SKABB League

This last weekend was UKTC which has recently moved to Leeds. It was my fourth UKTC in a row having first gone in 2022. A write up of 2023 and 2024 events are available for your reading pleasure, which has made me aware of just how long I've been doing this. The SKABBateurs (UKTC edition) l-r eldritchfox, damology, stewbacca, cerbeross The event has been taken over by Haychdee and PunchyMcragefits and friends from Tactics and Theatrics after long time TO Pipey decided to step down from running the event. The location had been moved from York to Leeds (much of a muchness for us travel wise) which meant we were all in the same room, rather than split across 2 as previously.  The event was slightly down on numbers, perhaps due to summer holidays. I know it has moved dates a few times as well. I has previously been in January, April and also the August bank holiday weekend. Hopefully the new team will be able to get a settled date which will allow people to plan in advance and increase...

Last year we ran a wrestling themed pairs event in Folkestone where each pair switched teams after each game.  EyeballPaul loved it so much (him and his two Blood Bowl playing sons are both wrestling mad) that he volunteered to take over running the event. Due to a wedding forcing us to move venues, this one took place in Westerham Village Hall.  The format was changed slightly from a pairs event where each coach played a team twice to a trios event where you played each team once. Each squad had to take a team from each tier, and we rotated around.  Myself and Oli, runners up last year, reprised our Optimisers team, and added in The Lord of Kent himself, dimmygee.  Along with RedFaced Goose, Willdebeast and Star Ferret, there were 2 SKABB teams at this event.  One of Paul's favourite things from previous events that we've run is the Silly Hat rule. If you were a silly hat, you get a re-roll. Hence the lovely headwear in the photo below.  [l-r RedFacedGoos...

This is an update on all time SKABB League stats! To read previous iterations, there is one for the past three seasons: Seasons 1-8 Seasons 1-9 Season 1-10 We have now had a total of 58 coaches compete across our 11 seasons.  Games Played Across 11 seasons, a total of 1,021 games have been played. There has been a total of 2,812 touchdowns (an average of 2.75 per game) and 3,633 casualties (an average of 3.56 per game). Only 2 coaches have played over 100 games - Stew and Oli - which is due to the fact that they are the only coaches to have played every season. It is likely that Matt will hit that milestone in Season 12.  18 coaches have now played 5 or more seasons, with Alex and James joining the list since last season. Touchdowns The most touchdowns in a game has been beaten in season 11, with Stew's vampires scoring an 8-0 victory over Craig's dwarfs. This is also, unsurprisingly the most TD scored by a single team in a game. 7 touchdowns in a game has occurred 5 times: Se...

Due to some pesky thing called "life" we had been unable to send a team to the inaugural Home Nations last year.  This was rectified, albeit with a bit of a scare was had around childcare at one point, for the second helping, and myself, Oli, Tommy and Matt set off to LoogerBorooger to compete with coaches from far and wide (although mainly Scotland as it turned out.) After a nightmare journey we arrived at our hotel and proceeded our policy of only eating where Team Waterbowl were eating. but sitting a little away from them to intimidate them, by popping to the Harvester next door for our dinner.   (l-r Stewbacca, tommyb, MCB_TurnOgre, EldritchFox Using the Eurobowl ruleset, the main event sets the Home Nations of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland against each other, with some invitational teams - this year Italy and Poland. Alongside this is an Open event with teams of four where the likes of you and I can enter - alongside some national teams. In the much maligned rules...

For the first Battlebowl last year, I took Dimmy's favourite team - Imperial Nobility. This year, I decided to take their slightly less noble cousins, humans. This was partly based on the fact that I thought they got a reasonable package (seven primaries and one secondary) compared to tier 1 teams who were limited to 5 primary skills. It was also partly because I'd been a bit disappointed with how I had done with them at Superbowl last year and had hoped that I could do a bit better.  As I much prefer fast agile teams, I went for a slightly unconventional build which had 4 catchers, none of whom had skills. The skills went on the ogre (block), blitzers (4 guard) and linemen (2 block). This left me with just 2 players - my thrower and a lineman - who didn't have any defensive skills at all. There was the possibility of both chainpushing and thrown team mate one turn touchdowns. I would have felt confident if I'd managed to get any practice in, however when I tried on B...

Last night, was the playoff final for SKABB Season 11. This was been my vampires (Pitchfork Pines Preschool) and Oli's khorne (Stonefolk Skullhunters). Before I get into talking about the match, I want to add some context. Oli is the person who got me into playing Blood Bowl much more frequently and seriously. He was at the first tournament I ever played in 2017 that two school friends had convinced me to go along to. I took ogres as I thought I'd do badly anyway, and ended up with the wooden spoon. A week or so later, I go to collect a parcel from the post office and he's working there. We have a good chat and I say that I'll try to join up the league after my wedding is out of the way as that plus a long honeymoon meant I couldn't put a lot of time into playing the game for a while. We have played far more times than I can remember, both in person and online, in both competitive and friendly games. We've had games before tournaments where we've talked abou...