Brighton ElfBowl 25
22nd November 25
Dice Saloon
TO/Spare SaltySeaWench
The elves of Athel Loren love the beautiful game, especially when it is beautiful. The most important aspect is glorious feats of skill and spectacular touchdowns. As such, when they put on a tournament the focus is goals, goals, goals. The tiebreakers are TDs scored and passing completions (including throw team mates). No CAS prizes are available, but that doesn’t mean you can't hit things!
Elfbowl will be a one day, three game tournament at Brighton’s Dice Saloon. Tickets available
https://dicesaloon.co.uk/products/brighton-elfbowl-25
The event will be run through Tourplay
https://tourplay.net/en/blood-bowl/brighton-elfbowl-25
Registration on Tourplay does not guarantee a ticket, make sure that you have paid via Dice Saloon before you do so. All lists to be submitted by 15/11/25.
Elfbowl is NAF sanctioned but NAF membership will not be a requirement. All games against non-NAF opponents will be uploaded as played against the dummy opponent for ranking purposes.
Given the ever swirling rumours of a new edition in 2025, should one be released a month or more in advance of this event, this rulepack may be subject to extensive re-writes. Additionally, any teams with a new Spike magazine released by October 25 will be included, and as such tierings may be subject to change.
The Venue
Dice Saloon is located in Brighton’s bustling London Road area, 15 minutes walk from Brighton train station, and well served by buses. If driving, London Road multistory carpark is the best place to park (https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/parking/paid-parking/london-road-car-park).
Dice Saloon has a great food and drink menu, and is licenced to serve alcohol as well. We’re happy for coaches to drink during the tournament, but reserve the right to disqualify anyone who behaves inappropriately (whether they have been drinking or not).
Dice Saloon is fully accessible, with space at tables for wheelchair access, although it can get a little noisy when busy. If you have any specific access needs that you would like to discuss, please contact the TO or the venue.
Dice Saloon is queer and trans friendly, with both gendered and gender neutral toilets available.
Timings
10.00: Registration
10.15 - 12.45: Game 1
12.45 - 13.30: Lunch
13.30 - 16.00: Game 2
16.15 - 18.45: Game 3
19.00: Close
We have found that with higher scoring games being the norm at Elfbowl, the constant resetting for a kick-off can mean that rounds take a bit longer than for a more traditional tournament rulepack. Rounds will be 2hr30mins to accommodate this. At one hour to go, if you are not already in the second half then games will be issued with a chess clock.
Chess clocks will also be available on request.
Team Building
Teams start with a budget determined by tier to be spent on players, sideline staff and allowed inducements, including certain star players. On top of this amount teams have an additional set of skills to add to players as below. Skills do not cost any additional gold to purchase, and inducements are purchased at team creation and used throughout the event.
This is a swiss style, resurrection tournament and the same roster will be used for all games.
Skill Pack
Tier 1 - 1,150k GP - 6 Primary
Tier 2 - 1,160k GP - 7 Primary, 1 Secondary
Tier 3 - 1,180k GP - 8 Primary, 2 Secondary
Stunty Tier - 1,150k GP - 8 Primary, 2 Secondary, 1 stat increase
No Skill may be taken more than three times (this does not include the times the skill is present on rookie players, so an orc team with 3 blitzers would still be able to give block three times to big uns, for example). Secondary skills or stat increases cannot be swapped for primary skills.
Any number of players may stack two skills (or a skill and a stat increase) for no additional cost, as long as all skills taken are either Passing, Agility skills, or one of the following Mutations: Big Hand, Extra Arms, Two Heads, Very Long Legs. This stacking can include secondary skills.
*Please Note* there is no way to program this restriction into the roster builder so it will be checked manually. Just because Tourplay says you can stack tackle/mighty blow, that doesn't mean that you actually can.
Tiers are as follows:
Tier 1
Amazon, Dark Elf, Lizardmen, Necromantic Horror, Shambling Undead, Skaven, Vampire, Wood Elf
Tier 2
Chaos Renegade, Elven Union, High Elf, Human, Norse, Orc, Slaan, Tomb Kings, Underworld Denizens
Tier 3
Black Orc, Chaos Chosen, Chaos Dwarf, Dwarf, Imperial Nobility, Khorne, Nurgle, OWA,
Stunty Tier
Halflings, Ogres, Gnomes, Goblins, Snotlings, ‘Stunty’ Lizardmen (i.e. no Saurus allowed), ‘Stunty’ Black Orks (i.e. no Black Ork Blockers allowed), ‘Stunty’ Underworld (I.e. no Skaven other than the rat ogre allowed)
Inducements
0-2 Bloodweiser Kegs
0-3 Bribes
0-1 Halfling Master chef
0-2 Wandering Apothecaries (inc mortuary assistant and plague doctor)
0-1 Riotous Rookies
0-1 Master of Ballistics
0-1 Waaagh Drummers
0-1 Star Players
The following Star Players are available for this event. Hiring a star player will take up 2 primary skills. Star players that come as a pair will still be available, taking up 1 slot in the inducements allocation, and 2 slots on your roster. Star players cannot be hired until you have 11 players on your team.
Barik Farblast,
Boa Kon’ssstriktr,
Eldril Sidewinder,
Grak and Crumbleberry,
Guffle Pusmaw,
Gloriel Summerbloom,
Jeremiah Kool,
Jordell Freshbreeze,
Kiroth Krakeneye,
Puggy Baconbreath,
Ripper Bolgrot,
Rodney Roachbait,
Rowenna Forestfoot,
Roxanna Darknail,
Scrappa Sorehead,
Skrull Halfheight,
The Swift Twins,
Wilhelm Chaney,
Zzharg Madeye
*A Note About Team Building and Tiers*
Elfbowl is a bit of an experiment. It is a tournament designed around a style of play that, for all sorts of reasons, is less common in the current competitive meta, and a chance for coaches to enjoy and test themselves with its particular intricacies and challenges. With the way that the scoring and tiebreakers work, and with a usual field of 20-30 coaches it is required to not only win all your games to win the tournament but also to score the most touchdowns across the top 2-3 players. This is by design; it is entirely intentional that a player might win all three games 1-0 or 2-1 etc and still not come first.
We want to encourage big risk, big reward play, scoring off turnover balls and resetting to see what you can do next.
The first time we ran this event the tiering and the tiebreakers really made it so that only agility teams were viable, which was fine, but part of the discussion after the event was “wouldn't it be cool if some of the less elfy teams could try their hand at some Elfbowl?” The tiering above is the result of that conversation, designed to give people who want to try this type of event with those teams a chance to make a roster that *might just work*. We know that you can build broken removal based teams with this, we just ask that you don't. If everyone does then we end up with a normal tournament and if only a few people do then, well, they've spoiled a game for three other people who had paid to come to play Elfbowl, and they haven't even given themselves a realistic chance of winning a prize anyway.
In both cases we end up either reverting to the year 1 ruleset, or we just don't have an event that is worth running.
We don't want to police teams, and a successful roster will absolutely include elements of bash and removal as that's a core part of how Blood Bowl works, but it's also really, really obvious when a team gets submitted and the sole thought has been ‘I’m playing against elves so I will punish elf players and maybe walk the ball in turn 16’. If we get too many of those teams they'll be matched against each other round 1 and they can spend a game grinding out a stalemate.
If you have any questions about what all this means, and what a good or bad Elfbowl team looks like please do drop the TO (@SaltySeaWench on discord) a line and she'll be happy to go through your thoughts.
Special Rules
Elven Weather Mages
The weather is always perfect conditions. If a changing weather result is rolled on the kick-off table then one of the weather mages in charge of keeping things in order has had a bit of a power fluctuation and the ball will scatter as if a perfect conditions result was rolled, but no roll need be made on the weather table.
A Glimpse of the Future
No passes, or other actions that use the passing rules (i.e. bombs, throw team mate etc) can become wildly inaccurate. If a pass roll is modified to a 1 then the pass is merely inaccurate and scatters from the target square as normal. If a natural 1 is rolled on a pass then the ball/player/bomb is fumbled.
It's Unconventional… but I Like It!
Barik Farblast and Zzharg Madeye are not considered to have the Secret Weapon trait for the purposes of this tournament. All other players with Secret Weapon are treated as usual.
Get on With It!
The Throw a Rock prayer to nuffle is always active for both players in all games throughout the tournament.
They are sort of ball-shaped…
For the purposes of tie-breakers and prizes, all successful throw team mate actions and kick team mate actions (i.e. the throw/kick is not fumbled and the thrown player lands successfully) count as a completion and should be marked as such in Tourplay.
Scoring
Win - 3 pts
Draw - 1 pts
Loss - 0pts
Tiebreakers: Most TDs, Most Completions, TD diff
Prizes
First Place
Runner Up
Most Touchdowns
Most Completions
Stunty Cup
3 Spot prizes:
Round 1 - That's a bad miss!
Fail a pass attempt (either on pass roll, catch roll or have it intercepted/deflected) that, if successful would have allowed you to score without rolling any further dice.
Round 2 - Nuffle’s Tripwire
Fail a Rush attempt into the opposition end zone with a player carrying the ball.
Round 3 - Splat!
Attempt to throw or kick a team mate who is carrying the ball. Have the TTM/KTM sequence end instead with the ball carrier off the pitch for whatever reason. (E.g. failed landing resulting in KO or CAS, team mate eaten, thrown into the crowd etc)