ABBL History
It all started way back in 2017 when I posted this on the Athena Blood Bowl page on Facebook:
League Trophy - Each winning team adds their name to the trophy season to season.
By the time Jan 2018 came round, we had begun! 10 coaches took the plunge in that inaugural season and just 4 of them have stuck around for nearly every season although another ‘founding member’ recently returned to our ranks for Season 7 and hopefully more. It was messy and a little disorganized and I had to rely on emails for match reports or what people posted on the f/bk page as we didn’t have anything else set up. This very website (created by Alex Sykes) didn’t appear until halfway through that first season even!
There’s been an increase in coaches almost every season and we’ve built that up to 27 registered in Season 7, have a yearly Derby with players from Ipswich and Athena have started holding regular tournaments. Not bad from the humble beginning of 10 coaches!
Anyway, below are the records for each Division over the seasons and a few stats and records built up over time. Things from seasons 1-3 are a little sketchy as it wasn’t until Season 4 that we managed to get a match reporting form in place so some info may have been lost to the mists of time. I hope you find it interesting and we’ll hopefully be adding to this little page of history as time goes by.
If you want to skip ahead to a particular season, just use the buttons below and if you want to look at any season in more detail, including all the Skink'Uns, Match Reports and Division tables, just click on the link at the beginning of each season section.
Arlanath Firesk Memorial Cup
Season One
Found this in the site picture archive entitled as BB Game One. Quite possibly the first ever pic of an ABBL game in action!
Interesting things to note – The Norse Collective (pictured right) re-named themselves after this first season, becoming the Dark Norse, a stalwart of the ABBL ever since.
Being the first season of the ABBL, we only had 10 games for each team to play and 2 separate Divisions (North & South). Common to most seasons to follow, not all the games were played in both Divisions but we ended up with 4 Finalists with Ed’s Chaos Dwarves of the Mkulak Marauders victorious against Darren’s Bad Moon Ballerz Orc team in a Final that saw Sudden Death Extra Time (normal in the rules back then). Darren actually received the kick off in Extra Time but, stacking on one side of the pitch by the Orcs and a Blitz Kick Off event from the Chaos Dwarves led to them recovering the ball in the backfield and scoring the winning TD. The South had their first ABBL Champion and it wouldn’t be their last…
They actually replaced a Dwarven team that only got 3 games in this season before real life prevented that coach from playing any further. Speaking of replacements, the Blitzed Boys, an Orc team, was replaced by the Grizzly Grotbagz after just 3 games too – a Goblin team that flitted in and out of ABBL seasons as time went by.
The match reports were written in a magazine style covering all games played each game week and with Jim and Bob providing commentary and are still in the archives if you fancy a nostalgic read. In fact, if you click on the picture to your left, you'll be able to read the first ever one!
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The end of the Season saw Al ‘Half-Hands’ McGhee (Goblin Entrepreneur & general Wideboy) and Grundar Grundarsson (Former Dwarven player of the Worlds Edge Warriors) begin to take over and these two were to become the face of the ABBL for several seasons to come.
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We also saw the Mongrel Horde begin their ABBL career with one of their number setting a record that has stood for all of ABBL history so far: Sven the Mighty achieved an impressive 2 Interceptions that season with the Mongrel Horde as a whole getting 4 Interceptions all season (with 2 in one game!), another record still to be beaten. They also got the first ever Fatality in the ABBL when their Minotaur, Doomroar gored Hector Hafnellson of the Sartosa Seadogs and feasted on his entrails…
​ One final thing about this season is the fact that teams could roster a lone Star Player back then too, leading to regular posts on f/bk being the only practical way to let people know who they couldn’t roster any more!
Hector Hafnellson's Funeral
North Division
South Division
Player Awards
Teams that left after Season One
Da Blitzed Boyz - Orc - An Orc team who quickly went bankrupt after their players discovered how good Bugman's XXXXXX was.
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Puketown Punchbags - Goblin - Punched until they puked.
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Mkulak Marauders - Chaos Dwarf - Won the inaugural ABBL championship. Retired to spend their long lives basking in glory in their ziggurat
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Woody Woodpeckers - Wood Elf - A mysterious wood elf team whose insistence on only playing certain opponents lead to a near-legendary status
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Zharrduk Minertaurs - Chaos Dwarf - Off on a slave-gathering trip to get better Hobbo runners
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MMS Mountains - Dwarf - Decided league play was not for them and went off to become a travelling team
Season Two
Season Two saw an influx of coaches and we ended up with 16 all told. For the first time we were able to host 3 Divisions with the East joining the North and South. This also allowed us to have a Quarter-Final stage in the Play-Offs for the first time and led to our first two Wildcard Qualifiers that were the two highest scoring teams in the League that hadn't finished 1st or 2nd in their Division.
Half the teams from Season One returned with a couple of coaches coming back but with different teams. With no team defending their title (Some Coaches like to try a different team each season. Ed for example.), it was up for grabs! As has become common, Coaches were moved around the Divisions, mainly to ensure people met new players and had different challenges but to also avoid one Division dominating too much due to a couple of good players staying there season to season.
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The Final saw The Mongrel Horde defeat the Washington Deadthings, 3-1. The Horde had barely qualified for the Play-Offs (only being able to as Darren’s Bad Moon Ballerz had decided to dis-band and the Bonus Points went to the Horde as a result) and I count myself extremely lucky to have won that one. Unfortunately, I have lost the notes to that game and nothing was written up I am sorry to say. Although I’m sure somewhere in my memory is an image of Alex crying in to his hands as multiple balls rattled around the pitch…
Long-term Coaches will be aware that it takes me FOREVER to get anything painted. Here is Doomroar from the Horde, evidence that I do actually paint models...
Some of Alex's Washington Deadthings including the infamous Rex Barkington (the Werewolf), the only player to win the GIT Award twice.
This season also saw copious uses of Special Balls (especially the Snotling Ball Suit one!) and eventually led to rules being put in place in a later season to curb them due to the game-changing affect they more often than not enforced. As well as this, the casualties were high, especially with games like the Bad Moon Ballerz vs the Vampires of the Nosferatu Gnashers (9 Casualties to 0!) and the Washington Deadthings vs the Mongrel Horde in a regular season fixture (10 Casualties to 0!!). Gazrak Da Beast stood out for getting 3 in one game.
Mention must be made of a record held by Mercenary Regiment For Hire: Cheap Rates; See Canolwr at The Sign of The Swinging Cymbal of scoring 5 TD’s in one game – it stood all the way until Season 6. They also have the record for the longest and most annoying name in ABBL history…
Week 3 saw the first death of Arlanath Firesk (Dark Elf playing for the Horde) while the play-offs saw his second one (vs Mercs For Hire while playing for the Washington Deadthings - team photo on the right) and became the only player (so far that we know of to this point) to die twice in a single season. This led to his name being used for the Cup that started properly in Season 4 after an online vote. He's now avaialable as a Merc!​
North Division
South Division
East Division
Player Awards
Teams that left after Season Two
Gambler's Fallacy - Skaven - Went bankrupt and disbanded shortly before the official Season Two Opening Event with not a single game played.
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Screaming Eagles - Dark Elves - "Blood Bowl is sooo like not cool any more" Said their spokesman as the Eagles left without even having played a game. Rumour has it they simply didn't want to be shown up by the early success of the other Dark Elf team, VPL....
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Bad Moon Ballerz - Orcs - Season One Runners Up. Disbanded after financial irregularities saw them docked points and lose their position in the Play-offs. Many of their players decided to hire out their skills to the highest bidder.
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Mercenary Regiment for Hire: Cheap Rates; See Canolwr at the Sign of the Swinging Cymbal - Ogres - Only ever intending to remain long enough to gain publicity and cash for a campaign in the North, they still made it to the Play-offs and set off for Erengrad shortly after their defeat.
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Nosferatu Gnashers - Vampires - Found it hard to arrange all those night matches and faded in to obscurity...
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Wyndraven Reavers - Norse - Despite showing early potential, Chaos raids back in the North drew this team away from the ABBL before they really had a chance to show what they had.
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Albion Eagles - Human - The lure of the bar proved too much for this team. The winnings received for reaching the Semi-finals in Season One were spent on many an ale-fuelled adventure and the team eventually disbanded under a cloud of alcoholic fervour...
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Big Dubz Sea Orcs - Orcs - The Sea Orcs started the Season well and only lost 1 game in the 3 that they played. However, before they had the chance to prove their worth, the Sea Orcs got caught in a storm of massive proportions whilst raiding coastal villages and, once it had blown itself out, they had no idea where they were... Who knows when/if they will be seen again?​​
Season Three
We had to go back to two Divisions for this one. Mainly because we had 14 Coaches at the beginning and there was no easy way to divide this up in a fair manner. So, for the first and only time, there were no inter-divisional fixtures. Season Two had adopted 12 games as the regular length of the season and, as I was reluctant to change that, I decided to settle on just playing your own Division rivals in a Home and Away fixture. I wish I hadn’t - it just reduced how many different opponents you faced and in hindsight, was not something I
No history of the ABBL would be complete without showing off more of our painted miniatures! Here are some from teams that were active in Season 3. Top left to bottom right: Grey Mountain Guardians, Hexalotl Harriers, Mongrel Horde, Warpstone Wanderers (in their original kit colours).
wanted to encourage. We won’t be doing that again! It also meant we had to go back to just a Semi-Final and Final in the Play-Offs and I didn’t like that either!
Washington Deadthings logo. Seemed appropriate to have it here.
Fans of a certain movie adapted from a Heinlein novel may well recognise the inspiration for this logo....
On a positive note however, we had the closest any Coach has reached to getting a perfect season with Alex’s Washington Deadthings winning 10 out of 10 games played during the regular season and unfortunately losing out on the chance to hit all 12 due to the Coach of the Snow White & the Seven Dorfs not being able to commit to the whole season. The Deadthings then got knocked out in the Semi’s by the eventual winners, Stuart’s Warpstone Wanderers so that ever-elusive ‘perfect season’ is still there to be taken!
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Coaches not being able to get all their games in is a recurring problem in the ABBL unfortunately, despite a relatively easy-going fixture approach. We tried having set weeks in Season 1 with games being forfeited if not played but this led to problems in and of itself and so I settled on the approach of getting your games in during the 24 week period of the regular season rather than on a fortnightly basis. It certainly caused problems in Season 3 with only 1 team managing to get all their scheduled games played. 1 Coach even registered and unfortunately, never played a single game! Still don’t know what happened to The Roughnecks…
There is the first page from the very first Skink'Un! Click on it to see the whole issue.
Al 'Half-Hands' McGee
But, we got a Final in the end and everyone that did get to play seemed to have a good time. We also saw the introduction of the Skink’Un – a game-weekly, short summary of the previous weeks’ action, knocked out in super-speedy time each week by the talented Alex (that guy who made this website that I mentioned way back in the intro)! The Skink’Un is still with us, albeit in a different format but there’s plenty of us who remember it fondly as it was when it first came out (me especially – I’m not great at condensing salient facts and Alex seemed to have an almost magical ability to do so as far as I was concerned!).
Al & Grundar, who had reported so faithfully for all of Season Two, only managed to get halfway through Season Three before my own creative mojo dwindled and they became more like Guest Stars in the ABBL, reporting on important games such as Finals as and when I could find the inspiration. They still pop up now and then and provide the Season Preview on a regular basis now.
Grundar Grundarsson
One final thing to mention. This was the last season using the rules before they were updated in 2020 and Special Play cards were in use in every game. It led to some bizarre and very frustrating matches! If you get a chance, check the match reports in the Season 1-3 Archives and be thankful they tidied it up for the 2020 ruleset…
North Division
South Division
Player Awards
Special mention must go to Kev’s Norse Thrower, Yesjac Throwitsson. He somehow got more Completions than any other player this season yet was well known for never being able to pick the ball up!
Teams that left after Season Three
Grizzly Grotbagz - Goblins - Surprised themselves by reaching the Semi-finals of Season 2 so much, they just simply couldn't handle facing another season!
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Blight Knight Ballers - Nurgle - Eventually fell apart (literally!) after getting halfway through the season and not managing a single victory....
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Manic Street Breachers - Chaos Chosen - Last seen, with their harmonious voices rising in glorious crescendo, meandering their way to the Conference.
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Nikz Ladz - Orcs - Failing to prove his obvious tactical prowess in the Big Leagues, Snotterz Eadbanger figured he would try his hand at something more suited to his stature and also headed for the little leagues!
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Roughnecks - Humans - Got urgently called away to fight a Chaos Spawn Incursion shortly before the season was due to start and were never heard of again...
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Snow White and the Seven Dorfs - Chaos Dwarf - Snow White's Cabal-vision show got bigger than the team and Snow just couldn't justify the expenditure any more. Maybe they'll get renewed in the future?
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Grey Mountain Guardians - Dwarves - Went back to their Mountain Scouting after reaching the Season 3 Final only to be beaten by the lightning quick Warpstone Wanderers.
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Warpstone Wanderers - Skaven - Retired to the Conference after winning the Season 3 Final, determined to finish on a high. They say you can't keep a dirty rat down though, expect them to return...
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Sartosa Seadogs - Human - The lure of the sea proved too much for these salty seadogs. After 2 full seasons on land, their legs couldn't take it any more and they jumped on their boat halfway through the season, sailing off in to the sunset.
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Violence, Pain, Lust - Dark Elves - Bored. What did you expect?! Some fancy story? Nope. They just got bored.
Teams that left the ABBL after the 2020 ruleset was realeased
Hexalotl Harriers - Lizardmen - Disbanded as a Blood Bowl team and went back to their Mariarchi roots. They're still touring around Lustria quite successfully apparently!
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Mongrel Horde - Chaos Pact - The longest serving team in the ABBL just couldn't control their internal squabbling with the new regulations and disbanded, fading in to legend... Only to return at a later date!
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The Dark Norse - Norse - The second longest serving team in the ABBL were all ready to disband and retire anyway so, with the introduction of the new rules, they just couldn't be bothered to learn them! Later re-formed.
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Washington Deadthings - Necromantic Horror - With the disappearance of Headcoach/Necromancer Xander Styx, the team simply couldn't continue. Arguably the most successful team that never won the ABBL.
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Spring Break - Wood Elf - Got tired of wailing on Humans and like, there's parties bruh! Do you lift?
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Baaaad Attitude - Chaos Chosen of Slaanesh - Who do you think is hosting those parties Spring Break are going to? Can't host awesome 'parties' and play Blood Bowl, just not enough time in the day what with souls to collect and Elves to corrupt...
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Hard Days Knight - Brettonians - The peasants were revolting...
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Narrjarr Nomads - Ogres - Picked up their Gnoblars and went off with the A.N.A.L. to pastures new.
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Khornish Pasties - Halflings - Went on a pro-wrestling tour in the middle of the pandemic. Who knows, with the blessing of Khorne, maybe these hardy Halflings will survive Nurgle's plague and return one day? (they did)
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Halheim Hammers - Norse - This promising Norse team also left with the A.N.A.L. as they were promised more beer and more cold: how could they resist?!
Season Four
The beginning of Season Four saw some long-standing teams return including the Deadthings, Dark Norse and Mongrel Horde as well as an influx of new teams and new coaches. Things started well, the games got going and then… Covid. Or, as other Coaches put it, Nurgle's Rot.
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Put an end to all of it, somewhat unsurprisingly. We considered going online but a lack of cross-platform play on Blood Bowl 2 stopped that being a reality and everything was on hold. Then, mid-Covid, the new edition dropped and the changes were that substantial, we decided to start again!
The restart saw all brand-new teams, it was kind of like a re-set of the League. We got the Match Reporting Form on the site built, the Arlanath Firesk Memorial Cup began in earnest and Ed's Wife designed our logo on the left there. Star Players and Mercenaries had been banned from the Play Offs from the start of the ABBL so the Cup was an opportunity to make use of them in a knock-out format without disrupting League play. There was a hefty discount of 50K Gold on Mercs & Star Players in the Cup leading to sooo many people taking Bombardier Star Players for just 10K (nothing’s ever really free in Blood Bowl…)!
Probably due to that feeling of being able to get out and about again after the restrictions of lockdown, most of the games actually got played this season. We had a Skink’Un every game week and I even managed to get a Match of the Week written every game week with Al & Grundar, not to mention a full Play-Offs and Final write up! A feet that’s not been matched again…
A Gif(t) from Ed...
One team went undefeated until the Quarter-Finals (9 Wins and 3 Draws), Mal's Dirty Rotten Bastards but they were knocked out by the eventual Finalists, Uggug’s Bonebreakers who had also set the record for most Casualties caused by one team in a season, 46! The DRB’s were their closest rivals to this title coincidentally. This record was eventually topped but stuck around for a few seasons before this happened. This game also happened to be the only game in ABBL history that was re-played due to both coaches making illegal use of Star Players. It’s fair to say, I get very frustrated when people don’t read the rules pack, please take note!
The Final saw a first, someone wanting to concede halfway through the game and not because they didn’t have enough players! It led to a disappointing end to the Final and a great season as a whole and so rules were introduced for Season 5 and onwards that penalized players even further if they conceded in the Play-Offs. I decided it wasn’t fair to all the Coaches that didn’t make it and would have loved to be in the Final for concession to be an easy option, not to mention a little disrespectful to the League as a whole. Hopefully, we won’t see this again.
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Despite this, Season 4 was a roaring success with records set all over the place (highest amount of TD’s, CAS’s, SPP’s and COMP’s in a single season by individual players, not to mention the largest win margin seen so far at 6-0) and lots of close, exciting games. Despite the fear that the new throwing rules would end the passing game, we ended up with more passing than ever and a COMP’s record that has stood ever since (34 by Cheese Thief of the Macaroni Cheese Weasels)! It paved the way for a Season 5 that would see 4 Divisions n the ABBL for the first time ever.
Charlotte Fenton of Necks & Necromancy set the highest ever amount of SPP's earnt this season at 64, until it was topped in Season 7.
North Division
East Division
South Division
Arlanath Firesk Memorial Cup Final
Season Four Final
Player Awards
George Eats'Em, setting the TTM record that he then broke himself in Season 7!
Seth of the DRB's who set the Most Casualties record, only to see it broken in Season 7.
Teams that left after Season Four
Furry Freebooters - Left the League to join the Conference but then were never seen again. More than likely they returned to the waves that spawned them and are happily raiding and pillaging...
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Season Five
Season Five came about and we had grown! This time round, we had 20 Coaches and so a nice, even amount of 5 teams per Division and the introduction of the West Division. Eight teams returned from Season 4 with other returning coaches choosing to use different teams for Season Five. We also saw a change of hands for the Skink’Un with Alex stepping down and bowing out of his role as the editor with Keeler taking his place. We also got some original artwork for the Skink’Un with Rob (coach of the eternal underdogs, Daylight Gobbery) creating some excellent front pages that you can see spread about in this section. Alas, we weren’t able to keep up with the gaming schedule to get the zines out in time and the Skink’Un kind of stuttered and died halfway through the season as did the Match of the Weeks. So, there’s very little from the tail end of the season to draw on but we’ve still got some facts and figures!
The cover of Issue One showing Dodger Hunt of the Daylight Gobbery taking down a Tomb Guardian of the Black Sun Legion. Yep, honestly happened!
This one shows the match between the DRB's and BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!! (contractual obligations for this team name being in all capitals transcend fictional realities...) where the poor Khorne team were defeated 4-0. The spelling error is not Rob's fault!
Despite starting with more Coaches than ever, one of the Divisions crumbled with not many games getting played at all. The North ended with only 1 team playing more than 4 games! The other Divisions kept things going however and we ended up with a highest losing team taking the place of the 2nd place team from the North. Another rules change happened as a result of this which meant that teams would have to have played a certain amount of games and points to qualify from their Division in the future. The 2nd place team in the North gracefully bowed out when they realised they would have got through on minus 10 points and didn’t feel that was quite right!
One particular highlight of this season was the Halfling team, the Khornish Pasties almost qualifying for the Play-Offs, missing out by 1 point and managing to beat a Dwarven team so badly, the Dwarves had to concede as they didn’t have enough players to set up! They also managed to beat the very-much fancied Black Sun Legion, despite all the odds saying they should have been wiped off the face of the planet! Leaving part way through Season 7, they are yet to return…
Cover 3 shows the only time Ed ever played in the Cup. Stuart's Lizardmen, The Sotek Scorchers defeated the Wood Elves of the Wyldwood Wanderers in the first round.
Al & Grundar immortalised by Rob! Safe to say, this one is my favourite!
The first pic of a Trophy being awarded in the ABBL that I could find. The editor of the Skink'Un, David Keeler (left) is shown handing the Trophy to Ed. Normally, the Commissioner (me!) would be handing the Trophy over. Of course, I was the losing Finalist here so would have felt a little awkward to force a smile for the camera!
Only 1 team went undefeated, the eventual winners, the Wyldwood Wanderers, a Wood Elf team coached by Ed. They missed out on a perfect season due to a thrilling 3-3 draw vs the Macaroni Cheese Weasels early on and by not managing to get all their games played, through no fault of their own, it must be said. As a result, Ed became the first Coach to have won the League twice at this point in time, defeating my Dietfurt team in the Final thoroughly, 3-0 and only conceding 1 TD in the Play-Offs. Ouch.
The Mongrel Horde made their comeback in the Conference this season, reaching the Final of the Cup but ultimately getting beaten by the Wolfenburg Bulls in a game that went to Extra Time. This is the first time a Conference team had made it this far so we'll quickly mention the Conference now. I can't remember when we introduced it but at some point, I wanted to give Coaches the opportunity to try out different teams without having to commit to a whole season as well as allowing new Coaches to join us without having to play competitively if they didn't want to and so the Conference was born. Many teams have flitted between the League and the Conference now and Coaches can choose to enter either their League team or a Conference team in to the Cup. It helps create an 'FA Cup' kind of feel to it and seems to have gone down well. More on the Conference later.
This cover bears no relation to any of the matches reported in the issue! It seems to show a member of BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!! threatening a member of the Wailing Woods Revenants which is totally feasible as they were in the same Division and played each other twice but not in this game week...
Our final cover from Rob highlights my own team for Season 5, the Dietfurt Destroyers, engaging in one of their favourite past-times of throwing Halflings towards the End Zone!
North Division
East Division
Arlanath Firesk Memorial Cup Final
South Division
West Division
Season Five Final
Player Awards
Not to take away Broccoli Lesner's TTM award but it must be mentioned that the only reason George Eats'Em didn't retain his TTM crown was because Rob forgot to post his TTM's on his team page! D'oh! Bureaucracy always gets in the way of a good story...
Teams that left after Season Five
Season Six
Red Dead Dwarfdemption - Rumour has it these criminals on the run got their come-uppance with the law! Never to be seen again on the Blood Bowl circuit, although rumours abound that some of them got away...
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Wyldwood Wanderers - Winners of the ABBL in Season 5, the Wanderers had their revenge and laid to rest the tortured spirits of their Ent-WAG's before returning to the forest. Stadium owners are still counting the cost to this day!
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Orc-Custrating Pain - The Pain were a fractious bunch at best and eventually succumbed to in-fighting and the most horrendous violence. Rest In Pieces...
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Children of the Khorne - Khornate worshippers aren't exactly noted for their organisational skills, their effectiveness lies... elsewhere. Which is probably where they ended up, revelling in exactly what they're good at!
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BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!! - Unlike the Children, these guys must have hired an admin team. Unfortunately, their bloodthirsty promise didn't amount to much and off they went, screaming gibberish in to the sunset...
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Grizzly Grotbagz - The second time this team has left the ABBL. Apparently they have assured us of their return for a future season. Until then, slip in to the mists of legend they must...​​​
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I haven’t mentioned the Magic Sponge we have in the ABBL until now. There’s nothing more discouraging than starting a brand-new team only to have it completely curb-stomped in the first few games and having to rebuild right from the start. So, right from Season 1, there has been a rule of brand-new teams only suffering Badly Hurts for their first 3 games. It was an idea suggested to me by Mike who didn’t actually join us until this season, more about him later. I mention it now because, gamers being gamers, people started taking brand new Conference teams in to the Cup with the idea of not suffering any casualties until they hit the Final and getting maximum use out of the cheaper Star Players with inducement money! Now, that’s not the kind of spectacle we want to see is it? So, the Cup Organisers now confiscate the Sponge for the duration of the match when a Cup game is played and that put an end to that!
Season 6 saw 20 Coaches sign up once more with a few changes and some new faces. The Skink’Un shifted over to a seasonal focus (as in the weather – I think from Season 4 we had been following weather tables based on the normal cycle of seasons, starting with Spring and 3 game weeks dedicated to each one. The Skink’Un now came shortly after the conclusion of each period.) and Kevin took over duties in the ‘office’. He also, being a massive stats fan, started collating some of the facts and figures re game results over the League and the Conference and has put them all on a big ol’ spreadsheet so, if that’s your bag just get in contact with him and he’ll be happy to share! Kevin also came up with the great idea of having a smaller discount on Star Players & Mercs at the beginning of the Cup that got larger the further you progressed so we didn’t see quite so many Bombardiers, especially as I decided to increase the price of Bomber Dribblesnot and Cindy Piewhistle to 80K as they were, frankly, just too good at 50K a piece!
The first ever East Angry'Un Derby took place during Season 6 and the above is a team photo of us all that took part. It's a yearly tournament between the ABBL and the Ipswich Blood Bowl League. We won, yay!
This season saw the highest scoring game in the ABBL ever so far with 10 Touchdowns in 1 game! It was the Khornish Pasties on the receiving end of the Skaven of the Black Pearl Pirates, 7-3. Unfortunately, the Pasties had to withdraw part-way through the season but they were replaced by Andy with his Khorne team, Anger Management (Khorne clearly just switched his patronage!). Special mention should be made of Andy due to his heroic effort in stepping in late in the season and getting 8 games played in about 2 weeks! In fact, there was only 1 player that didn’t get all their games played this season, a pretty good innings all round.
Bonus points for teams in each Division had always been awarded in the League but only for TD's, CAS's & DEF's/INT's in the past. This season I expanded it to include Completions as well. It seemed a little odd to not award those that focused on the throwing game. With 12 Bonus Points up for grabs, it led to some fairly one-sided Divisions with 1st & 2nd placed teams generally running away with it and being un-catchable so the format for how Bonus Points were awarded got changed for Season 7 to make a tighter, more exciting and hopefully fairer system.
Mike receiving the League Trophy after the Extra Time Final vs Natelie with her Amazons. A team that was a frightening prospect to play against and whom many thought would lift the trophy this season!
The other big thing of note was another first, someone winning the double! Mike that I mentioned earlier, entered the same team in the Cup and the League and ended up winning both, it was his first season too! The Cup final was against the aforementioned Black Pearl Pirates and the League Final was against the much-fancied Amazons of the Vivacious Vipers, coached by Natelie, coming back from 2-0 down to win it 3-2 in Extra Time. He wasn’t able to defend either title in Season 7 due to some minor reason, something about having a first-born child or something. No dedication to the cause some people…
North Division
South Division
East Division
West Division
Arlanath Firesk Memorial Cup Final
Season Six Final
Player Awards
The latest iteration of the Skink'Un. Click on it to have a read.
Teams that left after Season Six
Black Pearl Pirats - Made it to the Cup Final in their first and only season and also the Play-offs but no silverware for them. Off back to the High Seas they went...
Orkshire Vikings - These tough Northern Orcs came, saw and put their bog ol' stompy boots all over everyone, winning the League and the Cup in the same season - a never-before-achieved feat! Job done as far as they were concerned...
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Skidaddle Sea Orcs - A controversial team from the start, the Goblin known as Lord Hubert J Peaberry Smythe (rumours of his death were greatly exaggerated apparently...) mysteriously disappeared at season's end, along with all the cash!
Elusive Elves - After 2 seasons of attempting to make the Play-Offs, the Dark Elves from Elf City decided life on those vicious streets would be easier than playing Blood Bowl.
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Akkara - Didn't like the rules...
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The Sabbat Crusaders - Despite making the Play-Offs, this team decided they had more important things to do than enter Season 7 - their Head Coach planning the wedding of the century apparently!
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Chesapeake Rippers - This team of Undead murderers and victims just couldn't reconcile their differences and eventually (and literally in some cases) fell apart.
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Chrace Lions - After the humiliation of defeat at the hands of the fairer sex not just once but twice (the only defeats this team ever suffered) they departed with the poisonous words: "Thou must be gone, wench, thou must be gone..."
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Da Ripped Limb - Unhappy with their performance after showing so much promise, they slunk back to the Conference from whence they came...
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Rib Peaks Rascals - Got enough tasty testicles to stuff their bags with and off they popped to enjoy their delicacies in peace.​​​​
Season Seven
We started this season with a massive 27 coaches! 3 had to drop out part-way through though, although we did manage to find a replacement for one of them. As a result, we had 5 Divisions for the first time so this required a change to the Play-Off structure and the addition of a Wild Card round to help determine our final 8 teams. As well as this, the Bonus Points were limited to a maximum of 2 awards per team to help prevent top teams from completely dominating their Division and to make things tighter at the top.
John's Petty Hate Machines - A Chaos Dwarf team based around automatons from a mad Chaos Dwarf Engineer (don't let on I said that!). The big fellow at the back is Vor-O-Vor, current holder of the Most Casualties in a Season record - 16!
Season 7 also saw another change in the Cup format. This time, we used the rules for the Norse Cup from the Spike! to give it a further difference in flavour to the main League. This is something that we intend to carry on with each season, with a different style of Cup being used from different Spike!’s each time round. The opening game of this particular Cup was the 700th ABBL game played since its inception according to Kev’s massive collection of stats believe it or not!
That wasn’t the only landmark figure this season. Perhaps unsurprisingly with 25 active teams, we saw more TD’s (367), More CAS’s (509), more Fatalities (44) and more games played (121) than in any other previous season and those figures don’t even include all the 21 Cup games played either! Individual player records were broken with the highest amount of TD’s (17 by Ava Puffski), highest amount of CAS’s (16 by Vor-O-Vor), highest amount of TTM’s (a massive 17 by George Eats’Em – the only player to have received a Player Award in 3 separate seasons!) and the highest amount of SPP’s earnt (67 by Ava Puffski once again). Finally, one team broke the Casualties Caused in a Single Season record held by Uggug’s Bonebreakers since Season 4 with John’s Petty Hate Machines hitting 54 (an average of 4.5 per game)! More remarkably, not a single one of them was a Fatality. Who said Chaos Dwarves are mean?
Speaking of records, special mention must be made and congratulations given to Ed who this season capped off a 3rd League title – with a different team each time! No-one else has even managed 2 yet, making him the player to beat if anyone wants a shot at the title! Please let me know when you join if you fancy a go – I’ll make sure to include you in the same Division!
Loved this pic too much to not put here!
The stadium the Season 7 Final took place in.
The 'official' photo of Ed getting his 3rd League trophy, Coveting his 'Precious' as he does so...
Jason M receiving the Cup trophy having won with his Skaven, Gnaw-Itch
As I write this, we’re in the off-season and the rules are getting finalised for Season 8 with a few changes planned to help keep things a little fresh and exciting. Hopefully we’ll see more new Coaches join us, even if it’s just in the Conference for casual play. My initial aim when creating the ABBL was to build a community for Blood Bowl here in Norwich as I couldn’t find one! Looking back on this history, I think it’s fair to say we’ve succeeded in that and I hope that others have made friends and have enjoyed themselves as much as I have on the way here. Thank you to all of the Coaches that have been part of the ABBL over the last 7 seasons and let’s hope it keeps on going for a long time yet. May all your dice roll 6’s, unless you’re playing me of course…
North Division
East Division
Central Division
South Division
West Division
Arlanath Firesk Memorial Cup Final
Season Seven Final
Player Awards