FUMBBL, the online Blood Bowl league

https://fumbbl.com/p/match?id=4610702

I always like to go back and watch what happend in 0-0 games. This one was a fun one, a raucous slugfest in the middle of the pitch and no one going anywhere until it was too late. Here's a play by play as narrated by our very own Coach Oryx Wild:

They brawl it out along the sideline with roughly equal success, although notably shadowmanes loses a mummy to ko. Shadowmanes can't break through the line, and runs out of time to side swap. Gets the mummy back for the second half, otter chaos gets the ko'd beast back for an even 11 on 11. The troll is like... the dumbest troll that ever trolled. So many 1'd stupid rolls, double skulls, even a triple that resulted in a both down early in the second half. He seems to wake up mid second half and contributes a bit.

Shadowmanes pulls out a blodge ghoul and substitutes a dodge ghoul on the defense in the second half. I really disagree with this play here - with little block on the chaos and only 1 tackle, I would have definitely substituted all 4 ghouls in with zombies, looking for the steal here. They're extremely resilient to block-less chaos, and not that much more fragile. They also dodge out reasonably well for repositioning and dodging purposes. A gambit by shadowmanes and a clever surf by razmus blew this game wide open on turn 6 of the second half, when razmus was clearly struggling to break through into a scoring position. Then Razmus got blown out by a skull on a single die block, and the surf was returned by Shadowmanes, stealing the momentum back. The brawl was unmoving in the center of the pitch, and turnovers abounded. The ball got lost amidst the scrum. This time Shadowmanes managed to get a ghoul into scoring range, but razmus was able to blitz him out of scoring range.

Lessons learned:
bring 3-4 ghouls when you really need to score, especially if the opponent doesn't have a lot of block.
Don't depend on big guys, they'll break your heart every time.
If you're not breaking through on the sideline, try to start the sideswitch earlier so that you can get in easy scoring range by turn 7. This is also a drive where I would have probably used all 4 ghouls, and sideswitching would have been very easy. Despite being outstrengthed and outskilled to a degree, I think that this this matchup is heavily undead favored unless casualties skew heavily against them. Chaos struggles to deal with your blodge, and with proper play can impede you but struggles to match your speed. It's a very swingy matchup because they want to block a lot and don't have a lot of block.
I think that in this game chaos just needed to take more risks - turtling in the middle of the field hoping for overwhelming casualities is a plan, but it often doesn't result in scoring and that was true this game. Wrapping 'round the side and going for the sideline score was definitely an option, especially with only two ghouls to contend with. I don't mind playing for casualties, but I like to try to score too, and going straight through undead is quite hard and was made harder as time went on.

The NAF Tournament Director Blog for March is out! We’re back with updates, a coach’s milestone reflection, and reports from tournaments in the most exotic corners of the Blood Bowl world. Check it out at https://www.thenaf.net/2025/03/tournament-director-blog-march-2025/

Are you tired of the same old format for NAF tournaments?

Do you want a new challenge, to build a roster that rewards you for your creativity?

Do you also want to headhunter your opposition’s players, and get rewarded when you do it well?

Do you want to be able to hire any star? Or if you face a star, do you want to be able to kick him in the teeth when he is down (the refs will look the other way more often)?

Then Bounty Bowl IV is for you!!!

Rosters are tiered; however, you can build them any way you want within the budget constraints.

Why would it be called a Bounty Bowl if you didn’t get to head hunt!?! Each game you and your opponent will have a Bounty placed upon their head. If the Bounty player scores, they will earn a Bounty point, and each time you injure your opponent’s bounty player you get a point as well!

If your opponent has a star player the ref will look the other way if you foul him/her (you get sneaky git fouling star players). Also, if that player happens to be a “Mega Star” then you fouling player is counted as having dirty player too when fouling that Mega Star.

Finally, do you want to earn points for the GLAM tournament scene? Well, you’re in luck, we are a GLAM tournament, and you’ll get your credit there too!

So, if you’re looking for 4 fun games of blood bowl, in Toledo Ohio, May the 10th, then either email Michael Coon (frozenflame) at emerald.blade@gmail.com or hit me up at the Bounty Bowl facebook page to preregister. 20 USD if you preregister by MAY 1st, 30 USD after May 1st.
https://member.thenaf.net/index.php?module=NAF&type=tournaments&func=view&id=9610

Also, we will be holding a charity auction, benefiting Momma's house, a local Toledo Charity.

See you there!

6 spots LEFT (or more)

New Season of the SNOT league is searching for brave players!
Wanna see your team in TELESNOT?

All the rules you can find on the league page
https://fumbbl.com/p/group&group=15326&op=view

Sign in by :
-Sending PM to Avreus on FUMBBL
-joining our discord channel https://discord.gg/shebvWeU25
-or by writing on recrutation post on bloodbowl.pl (https://bloodbowl.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?f=211&t=5582)

recrutation will last for 1 week after season Ended (start is planed for mid of April)
Then the Draft will be made and everyone know what team they will lead in the new season. And the season starts ~1 weeks after

The Mary's Land Terrible Terrapins were able to bounce back from the death of star player David Damascus with at 2-0 win over the UNLV Throwin' Rebels. This win continues Mary's Land momentum in the SMACK and one step closer to that goal that seemed so far away at the start of the season; a shot at glory in the post season. While the game continues to help coach Lancelott fend off those calls for his resignation, much work still remains for the remainder of the season.

Starting out aggressively, the Terrapins received the ball, placing in the hands of O. Sean City (major - Business/Logistics) due to a surprisingly errant kick by the Elves. The Terrapins were clearly out for blood from the start as the heel of Vanessa Gaithers-burg (major - neuroscience) knocked out the already knocked down Keith Washington. This was followed up by a decisive block by Alessandra Alleygainy (major - physics) that seriously injured the veteran Joe Hawley. While the Rebels were able to knock the ball from O. Sean City with a bit of elf "bob and shove", the counter was quickly stopped as Frances Fredrick (major - mechanical engineering) was able to break free and knock loose the ball from veteran catcher Keenan McCardell. The Terrapins then started to systematically push and remove elves from the pitch on their way to a first half score.

The second half opened up with the elves severely down available players This did not deter them as they made a strong push down the side of the pitch with the elf trademark grace and passing. The Terrapins scrambled to respond, the various shouts of the coach clearly confusing Harmony One-Love (major - underwater biodegradable container construction) and allowing blitzer Beau Bell III the opportunity to make the trademark four dodges to pick up the ball and run it in for the apparent score. Unfortunately, Beau Bell III was too focused on the way their flowing locks of hair was catching in the wind and failed to recognize a small divot in the pitch just before the endzone. This turned out to be their undoing as they failed that last burst of speed, tossing the ball into the waiting arms of the Terrapin student section in the endzone who happily threw it back to their own team. Scooping up the ball, the Terrapins continued to march down the field for a second touchdown while knocking out or seriously injuring several more elves. 


Blitzer Blue Bell III running for the endzone and enjoying how beautiful they look, blissfully unaware of the disaster that is to come

This win was the second in a row and the second in the SMACK which has so far been a welcome change from the disastrous pre-conference schedule. We will see if the Terrapins are able to continue their winning ways against the rest of their schedule!

After going through a bit of a painting rut in 2024 I decided to start with something simple for the new year.

There are a few teams I still need to paint up, but most of them are unique ones I have been thinking about and collecting parts for years. But the Gnomes were a brand new addition and some very fun models with alternative bits, that didn’t really need much conversion. I selected them to get me back into the swing of things.

As always I started with the linemen equivalents as they are going to set the baseline for the entire team. Gnomes suit bright, primary colours and I decided to stick with these. To that end I went for blue armour, red jackets, green hats and brown trousers, with silver for the metal parts. I’d used different heads for the linemen, but aside from that they were effectively 4 pairs of identical models. To slightly differentiate them I gave half grey beards and the other half brown/blond.




The foxes were very easy to paint as I just went for the standard red fox colouring with reddish brown fur with black and white parts. This made them pretty quick to paint, though no real way to tie them into the colour scheme of the other players.



Whilst working on this team I got an email from Travelling Man (a comic book and game store/online) about a Blood Bowl painting competition called Super Brush Bowl. You bought an entry pack and would get sent a random GW Blood Bowl model, 4 random paints and some basing material. You could undercoat in either white or black and use them for decoration, but otherwise could only use those 4 colours provided. There were prizes for best painted, best base and who best followed the spirit of the competition.

I got an elf union player along with Dark Green, Dark Blue, greenish-yellow and bronze paint. So quite a tricky combination as the dark green was largely useless since I could have mixed it from the yellow and blue. With those limitations I had to get a bit creative as there was no way to create a realistic skin tone.



I went for a black undercoat for shading, but later went back over some parts with white to make them brighter. The bodysuit was painted blue and I had to extend this up to his neck and ears. Highlights were added with the yellow, I kept these quite minimal to stop it looking too green.

For his armour I left parts of that black and went with the dark green, adding yellow for highlights. This was the part I paid most attention to as I could us my normal highlighting technique for it. Loin cloth and hair were painted yellow, I mixed a bit of the blue in for shading to make a different green compared to the armour. For the metal parts I undercoated them black and then put white on the raised bits to help with the shading. Also added some blue to the bronze paint for some shading, but it didn’t really turn out. Luckily I got an elf with a mask, it only covers the lower half of his face, but I painted all of it bronze as if it was a full face mask. Some white decoration on the armour and clothing as well as highlights for the gems and metal finished the model.

For basing I used my standard process, which normally includes static grass, added flock and some flowers to the base too.

I was pretty happy with how he turned out, considering the difficulties. Sadly I didn’t win anything, but checked out the winners and they were all really good, though some got luckier with their paints, having 4 distinct colours including one that could be used for flesh.

With roughly a month remaining on this trophy season, I wanted to do a little bit of a review of the IRONDWARF Trophy (IDT) system. With the way it automatically enrolls teams, it's hard for me to know if it's something people actually enjoy or if it's more or less ignored by everyone.

In addition to wanting some feedback on what you all think of it, I also wanted to go through a bug that has been there since inception, but I'm not sure if I should fix. Let me explain.

When I came up with the system in the first place, I intended it to require completely new teams, meaning the first match of the team should be played during the season (given that it was also a Blackbox or tournament game).

Now, I managed to introduce a bug in how this functions, and instead of what was intended the system will enter a team into the IDT when they play their first eligible match during the season. This means that old teams who played prior to the start of the season get enrolled, but also that a team which played open gamefinder games before (or at the start of) the season would be enrolled in the system whenever they played their first blackbox/tournament game.

Edit for clarification: Once a team is enrolled into the IDT season the first time, they can not reset their run and restart by playing an ineligible match. Doing so will "freeze" their team for the remainder of the season.

While the way it functions now isn't exactly what I intended from the beginning, there are two ways to fix this and I'm not entirely sure which path to take, so this post is partially intended to ask for what you all think. The two ways are:

1. Change the code to switch to the intended behaviour. Only new teams should be able to enter the IDT season.

2. Change the rules and make the way it works now the intended way. This makes it more of a "sprint" system, where coaches can prepare their teams for an IDT run and then make an attempt with their built-up team.

The second option could then be further extended by keeping track of "current" and "best" runs for each team to allow a single team do multiple runs in a single season should they want to. The natural question that would come up is for people to want to manually reset their runs (after an early loss for example), or in the extension have the system simply automatically track the best sequence of matches. I'm not entirely sure I want to push towards this extension since it (to me) feels like removing the stakes to an extent and diminishes the competition aspect of it.

While I'm on the topic of the trophies, but separate from the format discussion, I am very likely going to change the way both trophies (BBT and IDT) interacts with the "Tournament Wins" section of coach pages. The current mapping of trophy wins into minors and majors doesn't feel like the right way of doing things. There are currently 4 categories which are shown: Majors, Major Qualifiers, Minors, and Leagues. My intent is to add two trophy specific categories, effectively major and minor trophies. Not 100% sure of the terminology as I don't want to confuse things unnecessarily. Perhaps "Trophies" and "Medals" as the major and minor equivalents.. Let me know if you have any good ideas regarding this :)