A Very Blood Bowl Christmas

Yes, another blog post before 2024. Man, my blogging has trailed off these last three years, but at least I'm up from 2023. Which isn't say much (I took a couple months off in 2023 due to the death of my mother), so...improvement? Mm.

Still...well, never mind. This isn't the "New Year's retrospective" post...we'll get to that in a couple days.

Our Christmas holiday has been (mostly) spectacular, the one blemish being my idiot brother and his asshole behavior. But aside from that, it's been great...the shopping went off without a hitch, got the tree trimmed and the house decorated (mostly my wife), got to Mass on time, got invited to a Christmas party where we made a bunch of new friends, had some other new friends over for day-after-Christmas dinner (that was great), and...yeah, been mostly relaxing and eating stuff that other people have been making for a change.  I don't think I've had to cook in over a week, except maybe one or two breakfasts for the kids.  Between my wife making all her holiday favorites and my kids baking pies and cookies (yes, my children bake...a lot), the only thing I've had to cook is a hot pot of coffee every morning.

Yeah, my life is blessed. I know. And I am thankful.

My kids were pretty thrilled with the gifts they received, Diego going so far as to remark this was one of the best (if not the best) Christmases he could remember...despite not receiving a single video game system or massive Lego set on their list. One of their highlights was my own Christmas gift to them, something entirely NOT on their list: a portable carrying/storage case for their miniatures from GW, capable of carrying a single Blood Bowl team. While this in and of itself was pretty neat, they were quite astounded/pleased to open them up and find their own fully painted teams inside, decked out in color schemes I'd slyly elicited from them in conversation!

Damn, but that was a tricky one to pull off, and I don't mind saying I take quite a bit of pride in pulling it off. I believe it was last Christmas, that I want to get them their own (painted) Blood Bowl teams, and I ordered them on-line from an Etsy group that does really nice work. Unfortunately, the delivery was slow and plagued with issues (one team arrived without bases) and I was unable to do more than deliver the figures in a box with the promise that we'd "paint them together." Still a nice gift, but underwhelming considering my expectation. 

Well, it's been a year and they've never gotten painted (though we did prime them, we got into painting the SW Legion minis instead). And while they've been used several times for our BB games, it's just not the same, you know? Hard to keep track of which lineman is which when they don't have any numbers on the jerseys.

So it's been a few months since the last time we'd even pulled out the Blood Bowl, and longer still since the paint pots had come out.  And I saw those carrying cases at the Warhammer store in Lynnwood when we were out window shopping, and I thought: this is my chance. So for the last 5-6 days before Christmas, I started getting up between 4 and 5 in the morning, sneaking downstairs, gathering all my gear, and then painting-painting-painting like one of Santa's slave-elves. An hour or two before I estimated the kids would be waking up, I'd stow all the supplies and clean up any evidence of my nefarious work before grabbing a couple more winks of sleep.  It was a near thing: I stayed up Christmas Eve after the kids had gone off to bed, in order to finish the last bits. Then I boxed 'em, wrapped 'em and put them under the tree. It worked out to be a delightful surprise come Christmas day...and all the lost sleep was worth it for the excitement on their faces.

Personally, I'm just glad I could still paint. My eyes have gotten so bad with regard to close-up vision that I really can't see without reading glasses, even with really good light. And I'm one of the vain idiots that refuses to wear glasses (I never needed them for 50 years of life, why should I start now?)...heck, I can still read in bed with the use of a portable lamp. But for the painting project I HAD to wear readers (2.0 magnification!)...I just could not see to get the paint down without them. Plus, the eyestrain/fatigue of the early morning hours didn't help make things any less blurry.

*sigh* At least no one saw me wearing them. 

So, yeah. A very Blood Bowl Christmas. There were other games under the tree (including a murder mystery game and the latest versions of BattleTech and Crossbows & Catapults), but now we're all in the mood for some BB mayhem. Probably spurred on by the fact that the NFL play-offs are right around the corner (come on, Cards, we need you to bear the Rams tomorrow!), there's an excitement for the old pigskin (and elfskin and dwarfskin, etc.) that's been missing since September and the start of the football season. Yeah, I think today is the day we start our own little tournament. The board is already laid out on the dining room table.

The last couple days I've been re-reading the 2nd Edition Blood Bowl Companion supplement, again familiarizing myself with "Official NAF Rules" which attempt to model actual gridiron football, including downs, drives, punting, field goals, etc. For the most part, I think they are really quite good...much, much closer to American football than the rugby/soccer combo that has been the standard BB play since 3rd edition. I think I'd even be willing to simply adopt them "as is;" they'd work well enough with the other 5th edition rules once you get used to the idea that a guy falling over does NOT automatically create a turnover. But the urge to tart them up and make them even more in line with the NFL I know and love is...strong. Very strong. 

BUT (stifling that urge)...the other League rules, draconian as some of them are (the training rules, for example...wow!), make quite a bit of sense. For a dedicated group of Blood Bowlers, such a League (along with a commissioner armed with a laptop and spreadsheets) could be...entertaining? Yeah, I think "entertaining" is the word I'm looking for.

I find myself intrigued, rather than nonplussed (which I think was my previous reaction). These are worth a spin. 

An eight team league, divided into two conferences. Official NAF rules (except that we need to include halfling and gobbo teams. Sorry...can't play without 'em!). All the fiddly crunch of the old school league rules (including apothecaries, salaries, rookie drafts, "disenchantment" points, training, benchwarmers, etc.). We'll leave out some of the weirder items: dwarf steamrollers, hired assassins and pit traps, for example. But I'm feeling everything else. Yeah, man...I'm feeling it. I'm feeling expansive this holiday season; like the Grinch growing his heart three sizes larger. I don't feel like 'playing small' right now. 

Yeah. This is going to occupy my attention for a moment.

; )

Happy holidays to everyone...and if I don't write again before January, have a happy, happy New Year!