Blood Bowl App Review

I'm a sucker for the Games Workshop IP, especially for opportunities to play short and entertaining games while I'm waiting for other things.  One things that I have noticed with a lot of the games, however, is that they tend to be two dimensional with very little development in the game and not a lot to do after the initial controls are learned.  I know that this is pretty common for App games, but it is still hard to swallow when you enjoy the world so much and want more options.  

Over my years in the hobby I have heard a lot about Blood Bowl and how it was one of the best games that GW ever released.  I also read a lot of blog posts about people running the games still and categorizing it as one of the more fun and wacky opportunities in the Warhammer IP.  So, when I found out about the Blood Bowl App I decided I had to try it out.  I believe it costs $4.99 in the app store but don' quote me on that.

So, below are some of the screenshots of a campaign I have been running for the past little while.  There are a lot of options of how to play, whether you want to do a quick match, a campaign, or a set of games depending on how long you want to stick with your team.  I figured that if I was gonna put the effort into developing a team I would want them to be around for the long hall father than just one game.  Below you can see my team as it currently stands including rank (you start at 1 and gain experience to level up) as well as stats and your value (how much each player is worth with their upgrades and skills).

In addition to the players you can also purchase things like coaches, cheerleaders, re-rolls, and apothecaries (very important), to aid and change the flow of the game.  Some of them have small effects but others can be quite consequential.  

Here is the 'loading' screen where you see the race you are facing (I'm the ork teams and misspelled "Squig" as "Squid").  At the bottom you see the special things they have purchased, your relative prestige (measured by the stars), and you value.

The following are some screenshots from within the game including the coin toss.

Kick-off which includes setting your formation, choosing your personnel, and resolving any possible extra-game opportunities granted by chance or the craziness of the game.

Here you can see an in-game shot where my opponent has the ball and has knocked out a number of my players.  Let me tell you that I play on "easy" and it is an extremely difficult game to master.

So what about the game?  I find it extremely enjoyable and have wasted probably too much time playing it instead of doing hobby stuff.

If you decide to start playing the game I'll give you a little advice.  First, don't quite too early, it is an extremely difficult game at the beginning because it is based directly off the board game (including the rolling and selection of dice).  I actually almost stopped playing the game until I decided to look up some of the help articles about the game so that I could learn how to play it, manage my players, and develop the skills of the team.  I would suggest checking this site out and if you really want to you can read the entire pdf of the rulebook which I haven't done but would probably really help.  Those pages really helped me out and made the game increasingly interesting and fun to play.  

The only downsides of the game are the complicated nature (which like I said in the beginning of this post, I actually really wanted) and the fact that right now you can only play the human and orc teams.  However, from what I understand there is DLC coming along so you can play many different factions and enjoy yourself.

Overall I would say this is a 4.5/5 and you should definitely spend the five bucks and enjoy yourself.