So we started our new Blood Bowl Season last week (my first since I moved to Canada) and so far, we're halfway through our Spike Magazine tournament. I reworked by draft picking rules for the event. We're trying something a little different this time around, inspired by Blood Bowl : Team Manager.

We decided to go for grouped associations.

By this, I mean that we set up associations for our teams to be members of and gave each group a separate list of players they could draft based on this. Each team would be given 300,000 extra gold to spend at the draft for the first season only and would be allowed to bid on a limited number (7) of boosted stat or star players per association. These players were kept a secret until they were placed up for auction, so by bidding early, you were taking a risk of missing out on somebody better later on.

Our teams were split between the CWC (Chaos Pact, Nurgle and Orc teams) and the OWA (2 Human teams and an Elf team.)

Each player opened at 50,000 gold pieces. Players were then allowed to bid on them one at a time. The players I put up for purchase (in order) are as follows.

CWC
Skills MA ST AG AV
Blightmaw Pass, Nurgle's Rot, 4 4 3 9
Dump Off, Disturbing
Presence, Regeneration
Varag Ghoulchewer (as normal)
Grashnak Blackhoof (as normal)
Borak the Despoiler (as normal)
Tom the Bastard Block, Dauntless,
Dump Off, Dodge 7 3 3 8
Max Spleenripper (as normal)
Nobbla Blackwart (as normal)

OWA
Skills
Griff Oberwald (as normal)
Cornelius Krieg Guard, Dirty Player 6 3 3 8
Block
Aurora Silverleaf Block, Sidestep, 7 3 4 8
Stab
Deeproot Strongbranch (as normal)
Deathroller (as Deathroller)
Grim Ironjaw (as normal)
Mighty Zug (as normal)

Any of these players can go to any team that is a member of their association. In our league there is free trade when it comes to the draft. If, during the season, any player wishes to leave a team, they are automatically put up in the next draft and made available to teams from every association.

It may be strange to have a Deathroller rolling around with the Elf team (that's what happened with us) but it makes for some seriously fun and weird games. The teams become all the more unusual as you play through the seasons, but we all love it. The trick is to let things become as unruly as possible.

Next season, I'm hoping to recruit some more players and add in a third association. I'm considering a group specifically for Skaven, Goblins and Underworld teams. Depends on who I get to play with us I guess.

We should be on to our Dungeonbowl portion by the start of November. I honestly can't wait.