big guy and he will need to seriously stack bonuses to avoid the dread "Roll block dice and defender chooses" outcome.
Khorne (Vidyagaem only): One word: BLOODTHIRSTER. The Khorne team is more Daemon oriented than other teams with only the Linemen equivalent (Pit Fighter) being a Warrior of Chaos. Team stars Heralds, Bloodletters and BLOODTHIRSTERS. Also Marauders, but are over shadowed by the Daemons. Stronger that even Chaos, but uncontrollable and bad defenders. Only if you want to go full offensive. Did I mention BLOODTHIRSTER? Just to be sure that you get the picture. They've also got decent armor and speed. Best team to play if you don't want to win, but would rather surf (knock opposing players into the crowd who promptly beat 17 kinds of snot of them for leaving the pitch) opposing players and then try to win when their opponent has only 4 players on the pitch.
Lizardmen For some reason, the Slann cared enough to put together a team (or maybe the Skinks do?). Lizardmen have very specialized players, with the Saurus being high damage speedsters akin to little mac trucks, but should never touch the ball as they have no ability to do anything with it. Skinks are badass runners who are as hard to hit as Goblins or Halflings, but if they lose the ball it'll stay lost. Kroxigars can barely move, but god help you if you get too close. You've got to have a plan (or hope the Old Ones had one you can dust off) to use this team.
Necromantic Ordinary Undead. Kinda old school gothic horror with zombies, werewolves, skeletons, and a flesh golem. Flesh golems are your Treemen who block like gods but can barely walk, werewolves are high damage high speed blitzers. It's basically the Undead team but a bit better on offense and faster to boot. Tends to play more blitz-down-and-hand-off-the-ball than regular Undead, though if you leave werewolves open your opponent's heavy hitters will start the second half with a nice set of wolf fur coats. Necromantic teams without their werewolves are just gimped Undead teams.
Norsemen: The lighter armored Warriors of Chaos. Much like the vanilla humans, but more expensive and better in fighting. Don't expect them to be Warriors of Chaos entirely, they have lower survivability than even regular Humans. They have also all the kinds of player of the humans (albeit under different names, Norse Lineman, Runners, Throwers, Berserkers, Snow Troll, Ulfwerener), which makes them better that their southern cousins if you want a combination of tactical genius and melee power. They're the best blockers in the game. Norse teams play best on the offence but run into problems against better bashing teams where they are forced to pass the ball.
Nurgle: Nurgle flavored Warriors of Chaos. Less hitter and more conservative than the vanilla Chaos. They have almost every player in Chaos teams, but also a few exclusive: the Rotter (Defensive and in middle of beastmen and CW in def/atk), and the Beast of Nurgle (an ugly bastard "Big guy" who can stop any player too close to him just by being ugly and awful... and supid). They regenerate and have abilities to make anyone too close to them into fuckups, which is nice. A good team if you like to make formation plays. A bad team if you want to try anything dynamic or mobile.
Ogres Ogre Kingdoms team, probably financed by Greasus alone. A team of the best overall players in the game, rounded out by snotlings which are cheaper than goblins OR halflings. Problem? Stupidity to the last. They do whatever the fuck they want, and you're not a coach as much as a 2 foot tall shepherd with a weak cattle prod trying to get them to do something, anything useful. Good for shenanigans, bad for competitive play. Can work ok against bashing teams as they aren't easy to bully, but the trade-off is that you're going to be drawn more often than any kind of result that will net you star player points.
Orcs: Orcs and Goblins team. Somewhat reminiscent of the humans, but much more focused on fucking the shit out of your opponent. Somewhat versatile with Orcs as your slow hitters and Goblins as your fast runners, but focused in fightin' and winnin' more than anything, as it should be. Their players are the Black Orc Blocker (defender and heavy-hitter), Blitzer (as humans), Thrower (as humans, again) and Lineman (once again). Recently they have also Goblins (sneaky and squishy). Their Big guy is the Troll, who has to be babysitted because it's so fucking stupid that he won't even know where he is half of the time. Luckily, he can throw Goblins (who in turn can throw the ball). Overall they're actually a little easier for newbies to pick up as instead of everyone being pretty average, the team has a few guys who are just specialized enough various areas to be effective.
Skaven TACKLETACKLE THE MANTHINGS! Highest speed in the game, fairly cheap too. Lots of ability upgrades too. Finally, bonuses from being small to avoiding harm. But they get hurt very easily if they do get hit, so when you get a nice tough star player you're considering making his own unique mini gets into the next match, an Elf sits on him and pops his intestines out. So now the undead team has him... Infamous for being able to run the 1 turn touch down play in its purest form. Letting Skaven have access to your backline is bad news.
Undead: The old school Warhammer Undead, where Tomb Kings and Vampire Counts were one army. The undead are better in leagues and campaigns than sole matches. Their players are not much agile (which does not suit them for throwing and catching, even less escaping) and lack strength and armor. So they more or less suck at everything other than moderate damage dealing. On the other side they're often cheap. But their true strength is that they can recover from injuries and death (they're undead, after all) and stand up next part like nothing happened. That said, this improved ability to handle setbacks does not make them newb friendly, as they struggle to play the more obvious plays to beginners without a few stat boosts.
Underworld: It's just Goblins and Skaven in one team. They mutate on the drop of a hat and gain lots of fun abilities, they're pretty cheap, they can benefit from being small. That being said, they have shit stats and the team infights so passing is difficult. The upside is that you get to combine a lot of nastiness with a lot of speed, if you want to play a team like goblins but actually have a chance to win a small league, Underworld fits that niche better.
Vampires: Vampire Counts team. Badass Vampire players with fun exclusive abilities and regeneration, and cheap Thralls. Crap blocking and difficulty passing or catching. In addition they have to feed on a player and knock them out or your Vamps run off the pitch as injured. That said, if you can used to planning for the bloodthirst, Vampires are pretty effective bordering on being overpowered, if they get any stat boosts you're going to be looking at players that score more goals in a game than the number of yards they run. Seeing Agility 6 vampires is not unheard of.
Wood Elves: Highest speed in the entire game. But you could blow on one and crack a few of their ribs. They get Treemen as a giant blocker, but they don't tend to do much good. That being said, literally ANY of your players could score next turn and that makes them a very unpredictable opponent. They handle the ball like gods but you really don't want them to be close to anything tougher than a snotling. A lot of the official writings for Blood Bowl say that Wood Elves like the long pass playstyle, this is utter bullshit, as they literally have no benefits to long passes compared to safer close passing and running which they do much better without risking losing the ball.
Vidya-gaems
In 1995, an MS-DOS version of Blood Bowl was released. In 2004, a French vidya company made a game called Chaos League which was a real-time ripoff of Blood Bowl. Games Workshop sued them, as GW is wont to do from time to time, and they settled out of court for GW to have partial rights to Chaos League, making it an official Blood Bowl game. It was re-released in 2009 as Blood Bowl officially and used a turn-based system. In 2007 the Chaos League turned Blood Bowl game was released for Nintendo DS, PSP, and Xbox 360. In 2010, Chaos League turned Blood Bowl was re-released for computers only as a legendary edition on Steam (ensuring a high number of PCfags would buy it immediately) and had all the races of the tabletop game. It was then re-released on Steam (so the 2004 game Chaos League is now up to 7 re-releases if you were keeping track) as Chaos Edition which brought non-tabletop teams of Underworld, Chaos Dwarf, and Khorne teams as well as having a graphics bump. In 2013, a sequel to the game was (finally) announced. Graphics from the teaser appear to be HD quality.
The Great Dickstabbing
Way back in the early 90's, Blood Bowl 3e was released, the first recognizable edition from today's point of view in terms of mechanics, teams and RPG elements. Shortly afterwards, we got an expansion box called Deathzone (back in the days, GW in its unending wisdom made their players pay twice for stuff one would consider optional essential corebook material today, like magic rules and wargear). And for a while everything was good.
Some time after 2000, with the introduction of the eventually doomed Fanatic section, 3e was updated and JJ announced that from now on, Blood Bowl's rules would be constantly updated and optimized with significant player input in the form of the Blood Bowl Rules Committe (BBRC), consisting of JJ himself, Doubleskulls and GalakStarscraper among other neckbeards. Many brix were shat in face of the sheer awesomeness of this decision. The Living Rulebook (LRB) had arrived and for a while everything was awesome.
LRB 5 came and went, LRB 5+ came and went, FUMBBL came and stuck around even in times of Cyanide's vidya, Galak had taken over the de facto role of Blood Bowl's lead designer without pay in his spare time, when in 2009, with the long anticipated release of LRB 6 (lots of players were unsatisfied with LRB 5+) suddenly this:
Oh my God ... that is what I gave up 5 years of my life for ... wow.
Werewolves with 2 different stat lines (they could have gone with a Bear ... they still sell bear figures)
Page references where the pages are not present.
The Rat Ogre one was my typo ... and damn I really thought I had triple checked all of that ... have no idea how that got through as a typo ... so don't blame GW for that one.
The credits page is gone ... so GW won't even acknowledge the folks that gave up so much time to bring this.
And the idea that folks should play LRB 1.0 because its less cut-throat ... that's lawyer speak for Jervis being told that we don't want to push these rules over the ones printed and in the boxed set (so all you should feel free to go back to LRB 1.0).
Jervis should be ashamed (I have no other word) for what he's allowed legal to do to him.
Galak
GW, baby raping megacorp they are, had stabbed everyone in the dick: Promises of including LRB 6 in the base game box were broken. No credits for the actual game developers (ie Galak, who also got kicked out later, and the BBRC) to be found anywhere. Waterboarding and blackmailing JJ with threats of giant dildos until only an empty husk was left. And worst of all, a LRB 6 that was merely a skeleton rulebook without everything that made Blood Bowl awesome - no fluff, no Did You Know... boxes, no artwork. Of course, players instantly realized the huge amount of fail that called itself the Competition Rules Pack and immediately saw to it that a proper LRB 6 was made available but the damage was already done.
The Card Game
Oh and Fantasy Flight Games released a card game called "Blood Bowl: Team Manager - The Card Game". Its not bad if you think of it less as an adaptation of Blood Bowl to a card game format and more of a game based around the concept of being a weekly wrap up and/or highlights of the week kind of sports show and the coaches are able to decide what kind of amazing plays of sporting prowess happen on Cabalvision. Only the sport in question is Blood Bowl and the highlights are considered brutal acts of (mostly) unarmed assault or murder in most sane legal jurisdictions. Very true to the humour of Blood Bowl and more inviting for newcomers, play a few games with them and they are much less likely to be put off by the steep learning curve and random fuck you nature of actual Blood Bowl