Home Nations 2, Loughborough 5-6 July 2025

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 ruleset - at least in the English community - there are some restrictions on what you can take, and a much more reduced budget than we are used to. This can perhaps hit some teams disproportionally to what you are used to seeing at UK tournaments, although as Amazons are relatively unscathed and I've been enjoying playing them recently, I decided to take them but with a slightly different roster.

Having heard members of the community who favour a no thrower build, with wrestle & block blitzers, block & guard blockers and two block linewomen, I went for something similar. I faced 3 Amazon mirror matches in the tournament who all had slightly different builds. I'll share some thoughts on Amazons at the end of this and how I would change the roster if I were to play another event under the same ruleset. 

As a team we had amazons, OWA (Matt), Norse (Oli) and Goblins (Tommy). 

Round 1 v Fred (FredManWalking)

With round 1 drawn ahead of time - and not subject to a redraw on the day which we had half expected - we were playing the Granite City Seagulls and I was playing Vampires. 

Whilst Aberdeen is the Granite City, most of the team were Welsh and they were captained by a Scot whom they had met at Download. 

I'm now pretty happy running into vampires in tournaments. Having played them for two seasons in our league and recently winning it for the first time with a disgusting vampire build, I have seen what tactics people employ against them, and knowing what I don't like people doing, I know to do this stuff against them.

In short, my advice would be: always hit a vampire rather than a thrall if you have a choice, foul a vampire if you have an expendable player available to do so and a cage is never enough - you want nearly your whole team around the ball carrier!

Fred had a 5 vampire build, which I feel is not enough vampires when one more is available. A thrall knocked itself out early which set the tone for the match. Fred goes for the quick vampire score which was slightly brave as I'd put a lot of dice in the way of it working. 

Receiving, I quickly turn his five vampires into four by getting a casualty from a foul that fails to regenerate. I score late in the half needing a pick up and hand off to make it happen, so we go in at half time with me receiving. 

I'm very patient with my drive, taking it very slowly and getting Fred's four vampires down to two. Even so, he does manage to get the ball loose with his strip ball blitzer after my foul fails to stun it but I'm able to easily recover and take it in on turn 16. Without enough vampires for a one turn attempt, I win the game 2-1.

As a team, we have an exceptional round and record three wins and a draw. The draw was Tommy, so that's a goblin win to effectively make it 4 wins, even if it doesn't say so on the score sheet.

Round 2 v Dave (Don_Vito)

After such a convincing win, we find ourselves in second place and on the heady heights of table 1! 

As Oli knows Dave, I was introduced as I was getting to my table and it wasn't until after the match that I realised he was Don_Vito who has been selected for Team England. He wasn't playing in the Bowl event as he has special dispensation to play with the Geordie Blood Bowl league. I did have a word with England Captain Dan after the match to suggest that he should have forced him to play in the bowl to give me an easier match up!

Dave was playing skaven, a team he knows exceptionally well at has a 72% win rate with. 

The team was called Morg 'n' Balds and I looked down the table mid match and exclaimed "Who let the guy with hair on the team?" as Bucky down at the other end had a very youthful head of hair compared to the rest of his team who sported haircuts more like myself.

I kick to Dave and he gets a lot of his players down to my endzone surrounding the gutter runner who is carrying the ball. I manage to tag him and point out the 2+ dodge into the endzone for the score but Dave doesn't take the bait. However another gutter runner snakes the 2+ dodge to get round and allow him to stall further which gives me a 3 dice blitz on the ball. Even with a re-roll I fail to knock them down and the gutter runner gets pushed into the endzone to make Dave score quicker than he would have wanted to. 

I'm unable to get a 2-turn score but I do manage to foul casualty the rat ogre who uses up the team's apothecary to keep him in the game. 

The skaven kick deep and swarm my team. I'm able to position to screen off the ball and I'm feeling reasonably comfortable until the skaven blitzer does a 5+ dodge to hit my ball carrier for one dice. The ball then pops loose and with one gutter in the endzone, another dodges through to pick up the ball and make a 6+ pass due to the sunny weather which the other gutter runner catches and suddenly we are 2-0 down. I calculated this afterwards to be an 8% play, and I've decided that clearly what you need to be on Team England is to be able to roll high numbers so I'm going to get practicing that. 

Chatting to my team about how the games are going, I let them know I'm 2-0 down but with the bravado of football fans who know they have no chance, I tell them I'm going to win 3-2.

To get anything out of the game, I need to score quick which I do, using a hit and run blitz to make it into the endzone without needing a dodge. I can't quite get a wrestle blitz to work to recover the ball and significantly down on players I'm not able to turn him over. The skaven score again and it is a 3-1 loss. 

We got Dave to take our team photo (above) after the game and after taking it, he told me to make my "you just lost 3-1 face." This is it. Can you tell which of us was the only one to win this round?

We had one win and three losses and dropped down the tables. 

Round 3 v Ian (icy-bee)

We were still up on the top floor at this stage and playing the GOBBLers from the South West. I encountered my first amazon mirror match of the weekend against Ian. I got my tactics considerably wrong in this one. I elected to kick and initially I was just trying to get in his way. Then I started trying to do damage to his team. This allowed him to get through and I wasn't able to stop him scoring despite a cage dive blitz knocking down his ball carrier. He had a blocker who was free and able to make a 3+ pick up and walk in for the score.

Receiving, Ian did what I didn't do and got in my way a lot. I had a shot at scoring at the end of my drive after manoeuvring around to the left flank and leaving  chunk of his team lagging behind but with re-rolls used up, I wasn't able to make it and so lost 1-0. 

Ian did not use a single re-roll this whole game. I can't tell if that was really sporting, or showboating. I think it's just a sign that his dice were holding out for him for the game.

Matt won his game and Oli and Tommy got draws - with Tommy's game ending in dramatic fashion - and so as a team we got a draw. That meant we ended 1/1/1 as a team at the end of the first day with me personally on 1/0/2. 

After accidentally following the Waterbowl team to a curry house after trying a few others that we couldn't get a table at, we reflected on our day and prepared ourselves for what we thought was a 10:00 start. 

Waking up at 08:15, we discover it is actually a 09:00 start, so we rush around packing up our rooms, shoving some breakfast in our faces and driving over to the uni to get there with about 5 minutes to go. In the hotel, I did speak to someone who wanted to ask me a question about the NAF but as I was rushing around I asked them to grab me later. I never had a proper chance to speak to them. If this was you, I apologies - please do get in touch! 

Round 4 v Paul (melyn)

The matches were drawn early and we were up against the Tartan Trailblazer with me personally drawn in my second Amazon mirror match. This was against Melyn, formerly known as pbowman who I played in an Amazon mirror at UKTC last year. Reading back on that, this match was actually pretty similar. I hadn't realised we'd played before- his memory is much better than mine!

As I rolled the kick off which had come to the line of scrimmage, I said "a blitz would be nice to start the day." I lift my cup and see double 5s and immediately apologise. I get players under the ball and after it bouncing a couple of times, it is caught by my blodging blitzer. Paul pushes her around a lot and eventually the ball comes loose and bounces into his backfield. A few turns later he's managed to pick it up and potato but I can blitz and recover and stroll up the pitch to be 1-0 up at half time. 

Receiving, Paul puts a lot of pressure on but I get 4 casualties to his 1, and I'm able to wander up the pitch for a 2-0 win.

As a team, the other three games were all losses, so we lose the round.

Round 5 v Bryan (bryanbeasley)

Next up were the South West Scrumpers from the West Country. I played Bryan who was kind enough (I think that's the right term) to say that I was the toughest opponent he faced this weekend. He was running a necromantic horror roster with 2 werewolves with wrestle due to putting block on both ghouls. 

I kick and he takes the ball round my right flank. He does leave a one die block on the ball carrier with a linewoman, however I elect to blitz a corner of his screen and then throw a lot of players in to almost make a cage around his ball carrier. He blitzes with the ghoul but gets a both down, and then needs to make 4+ 3+ dodges to score which he does but gives me a lot of time to reply. 

His kick goes out of bounds and a touchback gives it to my blodging blocker. We move up the field on turn 8 we have to do a bit of manoeuvring and need to roll some dice to score, but we're able to do so and go in half time at 1-1.

The kick again goes out of bounds and so it's given to the same blocker. We move up slowly and Brian tries to put a lot of pressure on but puts his players in dangerous positions and a good few of them end up getting crowd surfed. With him out of re-rolls, he does a desparation blitz with his flesh golum to try to take the ball, but he gets double skulls and we're able to walk it in.

He does have one werewolf alive, but isn't sure how to do a one turn touchdown, so this ends a 2-1 win to the zons. My game was really helped by an early KO on his tackle wight who refused to come back for the rest of the game. 

The team do well this round, with Matt drawing on top table but the rest of us picking up wins. As a team we are now 2/1/2 and personally I am 3/0/2, looking to do the classic Stewbacca Submarine of going 1/0/2 into 4/0/2.

Round 6 v Bob (nitramuss)

This round was against DABBL in Destruction who are from very North Scotland. I was drawn against Bob in my third and final Amazon mirror match of the weekend. I receive and casualty a block blitzer on turn 1. The apothecary doesn't manage to heal her and this sets the tone for the game. I move down one flank and surf the leader thrower. I fail a dodge to come round and close up a cage corner, and this allows a one die blitz on my ball carrier.A pow is rolled and she falls down, with the ball going out of bounds and being thrown favourably for the opposing zons who score. The cage was hugging the sidelines as otherwise it would have been based. I could have tried for a sideline cage instead based on the number of players I had, but I feel like I've been burned by that too many times before. 

I didn't try for a one turn touchdown as I'm out of re-rolls and elect to go for damage instead - which doesn't happen.

Nevertheless, Bob is down his leader thrower, and uses up re-rolls early in the half as he is also significantly down on players. He gets through my defence with some brave dodging and I put a lot of players in his way. I do have this beautiful photo to add to my collection though. This happened on a blitz that would allow me to put a bit more pressure on. 

It could have been a bit more damaging though, as Bob still had to scooch around me but I'm able to get a 1 dice blitz which gets a pow with a re-roll. The ball bounces around and I'm able to get a player in to pick up the ball in a tacklezone. She fails her dodge out unfortunately and this means that Bob can clear a gap, dodge out and pick up with sure hands to mean we're 2-0 down.

I go for a quick score as I've got 4 turns left and Bob only has 6 players to my full team. However, the hand off fails with a re-roll. I try again the next turn - fail with a re-roll.... and I don't manage to pick up and hand off the damn ball four turns in a row!

This was one of those games where I feel like I had perfectly average dice - but at the key moments the dice went favourably for my opponent and not favourably for me. Almost all of my good dice were on armour and injury rolls, with me getting a total of 5 casualties and 2 knock outs that were off the pitch at the end of the game. I think 9 times out of 10, this game goes in my favour, but hey - that's Blood Bowl!

As a team we lost this round (a win for Oli and losses for the rest of us) meaning we ended up 2/1/3. Most importantly it meant we were ahead of the Brighton team and retain the Bashes (the trophy our inter-league rivalry).

I ended up 3/0/3. Going even or better is always my aim. Of the three games I lost, I would expect to lose to Don_Vito, and I've no shame in admitting my tactics were wrong again Icy-Bee. The fact you have to roll dice caused me to lose against nitramuss. I was really annoyed straight after, but on reflection, I've been on the favourable end of those games that someone should win 9 times out of 10 before, so I can't really complain. 

Thoughts on Amazon builds

In about 35 tourney games with zons, the wrestle blitzer hasn't really done a lot of work at all. I would find be hesitant to switch her to block, as I'm fairly sure as soon as I do, I'd play a match up where it was necessary, but I feel like I don't get value for money out of the skill. 

The lack of throwers makes a 2-turner a lot harder. The three other amazon teams I faced all had at least 1 thrower. I like them for both on the ball and pass. I feel OTB is a bit underrated for positioning at the start of your drive. 

Amazon mirror matches when you don't have 2 guard and they do become a bit of a nightmare on offence if they position their blockers well, as you likely can't use your guard to get a favourable hit. 

Having said all that, carrying on a ST4 defensive blodger with defensive rather than on a thrower is SO good. At best your opponents should be getting a 1 die hit on them needing a pow. Obviously it's not quite as good against strip ball, but I didn't encounter any of that this weekend. 

I think if and when I next try zons, I'll revert to throwers, drop the wrestle and think hard about keeping block on a blocker. My favourite ruleset was when I could stack block and guard - although I think those rulesets are likely to be few and far between.