South Division Season Nine Preview
Click on the team image to see the team roster.
Templehof Terrors
Forced in to a life of Blood Bowl by a bunch of rampaging Dwarven Slayers (that’s how the Terrors are telling it at any rate – truth is, a particularly ale-fuelled Dwarf team rolled up near the Terror’s local and proceeded to wreck the surrounding bars!), the Terrors have had to learn pretty quick how to up their game, ready to take part in the ABBL in an effort to face them down. Unfortunately, they’ll not have a chance to exact their revenge on those pesky Dwarfs – they quickly picked up and scarpered, the cheeky gits! At least their pub is safe. For now…
Any road, as they were all fired up and ready to go, they decided they may as well stick around and give it a crack. How hard could this Big League stuff be anyway?! They come to the game without any Flesh Golems and only the Werewolves and Ghouls can really do any of the ball carrying, what with the Wraiths being immaterial and all… So, they’ll have to rely on their Zombies shielding them until they can afford the doorman fees. Good job those Zombies have had more bar fights than most have had pints and they’ve learnt to take a fair few punches! Time will tell if the Terrors will be able to make an impact…
Players showing promise include Alti, a Ghoul with an uncanny knack for grabbing the ball from any scrum and likely to be a thorn in the side of all the Terror’s Divisional rivals, Dört, a Werewolf who has been sharpening his claws to such a degree, he has to wear gloves while drinking in the bar as he’s always slicing the tankards in half! Finally, On Bir is a zombie that, whilst living, held the record for ‘Most Bar Stools Destroyed With Just a Head’. The record is only 1 but that’s because the 2nd bar stool is the reason why he’s on the team in the first place…
Double Skulls & Crossbones
The ABBl seems to attract pirates of all varieties. We’ve previously had Skaven pirates (At least two lots of them), Norse Pirates, Orc Pirates and now we have Goblin Pirates! The most notorious Goblin Pirates ever to sail the many seas (their own boast – they have no idea how many seas there are…) in fact! But it appears they’ve decided to give the rough sea a little break for a while and so have joined the ranks of the ABBL. Who this is exactly going to benefit in the long term is up for debate but, if they prove to be just as entertaining as the long-term Goblin residents from Seasons 4-8 of the Daylight Gobbery, we’re all in for a treat! Whilst rooting around their training camp, we came across the ‘Kaptin’s Log’ and decided this would best summarise the team for you:
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“Day 10 of the season. Still transitioning from a life on the High Seas but things are looking up now we’ve worked out what the ball is for! Lost another two goblins to the trolls, one to our own chainsaw, and countless more from explosions. Morale remains high. The lads say if we can’t win fair, we’ll win dirty —and if we can’t win dirty, we’ll at least make sure nobody forgets us! The seas may have cast us out, but Blood Bowl has welcomed us with open arms and balled fists! Now we just need to do something about those pesky referees!”
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And, as usual for Goblin teams, they certainly have a devoted and loyal fan base who have already come up with a lengthy shanty with which to cheer their team on! In fact. It’s already become the focus of academic study as, until now, it was never believed that Goblins could remember anything beyond a verse or two of any chant… There are a few players to watch out for, most likely of which to cause entertainment are Bumbu the Bomma (for obvious reasons!), Foursquare, the Fanatic who has utilised an anchor on chain in place of the more traditional ball and chain, purely because they couldn’t be bothered to weld a cannonball on to a chain! Finally, we have Redleg, so named due to the amount of blood on his pegleg from all that fouling…
Red Tomb Raiders
The Red Tomb Raiders are a pretty solemn bunch that take their Blood Bowl very seriously. But, who can blame them after centuries of being buried under the sands, we certainly wouldn’t be in our best mood if we were in their place! They’re always talking about prophecy and destiny and all that kind of stuffy nonsense, almost as if they feel they have a divine right to own all the trophies. Oh, hang on a mo… They’re Tomb Kings, it’s kind of their thing!
When reaching out to the Raiders, we received a messenger, clad in dusty old bandages and blanketed in the stench of decay (took us ages to get rid of that smell in the office!). He relayed the following to us: “Our Name: Red Tomb Raiders – ‘Red’ speaks of the dawn-stained sands where our pyramid was unearthed. ‘Tomb Raiders’ - not because we steal, but because we return—each touchdown is a ritual offering, each game a step toward eternal balance. Our stadium, The Pyramid of the Final Down, lies beneath a cracked obelisk, where the desert wind caresses our chants uttered in devotion to Nuffle. Our Coach, Stu-Ra – The Voice of the Court, the last to lead them before the long sleep. The glyphs foretold his return: “When the league reforms, the Voice shall speak again.” He does not shout. He intones. And the dead obey.”. Following this utterance the Messenger dissolved in to a cloud of scarab beetles and left the building (Tried going out the window first – it was shut. Bit embarrassing for all involved really…), leaving behind an ancient piece of parchment, giving us some information on the ancient players making up this ancient team…
Player Names – Echoes of the Ancients. Their roster bears names whispered in hieroglyphs: Nigel Mirage – A Tomb Guardian who flickers in the heat haze before crushing blockers. Dune Kruger – A Thrower whose armour creaks with the weight of centuries. Rutut Lowe – The silent Blitzer, face wrapped, eyes hollow—yet always watching.
Cheese Weasels
The last time the Cheese Weasels graced the ABBL with their presence, they dominated the North Division setting two records that have yet to be beaten: Most Touchdowns scored by a team in the regular season with 38 and their Thrower, Cheese Thief set the individual record for Most Completions in a season at 34. They only lost 1 game and were all set for glory but then they came afoul of the eventual winners, the Wailing Woods Revenants in the Quarter Final and just didn’t sign up for the next season. Nobody knew what had happened to them until they suddenly returned in a flurry of cheese and signed up for Season 9! When asked where they had been and what they had been doing for the last 4 seasons, they just looked at us like we were stupid and said “Eating cheese, what else?”.
The Cheese Weasels hadn’t been idle in their time away, despite their flippant response. For starters, they had weened themselves off of macaroni (hence the name change) after finding all that pasta really wasn’t great for their physical health and had spent their days honing their game and designing plays that would allow them to score even more Touchdowns. Training tactics involved placing cheese platters in the Endzone to encourage them to move as fast as possible in the right direction, hiding bits of cheese under practice dummies’ helmets and then gluing the helmets on to help instil a vicious savagery whenever they blocked an opposition player and awarding a cheese wheal to the best performer in each training session. Competition was indeed fierce and, as a result, the Cheese Weasels are fighting fit and ready to go!
The one player everyone is talking about of course, is Cheese Thief who has returned to make sure no-one steals his Completion Crown and he’s ably supported by the Blitzer, Bale Claw who was quite the terror back in season 4! We couldn’t go without mentioning Warp Claw of course who was the player that mostly contributed to those 38 Touchdowns and is likely going to be the main target for any team that faces the Cheese Weasels this season!
Sunken City Stardrakes
The Stardrakes, much in common with The Red Tomb Raiders, are a team obsessed with prophecy and also, much like the Raiders, have an absolutely rock-solid belief that they are the ones to fulfil their prophecy because everyone else’s is, obviously, utter tosh! Afterall, they argue, the Old Ones were around before any of these upstart warm-blooded races could even crawl out of the mud, let alone figure out how to cheat death and so, by divine right, they deserve to hold the trophy at the end of the season. It is foretold…
Of course, the average Blood Bowl fan couldn’t give two figs about all of this prophecy nonsense! Leave the philosophy at home and let’s see some bones crunch instead! Thankfully for the fans, the Stardrakes are proving to be quite adept at doing exactly that. Their first pre-season friendly was against their idealogical enemies, the Red Tomb Raiders who they defeated 1-0 while getting 5 casualties against them. They thought their point was proven but of course, they didn’t know they’d be sharing a Division with the Tomb Kings – this rivalry is only just starting! A 4-0 defeat of the Nobility team from the Conference, The Brasstards gave them a sense of impunity but their final game of the pre-season drew them back when the Underworld team, Urban Terror held them to a 1-1 draw. However, 11 casualties and 6 Touchdowns in 3 games gives everyone a good idea of what they have to overcome in the South – The Stardrakes are going to be a tough obstacle for anyone to overcome…
Players to watch out for include Fafnir, a Saurus Blocker with a temper even his team-mates are wary of, Spyro, a Skink Lineman who, due to a skin abnormality looks cute and friendly but most certainly isn’t! Finally, we have the Chameleon Skink, Puff. Well, we did have him, we can’t find him now! Little blighter was here just a moment ago…