New Player Guide

Rulesets

Blood Bowl Rulesets

The current Blood Bowl (BB) ruleset is most commonly referred to as BB2020. This ruleset superseded BB2016, Living Rulebook 6 (LRB6), and Competition Rules Packet (CRP) rulesets. Previous rulesets can still be used in NAF sanctioned tournaments using the ‘classic’ ruleset.

  • The LRB6 and CRP rulesets were published by the NAF. These were nearly identical to BB2016.

  • BB2016 was a new ruleset published by Games Workshop.

  • BB2020 is a later version of the rules published by Games Workshop that brings significant changes to certain skills and minor changes to the core game mechanics.

Supplemental BB Rules

Blood Bowl: Death Zone is a supplemental rule system which adds new inducements, rules, weather, and event tables to the game. These are optional and only applied at the discretion of tournament organizer (TO) or league commissioner (LC).

Spike! Journals include optional rules and team rosters, and are summarized in the 2021 Almanac.

Click the links below to view up-to-date rulesets, FAQ’s, and NAF documents

 

Blood Bowl, LRB6

 

Picking a Team

Rolljordan, Slann Team

Blood Bowl has a very diverse portfolio of miniatures. The game was published by Games Workshop in 1986 and they currently distribute the official line of miniatures. However, many 3rd party manufacturers also distribute fantasy football miniatures which can be used for Blood Bowl; the NAF provides a comprehensive list here on their website.

No specific distributor of fantasy football miniatures is required for NAF tournament play. Base diameter and shape are also un-important, as the game is played on a standard grid system. Typically, the only requirement is that each figure is numbered and easily distinguished between player positions (for both you, and your opponent).

In combination of the BB2020 ruleset, Teams of Legend, and the NAF Historical Teams, there are 29 playable races. These are organized into tiers which represent the difficulty level to play each race (ie. tier 1 is easier than tier 2).

Tier list summaries can be found here on the NAF website.

We recommend picking a team you believe will be fun - but perhaps avoiding ‘stunty’ teams for your first league. These teams are certainly fun - but they can be difficult to play and rely heavily on luck!

Painting Your Team

Painting miniatures can be one of the most time consuming, yet rewarding, parts of the hobby. It can be intimidating at first, but investing in a nice set of model paints such as Vallejo, Citadel, or Army Painter will take you a long way! We recommend searching and watching tutorials on miniature painting; a few of our favorites include Miniac, Goobertown Hobbies, and Squidmar Miniatures. However, there are many more YouTubers or resources to learn from!

Otherwise, you can have your team painted on commission - or even not painted at all! For commissions, we recommend Joshua Wojcik’s miniature painting services; he is based in Florida and his services are specifically geared towards fantasy football miniatures.