Blood Bowl, probably more than any other game in out range, owes a huge debt to the feedback received from the real-life coaches that player the game. What’s more those coaches’ enthusiasm for the game has meant that it has been produced in three different editions since it first came out in 1986, and has now been re-launched for a fourth time as the fist game in what we hope will be a series of ‘classic’ game reprints from out back catalogue. Nowhere has the enthusiasm for Blood Bowl been more evident than on the pages of the Citadel Journal. Over the years it has published numerous articles about the game, all of a high standard, an all, with one exception, have been written by readers of the Journal (the exception being the Big Guy rules written by me!)(I see, so Jervis doesn’t read our mag then – Ed).

Enter Andy Jones, chief of GW Publishing. Andy is always eager to expand his burgeoning publishing empire, and had nit on rather a cunning plan; why not take all of the articles published in the CJ about Blood Bowl, and stuff them into a single compilation volume? Now Andy is an enthusiastic fellow and can be very persuasive too (especially when he camps out in your office and refuses to leave until you say ‘yes’), and pretty soon he’d convinced everybody that this was the best plan ever conceived by anybody ever, that it would make us all rich men, be hailed as the publishing event of the decade, etc, etc. Not that I needed much persuading of course, as I’ve liked all of the articles that have appeared. I also happened to mention to Andy that there was some stuff I’d written that had never been published, and that he could use it if he wanted it, which, being an enthusiastic fellow and never having known to say ‘no’ to anything that was free, he did!

The results of Andy’s zeal you now hold in your hands, and I’m sure that you’ll agree with me that it was worth the effort. So, if you fancy allowing teams of Daemons(!) in your league, or want to scratch-build a stadium for your team, or include rules in your games for spiky balls (Ouch! – Ed), then you’ll find out how to do so, along with many other things, within these pages. The only proviso is, of course, that the rules here are not official and therefore can only be used with an opponent’s, or the League Commissioner’s, consent. I also have to warn you that a lot of the stuff written by me that’s been included here has not been fully play-tested, and you should therefore feel free to modify the rules to suit your own league’s requirements – or, to put it more bluntly, I’m not sure they’ll work!

Have fun, and may you never suffer a turnover.

Jervis Johnson