I've never played Blood Bowl and I'm bit curious as to what someone needs to play the game. If there are any blood bowl aficionados out there, maybe you could answer a couple of questions for me. Besides the team box, what other models do you need to buy to field an effective team? How many and which rule books do you need to play? Are the cards necessary? What role does the Spike Magazine play? Is it needed? How good are the Lizardmen compared to other teams? Which teams are strong and which ones are weak? What else does one need (or need to know) in order to start playing? What teams are you guys and gals fielding? Is it a popular game?
Interesting questions and good to learn from this thread. I myself don't know any of the answers, but I do know some who might know. @Warden and @WildColonial Boy are both Blood Bowl players if I recon correctly. Grrr, !mrahil
Q, I've played for a number of years so I'll try to assist with your questions. 1. Each team (apart from snotlings) has a maximum of 16 players. This includes Star players and big guys. Most GW team boxes have only 12 maybe 13 players. Some are better than others for supplying different positionals, (catchers, throwers, linemen, blitzers, blockers - these are the basic positions. Some teams they may be called other things but do the same as one of those just listed). If you know or have an idea of what team you want to play then I'd go with a 3rd party supplier as their teams usually include all 16 players including big guys (ogre, troll, minotaur, ice troll, monster) and sometimes extra minis such as coach, apothecary, wizard, team markers, re-roll markers etc. A starting roster for most teams will only allow you to field a team of 11 or 12 due to cost of each position. This is why most tournaments usually allow a little more to the starting roster plus extras based on the tier level of each race. 2. The main rulebook should get you by. Team stats and details can be downloaded if needed. 3. Don't bother with the cards unless you have just won lotto. Expensive and a waste of time and effort unless you like collecting. 4. Spike is an interesting read and is usually specific to any new teams introduced, giving stats, teams of renown and some fluff. For example Spike! Journal issues 16, 17, and 18, containing all the team rosters and Star Player rules for Vampire, Gnome, and Chaos Dwarf Teams. Team stats can be found elsewhere and if you buy the GW teams, then the stats are also included. 5.Each team has its own way of playing and race specific skills and traits. The good thing about Blood Bowl is god did not create everyone equal. Lizardmen are a fun team with some tough saurus, some speedy but weak skinks and a strong big guy in the Kroxigor. Its a good mix of strength and speed. The saurus hold the line and the skinks run and dodge around to score. I mentioned that in competitions and tournaments, teams are categorised in tiers. This is a rough breakdown of what I mean. Tier 1 contains the strongest teams in the game which are generally more forgiving and more likely to win games. Tier 2 teams require a bit more experience to coach and Tier 3 is the “stunty” teams – which are generally considered the hardest teams to master. Tier 1: Amazon, Chaos Dwarf, Dark Elf, Dwarf, High Elf, Lizardmen, Norse, Shambling Undead, Skaven, Underworld Denizen, Wood Elf Tier 2: Black Orc, Chaos Chosen, Chaos Renegades, Elven Union, Human, Imperial Nobility, Khorne, Necromantic Horror, Nurgle, Old World Alliance, Orc, Tomb King, Vampire Tier 3: Goblin, Halfling, Ogre, Snotling, Gnome These tiers change and evolve as new teams are introduced, or depending on the popularity of certain teams at tournaments. 6. Just start playing. Its good if you have a mentor to teach you as you play. There are also plenty of youtubes regarding learning to play. The best piece of advice is to remember that during your team turn, do everything that doesn't require a dice roll first. The Blood Bowl Gods always ensure you will fail your crucial dice roll. So do any necessary other stuff first. 7. I personally have nearly every team available and sometimes 2 or 3 of that team (because I like specific models or wanted to change team colours. I have 4 chaos dwarf teams. I generally like to play chaos dwarves, chaos and orcs. I took a necromantic team to my last tournament (The Cane Toad Cup 2025) and they did remarkably well. I came in in the top 10 of about 60. 8. Is it popular. EXTREMELY!!!. It is has been played world wide since 1986. In fact the world player base and The NAF kept the game alive when GW washed their hands of it in 2000 until 2016.There are dozens of tournaments world wide every year plus its very popular with gaming clubs etc. Nearly every miniature manufacturer and 3D designers include some fantasy football miniatures. Many (in my opinion) far better than GW ones.
I will defer to @WildColonial Boy 's expertise in this topic as I have only played a handful of games, and only one three teams (so far ). I like the aesthetic of the game, it heightens that tongue-and-cheek humor of old Warhammer Fantasy up over the 9000th degree. I made myself a blitz bowl board with plenty of this humor in mind, honestly I would have made it for the billboards alone. The minis and board were such a fun project! The three teams in question, along with a couple other items such as referees: The game is lots of fun! My experience is with the slightly smaller version of the game known as Blitzbowl. Very quick and dirty game, my brother and I played a bunch of games in a single afternoon that went quick, but were fun! By now he has nearly all the full blood bowl teams (and is in the process of making at least two or three stadiums fill with spectators). If I were starting down the path of Blood Bowl (or Blitz Bowl) again I would go ahead and buy two teams to start with, at least one from the tier 1 category to start with for sure, and convince a friend to do the same (that is what my brother did to me ). Main reason I only have half a team in the pictures is I split my Necromantic Horror team for half of my brother's Lizardmen. There are a ton of great 3rd party manufacturers out there, I am a big fan of Greebo Games who make some beautiful Bretonnians. They were my only source of true-to-form Bretonnians (Florentine Knights) until the relatively recent return of the Old World: The little extra minis are also hilarious to me. My brother got me this goblin referee for instance Anyway, love the game and the minis. It was super fun to put the minis together, and I hear the community around the game is also fantastic.
@Warden answered quite a bit earlier, so I'll just add on to what he's already said where needed. Suffice to say I will be linking a number of Goonhammer articles that can better articulate what I'm adding on than I can. 1. It really depends on the team you're playing. On top of the 16-man max team size, each team will have its own limitations on what how many of each type of player you can take, and some team boxes don't inherently have the types you might want for that team (let alone the quantity). Here's Goonhammer's evaluation of the team boxes alone to give you an idea of what more you might need for each team. 3. The player cards are useless if you're writing a roster anyway. The special play cards on the other hand are more useful, but only as inducements or if you have a lot of gold in your team's treasury to burn. 5. Defining a team as being "strong" or "weak" is entirely dependent on what elements of the game they focus on. Here's Goonhammer's analysis on the kinds of play-styles each team caters to the best, but suffice to say that a team whose strengths are their ability to dodge and run the ball as far and as fast as possible will not (and should not) try to compete in the same aspects of the game as one whose strength is its ability to deal brutal beatdowns on the scrimmage line. 6. It bears repeating again that Goonhammer is a valuable resource for learning how to play Blood Bowl, from kick-off formations to risk management. They're a wealth of information that GW doesn't really provide beyond handing you the rules in the core rulebook and saying "bon chance". 7. Where do I start? I play a number of teams for Blood Bowl: Skaven, Lizardmen, Vampires, Halflings, Underworld Denizens, Humans, and Chaos Dwarfs.
Thank you @WildColonial Boy , @Warden and @ChapterAquila92 for all the amazing information. Thanks to @Imrahil for tagging people to the thread. Based on the models, it looks like most of my favorite teams belong to the weaker tiers. With only a few exceptions. Now that is an impressive collection. Must have taken a long time to collect that many teams and even longer to paint them up for the field! Do you have a group picture of them all together? Is this a good website for details and stats: https://bloodbowlbase.ru/ That is some solid playing. With a tier 2 team no less! That is a very cool board! Did you make the billboard images yourself or can you download them from somewhere? Very lovely. A beautiful collection. You've always got such great stuff. Which team is your favorite and why? I guess those starting boxes must be good for that. Two armies (but not tier 1), rules, board and dice. I'm guess that it offers a better value? They even have some big guys and star players. Not my favorite teams though. From the rumor thread, it looks like GW are on the verge of releasing a new one. Bretonnia and Tomb Kings. Maybe the Tomb Kings tier will change and who knows will Bretonnia will land. Thank you so much for those links. I had a good read through them and they were very helpful. Who is your favorite? Did you choose them based on tier ranking, playstyle or because of the team models?