Inspiration
Blitz Bowl: Ultimate Edition has quickly become my favorite board game, as it combines elegant gameplay and streamlined design with bone-crunching blocks and awe-inspiring plays.
I have previously written about Blitz Bowl in other posts: Winter Gaming Frenzy and Super Blitz Bowl 23. Since I had a few free months before the start of residency, I thought of a good use of my time was writing up analyses and creating complicated spreadsheets.
The excerpt below is the Introduction from a document entitled Blitz Bowl: Ultimate | Math Edition; I feel that it captures my sentiments towards the game quite well.
Blitz Bowl Bonanza
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a bored person in possession of bountiful free time, must be in want of a hobby. Towards this goal in vigorous pursuit I found myself, until salvation appeared in the form of a birthday present: Blitz Bowl (Season 1). Since that fortuitous event – aided by a later purchase of the Ultimate Edition along the way – I have realized that this marvelous board game has satiated my varied hobby cravings: board gaming, miniature figurine painting, spreadsheet-making, creative writing, and woodworking.
By way of example, this document purports to provide an infusion of probability and number-crunching into a blend of spreadsheet-making and creative writing. That I feel entirely at ease with the amount of time I spent preparing this document only solidifies my belief in the excellence of this Games Workshop offering, for even half the duration allocated to a mere “good game” should elicit at least transient ennui; though, perhaps such indifference suggests an improvement in my ability to waste time via an increased capacity for shamelessness towards time-wasting.
In any case, please enjoy the following analysis, or lack thereof – any disagreements will be settled on the Astrogranite pitch!
Documents Summary
Presented below is a listing of the documents that may be of interest to the enthusiastic Blitz Bowl coach. For documents that were created in collaboration with others, I have listed their Discord names as well.
Blitz Bowl: UE | Game Records
Blitz Bowl: UE | Virtual Field
Blitz Bowl: UE | Math Edition
Blitz Bowl: UE | FAQ – credit goes to coaches aquilaprime, Dombie, JanE, pez5767, and SC Matt for their help in the creation of this document.
Blitz Bowl: UE | Community Games – credit goes to Nick Kouri for creating the spreadsheet and all coaches who have submitted their own games to add to the dataset.
Blitz Bowl: UE | Puzzles – credit goes to the coaches who have submitted their own puzzle scenarios.
Blitz Bowl: Hobby Inspiration – credit goes to everyone who has submitted pictures of their teams, pitches, and terrain.
Blitz Bowl: UE | Game Records
This Google Sheets document helps record game data including advanced statistics such as BDash Rating and Game Rating.
I use a version of it to record all of my own games within my game group, and one particular feature I like is the summary scoring graph by turn for each game.
The scoring graph attached summarizes the most exciting game by Game Rating (92.3) that was contested between the Skaven and Human teams. Human prevailed by a score of 40 – 38 in a game featuring 10 Touchdowns and 12 Lead Changes.
Blitz Bowl: UE | Virtual Field
This Google Sheets document is a fully-played version of Blitz Bowl: Ultimate Edition that I created from scratch.
I am particularly fond of the aesthetics of the main Virtual Field spreadsheet tab, as well as the selection of the emoji characters used to represent players.
The Google Sheets Virtual Field document is an alternative to the popular Tabletop Simulator version of the game.
Blitz Bowl: UE | Math Edition
This Google Docs document covers various probability scenarios in the game including such questions as “What is the best player in the game?” or “Which team is the fastest?”
It is a lengthy document with a total of 120+ pages, though a substantial portion is comprised of tables and graphs.
My favorite two chapters address two contentious topics in the game: team strength and team Bash-to-Dash spectrum. The attached image is a graphic showing the current iteration of the Team Value System for the combined official and homebrew Blitz Bowl teams.
Blitz Bowl: UE | FAQ
This Google Docs document addresses frequently asked questions by the Blitz Bowl community, and it also provides recommendations for changes for improvements in gameplay or clarity. Finally, there is a section that has custom homebrew team rules with design philosophies written by each homebrew team’s rules designer.
The image to the right is a the Underworld homebrew team that is designed by the prolific JanE.
Blitz Bowl: UE | Community Games
This Google Sheets document provides a place for coaches to add to an ever-growing community dataset. While the majority of the games have been added by only a handful of coaches, the hope is that eventually more and more coaches will be interested in adding in the results of their games.
Currently, at the close of July 2023, there have been nearly 300 games logged in the spreadsheet.
The image to the right is the Head-to-Head table for the Blitz Bowl teams, both official and homebrew.
Blitz Bowl: UE | Puzzles
This Google Document contains puzzle scenarios for the inquisitive and thoughtful coach to study. In each puzzle, there is a depiction of the board state along with an question posed to the coach, ranging from such tactical dilemmas as “How can you win this game?” to “What would you do this turn?”
At the end of the document, detailed solutions are provided for each puzzle.
The image to the right provides the board state for a puzzle posed by coach gremdel.
Blitz Bowl: Hobby Inspiration
Last but not least, this Google Docs document is a catalogue of photographs of Blitz Bowl teams, pitches, and terrain, all posted by dedicated users of The Crush Discord page. There are hundreds of photos in the document, divided up by team for organization.
The image to the right is an image submitted by Jody (pez5767) of a portion of his painted Blitz Bowl collection.
Reflection
I really think I have been inflicted with Blitz Bowl fever – I nearly even decided to get a vanity plate of “Kerrunch,” but reason ultimately prevailed, if only due to the thought that with such a vanity plate my car insurance premiums would rise!