With the new edition finally getting some playtime we wanted to catch up with some of our recent tournament champions in 2021! In this upcoming mini series we ask them what we think are some of the all important questions with Blood Bowl in its current state!
First, we caught with Peter Arensen (NAF ID: tribalsinner) on his win in the Eucalyptus Bowl 2021, the Australian Major. Peter has played 300 NAF games in over 50 tournaments since his NAF career started. He recently became the Tournament Champion of Eucalyptus Bowl 2021 after coaching Old World Alliance to a 6-0-0 record and claiming his 2nd Major Championship!
Q: How long have you played Blood Bowl?
A: I started playing 17 years ago. I was playing Warhammer 40K and was at a mate’s place. While looking for terrain I opened his cupboard and saw a box labelled Blood Bowl. He got it out and we played one half and then he lost interest. I was hooked and went ‘all in’ and purchased the box set off eBay, 3 or 4 teams, some dice and funded it all by selling my WH40k stuff. This was all in the span of 7 days. It is just about the only hobby game I have time to play anymore and it will always be my favorite.
Q: What made you make the decision to take the winning race to the event? Did you do any research, practice or preparation before the tournament?
A: Honestly, I had just bought the team and thought they would be fun. I like dwarf and human teams and generally do well with them so thought a mixture team would be fun. I also was under the impression that they would not be highly represented. I conducted zero research, zero practice and my preparation was limited to painting and basing the team to have them ready for the tournament.
Q: Now that you’ve won do you feel like your priorities will change with team race selection in upcoming tournaments?
A: Not really, my team choices are generally made around what I think will be fun. I look at the ruleset from a fun perspective and not from a competitive perspective. I love stunty teams, particularly Snotlings and my favorite part of Blood Bowl is fouling.
Q: Care to share any secrets to your winning strategy/roster choices?
A: With OWA the human players are the stars. The Ogre and the dwarves are just road blocks to keep the human players free and on the pitch. All of my touchdowns were scored by human players and the human blitzer caused most of my casualties (not many). The only ‘secret’ is to blitz with the human blitzer every turn unless the state of the board dictates that someone else must do it. Do not rely on the dwarf troll slayer, on at least 5 occasions he ended my turn by rolling double skulls that I didn’t risk the Loner (3+) reroll on. It was nearly always towards the end of my turn however and I can’t recall it ever being important if he stayed up or not. An underrated skill on OWA is Tackle on the dwarf blockers. As it combines well with arm bar there were a few occasions where the combo worked well and removed players from the pitch from failed dodges. Overall I was pretty happy with my skill choices and wouldn’t change much.
Q: What is your advice to newcomers and/or experienced coaches of Blood Bowl, particularly the ones transitioning to the Blood Bowl Second Season tournament scene?
A: My advice for newcomers is to expect to lose a lot when starting out. Treat each game as a fun learning experience until you come to grasp the nuances of Blood Bowl. With that mentality you won’t give up on the game and you will also appreciate it more when you finally do start winning. Remember that winning isn’t everything. Fouling Wardancers and Gutter Runners is everything however.
Experienced coaches transitioning to the Season Two tournament scene should be aware of the changes to the ruleset, particularly the new skills. If you’re planning on attending a tournament, whether new or experienced, ensure that you read the rules pack clearly, understand what is required of you as a player, ensure you can play a match in the required time limits and most importantly, make sure that not only do you have fun but your opponents do too.
Q: What are your next steps? Any upcoming tournaments you plan to attend?
A: Next steps are to paint up my Pinkings team from Greebo that I selected as the Tournament winner so that I can use them as Norse in a tournament this year. I also have a High Elf 7’s team I need to paint for some upcoming 7’s tournaments.
Australia is a large place and trying to get to tournaments can be a struggle in the current pandemic climate. I am hopefully getting across to South Australia for the Southern Shrike Bowl which is a tournament I still hold the record for most fouls (69). This was done with Gobbos and I managed to win Stunty Champ, come 11th overall, most Casualties and also best Sportsman. It shows that even your opponents can have a good time being fouled by little green things. Sydney Bowl is another tournament I’m hoping to get to and the accompanying 7’s series with my High Elves who I believe will excel in the 7’s environment.
Q: Do you have any final thoughts/comments on how the current BloodBowl Second Season edition of rules may change the tournament scene?
A: I have already seen that the Blood Bowl Second Season tournament scene has been overrun with Star Players. There was 11 Underworld teams at EucBowl and I believe all but one had Hakflem. There has also been a reduction in elven teams with the hit to passing. Whilst passing itself is still viable, elven teams aren’t as good as their linemen etc. are not as capable throwers. I actually like the change and think it’ll take Elf players a bit to get used to the change but they will come back strong.
I really like the new skills and new teams, I’m a big fan of the in(famous) coaches from Death Zone and would like them to be included by tournaments more regularly. My only criticism of the new ruleset is wildly inaccurate. I think a fair change would be that wildly inaccurate can only come into play if the thrower is marked. It makes no sense that an unmarked thrower could end up throwing it backwards.
Thank you so much Peter for these great thoughts! We all want to congratulate you on your success in Blood Bowl and good luck in your future tournament events!
Stay tuned next week as we catch up with Marc Andreu Simola (lotharhans), True Open 3 tournament champion from Finland who recently won with Underworld Denizens!