The SIOBBL: Why Blood Bowl is the greatest game ever.

Growing up I remember lots of games of Fireball Island, Heroquest, and Battlemasters played with the brother and cousins, this led to dicking around with tabletop games and minis when I had the money to buy, paint, and play those. After high school and into college, time was not spent on board games, it was much easier to pick up a controller and mess around on PlayStation or Xbox for a while. On a whim one day I went back to the old hobby store where I used to purchase my overpriced pewter and paints, perhaps something fun would catch my eye. Long before I ever looked at a boardgames website, before the weekly Wednesday gamenights, and before the monthly $200 internet orders... I walked into the hobby shop and bought off the shelf something that looked like I might like it... I had no idea.

That was in 2003. The next 7 years are filled with a blood bowl league that progressed from a 4 team round robin played on a dinner table to our current 12 team 3 division league that we play online. The game Blood Bowl is fantastic right out of the box, but it becomes something much greater when played in a league. You develop players that FEEL like your children. You mold each player how you want, they may get bruised or killed on the way but each player's career is like a roller coaster with ups and downs that you play a part of.

So the team development aspects make league play that much more interesting and fun. I've found that my enjoyment has taken another exponential step up by having multiple seasons. All of the reasons Blood Bowl shines with team development are even better the longer they last. Now rivalries between coaches begin to emerge, grudges are held and revenge is sought from games held seasons prior, all-stars emerge that every coach knows, records and championships are born. It is all about developing history. Team history, player history, coach history are all combined into a league mindset that permeates through every game... every game begins to really mean something. The league itself has evolved to something that I dare say is greater than I thought a board game is capable of and its never been more fun then it is now.

If you haven't tried this game, do yourself a favor and find someone who has it. I realize the amount of commitment to create a league like what I have described is impossible for some groups (it took us 4 years to find a format that worked). Thats a shame because I haven't found any other game that can create this type of atmosphere around it... nothing comes close.

Oh and for anyone that wants to follow along

www.siobbl.com

-David