This is the 3rd (and probably final) part in the story of harvestmouse finding Blood Bowl. For context you would be better giving up now, or reading harvestmouse the beginning from 2009 and of finding and losing my warhammer from 2014.

After losing my whole collection to the fishes, I didn't have the heart to rebuild a warhammer (or gerbilhammer as they were tended to be used) army, so I had a year or so sabbatical. However, as the sun pulls the earth, my eyes were still drawn to the colourful monthly White Dwarf cover and the world of adventures that must surely lay inside. So it wasn't really a surprise that after some urging from the local games shop, I buckled and tried a Warhammer 40k Ork army after falling for the look of them in issue 106. Reading the thing from cover to cover 3 times, it was evident that things had really moved on. Sadly though, it didn't take me long to realise that 40k just wasn't for me, my imagination just wasn't into it and lacked the focus it had with fantasy. The impromptu live action roleplays in abandoned Space Hulks (aka the loft) quickly became light sabre battles in a Tatooine bar from Star Wars or battling Ghosts on top of a large apartment block, and so I had to resign myself to the fact that Space Porks and Bean Stealers just weren't for me.

And so rather glumly I went back to the shop, to break the news. They said I should wait the few months until '2nd edition' came out. 2nd edition, 2nd edition? What's 2nd edition?! They showed me a picture of '2nd edition' and in return, I showed them what ¾ of an eyeball looks like when outside of an eye socket, as my eyes widened so wide you could see the picture's reflection on them as the image tattooed the potential adventures to be had onto my brain.

I wasn't idle either whilst I waited for '2nd edition' to hit the shelves. Ok, I hadn't really read about rosters and how the game worked and all, stuff like that doesn't really matter, but I did read all about painting properly. Airfix 'dunking' would be a thing of the past. So when I finally did get my grubby little paws on the boxset I got to work immediately. Out came my new black, actually a darkish purple colour (it's all the car shop had) aerosol car primer and I quickly got work on spraying the polystyrene pitch with an undercoat.....

10 days later, when my replacement pitch arrived in the post. I quickly got to work on......watering down my citadel chaos black (to work as a primer) on my replaced polystyrene pitch. I hadn't been idle with the roleplays either. There were pass winning catches and award winning tackles a plenty in the garden as I circumnavigated the washing pole and leapt the fish pond and all sorts of splendid manoeuvres, unlike the confused and aimless ones tripping over artifical Christmas trees in the world of 40k.

And it was about that time, that we got Josh. Josh wasn't like your regular Rottweilers. Firstly, he lived his whole life with rabbits, and thought he was one, 'after all our tails are pretty similar', he thought. Secondly, he grew in a rather irregular way and to extremely irregular proportions. He shot up, and after 5 months resembled a Great Dane. A huge lanky, gangly thing that navigated from one room to the next mostly by luck and bouncing off of things at pace, an animal that mostly consisted of legs. That was until one day mother nature bent down, blew into his nostrils and blew him up, like you would a balloon. Filled him out into a 30 inch neck, 50 inch chest 12 stone of solid muscle behemoth, that was partial carrots.

Life was pretty simple for Josh; eat your food, then eat everyone elses, then eat anything lying around that could be food, then eat anything around that probably wasn't, but you never know. He knew to stay away from the male rabbits when they were feeling randy and learnt very quickly that the most fun in life was to lie in wait at the bottom of the garden for when harvestmouse approached the half way line.........

“And Soaren Hightower launches a pass downfield towards the waiting catcher. Can he catch it? Can he catch iiiitttttttt? Of course he can, it's caught fabulously by the always perfect harvestmouse who weaves past one Orc (that resembled a dustbin a bit) and then another (who if you squinted may have looked a little like a garden gnome)” (as I danced and leapt across the garden) BADDOM BADDOM “only 3 to beat now, but who's going to stop perfection itself?” BADDOM BADDOM BADDOM “harvestmouse grins, feints one way, then the other and leaps over the Orc captain, he's only yards away from the line now” BADDOM BADDOM BADDOM BADDOM. “Harvestmouse dodges between the flailing outstretched hands of the last 2 green skins, approaches the TD line, does a cheeky little spin, winks at the crestfallen Orcs and steps to cross the TD li..” BANG!!!!!!

Something had hit me with weight of a semi articulated lorry, and had little regard for speed limits, sending me somersaulting across the garden in an 'unperfect' and entirely 'unharvestmouse' the superstar catcher way. After 30 seconds or so I dared to open my eyes and look up. Josh looked down, he had that stupid little grin Rottweilers always have when they know they've 'won' at something and his stupid little rabbit tail was vigorously trying to swat imaginary flies. Waiting, no urging for me to get up and prance around again, so he could finish the game we'd started.

It was painfully obvious this couldn't go on, BloodBowl wasn't fun any more and actually involved bone crunching tackles and mind numbingly painful hits. This wasn't how the game was supposed to be played, was it? Particularly not when it involved a superstar like me. Simply put, Josh had to go to class and learn his place in life. 7 instructors and 3 halls that couldn't really be classed as 'furnished' any more later, progress was made.

Words like heel, sit, wait and drop that ****ing chicken drumstick started to at last make sense to him (for the right amount of carrot bits anyway). And so garden BloodBowl could once again resume. Sadly though, Josh's had already decided this was his favourite game. I think he'd probably read the rulebook too when I wasn't looking and he definitely knew he was naturally built to be the Black Orc Blocker to my elven catcher. Where I came with the skill 'fantastic dodge', he could counter it with 'ultimate tackle'. Where I had nerves of a hardish plastic, he came with pass block, leg block, chest block and any other part of the body he could run into at speed block.

I guess in lots of ways, Josh helped me greatly. Instead of the past, with Warhammer and 40k, where I bought the rules and the figures put them on the shelf to be painted with a layer of dust, and then I'd go off and do my own little thing. I couldn't do that anymore (not without risking broken bones anyway). The only way I was going to get any enjoyment out of BloodBowl was to sit down, learn the rules properly (instead of reading the 'did you knows' and looking at the pictures) and play the game how it was meant to be; on the table top, not the garden. It also meant I could put my jumping around energy into making fun games for me and him. Hide and Seek, penalty shoot outs and garden slalom all helped to build a life long bond between the 2 of us, that I'll cherish for all my days.

However just every now and then, he'd forget himself. And I would hear that familiar and chilling BADDOM BADDOM BADDOM and I knew exactly what he was thinking “Josh the Black Orc Blocker, sees the puny elf with the ball, but can he get to him before he reaches the TD line? You bet he can, they don't call him the TD annihilator for nothing!! Josh closes in on his prey, the elf seems to have frozen in fear and actually appears to be crying and....is he begging for his life? That's not going to help him though, as Josh closes in and” BANG “that's another TD prevented and by the looks a casualty to boot for the league's number 1 sacker!”