"Boss boss, have you seen this?" Carlos burst through the door of Grot's office, waving a piece of paper in the air. "Yes Carlos, I've seen our first issue distribution figures, vey impressive but I feel there's room for improvement. "No boss, THIS." Carlos cleared space on Grot's heaving desk and put the paper down. It was a crudely drawn piece of paper. At the top it was labelled "The Infamous Troll's Trousers and Grot didn't like it one bit. "Whatcha gonna do boss," Carlos asked. "We need to deal with this before it spreads any further," Grot's brow furrowed. "And I know just the way. Carlos, fetch your wheels of steal!" "Yeah boy, DJ Tuffjaw all up in this beach" Carlos ran from the room.












Later

Well my name's Snot Grotly
and I'm here to say.
That I'm gonna drop
some wisdom today.

Stay in school
and don't do drugs.
Get good grades,
don't be a thug.

Carlos clutched his head in his hands. "When did you last listen to rap, Snot? Things have changed a bit since the days of De La Squig and Strigohill Gang".
"I like to keep it classy Carlos, there is no point descending to his level. If I can't beat him with my razor sharp wit and verbal eloquence then I don't deserve to call myself the editor of this respected zine."

"Listen to this," Carlos said, pulling from his bag a small box which he placed upon the deck and opened. 3 confused and slightly shaken figures were visible inside. Upon the influx of light they lept to their feet and stood in formation. "This is the latest in sound reproduction technology," explained Carlos.
"Is it legal" asked Snot.
"Swear to nuffle" said Carlos.
"Go ahead then."
"Basically, these are like magic pixie gnome type things..."
"We're sprites" a microscopic voice was heard to say.
"... who can replicate any sound they hear. I took em along to a Three Six Nausica concert and they memorised every single note. Check this out. Alright guys, let's hear it."

And as if by magic a tinny reproduction of a song was heard. Grot wasn't sure to begin with, then his foot started tapping, his head starting nodding and he began bouncing from foot to foot like Scrappa Sorehead without his ADHD medicine.

"Wow, I see what you mean", said Grot. "Things have changed. Alright, let me have another go. Bring that beat back...

Uh, uh, 1 2 1 2
...
F Phoenix!
We know you can't rise like one
KO ladies with your breath
While I verbally stun

I'm dropping these bombs
Like a fumbling Boomer
You're huddled afraid
Waiting for me to consume ya

Spreading this dirt
Like it's some kind of news
It's common fact that
Carol gets out her boobs

How did you think
she became a fan favorite?
It wasn't writing crap
and being a plagiarist

How convenient that when
our first issue drops
You get a piece of paper,
drop trouser and squat

And try to peddle it,
looking for a sucker.
When everyone knows
you're the real mother... Brinfindal!"

The door to the office had swung open and the popular gnome appeared, looking angry and holding a piece of paper.

"Have you seen this Grot?"
"Yes, I have and we're dealing with it right now. Wanna get in on this jam?"
"Do I ever" said the gnome.

"It's Bilfrindal on the mic
and prediction's my game
but I don't need to be psychic
to know you'll get slain

see while you were at home
impregnating tissues
I was giving you content
for your next hundred issues

you write about my conquests
it'll fill your pages
I predict they'll tell of me
throughout the ages

publishing a zine
with only one page
a front cover is not deserving
of all of this rage

go back home to your mum
take her some flowers
and why not ask her
what's in the troll's trousers

Brinfindal out! Peace"

"Meeting over," declared Grot and the stunned half dozen other staff filed out in disbelief, muttering to themselves.
"I heard there are vacancies at the Araby Gazette" one of them was heard to mutter.

Do you feel that chill? That tingle down your back? It could be the chill of late spring as it gives way to the summer; it could be the anticipation for a whole new season of Blood Bowl; or it could be the wisps of a something a little more blood-chilling, such as the opening of a whole new region for the summer time, a very haunted region and to commemorate this event a whole new Youngblood Competition to celebrate!

Whether you are a casual consumer, wanting the immediate 101 on the new teams hitting the CIBBL circuit; a long time fan wanting the juicy facts, or a grizzled coach wanting to know just what exactly he’ll be up against soon, The SCRIBBL is the place to be with the exclusive Youngblood XI Primer!



The classification of players in this article is done using the CabalVision patented ‘Standardised Technical Ability Totals’ system (Or STAT system for short) for the purpose of giving important information quickly. For those new to this sport the STAT system is a number of values that rate a player’s abilities in certain areas of the game through a series of hidden algorithms and presents that data in the form of a single digit number, the higher the number, the better that player’s ability in that area.

For example the Human Lineman, generally considered the most average player in the entire game has a normal STAT value of 6338. This number is broken down as follows;
>The first number is Movement Allowance (MA), a measure of how fast the player can move without pushing himself.
>The second number is Strength (ST), representing how strong the player is compared to other players in the game for blocking and bashing purposes.
>The third number is Agility (AG), this covers the player’s ability in ball handling, dodging, passing and other such finesse based movements.
>The final number Armour Value (AV), is quite simply how tough the player is when taking hits on the field, whether from other players or from stumbles, trips, and crowd interaction.

In long form this statline could be presented as MA6 ST3 AG3 AV8.

Since the dead arose during the Autumn of 2601, the undead have made their bloody presence known to the league at large in shocking fashion, clawing their way quickly up the ranks to the very height of the hierarchy to earn their place amongst the league’s greatest teams. From the ancient dynasties of the Land of the Dead, to the blue-blooded aristocracies of Sylvania, the unliving in one form or another have been a household name for many a fan.

But much like a freshly dug grave at the cemetery, there has been a noticeable gap that had yet to be filled, a certain selection of old and established teams that are just as iconic in this particular wheelhouse as the Vampires and the Khemri and yet seem to have been put to one side and mostly ignored. Until now. Cut from the same funeral cloth as some of the most infamous and dangerous teams in Blood Bowl both past and present, The Undead and The Necromantic teams are freshly arisen straight from the crypt, with a monstrous pedigree behind them. You could even say that there are no Ghouls like the Old Ghouls.


First we should start with the important point, ‘how do these two teams play?’ And the answer to that question is ‘pretty much the same, but with a few key differences between the two.’ Both teams have a bunch of cheap and expendable linemen, and a few crucial and specialized positional players to work with, presenting you with an adaptable roster that can bash the running teams and outrun the bashing teams if needs be, you could almost call it a human roster if you squinted at it in a dim light. Where the differences come into play is down to certain positionals, we’ll get to that shortly.


First the Linemen, the Undead technically get two possible linemen options, both at 40k a piece. However the Revenants have opted to go hard in with their positionals to start out with, so there are only Zombies on the team for now, and they are generally prefered to Skeletons in a lot of cases. They are there to get in the way and get punched, their entire existence on the roster is to be a resilient punching bag between your opponent and your important players, and unlike most linemen that exist just to be a red smear on the end of a giant’s boot, Regen offers your already reasonably tough Zombies just that little bit extra staying power in both the short and long term. And since the team comes with a Necromancer, when you kill your opponent’s players you get a Zombie for free, such value!


Now your positionals on the other hand are the backbone of both this team and the Necromantic team too, which saves a lot of writing time really. First up are the Ghouls, you get 0-4 of these boys, they are the fastest players on your roster and also the most delicate. What you see from the above statline is a fast player that is the only one on the team with Agility skill access, making them the best suited to carrying the ball on your team, or chasing down your opponent’s fleeing ball carrier. What you don’t see, and is the reason why you have those zombies and your other positionals is Regeneration. There are only 6 possible players on the team that have AG3 by default and the team cannot take an Apothecary due to being Undead. Therefore it is greatly important that you protect them from taking too many bumps if you can help it, because if they get injured they aren’t coming back for that game, if at all.


Now what tools do you have available to prevent this? First of all you have Wights, roughly considered they are the Blitzers of the team. I mean hell, they’re pretty much the Human Blitzer with Regen for -1 MA, although you can only take 0-2 of them. They are quite easily the most general piece on the team that can fill in a lot of gaps in your strategy. You need a tough but mobile cage for your ghouls making a break for the endzone? Wights. You need a secondary ball carrier because your star Ghoul ate the dirt? Wights. Your Ghouls tangled up in a mess of players and you need someone to wade in and bash heads? Wights. For a lot of problems you can solve them with the right Wight with the right Wight skills for the right answer to the Wight problem. Now try saying that quickly.

And if the general Nuln army knife of the Wights doesn’t work for you, then you have the veritable sledgehammer of the team, and the one piece (well two if you count the Skeletons) that the Necromantic roster doesn’t get and what ultimately makes the difference for this team when comparing strategies.


Behold the Mummy. You see your team’s big guy? He wishes he was a Mummy, and you would wish he was a Mummy too, first of all because you get 0-2 of them and second of all is what you get for the asking price. At 120k a pop, you are laying down a fat stack to recruit this player but in return you get; a incredibly strong player with Mighty Blow, Regeneration, S access, and no negatraits, none, not even Loner. They might be slow, you could even use the word glacial to describe them compared to rest of your team, but as the toughest and strongest player on your team they are a roadblock that your opponent must either avoid or attempt to plough through. Earlier I described how the two teams here can position themselves for the running game or the bashing game depending on the situation with key differences, for the Undead it’s that they lean more towards the bashing end of the particular spectrum with the heavy duty players available to them, hence I would coin the term ‘Bashy but Runny.’


So now that we have established this theme, where does that leave us in regards to the Necromantic squadron? In short, if the Undead could be considered ‘Bashy, but Runny’ because they have a few very strong blocking players backed up by more nimble postionals, then the Necromantic team are a team that has some very strong running players backed up by more bulky positionals, hence ‘Runny, but Bashy’. And as you will most likely want me to actually do my job and explain what exactly I mean by this, so I shall do so accordingly.


Before we get to the meat of that explanation however, we should talk about what is the same for this roster when compared to the Undead team, and the answer is ‘a lot of things really’. Their re-rolls are the same price; they have access to most of the same star players, they come with a Necromancer rather than an Apothecary and they have on their roster Zombies, Wights and Ghouls, just like the Undead roster with all the same skills, stats and skill access available to them and they will most likely fulfill the same role on this team as well (Mostly, we’ll get to that point). The only real immediate difference is that Necro teams only get 0-2 Ghouls, rather than the Undead’s 0-4. So then what’s the main differences between these two teams? Two things as a matter of fact.


First of all, I shall introduce the Flesh Golem. A positional you get 0-2 of, these boys are what could be considered the bulky guard piece for your team similar in form and function to a Black Orc Blocker. They aren’t quite as ‘heavy duty’ as the Mummies, but ST4 is still ST4, and the fact they are half of your team’s strength access when combined with the Wights is nothing to be sneezed at by any stretch of the imagination. Put them near somewhere you want the opponent holed up and/or your sides to break through, they’ll give you the leg up you need. “But Nigel, a 4 movement piece is nothing close to what I would consider ‘Runny’, and you get less Ghouls than the Undead do, so what does this team get that makes them especially Runny?” Oh sweet summer child, I will tell you what you get.

Picture a player. A very shaggy and disheveled player from the outset, almost doglike in looks and demeanor. Now imagine that this dogman can run really fast, like faster than the most of the ‘fast’ players on most other teams, faster than most players in the game beaten only by certain ratty positionals in certain underground regions. Imagine that this player is also really angry. Imagine that this player has claws. Imagine a MA8 player with Frenzy and Claw barrelling towards your endzone, or your prize ball carrier. You don’t have to imagine that player, because it looks exactly like this.


If the Mummy is the front and centre piece for the Undead side, than the Werewolf is the crown jewel of any Necromantic roster. You can get up to two of these amazing players, and you will want them both as soon as possible because they are a problem solver piece. There are very few pieces in the game that are as fast as or faster than the Werewolf by default and most of them are only ST2, whether you need a lightning fast blitzer, or a turbo gear ball carrier the Werewolf will have you covered.

Although the Haunted Hills are not frequented by many people for pretty obvious reasons the region is nevertheless a vibrant and diverse region, with much in the way to offer the careful traveller (and many ways for the unwary bumbler to disappear without a trace). But in the world of Blood Bowl the only household names to many are those from the big Necromantic and Undead teams and a lot of the more, rarely sighted creatures that haunt the hills are not well known outside of the region itself.

You have probably heard of the likes of Champions of Death, or the Bruendar Grimjacks, but have you heard of the Westside Werewolves? Or the Praag Changelings? Or perhaps even that rather infamous team the Frozen Phantoms? I would suspect for the majority of fans the answer would be ‘Who’ or ‘Huh’ or your local regional variant and that’s exactly the reason the Secret League initiative was started. To take those teams that were shunned previously by the old leagues due to a lack of numbers, and give them a front and centre spot in the limelight alongside the more well known rosters, there’s a vibrant sporting tradition where you couldn’t see it and we wish to bring it straight to you dear reader. And you’d be amazed at what crawled out of the crypt for some of these teams, allow me to introduce The Ethereals, and The Were.


Here’s a question, if I asked you to describe to me what you thought a typical, standard Blood Bowl team looked like, what image pops into your mind? It probably includes a Lineman, or something similar depending on your species and region; a strong blitzer type, a catcher or runner and possibly even a thrower. This is the standard for a lot of teams from jungles of Lustria to the far east of Nippon, simple defined positionals with simply defined roles and functions, there might unique touches depending on where you go but that is what you can apply to a lot of teams in the game. Now take that idea and burn it. It will do you no good here, not when you see what a typical Ethereal team will bring to the match.

You don’t believe me? Alright I will hit you with this one, the Ethereal Lineman equivalent has a STAT Agility score of 5. That is more statistically Agile than almost every single elf in the entire league currently, matched only by five other players as of the time of writing. Ah but before you spit out your drink all over this magazine this player also has No Hands. ‘What?’


Behold the best dodging piece in the entire game, the Spirit Host. This player can get into almost anywhere Nuffle willing, and the only thing that will stop a Spirit Host in its tracks, is an unlucky trip or a player actually hitting it. And between Foul Appearance and Regeneration even that may run into issues. Of course with the player in question having No Hands it greatly limits its capabilities to gain SPP outside of MVPs and casualties, but on the other hand you get an incredibly capable player right out of the box. And of course since this is technically an Undead roster, the Ethereals have access to a Necromancer to bring back even more Spirit Hosts from your opponent’s dead players!


But of course a team actually needs players who can occasionally hold the ball and maybe hit people, you can’t simply just dodge the other team to victory, and the Ethereals have two such players with actual hands, sort of. Player one, the Wraith, take a moment to catch your breath after reading that extensive skill list. Now wait! I know the moment you saw both Stab and Strength access on normals you thought about that Multiple Block/Stab combo but, this is the only piece on your team with Strength access you have to keep that in mind. But that said, the Wraith highlights two of this team’s largest strengths that it brings to the table; the ability to get through and around almost anything with lots of leap and high agility, and a varied toolset that is not readily available to other teams. That’s the important part since starting out, the team does not have many skills that save on rerolls without development and these players in particular are what you will would probably want to invest about half of your experience into. They are your secondary ball carriers, the team’s muscle and its defensive backbone all rolled up into 4 ghastly spectres.


‘Secondary ball carrier’ the astute among you notice, it’s almost as if that implies there is a piece you would be giving the ball to in most circumstances, yes? Beware of the Banshee, unwary players, for she rounds off this team and it’s capabilities in spine tingling fashion. Yes you see you have an AG4 player that can leap, dodge and pick up the ball all on a +2, and that makes the Banshee extremely good at carrying the ball in a lot of cases, but look at what else you have. Stab, Leap (with Very Long Legs) on two positionals, A Titchy Player with AG5 and Hypnotic Gaze, a combination of abilities and players that are to a ball cage what a crowbar is to a coffin. Now a lot of the Ethereal team is quite squishy as you may have noticed, even with the defensive double whammy of Foul Appearance and Regenerate but, given time and development you have a team that can crack even the most tightly packed and cautious defense wide open, after all you have the tools to do so, it’s all down to how they are used. No ball is ever truly out of reach of such a ghastly offense.


Since the foundation of the game all those years ago, the addition of the myriad and varied changelings to the game has been met with wild success for many teams. From the Ulfwerners of the Norse, to the Werebears of the Kislev, and the now infamous Werewolves, many players have turned an unfortunate curse into a bountiful blessing that keeps on giving, career ending injuries and deaths notwithstanding. So of course they have their own team in the Haunted Hills region, where else but the ancestral home of almost all things that go bump in the night would you find the largest concentration of Were-creatures per square mile? And where else would you take a bunch of players like that and put them onto a major sporting team but CIBBL itself?


Like most teams if you look close enough you can see a clear running theme amongst its roster, and the theme for the Were team is quite simply speed. For example the Werecat the Raver’s lineman is already out of the gate as fast as many running pieces on other teams, and then you have the double whammy combo of AG4 and Jump Up giving you a player that will threaten a very large area of the pitch around itself unless you remove them entirely from it. The only slight issue with this player is the combination of ST2 and AV7 is, not great for a player that you would want protecting your positional players. AG4 will be getting a lot of legwork in preventing your delicate Catmen from taking too many shots to the face. But it’s not all doom and gloom however.


Remember that earlier profile I did on the Necromantic team and the Werewolf? Remember how I pointed out that for their base speed and strength they are lot stronger and tougher than other comparable speedy pieces? And that I basically stated outright ‘this is the best player on the team, he will do work for you.’ Well guess what! Not only do the Weres get this player too, they can get up to FOUR of them! Between the Werecats and the Werewolves, you have a team that is not only the fastest team in Youngblood XI, but one of the fastest in the league as a whole beaten only by the Clan Eshin teams. And just like in the Necromantic roster and even more so in this one, the Werewolves are your problem solving pieces that should be protected at all cost. Thankfully however, unlike the previous three teams on this list the Were team is the only Haunted Hill roster that can hire an Apothecary, with the combination of Regeneration and the sawbones on staff you can ensure that your expensive players don’t get sent to the doghouse.


And last but certainly not least, we come to the second most prevalent Were creature in the league at large, the Werebear. Unlike the rest of the team the Werebears are not fast at all being very slow in more ways than one, but also unlike the rest of the team they actually have more strength than ST2, immediately making them much better at holding down the opposition away from your Werewolves than the Werecats by this fact alone. In the priority of your team at large they are the second most important player to develop, even just getting Guard on them will immediately offer your Werecats a great deal more protection against getting punched in the face by just being present at a scuffle. The Werebears protect the Werecats, the Werecats protect the Werewolves and then the Werewolves win you the game, and considering that they have currently won both of their games at the time of writing, it’s clearly working out for them!

To say that this is a tournament for the Haunted Hills and by the Haunted Hills would most definitely not be a lie, but exclusively for the Haunted Hills? Absolutely not. For in this summertime competition as we witness the best and brightest of new teams come to the fore, we celebrate not only the emergence of new teams, but the return of old ones. Old rosters that had been represented before in the league but had since fallen on the wayside, whether through the team going bust, disbanding or the coach going missing sometimes teams are forced to drop out of the league for circumstances beyond their immediate control. We are saddened to see them leave, anyone would be, but today some of those teams return to the fold emboldened and reforged anew.

Representing the Misty Isles of Albion and the deep trenches of the Great Ocean respectively, The Four Nations and The Nauticans are the sole foreign national teams playing in the Youngblood XI competition, each bringing with them players and tactics the likes of which the Haunted Hills have never seen, each with players with no easy equivalent on any team in the league at large, and each arranged against the living dead and each other in the struggle for victory. With pride on the line and glory in sight, can these teams rise like a phoenix from the ashes and seize the day?


Before we proceed with the explanation of this team any further we should take an aside to discuss a topic that is quite a controversial subject for many teams in the game at large, passing plays with AG3 players. The full explanation of the hows whys and wherefores as to why the human passing play is generally not employed by teams, even those that have the positionals for it, could possibly fill an article in itself. So here’s the short version, it involves a lot of risky plays on both ends of the equation for an action that if it fails at any point, will cost you your turn and quite possibly the ball. Even with the necessary skills it cannot be made entirely safe, and this is why +AG Throwers on mostly AG3 teams are almost as treasured and protected as +ST Blitzers, that one stat difference suddenly makes a lot of things much safer. So when the general consensus of many is that the passing play should never be your first option on a human team, where does that leave the Four Nations?


First we’ll get straight to the heart of the matter and why I started with that preamble, every single member of the Four Nations roster comes with two skills by default, Dump-Off and Nerves of Steel. For a quick reminder, Dump-Off allows you to immediately make a quick pass with the ball in response to getting blocked, and Nerves of Steel lets players ignore the presence of nearby opponents when they attempt to throw or catch the ball. So the idea in theory is that you have a team that if your ball carrier is threatened, you can immediately dump the ball onto a nearby teammate making it extremely difficult for the opposing team to take the ball off of you, because you can always move it away from them even if they get the successful blitz. But as mentioned above the human passing play is not 100% reliable, and so even with that blanket Nerves of Steel on your players you can still fumble the pass, so once again we come back to the important point. Passing should never be your first option, the fact that it’s there is good and when it works it works, but relying on it exclusively will only lead to disappointment and fumbled balls.


Moving onto our positionals and here we see another point about the Four Nations team, in that their approach to the classic Blitzer; Thrower, Catcher roles are a little unorthodox in their execution. For starters here are the pieces on the team with passing skill access, neither of them have Pass, but they fulfill the normal ‘passing’ role in different ways. The Full Back is your main carrier, thanks to the combination of Catch and Kick-Off Return he can move the ball into the cage as soon as possible. The loose cage is the crucial element to the Four Nations roster, the sooner you can get it set up and moving the better, he would be the player you set up when receiving the ball. The Half Back on the other hand is built for the opponent’s offense, Kick allows you to more carefully place the ball where you like but Hail Mary Pass is what makes the player. If your opponent drops the ball, your Half Back can pick it up, and then boot it down the length of the pitch because nothing halts your opponent’s offensive drive quite like having to move back up the pitch for the ball, and if you have other players up the pitch in a position to capitalize you can swing the momentum in your favour in a single turn.


Next on the line of classic roles, with unorthodox skills comes our Blitzer, who doesn’t come with Block. This player is vital to your success, for the simple fact that on a team that has no players with more than ST3 on it’s roster, having multiple players with strength skills access becomes a crucial element to your team’s strategy at high TV values. That is one of the larger problems with the team on it’s own, it has a lot of interesting skills that give the players unique functions, but lacks a lot of the dull but effective rerolling/security skills such as Block or Dodge, leaving a noticeable gap in your roster that defines your development for the first few levels. That being said having access to Diving Tackle and Fend from right at the start gives you options that a lot of the teams in this competition might have issues dealing with. Use them to guard your cage against blitz attempts, stick them next to your opponent’s speedy pieces to frustrate them, and develop them as soon as possible and they won’t do you wrong.


And then we round off our positionals with the Catcher, who despite everything before does in fact have Catch! A good start as is the fact that he comes with just a little bit more speed than the rest of the roster, giving you the most normal looking piece on your team. As such there’s nothing overly complicated you can say about them, keep them on hand and nearby for the moment that your Forwards and Linemen can open a path through the opponent’s defense and then hand the ball off to them and cover their escape. The addition of blanket Dump Off + Nerves of Steel on all players plus the presence of HMP gives you a few extra options on this formula which when you are playing at the starting TV of this team will give you the extra edge you’ll need in this competition. In all, cage the ball, be patient with your offense and defense plans and most of all do not be tempted to use Dump-Off at every opportunity and this team will not do you wrong.


What defines a Stunty team? It’s more than having less than human strength on average, Lizardmen, Weres and Underworld have a lot of ST2 players and they are not considered to be ‘stunty’ teams. Nor is it merely just having Stunty on some players, a good few teams such as the Gnomes and the Albion side have stunty players and yet, they are not considered to be Stunty teams. Win rates and high casualty rates are also nothing to do with it, so what does it mean to be a ‘Stunty Team’? The actual general consensus will vary depending on who you talk to that I am not entirely knowledgeable on myself. So I will ask a different question. What does this Stunty team bring to the pitch that will give it a leg up over the opposition? The answer is quite simple, ‘some very unique options, and some very dangerous crabs’.


Even with your differing definitions there are generally a few immediate indicators of Stunty-ness. No G access is normally a persuasive one, less than ST3 and Stunty are normally clues that indicate the presence of a Stunty team. And the slight issue that on contact with the general violence that happens to a Blood Bowl player, they tend to crumple much more easily than a non-stunty player. So what’s the upside when your players right off the bat are not as strong or durable as most other players in the game?

The fact that they are incredibly hard to lay hands on for one, Stunty allows a player to ignore enemy tackle zones when dodging, and the new rulings on Right Stuff protects them from being tackled during a dodge. And the Cresters themselves come with a few extra scruples on top of that, MA7 and Big Hand, meaning that if your opponent say, dropped the ball due to whatever reason they might be made to do so, you can have a player dash in; swipe the ball out right from under their noses thanks to the fact that they ignore enemy players for dodging and picking up the ball, and dodge right back out again. “But Nigel how am I meant to make the opponent drop the ball when most of my players are ST2 with only Agility access?” Well random commenter that’s easy, it’s what you have all those other players on your team for.


Such as your two brands of crustacean flavoured chump crushers, the Giant Crab, and the Crab Rider. Differing stats and ability access aside these two pieces fulfill the same kind of role for the team, muscling their way through and around your opponent’s tougher players to pinch at their soft underbellies. For the tough outer shell you have access to Claw, the veritable can opener of the league at large, and Side Step for the ability to get your very dangerous hitting pieces closer and closer to your opponent’s vulnerables with every block that they fail to down your crabs. The ability to be able to shuffle around the strongest player on your team is a benefit that is normally available only to the likes of the Water Elementals, and now you can indulge in this too!

And if you are that way inclined towards it yes, you do have the Throw Team-Mate option for all that entails (Including the part where your hungry crab might just decide to eat your player, use it cautiously).


Do you like Bombs? I sure do, there’s nothing in the game that asserts dominance, quite like a well thrown bomb removing a number of your opponent’s players from the pitch in one action. But normally the issue with a bomb thrower is that, they are quite delicate and if they happen to drop their bomb at their feet and blow themselves up, the chances are that they will injure themselves in the process. Now if your bomber had an armour value of ten the absolute maximum in the league at large, then perhaps the Ignimbrite could be considered a few orders of magnitude tougher than your average Grenadier. The fact that he also has access to half of your team’s base Strength access also helps in his position as an incredibly dangerous stop gap between your opponent’s team and yours. Because even if they are carefully avoided and pushed to one side, you can never entirely count out the ability of a thrown bomb to suddenly swing the momentum in your favour.


And finally, we come quite possibly the strangest player on your team, the Manta Runner. An even tinier, even brittler and yet even more nimble Crester and do you want to hear the craziest thing? This lowest possible strength player, with some of the weakest armour in the entire game is quite possibly one of the best equipped players to dealing with the enemy ball carrier. Let me explain, first of all on top of the base Crester body that already lets you dart through your opponent’s players as if they weren’t there, you get Titchy, which gives you an extra edge to your dodging, making multiple dodges in a single movement a lot safer. Next you have Shadowing meaning that if your initial attack doesn’t work your opponent’s attempts to escape will be hindered by your little runner chasing after him as he tries to flee. And finally Wrestle, which combined with Dodge first of all makes it harder for your opponent’s players to deal with this little devil, because only one result on a dice roll will actually hit him. And second of all, makes those blocks thrown at a disadvantage against the ball carrier much more likely to succeed than you might expect, everything except an attacker down will either down or push your target out of position to further surround him, or enable additional blocks against him. And aside from that, there’s no reason why you can’t have them snatch the ball either, just be careful to protect him whilst he does his work, because at AV6 and ST1 if you let your little tyke take too many shots to his face, his luck will run out eventually.

As you can tell, it was a mixed bag of results this week. Some truly exceptional performances but the standard of play in this league is so high that you truly need to go above and beyond in order to stand out. For example, I was contemplating listing all of the players who scored 2 touchdowns this round but that would have taken so long and Mrs Bilfrindal would have given me that look and said "you're not obsessing over stats at bed time are you?" And I'd say "I'll just be 10 more minutes darling." And she'd say "well I'm going to bed, good night." And I'd say "really, just 5 minutes, I love you." And she'd shut the door and go upstairs... None of us want that. Especially as her parents are visiting and you know what gnome in-laws are like? Yeesh. It's bad enough that their bikes are parked outside, attracting the wrong sort of a crowd to the neighborhood if you know what I mean...

[ed's note: we gave Bilfrindal the rest of the day off. Told him he could go home but he went into his office, drew the blinds and didn't appear until 5 hours later looking a lot more relaxed. His office smelt of that funny gnome weed he smokes, I had to send Golfag in to open a window]