ALIVE & KICKING

Playing my first match in BLOOD BOWL 3 – and surviving to tell the tale.

- Jody Macgregor

Games Workshop gave up on Blood Bowl for a long time. A fantasy football game for teams of 11 to 16, it was never going to move as many miniatures as wargames you have to buy entire armies for.

An official player committee was given the task of updating its living rulebook, which they did until 2009, when Cyanide released its first videogame version and essentially became the custodians of Blood Bowl. Cyanide organised tournaments online, created new teams like the heavily armoured Bretonnians and acrobatic bear-taming Kislev Circus, and helped keep Blood Bowl alive.

Today, Games Workshop is a different company, one with more time for hobbyist board games. The tabletop version of Blood Bowl was resurrected in 2016, and the rules overhauled in Second Season in 2020. Cyanide’s videogames, once at the cutting edge, are now behind the ball, two editions out of date.

I GET KNOCKED DOWN

But not for long. While the board game fans have nicknamed Blood Bowl 2020 was being designed, Cyanide was consulting on the rules in preparation for eventually digitising them in Blood Bowl 3. “Their knowledge and passion for Blood Bowl is phenomenal,” says Owen Rees, head of videogame licensing at Games Workshop, “and indeed sometimes in the past their questions whilst coding the game have helped us refine our FAQs. Outside of Games Workshop, they are probably the foremost experts on the game!”