Tournament Rules

It’s not important that you win or not, but it’s important that you’re trying to win

Playing somebody who’s not paying attention to the game, constantly complaining about their dice, or who gives up and doesn’t try to resist the march of your team up the pitch, is not fun. Conversely, Blood Bowl is about breaking your opponent’s team, not breaking your opponent’s spirits. We’re here to enjoy ourselves, so never give up, but don’t get in a sulk because Nuffle didn’t give you three consecutive wins. I’m as much (or more) prone to tilting anyone else: this is a statement of hope – we should all aspire to be as good a coach as possible, and also as rewarding a coach to play as possible.

There are no wooden spoons in the tournaments I run. The ignominy of coming last should be prize enough; rather than incentivise somebody to submarine in the hope of getting some silverware, I want to encourage big plays and carnage, hence the Pandemonium award for the person with the highest total TDs & cas suffered and scored. If anybody can do the double-double-double (both score and concede at least 10 touchdowns and inflict and suffer at least 10 casualties) then they get two cups of coffee-flavoured beverage from Tim Hortons. Maybe that’s more prize than you want.

Timekeeping

For regular Blood Bowl matches, we have 2 hours and 15 minutes for each match. With 32 turns to play in a typical game, that should give plenty of time to complete each match. If one or other of you is taking longer than four minutes per turn, start using a timer – 4 minute turns should suffice.

There will be an announcement after one hour has elapsed, and again with 30 minutes and 15 minutes to go. If you and your opponent do not have time to finish your match, ensure that you both play the same number of turns before the deadline. If you’ve played an even number of turns and you will not both have the time to play another turn each, don’t start another turn.

Cocked dice

If one of your dice doesn’t land straight, reroll all the dice. If that gets you from two pows and a cocked die to three skulls, consider investing in a dice cup for next time.

Interpreting the rules

Look in the rulebook first. If you and your opponent can’t agree, ask your helpful tournament organiser to make a pronouncement: that should then apply for the rest of the tournament. If you’re playing your helpful tournament organiser and the two of you can’t agree on a rule, I guess we’ll have to roll a dice to decide.

No surprises

It’s reasonable to expect that your opponent knows the rules of Blood Bowl around blocks, assists, and so on. It’s not reasonable to expect your opponent will know that your player has specific skills unless you point those out – especially as each tournament allows extra skills for some players. Ensure at the start of the match that your opponent knows which of your positionals is which, and what extra skills they have. Check that they’ve played against that race in the past, so if it’s their first time up against a Nurgle player, they realise what Tentacles are before the match begins, rather than in the heat of a desperate attempt to score in their final turn. Likewise, if you’ve got a Star Player with a special skill, please alert your opponent to that at the start of the match, not halfway through.

Weather

Top table rolls for weather for the entire room at the start of every round. If you don’t like that weather, you just need to roll a change in weather at kick off. And if you don’t like that weather, just hurry up and score so you can roll again.

Top table also gets to choose the music, in those cases when we’re playing something terrible you can’t stand.