Latest Blood Bowl videogame developments

The long running fantasy football game Blood Bowl expands even further, introducing Amazon characters as well as a new story mode

Blood Bowl - as readers of a certain age will recall - started life as a board game in 1987. It's a fantasy version of American football, using the monstrous races of the Warhammer universe. It's since gone on to garner various videogame adaptations. Published by Focus Home Interactive, the latest release is the Legendary Edition expansion with added Amazons, which gives us an excuse to recap the history of a tabletop favourite.

The game was created by Jervis Johnson for Games Workshop as a parody of American football. It's players are human warriors, goblins, dwarfs, elves, orcs and trolls. From the start, Games Workshop constantly updated and changed the game in order to involve a wider range of people and to make the game easier to play. In 1994 the firm launched a new edition which changed the game from a complex, lengthy endeavour to the simpler, more dramatic one, which could be played over the course of a couple of hours. Every year there is a Blood Bowl tournament held in the Games Workshop HQ in Nottingham and attracts over 200 players for the two-day event.

These days Blood Bowl exists as a videogame created by Cyanide and Focus Home Interactive, which is available for PC, PSP, Nintendo DS and Xbox360 - the PC being the connoisseur's choice since it contains more options, such as a career mode. Like the board game, the digital version is frequently updated with new expansions. Recently the developers added 12 new character races, including Ogres and Undead.

A new story mode has also been introduced, in which players will play as the coach and take control of several famous teams.

Find out more at the official Blood Bowl site here , and let us know if you're a Blood Bowl player, either on the computer or on the tabletop.

Article by Rachel Stanikk