On the weekend of 21-22 May 2016 I headed to Warhammer World for the return of Blood Bowl to that esteemed venue for the first time in about six years. This is my summary of that weekend, and will include a timeline of sorts, a few kind-of match reports, a quick analysis of results, but largely philosophical musings on the nature of BB in a tournament setting or otherwise.

I travelled up with Hudson on the Friday evening in a 4-hour journey that should take 2.5 max, due to the joys of motorway traffic. This was to avoid any possible problems with travelling on the Saturday morning, but also to have an extra evening in Bugman’s, the bar attached to Warhammer World (henceforth WW). I absolutely love this place, it’s a massive castle, with orc heads, dwarven axes, and all sorts of foolishness. And it sells beer. I just wish the bar was open later, as it’s a huge shame to have to leave there at 8 to head somewhere else, especially as my favourite BB tournaments have a single evening venue, to be welcoming to anyone who has travelled by themselves, and to allow different groups to effectively mingle.

I did a quick write-up of the evening, so will skip ahead to the Saturday morning. There were just over 100 coaches in attendance, playing 20 of the 21 possible races (no khemri, and obviously no slann, underworld or pact). Looking around the room I recognised about 15-20 of the participants, which was an interesting contrast to the 100+ of the 150 at the NAF Championships 3 weeks before. The random draw was showing, which was done on the two massive screens, with each “player number” having a table number next to it, and everyone headed to their tables to find their opponent. This massively (apologies for overuse of the word) depersonalised a lot of the experience, as you couldn’t look at the list of people (which obviously didn’t have NAF names next to them anyway) and look for plum matchups, interesting racial clashes etc. We didn’t in fact find out the racial breakdown until the very end of the tournament, though I did ask.

My first game was against humans, a 1300 TV team with no stars (lots of rerolls). I won 2-0, with 7-2 (I think) in casualties, mostly from a single turn where I killed 3. I chatted a fair amount about the NAF and the tournament scene, and he took down the address of my youtube channel (which I should get back to doing), but I wasn’t sure how much coaching to do, as I tend to only coach really when asked for it, in order not to seem presumptuous. It’s fair to say at this stage that I won all 5 games, net 15-1 in touchdowns, and none of them were close (despite playing JBone in game 5, he decided to roll shockingly to make my life easier). But I played each game as though it were a NAF tournament game, in a similar way as I play each league game, or in fact any game of BB I play ever, unless it is specifically a teaching game. Thinking about this, however, and I won’t particularly edit this, there are differences depending on who I am playing (i.e. are they a strong player or not so much, so what do I need to do in order to win).

Highlights of other games were playing Sergi Torras, the miniature sculptor who has recently started working for GW, and destroying JBone’s dwarves, but then voting for him and seeing him win favourite opponent. Otherwise, the games were against really nice guys, played in a good atmosphere (I thought…), but always with a slightly strange feeling about whether I should actually be trying to win or not. Just in case anyone didn’t know before, the whole of this and the paragraph before is dependent on knowing that winning a game was irrelevant to winning the tournament – the tournament winner was the one with the most SPPs over the 5 games, with bonus SPPs each time you got someone sent off (not including secret weapons).

So, why did I feel like I shouldn’t actually be trying to win? The feel of each game was actually a little like playing games in a perpetual league on Fumbbl or Cyanide, in that the result did not matter. So why were we playing? I still do try and win on Fumbbl, even though nothing rests on it, but I think I play there just to continually improve my game. Or perhaps just because I enjoy playing.

I think if someone asked me to go along to a weekend at Warhammer World where I played games against inexperienced players and offered advice about how to improve their game, I would sign up for that like a shot (if GW staff are reading, the offer is open). And that’s kind of what the games felt like, but without the authorisation to offer tips without seeming patronising.

In terms of winning the tournament, it felt like you could play the perfect game 5 times and not win. So, winning was not important, to which the obvious result (thanks Wulfyn) is not to give prizes. But there were prizes. So people tried to win. Not sure what the answer is to that one. One solution is offering extra SPPs (5?) for winning, maybe? But the SPP system doesn’t work with Swiss, as the two top teams could just farm points and move ahead. Depends on people not playing the system, and any system that does that is not a great one.

So, those are the philosophical musings. Logistically, it made me think that if I was allowed to run a tournament there I would be able to do all the things that I have ever wanted – it is virtually the perfect venue in my opinion, with space, character, booze, food, technology, and other extras. Not showing people’s names on the draw was a shame. The clock and the old-school pictures were great. Too much time was allowed between games, although interestingly the time never dragged because there were lots of interesting people to talk to. Having said that, it did drag after game 5 – I finished destroying JBone at about 3pm (albeit that being a quick game), and prizes were at 5.20. All games were finished at 4, and there was an audible gasp when the big screens said 5.15 for presentations, as the point of 5 games seemed to be to get people away nice and early. I got the final results of the World Cup done in 45 minutes, including the best player for each of the 24 races. Not often I get to use the word unconscionable, but I will do here. It seemed like the organisers didn’t start to enter any results from round 5 until all the results were in, basically. Enough said, especially when the organisers are professional.

Other stuff – best painted was a public vote, which was a little surprising with so many good painters who could have been judges. Minor point for me, as I’ll never win one.

Results wise, the top 4 were wood elves, and the top 10 were Ag4 except for me (hurrah!) and an impressive performance from a goblin team (lots of 4-3 wins etc). Ogres won most casualties. Some interesting skills developed as stacking was allowed, as was putting skills on unlimited Stars, so there was Eldril with pass, making him an SPP machine, someone else building a Vampire with all the skill choices, and Hudson’s amazing 6-Star Ogre team.

Great to have Andy Hoare there all weekend, really good engagement with the community, answering lots of questions honestly, and a massive shame that James Hewitt couldn’t make it. I would thoroughly recommend both of them heading to a NAF weekend sometime soon, to experience another side of BB. That side I did struggle to explain convincingly why it is so good, and for me it comes down to seeing so many people regularly, and putting names to results, something that was missing from this.

Would I go again with this setup? Honestly not sure. I do love Warhammer World, and it was great to meet so many new people, but I do like competitive games, and I mostly go to tournaments for those. But then I have 10 other tournaments a year for those. Lots in the balance.

1400 words that seems like enough. Will add more if there are unanswered questions. Apologies if I have come across as arrogant, or whatever – just trying to be honest.

Added facts:

I took Necro, with J Earlice. Rolled a 6 on a wolf, and thought I gave him MB, but actually it was a special “stunning stick”. Next was block on the other wolf, then Nerves of Steel on Earlice. Final skill was MB on a Wight.

Final standings:

Official Warhammer World photos.