Adeptus Ridiculous - Warhammer Football lore is INSANE

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://shop.orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousBlood Bowl is a miniatures board game created by Jervis Johnson for the British games company Games Workshop as a parody of American football. The game was first released in 1986 and has been re-released in new editions since. Blood Bowl is set in an alternate version of the Warhammer Fantasy setting, populated by traditional fantasy elements such as human warriors, goblins, dwarves, elves, orcs, and trolls, as well as elements unique to the setting such as the rat-like Skaven.Thanks to Matty for joining us :) his links: https://www.matthewreal.com/linkGet Scared podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@watcherpodcasts/videosSupport the show

Welcome everyone to another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous podcast. My name is D.K. Diamantis and Karioth is not here. Bricky is not here. But we do have a special guest who I will introduce in just a minute. But before I do, if you enjoy today's episode of the podcast, head over to Patreon.com slash Adeptus Ridiculous, where you can get access to the Discord, bloopers if they happen, $15 tier gets you access to all of our digital posters in crispy,

whatever format they're in. You should check it out. patreon.com slash adeptus ridiculous. And since Bricky is not here, I will remind you to have it over to Orchidate.com where you can get all of our merch, all, well, not all of our posters, but whatever the newest poster is, we've got hoodies, we've got shirts, we've got dice, we've got objective markers, everything you could possibly need. Check it out right now, Orchidate.com. So like I said, Kyrioth is not here, Bricky is not here, but we do have a very special guest who is like I was four or five years ago,

knows nothing about Warhammer. Would you care to introduce yourself, special guest? Hello, I'm Maddie. I, most, if you know me, it's probably from something called Maddie is talking. But yeah, I know nothing. Maddie is listening this time. Well, you are literally talking right now.

Appropriate name. Yeah, I wanted to do something I couldn't get wrong. But yes, my name is Maddie. And I'm here to learn. Hell yeah. And to be fair, full, full transparency. I'm not an expert on this topic either. I've had a lovely script prepared for me by Possum. And, you know, we're all going to learn a little something special today. So, yeah, let's let's kick it off. So like we said, you know, you're maybe not a Warhammer expert. So we were like, what better way to introduce. our guest to the world of Warhammer, you know, this dark, oppressive, inhuman setting. What's the best way to do this?

Because there are a few universes that are more grim dark than Warhammer. There's tyranny, there's endless war, there are just apocalyptic scenarios happening left and right, and it's just one of the most hopeless universes you can live in. It is never-ending war. It is, it is, oof, not a fun place to be. This is not like, oh, boy, this is the universe I want to be in.

This is Pokemon, Star Wars. No, this is never-ending suffering, torment, everlasting war. And so when it's so grim, you might ask, like, why would anyone live like this? You know, is there really any point to trying to live in these worlds? There's a new book that just came out. It's called The End and the Death. And it's like, is that just, is that just the perfect encapsulation of Warhammer 40K? But the most important question I have for you today, Maddie, is, are you ready for some football?

Oh, all right. I was kind of a zag on me, but, yeah. That's because Warhammer does have its own sort of. alternate universe that does have its own version of football. Specifically, it's called Blood Bowl. We are going to be talking about Blood Bowl today, a sport in an alternate universe that was so entertaining

that basically it eradicated the concept of war from its timeline. Now, what? Because everyone is so into football, is so into Blood Bowl that there's no war. Everybody's so into Blood Bowl that there's, you know, yeah. I'm going to try and not say wow a million times today. But I think that's fascinating because I, I mean, what a commentary that is right there. And I think I'm maybe already understanding what Warhammer might be about.

Because, you know, they're dangling the little carrot in front of us, so we're not paying our attention to a lot of other stuff. Maybe that's happening in our own. I was going to say, don't worry about being like, wow, all the time because that's usually what I do. Usually I'm the one being taught all of this Warhammer stuff that I know nothing about. And there is a pretty big meme of me just going like, Jesus, wow. Oh, my God. That's crazy.

Oh, my. And another big meme is just like me repeating things that Bricky just told me because it's like, wow, I can't believe you said that. repeat it for me and yeah. Yeah, well, here I am Mouth a gape, very excited. I think that's what that phrase means. I should not have said something out knowing exactly with that. I mean, yeah, mouth definitely can be a gape with shock, awe. Yeah, yeah, words, right?

Thank you. Yeah. So, yeah, we're going over Blood Bowl, some of the famous players, the species that play it, the game itself. But in order to truly get Blood Bowl, we need to go over its history first. So, strap in, because they're going to be able to be able to be. This is sort of the ESPN 30 for 30 episode on Blood Bowl. Oh, I hope that you didn't lock in on the sports thing because I know so little about it. Because there's a good chance that know even less about sports.

Well, you know, we just locked down on this because it's like, it's just this fun thing. It's like this alternate universe, you know. And if there's a sports reference, I got you, right? I pretty regularly watch football, right? We got this. I did play football in high school, which I think is the most. When people find that out about me, they think I, like, worked it for the FBI for a while because it's so out of left field for me.

But yeah, all right, I think I got what I need. Okay, okay. High school collegiate football players. See, you've already got more, you're already more into this than I am, right? I only watched it. You played it. I played it. I played one season in high school, and then I said, I don't want to do that ever again.

That's fair. That's fair. You were like, CTE is not in my future. Yeah. So Blood Bowl has always been a part of our world, the sacred tablets of Lestria, old beyond all human reckoning, tell of a time when the world was young, when the mythical old ones and their servants, the slon, introduced the worship of Nuffel, the god of violent sports. to the world. So Blood Bowl, quite literally, is ancient history. So much so that there is hieroglyphic evidence that it was played in ancient Nehikhar.

Nehqar is sort of like your ancient Egypt. And the great kings of Nehikar were buried in musuliums, constructed thanks to their various sports sponsorships in hope that one day they could rise again and play the sport again. Because in Nehikara, they're Tomb Kings, they revive themselves, they're everlasting, and, you know, sort of the ancient mummy deal.

Like this is like us with Twitch streamers. We're gonna, they're kind of our gods and kings. Pretty much. They're the sports gods for sure. Yeah. But much like the Tomb Kings themselves, the sport was also buried along with it. But the people,

power of the sport can be seen throughout history. It's no coincidence. The ancient moments of peace are also noted with relics showing evidence of Blood Bowl being played. However, the game ultimately vanished and this caused Nuffel, the god of violent sports, to turn his back on the world. And though Nuffel is the god of violent sports, he also, strangely for a Warhammer god, he finds war to be very distasteful, very wasteful and he doesn't like it. So he quite literally, when his sport, his violent sport was laid to rest,

it is stated that he quite literally takes his ball and abandons the world. Until the world is once more ready to reembrace his sport. He takes his ball and he goes home. I love that. Now, I'm the only God I know about but I'm aligned with you.

You're aligned with you. the god of violent sports. Yeah. It's taking you back to the high school days. Let's go. I look that petty stuff. Yeah, we'll talk about some of the other chaos gods too. So we'll get you there. Okay.

And the reemergence of his sport, that time would come. Because there would be a stalemate conflict between the orcs and the dwarfs. The two sides found an ancient arena. There was this energy emanating from the arena. And both sides were like, whoa. we got to see what this is about. We got to see what this arena is all about. And one of these explorers was an ancient dwarf that was half blind and a self-proclaimed language expert.

And this expert began to sort of pour through all of these ancient tablets and scriptures that they found in the arena. And what he found was, and this is like a direct quote, this book weezed the ancient. sincere, blinking his heavy-litted eyes a few times, appears to be the religious text of a group of warriors who came from a land called Amorica. The book is dedicated to the lost god Nuffel. The head priests of the various sects of this deity known as coaches lead their band of warriors into great arenas and attempted to exterminate each other. The object was not, however, violence simply for violence sake. No. it was, in truth, a ritual of great significance.

So literally, we have football being discovered in the land of America. Yes. The thing with GW is sometimes they are very on the nose with where they are getting their inspiration from. So it is... Sorry, when you say GW, now, assuming that's... Oh, oh, sorry. Just got dropped off on the earth. That is Games Workshop.

They're the ones that do Warhammer. They make the table top. They make the game. They make all the stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't worry. And sometimes when they write their lord, they are very on the nose about like, yep, it's America. But look, we put an O in the middle.

It's not America. It's Amorica. And so American football, here we come. Yes. And there were many other truths found in these texts, including the character. or throwing of an inflated pig's bladder from one camp known as an end zone to another in order to accumulate things called points. They kind of are a little bit literal. They're very literal.

There's end zones. There's coaches. There's a morica. There's a pig skin. Oh, I didn't even catch that. The pig's bladders are pigskin. Yes. Wait.

Now, that's a... question for another time. I was going to say, is that what we did? I mean, that's how footballs are made, right? It's the pigskin. That's the original one, yeah. The old pigskin on the gridiron. Yeah, you, wow. Wow. Okay, I am doing it. I'm sorry. I told you, that's, that's usually me. You're good. You're good. But the other big thing they learned was that Nuffel has this sacred number of 11. Only 11 warriors are on the field per side at any given and a healthy reserve fleet to replace any fatigued or maimed players. And according to the text, so long as no weapon was used,

fair combat is allowed because the body of a player is a weapon in and of itself. And both the dwarves and the orcs looked at this ancient dwarf, this ancient dwarf explaining a Moroccan football to them. And he said it seemed that the finding of the finding of the... of the text and the arena must have been Nuffles' divine way of suggesting an end to their conflict, and that they should attempt to sort of recreate this ancient ritual. So in finding these rules and learning about this game, they were like, you know what? We don't need to fight each other anymore.

We want, we want football. We want American football. Yes. So both sides would reassemble the state. as it was requested in the sacred text, and the site of the holy gridiron, as it was called, began to restore use to the ancient dwarf. It was on this day, after many centuries,

that Nuffles' amorical football was played once more. The ancient dwarf took the sacred high priest's title of commissioner and was known as Sacred Commissioner Rose L. which if anyone is familiar with the NFL history, there was a former NFL commissioner named Pete Roselle. Oh my goodness. Which I'm sure it's just a coincidence that they just happen to sound exactly the same, right? Yeah.

I'm trying to write down everything you're saying and trying to see if I can draw parallels. Obviously, many of them are extremely clear. Mm-hmm. Yeah, okay. Do you know this guy? Was this guy created for this, I don't want to call it a bit, but this segment of lore? Oh, Roselle? Yeah, probably.

No, no, no. Noffle. You know, I'm pretty sure he was because he's the god of violent sports. This is their blood bowl. So I'm sure Nuffel was created specifically for Blood Bowl, specifically. specifically for this game. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay, so we got, all right, all right.

You can actually play Blood Bowl. It is a video game, a very popular video game, and I believe it's a board game. Ah, okay. All right. That's what I know about Warhammer is just how it goes very deep and it goes very wide. Oh, yeah. And I think that that's like I was trying to come up

with the things that I knew about Warhammer yesterday, just in my mind and writing them down. And I was like, oh, obviously, it's yet to be made into TV or movie that's happening, of course. But that is, yep, yep. I know, I was like, I know there's video games. And I know that it's a tabletop thing. And then I was like, oh, I remember watching like hours and hours and hours of miniature painting. And I didn't know any lore at all.

I just liked watching the people paint the figures. And I realized that that was Warhammer. Watching professional painters paint their little minis is just a crue. craziest thing ever. It's so therapeutic. And then it's one of those things where, and everybody who's listening to this already knows this, but it's one of those things where it's like,

I'm watching them paint. And I would be done about 10 times before they're finished. And then they're like, oh, yeah, this is, I'm like, oh, yeah, that looks great. I would call that a day. And then they go, but one more layer. And then I go, oh, my God, it's becoming more real. Oh, look, here's how you make heated metal.

Here's how you make it look like your mini is glowing with paint. And it's like, I'm sorry. Right. Yes. Yes. When they put the lighting behind it, oh, my God. It's sorcery. Big shouts.

Big shout. It really is. So Roselle's first action as commissioner was to establish the Church of Nuffles' Amorical Football to not only oversee the game in its followers, but also to serve as sort of the governing body. But the name, sort of the Church of Nuffles of Morical Football, didn't really stick. it was just, it was a lot to say. So it eventually just became known as the church of NAF or NAF for short. And despite the name change,

they still took in all the tax benefits a church would take in. All right. That's smart. That's just good. Oh, yeah. All right. And every time I hear NAF, I'm like,

oh, it's just, it's so close to N-FL, N-A-F, I'm just at the L in end of it. Yeah. Wait. And, oh, go ahead. that's why he's called Nuffel.

Nuffel NFL. That makes me, it makes me, it makes me kind of mad that I let that go so long without realizing. Nuffle is just NFL. If you just say NFL, it's nufel. No way. Because I'm writing down a bunch of stuff here. And then, yeah, because you,

because I wrote church of NAA and I was looking at that. And I was like, huh? And then you said it. And then I was like, wait, wait, wait, we're getting somewhere. I'm kind of, I'm not like, I'm angry with myself. I didn't even make, I've looked over this script a hundred times.

Never did. Was I like, oh yeah, Nuffel is just like if you tried to say NFL, Nuffel. That is bonkers. That's crazy. I guarantee you that's why it's called that.

I am, that is canon lore. I don't care what anybody says. Anyway, after the establishment of the N-A-F, it had two main goals. The full proper translation of the word of Nuffel and the spread of the words of Nuffel.

The translation of the rules came with the uncovering of more specific rules, and the spreading of the word of Nuffel proved to be fairly quick and easy. In a matter of weeks, delegations from the various races of the old world convened to the N-A-F headquarters, regardless of conflict or pre-executive,

hatred between the various races. The word of Nuffel was viewed as just this remarkable unifier. Everybody sort of gravitated towards this game, and everyone was like, like we said, this sort of killed off war. Nobody was really conflicting anymore. Everybody was coming together to sort of make this new sport a reality. And under Roselle, the various sex, known as teams, competed in annual competitions

known as seasons that culminated in what was known as the Blood Bowl final and the name Blood Bowl just it was just it was a nice easy name it really put an emphasis on what the sport was about so they were like you know what we're just going to call this sport

Blood Bowl and some truly amazing teams rose up across the old world oh I can't I cannot out wait for this. So on the script, our editor Possum has put, but none of them are as good as the Baltimore

Ravens, which Shai is a big fan of the Baltimore Ravens. And I hate to bring reality into this, but for a team that's supposed to be that good, they've won one playoff game in like the last 10 years. So

I'm a guest in it. A little bias. It's probably a good idea to stay ahead of that. But outside of the players, there are plenty of other significant things that impact a team. The coaches, of course, are a sort of vital, religious analog for the teams themselves. And the passion of the fans are also important to ensure the game goes well. And, of course, when talking about football, we can't forget about the cheerle. because their energy literally provides incredible morale for all of the parties involved.

And sometimes the cheerleaders will just go super hard. Like they'll be pushing it and cheering louder than the fans, louder than the team. And in a notable instance, an ogre cheer team went so hard in a routine that they reduced an entire arena to rubble. Whoa. And oh go ahead, go ahead. Well, I have a question about the kind of the Warhammer world. So this makes sense that, and again, I'm really kind of showing my ass as it were, but they, that someone's energy can affect someone else, obviously, right? So I'm kind of drawing, I'm imagining all of this and I'm drawing obvious parallels to the real world that we live in.

But I like that. From a writing perspective, that one seems like it's the first thing to take it one step into fantasy. Right. To go, their energy provides morale. I get, I like that. That's a nice little touch. And I like that I can destroy an entire stadium. Yeah.

And as we talk about Warhammer, that's like a big thing with sort of like the chaos gods, is they like, they will feed on specific types of energy. So we'll talk a little bit about them later. but like you have corn, God of war. There's blood for the blood, God, skulls for the skull throne. So anytime there's like war, anytime there's like brutal combat, he is just, he feeds off of that energy. And he kind of gets a little stronger.

There's Nergel, God of decay, death. So anything involving death, sickness, disease, that energy kind of feeds him. And that's sort of like how the gods work. So in Warhammer, definitely there's a lot of sort of, feeding off of energy energy of like what you're doing and and what kind of stuff you're doing is like a big part of it okay i like that is is is nergel the that that one is the one i've heard before oh is that a very common one or no is it is nerd is a popular one for sure

okay yeah she's always depicted as sort of like a big fat green like pus covered boil covered dripping with like bleh in muck and bleh oh yeah very very gross models a lot of the models have like a

their belly has a literal mouth on it and it's just very yeah the whole time of this episode I just go ew that's gross if we were doing an episode specifically on Nergel it would be just a lot of ew gross yuck

but yeah that one I'm just it's It's fascinating because, I mean, Warhammer's been around for quite a while. And it's just fascinating to look back on my life and go, oh, wait, I've heard this from people who are more excited about it than I am knowledgeable. I'm trying to remember when it started. I think it was like the 80s. I want to say 86 is my Hornhammer, like, started.

That did a lot of Laura catch up on that. Oh, yeah. Four years in and we're like, wow, we've been. barely scratched the surface. Hooray. So Roselle lived to the age of 196, and his notes and musings on the great word of Nuffel keeps scholars of the sport busy to this day. So you may be thinking, hey, aren't there other gods in Warhammer that can stop this Nuffel guy, which is a lovely transition that was completely accidental. And there is... I was thinking. Yeah, you were thinking, I'm thinking exactly that. Well done, Possum. There's literally a pantheon of chaos gods. Like we said, there's, there's corn, there's Nurgel, there is Slanesh, who is the god of excess, is always striving for perfection. There is, which ones have I said? There's, there's corn, Nurgel, Slanesh, Zinch, and I feel like I'm forgetting a bunch of them, but that's okay. It's early in the morning. You can forgive me.

for that. Hey, I don't know if you are. They all sound there to me. But some think he is a cousin to the gods of chaos. Others think that Nuffel represents the sum of the parts of all the gods of the worlds. But one thing that is for sure known is somehow none of the known deities that we've talked about have any power over Nuffel's word in any way, shape, or form. His word quite literally nullifies the other powers of the world and sort of all the other gods just kind of have to deal with him.

There's not a whole lot they can do about him and his violent sport. It is well known that corn, blood for the blood god, absolutely loves blood bowl and actually has teams that actively participate in Blood Bowl, since he loves just brutal, bloody combat. The same with... Oh, go ahead. I have a question, and I don't know if you know the answer, but the teams, and you might have said this,

but the teams, but the teams are they, are they representing specific gods? Or they're not, they didn't seem like they're representing regions. Or maybe they are, but I don't know. I wouldn't know the difference. So we'll sort of talk about, like, team composition and where they come from. Okay. But usually they're kind of made up of, like, this is one of the few that, like, oh, yeah, this team is represented by corn.

Gotcha. Okay. There's sort of war god. There's some that represent the dark elves. There's some that represent the ogres. There's some that represent, like, dwarves and halflings. And we'll talk about it a little bit later, but generally speaking, they're all also made of it's never really just one race that's on a team

because you want to have a diverse squad, right? You want to make sure. You don't just have a bunch of elves that just immediately get body, right? So... Sure. Yeah. So the same could be said for Nergel,

probably because like we said, he's very, like, sickness, the acceptance of death. And that's sort of like, oh, yeah, the inevitability of the end of the game. Maybe somebody dies in there. Zinche is sort of this trickster god. that loves to just do a lot of wacky concepts of the unknown.

So Zinche probably loves Blood Bowl because who knows how the game is going to go? Who knows what chaos will be wrought? Slanesh, like we said, is the god of excess, focuses on perfection. And with any sport, the excess is always there. Excessive, overpaid, celebrity-esque figures. You're trying to be as perfect as you can in a sport. You're really training hard. So, of course, Slenish would love it too.

so we're kind of just assuming that all of the gods saw Blood Bowl, and even though they have no power over Nuffel, they were like, well, we all kind of like all the concepts they're going on in Blood Bowl, so why would we stop it? Something for everybody. Exactly. Even the chaos gods, just love it.

So, after the death of Roselle, which is just old age, he lived to be like almost 200, it's great. He was succeeded by his trusted assistant, Jim Thorpe, which, again, very, very suspiciously close to the first president of the American Professional Football Association, Jim Thorpe. But this one, it's spelled D-J-I-M-M, not just J-I-M. It's Jim Thorpe, not just Jim. But again, must be a coincidence. Really working over time of it. This is as on the nose as I think I've ever seen Warhammer. But without Roselle, a bit of an issue came up.

He was the great interpreter of like the word of Nuffel. He was the one that was kind of like he had scoured all of the texts. He knew all the stuff. And with him gone, teams began operating and interpreting rules sort of on their own, very willy-nilly. and these issues would kind of vary from species to species. The greenskins, which are like orcs, goblins, stuff like that, they began to make up their own rules that would change in the middle of a game. Just suddenly, nope, we decided that it's okay for me to rip the head off of a player or something.

The Skaven, which are like this group of like, yes, yes, ratlings. Oh, we're rats. We love to steal. We love to backstab. Would pretend to not know the rules so they could sneak in a victim. and be very shady about it. The high elves of Uthan, who are just these sort of like very pompous elves, rewrote the rules entirely to ban contact between players in general, because of course they don't want to ruin their majestic figure and all of their pristine armor. It was up to Jim to reunite everyone.

So he began working with scholars to pour through Roselle's journals and notebooks, which was no easy fee because there was still a lot of them. But Jim became commissioner in the year 2378, and the first official unified rules of the sport would not be completed until 2409. Oh, wow. So it took a while. There were a lot of rules to sort through.

Yeah. I'm writing all this down like I'll have any use for it. Hey, who knows, who knows when it'll... It's true. you know, yeah, trivial pursuit one day, right? Yeah. Who was the first commissioner of Blood Bowl? And you'll be like, I know this!

And the first draft of the Blood Bowl rules was widely considered to be just rubbish and needed to be reworked to account for some variance of the great game that had spawned during the time. There was a variant called Blitzbowl, which was sort of like the way to get amateur. into the game, sort of like your feeder system. Dungeon Bowl was an underground variant that allowed the game to be played all year round. And Street Bowl, a now outlawed version of the game that was played in narrow streets.

In 24, for, yeah. We have, like, we have, like, arena and the XFL. This is kind of close to the XFL. This is actually really close. Like, the original inception of the XFL, Yeah. They actually cleaned up the X-FL. Now they play it like it's actual football instead of just a Wild Wild West.

Yeah, I've heard that. Yeah. And in 2414, the rules were officially settled after the formation of an independent guild designed to oversee the word of Nuffel. The Referees and Allied Rules Keeper Guild, or RARG, A-R-R-A-E, R-A-R-R-G. And to be in the guild, you needed to be up-to-date on all of the rules. You needed to have just the best knowledge of both the sport itself, while also maintaining order when it comes to corruption.

To ensure that, to ensure that, quote-unquote, the cost of bribing an official is always cost-efficient and fair. This is now, man, now this is actually a little. closer to FIFA if you ask me. Oh, well, hey. Is soccer very heavily, like, bribed? I was going to say, I think that that's actually, I think that I'm not making an accusation. I think that's pretty well to find that.

I feel like that's fair with all the, like, all the crazy diving that happens in soccer, and it's like, of course that's a red card. It's like he can even touch him. What do you mean? Anyway, so Jim retired in 2429. and what followed was one of the most difficult eras in the sport. So Jim Thorpe's successor was George Hellhound, which an original name in Blood Bowl?

No way, crazy. Who was less of a sports guy and more of a corporate megamined with the vision of the sport that, well, it was all about the money. George Hellhound, he was all about the Benjamin's baby. And there was a major problem that the sport faced at this point, and that was financial accessibility. So a stadium could only fit so many people at a time. And George wanted to somehow monetize the experience. He wanted to monetize it so that even if the stadium was at full capacity, he could still make money off of the people that,

maybe couldn't make it into the stadium, didn't live near a stadium, and, you know, just really raking the big bucks. And so essentially, he just, at this time, there are these places called colleges of magic. Obviously, they specialize in doing all of your fantasy magic stuff. And so he pays a bunch of colleges of magic to sort of figure out a way to help him monetize. how can I make this as accessible to everyone as possible? And so this results in two of the biggest innovations in Blood Bowl history. The camera, which is spelled C-A-M-R-A and cabal vision,

and the magical innovation is as follows. The result was a spirit bound into a magic box. The bound spirit is allowed to look out of their box in one direction only through a glass porthole. And what the spirit sees can be transmitted by teams of magicians to magic mirrors and crystal balls the world over. This quickly became known

as broadcast cabal vision. Anyone could buy a license to have games and other shows broadcast into a magic mirror or crystal ball in their own home. Wow. So in these cameras, there's a being, there's a living, creature? There's like a, yeah, there's like a, there's like a spirit that's bound into the, the sort of camera, and they sort of magically display it to mirrors and crystal balls all over the world so that everybody that has a crystal ball or one of these magic mirrors can watch a good old game of Blood Bowl. This is, this is really great. And I think that, I think that for someone who is so intimidated by the entire Warhammer thing,

It is so intimidated into like, I've never, I've watched like two episodes of The Simpsons because they got away from me. Same thing with like South Park. It's like when things are so deep and so it runs for so long, I go, oh, you know, maybe it's maybe in another lifetime I'll catch up. But I do think that had someone told me before, they got goblins with the holding cameras and the cameras have spirits in them. I think that I might have, I think I might have get involved a little earlier. This is very exciting to me. So this is technically in sort of the Warhammer fantasy realm. There's also like the sort of sci-fi space grim dark,

but we're more in like the fantasy realm, which I feel like it's a little more friendly because everybody kind of vaguely understands fantasy. Like this has its Warhammer spin on it. And I feel like it's a little more whimsical. It's more willing to be sort of like nonsensical at times. So I find it a little more tongue-y. cheek and a little easier to sort of like dip your toes into i see are they completely different

worlds like did i mean i'm sure that the like factions and stuff probably there's parallels in both but are they do they ever interact with each other the because i know i know like the space marine thing and that's i would assume the sci-fi side of everything yeah and obviously the blood bowl and the god of nfl is the fantasy but are they are they kind of one in the same or are they both just kind of two different worlds. So more or less, they're two different worlds. Like, they technically share the same pantheon of, like, chaos gods and stuff. But for the most part, they are kind of two separate worlds.

It's like, this is the fantasy world. This is the sci-fi world. But, yeah, like, they share races. Like, they're still, like, green skins, orcs, humans and stuff like that. But technically, they're different universes, yeah. That's great. This covers a lot of bases. I mean, I'm normally a sci-fi guy.

Like, I, you know, I'll normally lean on the side of like a fallout or, you know, a Star Trek. Because I like being rooted a bit more in science or like kind of our political system is very interesting to me. And those, there's a lot more in science fiction. There's a lot more parallels for that stuff. But this is very exciting. This, I think, is great for someone like me who doesn't know anything and funds. what you said earlier, the blood and the viscera and the jocke in for position and the battles and the dark, you know, dark, dark world. I think this is, this is a nice reprieve.

I hope everybody's enjoying the Blood Bowl episode. Yeah. It's taking all my willpower not to just go in a trekkie nerd, nerd out because I also am the same way. But that's another episode for another time. Yeah, yeah. Possibly even a whole other party. Another podcast for sure. So the innovation of the camera and the cabal vision

resulted in Hellhound being able to recreate one of the most important ancient aspects of the word of Nuffel, sponsorships. Yes. Yeah, you need your sponsors. You need them. And by bringing more attention to the sport in a global visual manner,

Hellhound figured that each individual, division, conference, and season could be sponsored by different organizations and that there would be just this crazy bidding war to be sponsors of the cool team, the regional team. He was, of course, correct, and the corporate sponsorship era was just, it was in full swing. And the most well-known sponsor during this time was Bloodweiser, who started. who sponsored the 2461 Blood Bowl Championship.

The championship was being broadcast to the literal hundreds of homes that could afford Cabal Vision and the mages who broadcasted it, Channel 7, made sure that the winners, a team of dark elves known as the Dark Side Cowboys, were paid handsomely for their victory. Wow, they're really having fun over there.

Oh, yeah, this is such a tongue-in-cheek, fun, just little, sort of alternate universe of just everybody enjoying Amorica football. Well, now, another question here. This is giving me a bad, this is giving me a bad first look, right? I'm assuming at Warhammer, because if I go, I love, love bowl, that sounds, they're so funny over there. I'm assuming it gets much worse. Well, so I was going to say if you go up to like Warhammer people, oh man, I love Blood Bowl. Blood Bowl is great. I think you'd be met with a lot of like, oh, yeah, I love Blood Bowl too.

I think it's like one of those universally like love things that everybody just loves to talk about Blood Bowl. They sort of love this sort of crazy, whimsical on the nose football thing. And more than likely, someone will try and shove a picture of a orc cheerleader in your face just to see your reality. I don't know if shy has it, but I feel like that's the reaction that you would, you would get. I got no problem with that. Yep. It's, uh, it's, uh, if anybody would like to do that. Yeah, it's like, uh, it's a, it's, I think it's an, I think it's an org cheerleader and she is just out there swinging her very saggy breasts around and just it's, it's a whole thing.

I think it's from, I have to assume it's from the video game. And are you referring to what? Are you referring to one picture in particular? Yeah, I think it's like one gift or something that everybody loves throwing around. And when I first, oh, there you go. Shai has it right there in the guest chat for you. Yeah, I mean, I would say normally I don't want to describe it, but you just did a great job. That's kind of all there is.

Yeah, that's just big sagging breasts that are covered up by a little thing. And they're just really tilt the world. My morale, that would get my morale up for sure. Hell yeah, if I was an org for sure. Do it for her. That is a Simpson's like that. Look at the Simpsies.

You know more about Simpsons than you thought, right? Well, I mean, it's one of those things. It's like, you know, it's osmosis, just by osmosis for such a long time. Then the same thing happens with Warhammer. It's just, it's cultural impact is so vast that, you know. That's true. I guess, yeah, that's true.

Like, you see that do it for her thing on Twitter for literally everything. Yeah, every fandom, yeah. But the sponsorships, changed to the scope of the sport, and Hellhound saw a very long and uncontested tenureship. He stayed in office for a staggering 48 years. Yeah, I mean, you know, he brought television and broadcast it to the world. He retired in 2477 after dying of old age and was unfortunately replaced by the most controversial figure in the history of. of Blood Bowl.

So Hellhound's successor was a young and eager Nuffel priest named Nick Threehorn, who was just, when he was an assistant to Hellhound, he was very supportive, very great, helped out with the sponsorships, loved the game. He was exceptionally knowledgeable about the inner workings of the NAF, and it was essentially just everybody expected him to take over. Once Hellhound stepped down there like, oh yeah, Nick Threehorn, he's taken over. So they had no problem with him. They had no problem with him at the jump.

Oh, yeah. At the jump, they were like, oh, yeah, he's so knowledgeable. He's been working under Hellhound. Like, this guy is going to do great. Of course, he is the natural successor. And at the time, the NAF is in just, it's in a golden financial age. and essentially all Threehorn needed to do was just keep doing what Hellhound had done. Just stay the course and everything is going to be fine.

However, the biggest difference between them had to do with their financial prowess. While Hellhound was a, he was a greedy and money-hungry dude, but he was dedicated to the game and he was dedicated to the continued growth of the NAF, because the bigger the sports get, the bigger the payday, the more money you get. Hooray, my greed is acceptable. Threehorn, however, was selfish and just he wanted that quick payday, where Hellhound would be willing to sort of play the long game for his payout Threehorn, I need that money now.

So Threehorn began doubling the cost of the broadcasting of the game. Oh. Yeah. And because the broadcasting of the game increased, the tickets for the stadium games had to inflate, too. Cost of merch rose. The snacks in the stadium cost rose. And he would demand much more money from the sponsors, too.

And that means if the sponsors want more money, it costs more to broadcast the game. It costs more to go to the game. Well, damn it, of course the players want more money too. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's funny that, like, my reaction to everything you've said so far has been largely in support, and it took a guy raising the prices. All it took was capitalism.

And within just four seasons, the cost to attend a game rose from an average of five. five fennings, which at the time, pretty big amount, and it went from five fennings to 75. Yo. That's a lot of fennings. Yeah. But despite all this, money just kept flowing in because, wow, this game is so popular. I love my team.

Oh, this is my game. We all love it. It literally is the game that stopped war. Ah, capitalism. It is what it is. and people still paid it. And eventually, the writing was on the wall. This is obviously unsustainable.

The prices began to impact the general market. There was a dramatic capitalist focus that was impacting the branding on goods and services. The Cabal Vision mages were also just like, man, this is so expensive. We need alternatives. Broadcasting-wise, we got to figure out some other stuff to broadcast.

So they started doing talk shows and theatrical dramas. And they were just like, we can't just do Blood Bowl. It's just too expensive. So Blood Bowl began to also change to reentice viewers because now there were other options. They could watch talk shows. They could watch dramas. They didn't have to watch Blood Bull. So Blood Bowl was like, you know what?

What's the thing with Blood Bowl that really that people just love? They love the violence, obviously. So the violence on the field began to increase. And this resulted in the invention of just various new tools to use on the field, including a dangerous new device to the world of Bloodbone, blood bowl, simply known as the chainsaw. It is literally just a chainsaw. In a very famous period of time,

every single game in a month had a zero-zero score to it because all the teams playing were made up of what was described as chainsaw-wielding loonies who just essentially it was a chainsaw massacre because they would all just kind of forget

the rules of the game. They'd forget that they were actually playing Blood Bowl. They would forget that, hey, we're playing football and would just tear each other a pole. I mean, if you put a chainsaw on my hand and other people have a chainsaw in hand, I think I might forget to play the sport as well. I think I might be preoccupied with the chainsaw of it all. Yeah, especially when the other team's got chainsaws too and they're coming at you,

just trying to rip you apart. It's like, yeah, screw trying to throw a perfect spiral. Like, I'm out here for survival, bro. Scoring is the last thing, literally the last thing on my mind. Yeah, I'm out here for survival. And this resulted in a little success because, like, oh my God, they're just killing each other with chainsaws out there. Wow, this is great. You're going to tune in. We're going to watch. Sure. Sure. But many, many people, as you can imagine, started to take a little bit of issue with it. Crowds began to shrink and former players became quite outspoken about it. A notably outspoken former player named Jeremy. Jeremiah Kuhl, who was the captain of the championship-winning dark side cowboys, he was outspoken about it, didn't like it, and he was able to be outspoken about it because he had the backing of the witch king of Nagaroth, which is just like this really powerful sort of elven creature. And they used the immense power of their guard to sort of protect Jeremiah Kuhl.

So he could just, he could say whatever he wanted. It didn't, it didn't matter if he was, you know, bashing them or praising them. He wouldn't be affected by like, oh, no, I can't say this. Otherwise, they're going to come get me. So he could say whatever we wanted. And he was, he was trying to call it like he saw it. He said that the new NAF was just so corrupt. And obviously to him, they didn't actually worship Nuffel like they were supposed to.

all they worshipped, all they cared about was money. Yeah, forgotten where you came from. Mm-hmm. And because all they worshipped was money and they didn't actually worship Nuffel, he actually specifically said like, hey, this new version of Blood Bowl, it's heretical.

It's heretical towards Nuffel. It's heretical towards what Blood Bowl is supposed to be. And so that statement kind of starts getting people like, oh, you know what? he's kind of right. He's kind of right. The sport does need a change. This is a little heretical. This MF spitting, so to speak. Yes, this MFer, he do be spitting bars, for sure. For sure. And unfortunately, the chainsaw era saw, unfortunately, quite a literal thinning out of the sport itself, as it tends to happen when most people are worried with surviving the chainsaw battle than the

actual sport. Almost every rookie had been literally cut in half at this point, and all that remained were the old guard who were more or less retired at the time. And these old players began to make their way back in the form of competing against the NAF to form like their own leagues outside of the NAF. So old retired players would be like, man, this is, this chainsaw shit is whack. Like, we have to make, we have to make this game what it once was. So they'd come out of retirement and they would make these new leagues that newbies could actually play. They would actually play Blood Bowl and they would actually have a chance at survival.

So the once globally recognized NAF was now sort of, it was relegated to page three of the papers because all of these retired players were making these new leagues. like the World's Edge Super League, which is like sort of this famous mountainous region in fantasy. They were making these new leagues and people cared more about those because it was like, oh, this is Blood Bowl. This isn't just a chainsaw massacre.

This is the sport we fell in love with. Yeah, yeah, this happened, right? So in the NFL. Or with the NFL. If I'm someone out there is screaming, but I'm pretty sure that there was the NFL and the NFL existed in competition for a bit.

You know, I think you're right. Yeah. And then actually, I think the AFL actually made a comeback. Because that was, that's like one of those sort of pseudo leagues that's now competing. Actually, I think the XFL and AFL just recently combined. Oh, wow. And now that's just like one big, I forget what they call it. There's some name for it.

And that's sort of the summer league when the NFL's out of season now. Oh, yeah, a while. Okay. Yeah. I do think that there was some sort of merger at some point, but that makes a lot of sense. Just another, you know. Real world comparison. Yeah, yeah.

Sure. I mean, we have the god of NFL, right? We have Nuffles, so sure. But the falling attendance and the terrible ratings caused obviously a downward spiral in the NAF. And this came to a head in the 2488 championship game. The game was actually packed two capacity. and it was the home team of the Reikland Revers against the famous Dark Side Cowboys.

The game was tied going into the halftime show and something just didn't feel right about this game. Because during the halftime show, the cheerleading squads would come out. The Reikland Revers cheerleading squad, the Rieverettes came out, but the Shadows, the Darkside Cowboys cheerleading squad, the shadows kind of no-showed it.

The Rieverettes did a great routine, smashing, absolutely great, but the shadows never arrived. And when the officials went backstage to be like, where are these cheerleaders? What happened? They discovered there were two things missing, the luxury coach of Nick Threehorn, and literally all of the money in the vaults of the NAF. Whoa. We're gone. man. And the officials kept it hush, hush, because, oh my God, we still have a championship game going on. What the hell do we do? Which the championship game was a dramatic three-two victory by the Cowboys.

But when the game was over and it was time to give out the prize money, give out the trophies, you know, post-game conference came about. Nick Threehorn, the Shadow's cheerleading squad, and all the money in the NAF, We're still gone. Nick Threehorn had made off with all the money, the shadows, and just left them high and dry. We hate Nick Threehorn. We sure do. We hate that MFer.

He, ooh, boy, he's a... I don't like him based on the little I know. Yeah, he's kind of ruined the sport. And now with the lack of money and the oversight, of not being able to deal with Nick Threehorn. Obviously, this results in sort of a crisis of faith in the NAF. The Association of Broadcasting Conjurers, also known as, you guessed it, the ABC Network.

Okay. I don't know why that keeps getting me, but how continually it is just one-to-one. I'm just kind of one, and I don't know, I don't think the rest of Warhammer is like this. but I can just see somebody being like, all right, I'm on the Wikipedia. I got the thing. Here we go.

Okay, there's that. I'm going to change the name to this. It's working. I'm invested. I'll say that. So I feel like Blood Bowl is definitely way more on the nose, but a lot of Warhammer does tend to sort of not so subtly sort of take from popular culture. And there are some very clear references like,

In 40K, there's a character called Sly Marble, I think, who's very obviously just, he's sort of like Sylvester Stallone and Chuck Norris jumbled into one. He even has all the sort of Chuck Norris memes attached to him, like Chuck Norris doesn't cry, the tears cry Chuck Norris or something. And how does the Warhammer community respond to that? Is it normally like, yeah, we don't care? It's fun stuff. Or are there people that are like, this is really?

So I don't think anybody thinks it ruins it. I think for the most part people are just like, oh yeah, that's just kind of what GW does. It's nothing too egregious. And we recognize it, but it's like, you know, so it's, it's all in good fun, I think. I think you're allowed to have a little fun as a treat for sure. Yeah, just a little treat, a little treat. But so ABC, the Association of Broadcasting Conjurers, withholds payment to the NAF because no more money. and this causes just a horrible domino effect with the sponsors. And it resulted in the unthinkable of the NFA, the NAF simply has to shut down at the end of 2488

without any notice to the teams or the associations. When seeking comment for this, one of the Nuffel priests simply said, it is not the job of the Church of Nuffel to run the sport for you, and we can't imagine why anyone would think otherwise. Oh. And without any fanfare at all, the sport had been cut from its governing body,

and it was up to everybody else to figure out what they wanted to do with themselves, how they wanted to continue. And what followed was just complete, just chaos. There are players without livelihoods, season ticket holders are just like this, is so screwed up. I have season tickets. What am I supposed to do with these?

And the economy of the old world is just crumbling. There was looting, there was rioting. People are no longer watching the shows on the Necromancer's Broadcasting Circle, the NBC.

And worst of all, there is now no longer an excuse not to bring back war. I knew that was coming. Yeah. I paid enough attention to know. But thankfully, this little sort of like moment of chaos, confusion, and just economic collapse is very short-lived.

Oh, good. Because in a few years' time, the words of the priest began to make themselves clear. The NAF didn't own Blood Bowl. It was owned by the people. The church literally said, we don't run. the sport for you. Why would you think that we did? It's not ours. It's not owned by the people. So teams that were once casualties of the collapse began to sort of travel around and play sort of pickup games like roving bands of mercenaries. Independent leagues began to take hold and over time

more and more teams began to sprout up everywhere. And these teams would use the old rules. they would bring back sort of classic Blood Bowl, you know, the good sportsmanship of violent Blood Bowl. And the populace was like, oh, yeah, this is Blood Bowl. It's not about chainsaws. It's not about gratuitous amounts of money. It's, this is the sport that we left. This is why we love Blood Bowl.

And the once abandoned stadiums became home to independent games and brief tournaments to benefit the players and the audience. And the Cabal Vision networks and sponsors began to formulate like this new idea. They would do independent cups. They would do tournaments to make money independently of a major league. And this resulted in the formation of four major championship tournaments. We have the All Corners Chaos Cup in the springtime, the Spike magazine trophy open in autumn,

the Dungeon Bull Invitational in Winter, and the Blancers. Blood Bowl classic. I love this. I'm so happy for them. And I hope it is. Yes. Yeah. And it doesn't end in in all-out war. They've got their game back.

It is a game of the people. I'm mostly happy for the people and the players, but the people mostly. And also, screw Nick Threehorn. Like, wherever he is with all that money and all those cheerleaders, man. I've got rocks in your shoe, Nick Threehorn. Yeah. A never-ending,

a never-ending trail of Legos for him. to step on. Yeah. Bad haired days for a hell yeah, every day. The first Blood Bowl classic, sponsored by Bloodwiser and broadcast exclusively on ABC, was under the direct control of the imperial throne heir, Carl Franz, who was a huge fan of the sport. The format was a huge success, and the competition was viewed as a glorious summer of excess in the heart of the the old world. With the calendar chock full of leagues and tournaments, punctuated by the majors, with the R-A-R-R-G taking control of the rules and regulations, and with the Cabal Vision networks and sponsors in charge of the promotion, the Open Era had well and truly begun.

Blood Bowl was back with a vengeance because in truth, it had never really gone away. Oh, that was nice. Yeah, nice little quote, right? Yeah. So now that we have sort of our history of the game, it's time to learn how to play the game itself and what's involved in the game. And as everyone may have guessed up until this point,

it's pretty much just American football with some, you know, Warhammer-specific sprinkled in. You're blowing one person's mind right now, maybe one or two people who weren't fully bad. There's one person that's like, football! Wait, what? Football, novel, NFL, what? No way!

If you're that one person, please comment. Please leave a comment and be like, football! As mentioned before, the ball used in Blood Bowl was originally intended to be that of an inflated pig bladder. But there's some flexibility in what people use as a ball, because the ball can be made. from the finest pigskin. In other probably orc regions, it could be a squig that is bred into being the perfect ball shape. Squigs are like these little ugly creatures that the orcs breed.

Essentially, they use them for like everything. You can eat them. You can kick them. You can breed them to be bombs. But they're just like these little red fat blob-looking things that the orcs just breed for everything. And it is very, It is very on brand that the orcs would be like, yeah, we bred this squig to be a football.

Yeah. So. I'm not going right now. Yeah. No, it's not always great to be a squig. And in some arenas, carved warpstone balls are common too. Warpstone is sort of this mystical green substance in Warhammer fantasy that is discharged with, like, crazy sort of chaotic. energy to it. So I'm assuming if you have a warpstone ball, that thing is going to be bouncing

and doing some really wacky, weird warping between reality shenanigans. Yeah, that's fun, like a little Superball. Exactly, exactly. Another major factor about the game is sort of the field, the pitch. In the great words of Nuffel, the pitch needs to be 100 paces long and 60 paces wide. The end zone needs to be a further five paces back. The problem with this specific wording is that paces isn't really

a specific measurement because the problem is you have humans, you have tiny goblins, you have orcs that are pretty big, and you have massive hulking, towering, ogres that are 10 feet tall. So 60 paces to an

ogre, little different than 60 paces to a tiny little goblin or a tiny little human. So, because of that, every field can look just vastly different. And I have to imagine if you are a human playing in ogre home field, boy,

it really sucks trying to go 100 ogre bases to the end zone. Well, that's like playing in Denver. Oh, true, because the elevation, right, right. Or it's just winter climate. Like if you're

the Los Angeles Rams playing the Green Bay Packers in winter. It's like, oh, well, that's not fair, right? You're literally out of your element. Nice. Nice. Nice. An additional rule about the pitches is that under no circumstances, can a pitch be built over an old graveyard? Because there was an incident where thousands of undead fans arose from their grave in the middle of the game and just tore the field, clear apart. Yeah. I can imagine that would not be super great. Yeah, no burial ground pitches.

One other major factor that has to do with the pitch itself is that in Nuffel's sacred text, it is clearly stated that grass is the sacred material used for the field. However, due to just different climates, grass isn't always possible. Like if you're in a snowscape, kind of hard to grow grass there. That's where Astro Granite comes in.

Nice. Astrogrant was a revolutionary synthetic material that requires no sunlight and virtually no upkeep except for your usual maintenance of cleaning up blood and gore from the match. However, due to its surface being different than grass and being highly resilient, it has a massive impact on the game. because of the astro granite, it can cause the balls to like just really bounce weirdly because it's not grass.

It's like this astro-so-obviously astro-turf. So the balls are bouncing real weird. It's not like grass. And apparently it is astro-granted very hard and it can shatter your armor if you fall on it. Oh. Well, that's very different than grass. Yeah, very different.

Although I think pro players also complain about astro-turf because it's really weird to run on. It interacts with cleats weird, and a lot of people have, like, injured their ankles, like, slipping and, like, rolling an ankle on AstroTurf, I think. Yes. Yeah, there's something, I know, again, talking a little bit out of my ass, but I know there is a phrase called Turf Toe,

which I think has to do with how it doesn't give or something, and it can add some pressure back on the... Definitely. Nothing that'll shatter armor, but, like, it still sucks. Yeah, we're all a line that we know that it's a problem We don't know what this specific problem Exactly, there is a problem with AstroTurf We're not sure about the specifics, sure

But AstroGranet was first used in 2485 And teams universally hated it However, it was a problem at the time So like you had to do something about it And you probably will not be shocked to hear that the owner of the company that created Astro Granite was none other than Nick Threehorn.

No, he's back. He's back again. So it became the norm. Also, it needs to be noted that apparently Astro Granite is listed as coming in over 256 colors and 31 distinct flavors. Oh, well, that's an interesting note.

Yeah, the script literally says it needs to be noted. Astrogrinic comes in 256 colors and 31 distinct flavors, whatever the fuck that means. So I'm being put like if you get tackled and you're like, oh, no, I just got a mouth full of astrogranate. Oh, hey,

it tastes like beef jerky, right? Yeah, I guess that would be nice. And as you travel around, you'd probably want to get a little nibble. Yeah, get a little, you know? The snobsberries taste like snowsberries. Yeah. You'd want to be adding to your repertoire of what you know.

about the flavors in this place. Maybe you go down a little bit more often if it tastes better. I don't like that clip. I don't like that clip. So the teams on each side, like we said, cap out at 11 people on the field at any given time with others in reserve.

And the goal, like in football, is to get the ball from one side to the other scoring a touchdown. And whoever has the most points at the end wins. And so, you know, congratulations. American football. It's Blood Bowl. And I think now it's time, now that we have a basic understanding of, you know,

Blood Bowl and how to play it and all that, I think we need to go over some of the teams in the world. This is what I've been waiting for. Oh, Blood Bowl. Since the game is a global phenomenon, each race in the old world has a notable presence in the sacred game. And so we are about to be bombarded with sort of quick one-line summary of the traits of each species and what they bring to the sport. And for fun, there will be notable in-universe team names per race. So we'll start off with the Elven Kingdoms. You have the high elves.

They are regal. They have ornate gear and they are graceful and pretentious. So pretentious, they have refused. games because they think their competitors are just too ugly. Oh. Typical high elf. One of their team names is the Galadreth Gladiators. Okay.

Next we have the wood elves who are light in armor for a natural field, but they hit hard and swift like a breeze. Their team name is the Aethylorn Avengers. And again, these are just random teams just to give a little flavor. A little flavor. These aren't all the teams they have. Dark elves are similar in style to the high elves, but they are just much more spiteful.

They're like if the high elves were going through their emo phase a little bit. Right. Team name for them besides the Dark Side Cowboys that we've already talked about is the Nagaroth Night Wings. Oh, that's good. I'd be nervous about them. Right? I'd want to be on the Night Wings.

That's a cool. I bet they have a dope logo too. Oh, I'm sure. And the bad lands, or we have sort of our green skin tribes, you have the orcs, the OGs of the game, they hit hard. But sometimes, as orcs tend to do, they hit really hard and they just keep hitting and they just keep fighting. And what? We're playing a game. Damn, I forgot because I was too busy ripping your arms out of their socket.

That happens in football too, in America. It definitely does. It happens in football. happens in hockey. Yep, yep. Team name for the orcs is the Thunder Valley Green Skins. I like that. The black orcs are, they are stronger and more intelligent orcs, essentially.

That's what a black orc is. They're bigger, stronger, tougher, they're smarter, they speak in complete sentences. They just, they hit hard, and they actually use tactics. They're not just going to try and beat you up. They're actually going to outsmart you too. Team name for them is just the Orkland Raiders. pretty normal. Uh-huh, that's good.

The ogres are defined as almost perfect blood bowl players because you tell them what to do and they just go do it. They do it and they do it better than the rest. Unfortunately, ogres aren't necessarily the smartest people in the whole wide world so when you get a whole team of them,

a lot of times they'll do what the coach tells them and sometimes they'll just kind of forget what you told them and then just go and start drinking and eating instead of playing the game. I've worked with some people like that. I was about to say sometimes I am like that. That's just me sometimes. Team name for them is the Fire Mountain gut busters.

Oh, I like the gut busters. Yeah, the gut busters. Well, I guess that's fair because the ogres are all about their big gut. That's how you tell when an ogre's really strong. They got this big gut that just bulges out. Oh, I'm a strong ogre. So actually, that makes sense. The goblins are utterly terrible at the game

and only win by pure chance and by hiding. Apparently, they hide weapons all around the pitch. And so they act almost like, if you watch wrestling at all, they act like the bad guy that's like, oh, oh, I found a chair under the ring. I'm going to hit you with it when the ref's not looking. And that's sort of how they win. And apparently they have enough goal to bribe victories on the up and up. See, if I have any affinity for any fantasy, anything, I'm a big goblin guy.

I love goblins. And I kind of, you know, I'm not the tallest guy. I think I might consider myself one. By any means necessary, you know. Normally I'm also like, because normal host Bricky is like six foot and I'm like, man, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like five, eight on a good day. Yeah, we're in the same bed. We're on the goblin team. Let's go.

We're the go. We're the heel wrestlers, let's go. It's Goblin Week. Hell yeah. A depth is really, dude. Team name for them is the mangled meatbags, formerly known as the Goblin Git Bashers. I love it.

And the old world classic races. So we got our humans who are, quote, unquote, the best overall players, just because they're basic as hell. They're humans. They're self-congratulatory. They're just, We all know what a human is.

We all are humans. We get it. Their team name is the Creveland Crescence. Next, we have the halflings who naturally leave a lot to be desired due to their size and stature. But they are defensive masterminds and just make the best coaches. Oh, and a low center of gravity. It'd be a little tough to it. True.

Yeah, especially if you're like an ogre. Like, try tackling a halfling. Like, you got to get way down there to, yeah. She kind of just mashing them into the ground, I guess. Which is possible. Yeah, that's try. I guess you could just step on them. Team name for them is the Blue Bay Crammers,

but a special shout out to another team that is simply called the drunken idiots. That's good. The Norse are huge, violent, known to drink in the middle of the game, and they actually are known to show up with literally Getties on the pitch and say, stop me, I dare you.

Team name for them is the Vinheim Valkyries. And apparently the Imperial nobility also field a team. They have ornate, beautiful, they are ornate, beautiful, pretentious, and usually easy targets for the other

team because they are just so pretentious. Our script writer has also listed for them epic rap battles in history, Aaron Rogers, versus hydrogen bomb. Oh my God. So, team name for them is the Bogan-hafen Barrens. Pretty normal.

Pretty whatever. Yeah. We had, we, in, in high school, we had a, it was an all-Catholic kind of prep, prep school, preppy school. So I'm imagining, I know the vibes. And I know the vibes. Oh, yeah. Imperial nobility would totally be that preppy high school, all for sure.

Yep. Yep. The all-boys school. we then have the dwarves who are the true OGs of the game amazing running game but feel incredible entitlement because Roselle

he was sort of the founder of Blood Bowl he was an ancient dwarf and a lot of times because they feel this way because Roselle knew all the rules because the dwarves are like this is our game they tend to argue with the refs a lot and are just like no of course you don't know the rules

I'm a dwarf you adult. So they're a little pretentious. Their team name is Oh, go ahead. You say the team name and then I'll follow up. Oh, they are the dwarf Warhammers. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know if you know anything about hockey. I know more about hockey. I know a lot more about hockey than I know football. Oh, I'm a huge hockey nut. So this is the original shit. Yes. That's the original six. Yes. And you don't feel that way if your team is in the original six.

It's a little different. The fan base for the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, little different than the Montreal Canadians, right? And we're all looking at you all thinking this about you. Oh, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And then the underworld teams, we have the Skaven, who are sort of like these, these conniving, backstabbing rat people. They view it as a great opportunity to mindlessly kill and maim.

They just love the violence on the pitch. Some of the highest player kill counts have been during, Skaven matches. We also have little snotlings, which are like little sort of mini demons. They are the worst in Blood Bowl. Imagine driving a truck through a flag football game, and essentially you have what the snotlings are trying to do. Their team name is the Skaven blight Scamblers.

Ooh, I do like Scramble. Now, Scrambleers is an extremely arena football name. That is very arena football, for sure. Very CFL name. Yeah. And then you have the Lustrian Super League, which is sort of like your your Amazon's. And so we actually do have Amazon, huge athletic ladies of the jungle who beat the hell out of the other teams, perfect for the game. And perfect for a future poster for Adrick Shy.

I don't know if Maddie has seen our posters there. Very pin up inspired, you know. I've seen a few. And yeah, I was waiting for the image. to come in for the not more eagler than any of the other ones everyone's chill out. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's good.

It'd be great for a poster. Blood Bowl poster at the Amazon's. Team name for them is the Laksin-killed Jaguars. Okay. It's giving a, and I don't know any more about this than I know about regular football. But there was a lingerie football.

There was a lingerie football league. That's right. I forgot about that. Oh, man. How could you forget? Boy. I want to say that that was a bit of a dark time. That was definitely sort of a, oh, here's a low-hanging fruit that surely won't backfire ever.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Then we have the lizard men, incredible at teamwork due to various lizards that make up the lizard men. And so the lizard men are like one of the first races that were created. in Warhammer Fantasy. So they've been playing since literally the dawn of time. So they just have the best teamwork.

They always work together. They know the game. Toss them the ball. They always score, you know. Team name for them is the, I guess I hadn't seen this name before. It is the guacamole crater gators. That's pretty good.

But guacamole is spelled G-W-A-K-A-M-O-L-I. the guacomole crater gator I don't know Is that a reference to something in the In the world The guacamole I mean it just sounds like you know Guacamole avocado you know

Guacamole Yes yes yes And I mean the lizardmen kind of look a little On the avian side so quack Walk quack Oh okay Are they okay are they they're not green I'm assuming or are they green

I mean They are lizards, so they are green. Okay. Green like guacamole? Sure. Maybe. Who knows? It's hard to get in the minds.

So next up, we have the Sylvan spotlight. We have the Kemry Tomb Kings that were literally buried dreaming to play once more. They have very light body mass due to literally being mummies. Oh, okay. But they make up for it in armor because they have just the best armor. but they need a strong litch to literally keep them together. They need like this overseeing maids that will actually like revive them, make sure they stay undead, make sure they stay together.

Because if you kill the lich, everybody just kind of thom. Right. The spell is broken. Team name for them is the Netter Kertet? Sure. Sure. Next up you have the necromanic horrors, which is imagine a coach trying to put together the

monster mash of a team with werewolves, zombies, and whatever other dead thing they can find. Oh, that's fun. Yeah, a team of zombie, werewolves and stuff, yeah. That'd be horrible to fight, though. Like, I would not want to go up against

the undead zombies, werewolves, and, mm-mm. No, no, you're right. Yep. Team name for them is the Wolfenburg Crit Steelers. Oh. I like that. That's not bad. The shambling undead,

they're loved because it's an opportunity for fans to watch their old dead favorite players back in action. So this is just like, oh, my favorite player from back when the game first started has been revived as a zombie corpse. Hell yeah, brother, let's go. The Washington, was it the, not the generals? What's the, what's the Washington basketball team? Is it the generals? No, the generals are the ones that play the Harlem Globetrotters.

Oh, yeah, that's true. What am I thinking of? The Wizards. The Wizards. I was trying to make a one-to-one because Michael, I'm so out of my out of there, Michael Jordan. He was on the Wizards for the end of his career.

They created that team, so kind of the same thing. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. I don't, please, I lived in Chicago. I know how they feel about Michael Jordan. I did not say that he was a reanimated corpse when he plays for the wizards. Well, I didn't say that.

Well, you know, Shai says it's like watching Tom Brady play basically. I see. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. However, only problem with the shambling undead is it takes so long to get these old players revived for a game. They got to get to the stadium like four days in advance. Their team name is the Tombstone Terror. And that's good.

Yeah. It's a good name. We have vampires who they play and they're pretty good. But as is the case with most vampires, they sort of have, they have a flair for the dramatics. They want to be sort of the center of attention. So vampires, while they do play, they prefer being either a referee or a commentator. And the most famous commentator in all of Blood Bowl is a vampire by the name of Jim Johnson. And his co-host is Bob Bifford. The Ogre, which I believe if you play the video game, you hear those two a lot. Oh, cool.

Yeah, and the team name is the Black Sabbaths. And Shai has posted a picture of those two from the video game in the chat. That, this is quite often what you'll see on like a normal commentary. You have like a player who is probably like, you know, alignment or something opposite, maybe a QB or something like that. They provide all angles of the game. I like that. Yeah. Apparently they're both ex-players.

So, hell, yeah. But yeah, it's a very, very fitting commentary team of, like, your bruiser, former player, giving you, like, player feedback and then sort of the color commentator who's adding a little spice. Yeah. Next up, we have the Chaos Chosen, who are Beastmen, Minotors, superhumans. Not very subtle. They hit like a truck.

And, you know, that's what you. they do. Their team name is the Doom Lords. Oh, I thought the Chaos Chosen was the name. Oh, they are just like, they're favored by Chaos. I see, I see. Yeah, they should have like Chaos Chosen is good too. I was going to say, yeah, Chaos Chosen is a much better name than the Doom Lords. Like, Doom Lords just, anyway. A little on the nose. Yeah, next we have the race of the Chaos dwarves who have been banned from the NAF, or they were banned from the NAF, but now they're able to play again. Most of the time, they're coaches, and Chaos Dwarf teams are just hobgoblin slaves,

which is unfortunately very canon to Chaos Dwarfs in fantasy. They have a lot of hobgoblin slaves, a lot of just slaves in general. Can't imagine why they were banned. Their team name is the Tsar Nagrin Ziggurats. Next up, we have the Chaos Renegades. These are players that have disgraced the word of Nuffel so bad that they've been formed into an all-star team. But it's a team of the worst creatures in the world trying to prove they're the worst. So they are just woefully not very cohesive.

Okay, you're a misfit team. Yeah, definite misfits. Their team name is the mongrel horde. I like, okay, I was waiting for a singular name. I like when teams do singular names. Like your crimson tie. Roll tide. Roll tide.

Yep. I don't know. Of course, of course, roll time. Corn also, like we said, corn followers have their own team. Their followers, the God of War himself. They're the most violent players on the pitch. But they're also salty that nobody wants to go to war anymore because, like, the game is so well-received. and everybody loves the game so much.

Nobody goes to war anymore. So they're like, damn it, we need, we need something to do. Nobody's warring anymore. We love combat. Corn loves combat. This is a violent game. So if corn loves it, I guess so do we. And we love violence.

So, eh, sure, whatever. And their team name is the blood-soaked bruisers. Now, that's good. I'm looking at a, and can I reference this image here? This is an incredible image. Absolutely. of the blood-soaked bruisers, this corn team. Oh, yeah.

It's, if you can imagine, if you have no idea what these look like, I'm going to put a comp out there. It's Goldar from Power Rangers. Oh, nice. Yes. That's fair. That is, that is absolutely, definitely, this picture feels very Goldar. Which I think it's one of the best designs of any,

they nailed it out the gate with Goldar and these guys. as well. Yeah, it's Goldar with a little more red trim, right? Yeah, yeah. It was a plus up. I think it's a plus up. Definitely. Definitely. Definitely. And then Nurgel also fields a team,

which is the god of decay, sickness, rot, death, acceptance of death. So these guys are quite literally sick. But their biggest attribute is when you worship Nergel and when you accept

the inevitability of death, he makes it so you don't feel pain anymore. So it's really hard to really mess with like a Nergal team because they don't feel pain, they don't ache, they can just keep going and going. And also, because they're with Nergel, they can literally make you sick, violently sick, horribly sick. So they're a pretty good team, pretty good team to be on.

and their team name is the Bile City Blight Kings. And that's good too. Love that, love that. Yeah, that's really good. Next up, we have sort of the misfits that didn't really fit in any other categories. So we have gnomes who are similar to halflings in that they're not the best at Blood Bowl.

They tend to be a lot more aggressive on the field because they're kind of smaller, so they try and make up for it with just relentless aggression. they also ride in on animals and use them as mounts to improve their game and their team name is the glimdwero groundhogs yeah that's not really intimidating at all

yeah well I mean they're small but they're just like aggressive they're like these aggressive little groundhogs that are just always hitting your ankle and the Blight Kings and the bruiser true yeah it's kind of hard to compete

with the Bile City Blight Kings yeah Then we have the Bretonians, who are more or less just, you know, French knights of the roundtable. The Britonians tend to have one very loud and rich nobleman that arrogantly leads the team, while the rest are forcefully drafted peasants, which is very Bretonian, very, they kind of make the peasants do all the hard work while their holy knights kind of, you know, just. Apparently they have no team names, or no team names could be found for them. Wow. Next we have Kislev, which is sort of this very snowy,

Arctic northern place. They play simply to impress their ice queen. That's it. That's the only reason they play the game. No other reason. Just all praise the ice queen here. So next team is the slon, who are literal. They're basically as close to a god as you can get.

They were like one of the first things created by the old ones who literally made this world. Apparently they don't play very well, though, for being God's. And they only request matches with the best teams, even though they're really bad themselves. Their team

name is the Lustria Crokers. And so that's sort of like a basic rundown of the teams, the races, all that sort of stuff. And like we said before, very rarely is one team strictly made up of just one species. It's pretty

uncommon for that to happen, because again, you just, you really need the versatility to be able to dominate at the game. Yeah. And we're also going to talk about a few notable players, a few notable players that have done some interesting things. Like, uh, the most famous Skaven player to ever play the sport was someone named Tarsh Shurhands. And in typical fantasy fashion, he had two heads and four arms. That makes it pretty much. Yeah, made him as you can imagine he was just

the best pass receiver the game had ever seen. Yeah. However, however, during a match against the world-renowned Snake Man team, I'm not even gonna, I'll try to pronounce the name. Apparently they're the

Shhtvegit. That's their name. I guess that's snake for something, but whatever. In this game, I guess the Snake Man team. Shore hands missed a pass, dropped it. And his two heads got just, they couldn't stop arguing. Like, it's your fault.

How dare you drop it? We have four arms. How did you piss up? And the two heads got so mad at each other that he actually strangled himself to death. Okay, I was gasping preemptively, but I was correct in my guess. You were strangled himself to death. just two arms for each throat and just

croak and one of the tallest players in the history of the sport was Girk Cloudscraper he was a storm giant halfback for the Asgard Ravens he was as tall as nine men

and only played one match due to being banned for excessive violence the shortest player is sort of related shortest player was the captain of the half-ling squad the Greenfield Grasshuggers named Big Joe Bo Harry Feet. And he was the shortest player in history because he was actually stepped on very hard by Girk Cloudscraper.

So he was really compact. That's what we were saying we would be worried about. Listener of gravity, sure. I like that name Grasshuggers, though. That's pretty fun. Yeah, that's pretty nice, especially for a football team. Yeah. And no episode about notable players would be complete without mention of Griff,

the godlike Oberwald, the star human player of the Reikland Revers. He helped bring home three Blood Bowl championships with the Revers and is one of the most sponsored players in the history of the sport. However, in more recent memory, Griff opted to not retire his number with the Revers and instead signed with the Boggenhafen Barrens which is very similar to something that maybe Tom Brady

just recently did in his playing career with the Patriots and the Buccaneers but I'm sure that's again just wild coincidence. Yeah. However, the player widely considered to be the greatest player in the history of the sport is someone

named Morgan Thorg Morgan Thor. Where does the first name in and the last name begin? Well, M-O-R-G and Thorg. And Thorg. It's like Morg and Thorg, sort of. In his own words,

I'm good because I've played for every team in the league, except for the ones I haven't. I like that. Morgan Thorg is an ogre that has not only scored 102 touchdowns, but is responsible for a killing maiming count of over 570. He's also... Handsome fellow.

Oh, yeah, nice Mohawk. He's also taken home the Anti-violence Watchdog Committee's worst tackle of the year award five separate times. And his presence in road safety advertisements has cut roadside action. accidents down by over 25%. That's good stuff. Oh, yeah. He's doing God's work. However, his most prestigious accomplishment is also one of the most controversial.

He is the only active player in the Blood Bowl Hall of Fame. One of the prerequisites to be in the Hall of Fame is you have to be retired. But he was able to get in thanks to, you know, a certain bribeable commissioner being in power at the time. Which means, of course, he bribed Nick Threehorn so that he could be elected into the Hall

of Fame whilst still being an active player. Uh, I don't like that. And apparently, he managed to persuade Nick Threehorn with only a pencil sharpener, three carrots, and a

small desk lamp. Pencil sharpener, three carots. in a small desk lamp. So I guess it was less he paid him and more he threatened him mightily with a pencil sharpener, three carrots and a small desk lamp.

Okay, the three carrots, I was wondering how that would work. But I guess if he'd sharpen the carrots, those would be sharp and then do it everyone. Who knows? And also, he's just a giant ogre. So you don't need much. Yeah, probably didn't even need it.

And one of the most violent and versatile players in the history of the game is the terrifying and fearsome, oh God, his name is Acorn the squirrel. A-K-H-O-R-N-E, Acorn the Squirrel. It's not just what they eat, it's also his name.

And apparently he is able to go into an utter blind rage on the pitch, but most scary of all is that he has the rare ability to play for any team he chooses. Apparently in the tabletop, his card, his literal card stats

says he plays for any team. There you go. The squirrel can play for any team. And just to close this out, we have a few notable incidents that, you know, we're going to talk about. And one of the longest scoring attempts in the game was made by the dwarf warhammerers

against the orcish gouged eyes. Grom Redax was literally loaded into a very illegal cannon in the dwarf end zone and in this cannon he's got the ball and they fire him off and they're like okay this is going to be the easiest touchdown ever literally they're not going to be able to touch him we're shooting him out of a cannon however the team used way too much gunpowder and this poor guy grom redax was shot over 40 leagues and 70 yards

above the stadium. And while he did, he managed to cross the touchdown line and they counted it as a touchdown. The only problem is Grom Redax was carrying the only ball that they had at the time. And so the game lasted for four days

because they had to find Grom Redax and get the ball back. I like that the game continues and they don't just go, well, we don't have it. Yeah, well, game over, I guess. We got to postpone it. No, no, no, no.

The game goes on. That's serious. The game's been chimp. Yeah. Another notable moment involves the dwarves, and believe it or not, a bunch of spiders. The largest team in Blood Bowl history were the dark mountain spiders, which were formed by the Spider-King, Klaqat-Towlach. He registered over 900 spiders for his team. and despite having eight limbs,

apparently spiders really suck at Blood Bowl and apparently their moves are ridiculously predictable. And because they're just like bugs, they're really fragile, really fragile. And so when they fought against the dwarfs, oh boy, they lost a lot of their team members. And after four years in the game, the spider team was abandoned.

because starting with 900 spiders for the team, they had to retire because they only had eight members left. Oh my gosh. That makes me very sad as well. I like spiders. A lot of squish, but oh, you like spiders, huh?

I like spiders. I used to hate them. I'm kind of like Batman in that way. Oh, it's a symbol. They were very scary to me, and now I have a deep respect for them. if I see a spider and it's not bothering me, I will leave it alone.

However, it's in my face. All bets are off. I understand. And the Skaven, the Skaven scrambler specifically are the only team to have won the Blood Bowl trophy back to back after a full year. But their attention of the trophy

is a little questionable. After winning the trophy for the first time, the subsequent Blood Bowl Championship was held in their state. stadium. There was controversy that season because many fans believed that the scramblers that were on the field for the whole year were actually decoys and that the real scramblers were doing something to their arena, making themselves an unfair advantage. Maybe they were setting booby traps or anything. But the NFA ruled that this was impossible.

Despite the fact the stadium showed a noticeable and very distinct major slope. towards the opposing end zone and an quote an abnormal number of bottomless shafts on the field. Wow. These are the rat. This is the rat team. Yep. These are the conniving,

backstabbing anything when at all cost rats. Well, and they did it. And they did it. Back to back champs. That's how you do it. And that is our, I shan't call it a brief introduction to Blood Bowl, but that is our introductory episode to Blood Bowl.

How did you enjoy it? I loved every bit of this. This is so much fun. Thank you so much. I found this. I do think that it's nice to know because like you said, that Warhammer is such a really dark property. It's a lot of bloodshed. It's a lot of violence. And I think that that, yeah. And I know that much to be true. But it's nice. to know that you can have fun every once in a while. Yeah, especially, I feel like in fantasy especially, they are more than willing to just kind of let loose, have a little quirky fun,

and they do sometimes in sci-fi, but it feels like fantasy is much more willing to sort of let it tear down every now and then and just have like these goofy moments. So, yeah, it's a nice, it's a nice little diversion. Yeah. Well, I had such a good time. Well, we appreciate having you.

thank you for stopping by. It was, it was great having you. I hope, like you said, you enjoyed it. And honestly, any time you want to come back, let shy know, feel free. We appreciate you taking the time out of your day. And do you have anything you want to shout out? I'm, I'm, well, I'll say, absolutely, I would love to, if you have to instill sci-fi knowledge on someone, I would love to hear that knowing now with a little bit of a primer about what the silliness is like, I'm ready for the hard stuff. So I would happily come back and be dropped anywhere in the long line of Warhammer lore. But yeah, I'm on Maddie is talking everywhere.

The quickest way to find my stuff is just Maddie is talking.com and you can go. It has all the links to everything. That's my made-up link tree. I miss myself. Well, hey, it's, it fits. You are talking. Maddie is indeed talking. I certainly was for a little bit of this.

I was listening for a lot more of it. But it's never, it's never the wrong username I found out. Yeah. It's a good username for internet personality doing stuff. That involves. Yeah. Oh, and on my,

on my YouTube account, I'm doing essays where I talk about things that I actually do know about. So if you want to be scared. From any amount of knowledge, and that's, that would be it over there. Mattie's talking. Is it anything specific or is it just sort of pop culture in general?

I'm just, I mean, yeah, it's kind of whatever. It's a lot of like personal life lessons that feed into something that I'm obsessed with at the moment. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. I also, I also co-host and produce a podcast. Oh, hell yeah. called the Get Scared Pod. It gets G-E-T-S-A-R-E-D exclamation point.

I would say that's kind of my day job over there on the Watcher Network. But we do, it's a fun hangout podcast where we talk about spooky, scary things. It's a comedy show. Oh, hell yeah. Hell yeah. Let's go.

All right, for real this time, we'll see you next week.