This is a sponsored post.

#WarhammerBG

#WarhammerCommunity

Overview & How to Play

“SPORTS FANS, IM BOB, WELLLLLCOME BACK TO BLITZ BOWL!!”

Sorry to anyone outside of the States, Blitz Bowl is all based off of American Football- the one with the pigskin and touchdowns. And you will be playing as a Fantasy-gone-violent Football coach.

To win Blitz Bowl, you’ll be coaching your team of 6 football players to score touchdowns, while also achieving mini-objectives called “Challenges” that also give points.

Every turn, you’ll have 3 actions to distribute however you want between your players, but you can’t do the same action twice with one player. Players each can normally run on the field up to their movement. Running onto the ball can let them pick it up, or you can throw a ball you’re carrying (requires a die roll). Or, you can mark someone, which is the ONLY way you’re allowed to move adjacent to enemy figures. Yep, so that means, the running action is restricted, you can’t just run anywhere, its gotta be ‘open’ which means you’re not adjacent to enemies.

If you’re adjacent to enemies, you’re NOT open, meaning you only have 2 actions, which is sidestepping to get open, or ‘Blocking’ which is basically attacking another player, as you roll a die to see whether you knock them prone, or shove them aside.

TOUCHHHHDOOWWWNN happens when you get the ball into the opponent’s end zone on a player that is open- meaning you can run it in, throw it in, or already be in there and then have a non open player tackle the person guarding him to get open. 4 points for a touchdown.

Last thing, the challenges, which there will be 3 available at all times, that can give between 1-3 points, asking you to do things like running with all your players, tackling someone successfully, or even making a successful pass. What’s more, is that when you complete a challenge, it goes into your hand, giving a later ‘bonus’ action.

Whoever is +10 on points at any time immediately wins the game, or if the challenge runs out, whoever has the most points at that time wins.

Pros

Blitz Bowl just really dunks you into its gladiatorial fantasy world. There’s easily assembled Games Workshop minis (no glue required)- the Humans and Skaven, and are a delight to move around the field after the easy setup. Challenge cards have fantasy art all over them, and the nicely shaded board even lists “Bloodweiser” as a sponsor!

Cardboard feels great all around, including a measuring stick so you know you’re playing a Games Workshop game, and the dice are a unique color that feel good to roll. And there’s an actual tutorial, that’s awesome to get the FEEL of the game. You’ll still have to read the rules to know the full mechanics.

Seeing how this is based off American Football, we have to talk about positioning. Much of the game is thinking about the “Marked” versus “Open” dynamic for each player, as you want to Mark your opponents’ players to restrict their options, but then that also Marks you. Being Open is where you have a lot of options, as you can run diagonally, and even up to 9 spaces with certain receiver-like players! But then while running, you cannot ever be adjacent to an enemy player during or after the run, so that encourages both players to space accordingly to prevent running capabilities, especially with their 3 Linemen.

Since Marking is purely based off a player being adjacent to another, if you have 1 player adjacent to 2 enemy players, you’ll have 1 body Marking 2 bodies, to restrict a lot of your opponents’ options! But then there is also strength in players Marking the same guy, as they can assist each other, meaning you roll extra dice while Blocking (attacking)! You will even play around with other players, walls, and obstacles on the map when shoving.

When translated to 6 players you’re coaching, with 8 squares around each, with each player having the ability to pass the ball (or do handoffs), its pretty tricky coaching. Plus, Blitz Bowl isn’t like normal Football where the field resets after possessions or touchdowns, nope. Players stay on the field where they are, so if you’re not careful, you could find that you overcommit to a certain touchdown and then have to spend an entire turn to run half of your team back into position.

And duh, there’s different types of players to coach! Each has different running speeds, throwing skills, and defensive values. Plus some have special abilities, like the Throwers can all pick up a ball from the ground even when not open. Or the offensively-minded Blitzers can re-roll the dice once when attacking. Or the Human catcher can run for FREE after catching the ball (he can run 8 spaces!), that’s practically just begging to score touchdowns with!

This Gladiator Football’s charm actually mostly lies in the FUNNY, where Blitz Bowl is a great engine to come up with crazy Football-y stories. There’s a lot of goofy mechanics that never take themselves too seriously, and will require you to coach a little creatively beyond the positioning we just mentioned.

First, the challenge cards that give you additional VP (normal Football doesn’t have that) let you play for additional goals if you’re unsure about how to score a Touchdown, preventing the game from stagnating. And a lot of them allow for some dumb stories to happen for the adrenaline going. Like, making an intentionally risky long range pass for 2 points is quite silly. Or you can “Show No Fear!” by standing on the trapdoor that might injure your player… but hey, 2 points!

The secret backsides to challenge cards that you can suddenly spring keep up these story moments, like “Body Checking” to guarantee a “KERRRUNCH” on an attack, or a “Diving Tackle” for an additional attack.

But you haven’t really seen much about how PROPER Football without the “Multi-Ball!” card, introducing 2 NEW balls! Yep, you can have 3 Footballs balls in play at once.

If you play with the advanced rules, which we highly recommend, there’s even more end game bonus cards for craziness, like bribing a ref or a “Hail Mary Pass” to pass from anywhere to anywhere! Oh, and you can also “Foul” downed players which is hilarious, at the possible consequence of the chance to be seen by a ref, and that player ejected from the game!

It’s fairly easy to find an excuse to play again, as you won’t be able to complete every challenge card, and how you can play with additional map on the back of the board, which has more substantial obstacles and TWO trapdoors. The borderline x-factor for sheer value is the 17 additional teams included, besides the base Humans and Skaven. See, you don’t actually have the minis to visually play with those teams, but you can just “proxy”, or pretend you have those minis, since you’ll readily have all of those other teams’ info to play with. The one that really stood out to us is the Goblin Snotlings, who have a “Pump Wagon” that moves off a D6 and rolls 3 dice when attacking… have we mentioned this game doesn’t take itself too seriously?

Cons & Nitpicks

Our first big warning is that a match is not 30 minutes as listed on the box, it’s more like an hour on average. This is because of the win conditions, where you HAVE to go through the entire Challenge deck of 24 cards, unless you get the exceptional victory of someone being +10 in points. That +10 doesn’t happen too often, especially if players are of equal skill, but if that blowout does happen, then the game can definitely finish under 30 minutes.

Blitz Bowl mostly benefits from being longer though, since that gives more time to use all of the abilities, and finesse positioning well, especially because players on the board do not reset their location after touchdowns.

Then, the player aids are too minimalistic, the rulebook is quite confusing, and the Challenge cards have text that is way too wordy. Coming from modern game designs, the lack of symbols to save reading time on cards was glaring.

For component stuff, we only got 2 Blocking dice instead of 3, and the Blocking dice has some faces that look WAY too similar from afar. The most shocking component con was that certain plastic pieces, including the Footballs, are REALLY sharp, and you must be careful about touching them. And they are really small to handle.

We were also very concerned on how similar some of the different miniatures look, but that concern is borderline nitpick-y, because this is a Games Workshop game, meaning you’ll probably paint the miniatures at some point or another.

There’s actually quite a bit we could elaborate on balance for some Challenge cards, or how going first is just better, but those are so nitpick-y in a game that you’re not supposed to take too seriously anyways! So the nitpick we’ll drop here is that you should get a small plastic bag to include some of the small pieces in the box, so you don’t get accidentally poked by a stray football while setting up.

Final Thoughts

This really thematic game is SUPER unapologetic with its silliness, and come on, it’s Ameritrash incarnate with a SOLELY American sport, American Football. If you don’t care for American Football, or too much randomness in your games, look outside of this mayhem.

Blitz Bowl is just stupid. Stupid in a good way— that can lead to tons of zany moments, from completing unlikely passes, KERRRUNNCHING your opponents’ bones to the injury bench, and scoring two touchdowns in one turn with the 2 balls in play.

It’s important to note that Blitz Bowl: Ultimate is a re-rendition of Blitz Bowl, which was a streamlined version of Blood Bowl, which was originally released in the 1980s, so there’s definitely some older DNA going here with how it approaches randomness, text, and even art.

That certainly doesn’t mean Blitz Bowl: Ultimate doesn’t have a place in collections, especially if you love the them. And then you can advance to playing with the advanced rules, to give coaches more options, which we 100% recommend to give more options to play around all of the crazy emergent Football stories.

For more on Blitz Bowl, check out Games Workshop’s website here.