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The Winner's Diet

Our mothers have always told us to eat our greens, to exercise regularly and to stop wearing their clothes when they're out of the house. If we wanted to walk an unattainable career path like becoming a world class athlete or a functioning member of society then this could be considered good advice, however as we prefer to spend our weekends pushing little tiny models around a table we must disregard it and write our own rules.

The first is that the Winner's Breakfast should be as lethal to your stomach as it is possible to get without ingesting something that you bought from some Iranians in a car park. The more serious the stomach ache and the greater the duration of your torment the better. The second is that the Winner's Lunch should not exist, owing to the gastric cataclysm that the Winner's Breakfast will have unleashed upon you. Third and final is that the Winner's Dinner should only be acquired after fighting your way through a rabid pack of starving Warhammer players who think the term 'leave some for the rest of us' is some sort of obsolete rule from a previous edition.

By obeying these rules you will quickly become a champion. A sickly, emaciated champion.


Game 4 – Podfrey – (Undead)




After a sedate evening in Liverpool and a pact among friends to never disclose the photographs that were taken it was time to address the new day. As the draw for round four had been published at the close of play the previous day I knew that I would be playing former World Number One and baby-making extraordinaire Geoff Porritt. Other men might quake at the prospect of facing such a Blood Bowling powerhouse but I was optimistic and looking forward to taking on the role of giantkiller.

However having traded in my stylish shirt for the bright sky blue polo shirt of the Waterbowl I would now be playing at a significant handicap. Gone was the well-cut image that I had presented on day one and instead I sat there, tired and with a side-parting that was at least four degrees off of its optimal angle, but still proud to be sporting my flamboyant league regalia.

I'm not one to brag. I don't like to toot my own horn or boast about my own talents or explain to people how I'm better than them in almost every sense. The number one quality demanded of a champion, after the ability to cure leprosy with a single touch, is modesty. So it would perhaps come as a surprise then to hear that Geoff Porritt had no answers to my vast and varied repertoire of Blood Bowl tactics. The man truly was out of his depth. The plan was easy. From the word go I had decreed that the best approach would be to sit back, preferably whilst looking dashing, and to let Geoff's players systematically fail every dice roll that concerned the ball. At first I was concerned that taking this route to victory would not contain enough machismo but soon settled into it. Besides, there would be plenty of time to look heroic when I was picking up my trophy.



Game 5 – Barney the Lurker (Lizardmen)




Barney and I have played each other more times than I can count and he has always played second fiddle to my excellence. Always has he been the Watson to my Holmes, the Bonaparte to my Wellington, the Geordiebowl to my Waterbowl. It's a role he seems to slip into quite easily nowadays. Maybe he's tired of the relentless thrashings I deliver unto him or maybe he just submits to the better man out of respect. Maybe he has some sort of congenital condition that prevents him from winning at Blood Bowl. All and none of these questions would be answered when we sat down to play our nine millionth tournament game together.

Imagine that you have two blocking saurus on your team. Imagine that they're your best friends; you do everything together. You have picnics in the park and ride bikes in the city and share your deepest feelings with them. You laugh with them when they're happy, you cry with them when they're sad. There are no secrets between you – you've trusted each other since you were children and you swore that you'd be friends for the rest of your lives. Now imagine that they're gone because they were both blocked off the pitch on turn one. Now you're alone, you're frightened, you don't know what to do. The world is scary now, it's darker.

But in that darkness there is light. You take a leap of faith and stretch out your hand and somebody takes it – a diving tackling kroxigor. He's also fragile, like you, haunted by the spectre of betrayal. You don't know if you can love again, neither does the kroxigor, but you both slowly begin to open up. You're no longer afraid, you begin to think that maybe you can learn to trust again. And then the kroxigor is gone, blocked and killed in the second turn of the game.

And thus went the game for Barney. Yes, he was very unlucky, but even had his flagrant overuse of dodging AG1 saurus and his withering observations of the finer points of caging come to anything he would still have lost. I don't put much credence in the crackpot superstition of the 'Dice Gods' but if they were up there, looking down on us from their kingdom just below Heaven but just above the fortress of Ming the Merciless, then I think it's safe to say that they favoured me that day. It's a well established fact that the laws of probability will often bend in favour of champions and so I can only say that I got what was deserved - a 3-0 win and a tingly feeling inside after obtaining that most elusive of beasts – maximum available points.


So You're a Champion. What Now?

Congratulations, félicitations, glückwünsche and whatever the Spanish call it. You should now have won a Blood Bowl tournament and be ready to stride headlong into a world of success, adulation and all the free shrimp you can get your hands on. You're not the same person you were before you started reading (and hopefully finished, this took bloody ages!) this guide. Your old life is gone now, you can never go back. Bright and beautiful things await you now: free airline upgrades, priority service at Little Chef (participating branches only), the ability to stand head and shoulders above anybody who has yet to win a tournament.

There is nothing more to teach you. Take the knowledge you have learned here today and share it. Or covet the information and sweep the spoils of victory all for yourself. This guide may not have been comprehensive, well researched or indeed of any use to anybody whatsoever but hopefully it will go some way towards helping you sort your life out. I mean just look at you, you're a disgrace.

But that's all for now folks. Thanks for reading, or as the French say, 'où est la bibliothèque?'I know what you're thinking. You're worried that you don't possess the movie-star good looks and exquisite sense of dress required of all Blood Bowl tournament winners. You're concerned that maybe your jawline isn't chiselled enough or that you can't galvanise a room into raucous applause just by walking in. But don't worry; in just a few more installments you'll be transformed from a terribly dressed pit of self loathing into a righteous paragon of all that is good about the game. You'll be a champion soon and it's about time you started acting like one. If a bartender asks you to pay for your drink just pick up your glass, say 'don't you know who I am?' and walk away. If somebody refuses give up their space in a queue for you then politely enquire as to how many top three finishes they've achieved and push them into the road. From this moment on the plebeian masses are beneath you.