A friend of ours had come over for game night a week ago and while looking for something to play asked "What's Blood Bowl?"
I told him it was a fantasy football game with miniatures and he said "Okay, let's play."
Now all of this would have been fine if I had played the game within the last... oh, twenty years maybe? Unfortunately the copy that I have is the second edition of the game (long before blocking dice were even a thing) and technically it actually isn't even mine. Even so, having someone actually ask me to play... well, there was only one thing to do; download a copy of the most recent Living Rulebook.
For those of you that might not know, Blood Bowl was first created by Games Workshop ages ago. They have had it meander into and out of their store as they revive the game for a bit before letting it disappear again. In this case however, Blood Bowl never did just fade away. Even when GW wasn't supporting the game, there was a very strong community still supporting and even growing the game.
Eventually GW seemed to realize that this thing that they created all those years ago was still alive and kicking so they brought it home so to speak, releasing the latest edition in 2016 with some minor changes but largely embracing the latest version of the fan supported/created Living Rulebook.
Needless to say it was fairly easy to find and print up a copy of the latest rulebook online. Next I decided to "tackle" the board.
The latest edition of the game bumps the base size up from the traditional 25mm base to a 32mm base. I don't know the official reason but it does seem to allow for more dynamic poses, plus they added a hole to the base so that you can put the ball onto the ball carrier's base. The old copy that I have won't allow for the larger bases but it is made of not-so environmentally friendly Styrofoam. The really sturdy stuff, not like you'd find around a burger at the drive thru.
As you can see, it's not the most eye catching thing. In fact some of the marking are almost impossible to pick out so I decided it was time to start painting.
The first step was a coat of dark grey followed by two more coats, each with a lighter shade of grey. This made the field easier to read but since I'd already gone that far it only made sense to take it the rest of the way.
The latest edition of the game marks off the wings on the sides of the field so I marked these right onto the board and I just had to pick out the logo. I mean seriously, it would have been wrong to just leave it grey! I also picked out the sidelines and end zones... well, just because really. And I was going to stop at this point but... well, I might as well paint the end zones too, right?
And there it is in all its glory! I could have tried to do labelled team end zones but I'm not quite that crazy; blue and red will work for me. This also matches up nicely since the plastic minis from the game are blue and red. Of course the orcs are blue while the humans are red which really makes no sense but what can you do... except paint all of them too!
No, I haven't done that.
Not yet anyway. It still might happen, but we'll have to see how busy I am this weekend. Ideally, I think I'd like to push around some Antares or Mars Attacks instead but time will tell. Oh, and I still have to make the block dice too. Time to dig up those wooden cubes I've got lying around...
