Winning isn't for everybody, nor is it easy. Only a privileged few will ever experience the euphoria of victory, the ebullience of conquering all before them and, more importantly, get to gloat about it and lord it over the common man for the rest of their natural life. It takes skill, panache and no small amount of flair just to get close to the top, never mind the summit, and if you ever want to leave your friends broken and battered beneath your feet and hit the pinnacle of excellence then read on. After reading this guide you will no longer suckle at the teat of mediocrity but instead take your place among the pantheon of champions - whether you deserve to be there or not.
“But Sizzler!” you cry. “I don't even know which side of the dice turns my blitzer into a rocket ship yet. How can I ever hope to win a tournament?”
Never fear, you lovable fool you. This guide has been proved to have a 98% success rate. The only test subject not to win a Blood Bowl tournament after reading it was a deckchair with a face painted on it, but only because it had points docked for poor sportsmanship.
What Will I Need?
Before you leave the house it is imperative that you create your own 'Winner's Kit' to take with you. Many past tournament winners have assembled these in some form or another and each is unique to its owner. They can be heavily personalised and will often contain things that at times seem odd, trivial and even downright ridiculous. Some coaches base their contents on taste, others on superstition while a select few will look for hidden Satanic messages in their favourite episodes of Dickinson's Real Deal and go off that. Here is my own ready to go kit:
- One Blood Bowl team
- One regulation size Blood Bowl pitch
- Three block dice, two d6 and one d8, preferably all as bent as a dog's back leg
- At least two fashionable shirts (optional)
- A well tended side-parting (this will show your opponents that you're serious yet still have a playful edge)
Mimicking this kit, or taking something similar, should put you on a good footing when it finally comes time to roll those dice. Also, since delivering complete domination to all and sundry is thirsty work I recommend having some sort of liquid close to hand. Again the consensus on this varies but if you remember the rhyme 'tonic water, you're ready to slaughter, gin and tonic, you're slumped over your models and vomiting into your dice cup' then you shouldn't go too far wrong.
What Will Prevent Me From Winning?
Only one thing, or rather things, will stop you winning a Blood Bowl tournament. They are something that everybody has yet only the loser and the wimp has any need for. They will drag you down, haunt your steps and hinder your ascent to the top of the ladder if you do not dispose of them with all haste. They are a bad influence. They are detrimental to your success. They are your friends.
From this moment on they are the enemy. When you play them at Blood Bowl do not go easy on them. Do not talk to them and, if at all possible, laugh in their faces when you beat them. As a champion you do not need friends any more. Your trophies are your friends now. An inanimate trophy will never disappoint you, or betray you, or tell you that fountain pen ink isn't toxic just so they and all of their other friends can laugh at you frothing at the mouth and convulsing on the floor because you ate some.
Enough of the What, Give Me the How
As previously stated, winning isn't as easy as it looks. 99% of people rule themselves out before they even roll the first dice through no fault of their own. Science has recently proved that the 'Champion's Chromosome' is only present in 1% of Blood Bowler's and, as a result, hope was lost for most of the community. However, this guide should be considered to be a sort of 'genetic-engineering' that will allow you to take your place among these board-gaming supermen and finally claim that elusive first Blood Bowl tournament win.
I won't be using science or facts or anything resembling the truth to teach you to win, but rather an inconsistent and highly embellished anecdote. It will be a story of humanity, of redemption, of the triumph of good over evil. Heroes will rise and villains fall. Or it will be a migraine-inducing wall of text containing no rational structure whatsoever and feature surrogate images from the internet as I took no photographs of my own.
Regardless of that, it's a tale I like to call....
Merseybowl 2013 – Living It Large in Liverpool
Game 1 – Hana (Norse)
As a champion in waiting I knew that the five games of Blood Bowl standing before me this weekend were nothing more than a formality. Being honest I was a little disappointed that the organisers hadn't simply called the whole thing off on Saturday morning and just presented me with first prize there and then. There was also a Warhammer Fantasy tournament next door which would also have benefited from bestowing upon me whatever their equivalent of first prize was (probably some sort of necklace made from the finger bones of anybody who hadn't flocked their movement trays).
But nay, as nobody possessed my incredible foresight (I said 'foresight') I would have to sit through the long yet incredibly enjoyable process of winning five consecutive games of Blood Bowl.
My first opponent was Hana. A prominent Geordiebowler, she presented what I considered to be a serious threat. Not only was she good at the game but she was also using norse. Not only that, but she had more positionals than I did, more skills that would be more useful given the match-up and generally just a little bit more chutzpah. As is always the case when reminiscing about past tournaments though, even ones so recent as a few days ago, my memory has faded. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, the copious amount of curry and booze or maybe it was just all of the cheering and applause that was directed at me over the course of the weekend. Either way my brain has gone soft and squidgy and, until turn eight of the second half and my final turn, I remember nothing.
What I do remember, though, is that by the final turn of the game Hana had fallen right into my trap. The ball was right where I wanted it to be (on the floor), my one player able to score was exactly where I wanted him (so far from the endzone that he would require two go-for-its to get over), and the passing rolls required to get the ball to him were within comfortable parameters (extraordinarily high and requiring ludicrous shenanigans to pull off). To an outside observer this would seem as though Hana had orchestrated an excellent defence, but what she had actually done was commit one very fatal flaw – she had tried to prevent me and my beloved winner's trophy from coming together.
The dice came up trumps and I managed to score the winning touchdown. Hana's dice were terrible all game and my armour dice were on fire. She played a great game with what were, for most of the time, limited and rapidly dwindling numbers. There were even moments when she could have bagged it and perhaps gone on to deprive me of my precious NAF Trophy. But thankfully I won and the commissioning of that wall length trophy cabinet two days before the tournament began was still looking like a great idea.
Stay tuned for: Pandering to the masses and hob-knobbing with the aristocrats
