Less than a week to go now before the tournaments begin and I wanted to spotlight four sponsors.
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Intergalactic Games is based in Chester Hill, NSW, and run by Christian Cuello. Christian, rather than ship us product or cash, decided to think ambitiously and constructed a custom Blood Bowl pitch specifically for the tournament! I received this amazing pitch over the weekend and have shared some pictures below.

We are just in the process of deciding whether or not to offer this pitch as a prize in the Open or as a raffle so that everyone can have a chance to win it.

Christian also sent us three blisters of Lead Adventures miniatures. This is not a miniature company I am very familiar with, but they look to be very good quality and would make excellent sideline figures.


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Tin Soldier Penrith are also very kind supporters of the State Championship. Run by two stalwarts of the Blood Bowl community - Bill Murphy (sangraal) and Steve Thoms (Thomsy) - all reports are that Tin Soldier offers the kind of local gaming store environment that we all wish for.

One of the things I absolutely love about these guys is the statement on their website that lists their "focus points". I recommend you have a read through because it shows an attitude towards their business and customers that is admirable in the current economic environment. The store is located on High Street in Penrith, NSW.

Tin Soldier Penrith has provided two copied of the Games Workshop game Dreadfleet as prizes for the tournaments. Until I received one I didn't realise just how substantial these boxes are.


I also wanted to highlight two sponsors that demonstrate the interconnected nature of the Australian Blood Bowl community. Southern Shrike Bowl and Eucalyptus Bowl are two of the 'major' tournament events in the Australian circuit. 

SSB is held around August / September in Adelaide each year. It regularly attracts over 20 coaches and is the biggest tournament in Adelaide (not counting the State Championship this year). A fun tournament with great food (courtesy of Mrs One Eye) and beer (courtesy of anc001) it regularly draws competitors from the other states, as well as plenty of locals.

EucBowl is one of the largest tournaments in Australia (a title that tends to alternate with the CanCon Nationals) and usually sees over 60 coaches competing for masses of prizes and the growing honour and prestige that such a tournament win can bring.

Seeing these two tournaments put up support for the State Championship shows that the tournament scene in Australia is very strong, that the community is able to work together, and that the success of one tournament is seen as good for others.

Thanks to Intergalactic Games, Tin Soldier Penrith, Southern Shrike Bowl and Eucalyptus Bowl for all their generous support.

SinDex
 
The sponsors of the State Championship and SA Open are a very varied bunch. The next three I'd like to discuss are all alternate media sources devoted to our fine game. For those that don't know, a podcast is kinda like a radio show, but instead of being broadcast at a set time over the radio waves it is serialised and offered for download via a provider like iTunes to be listened to whenever, or wherever, you like.

Three Die Block (3DB) is a comprehensive podcast that delves into all areas of the game, especially tactics. Chance and his array of co-hosts tackle these issues through conversation, debate, interviews and reviews, as well as by detailing the exploits of their own teams in two of their local (USA) leagues.

For the tournaments, 3DB has donated an entire painted Amazon team with its own Impact! figure case. Thanks Chance and co-hosts. We resolve to always stay off the sidelines, as per your advice!

BothDown is a newer podcast offering that has nevertheless become a staple of the genre. Instead of heavy tactical information and advice, BothDown instead focuses on the background and themes of the Blood Bowl world and the teams that inhabit it. Through a love for the fluff, these two gingers (sorry Tim) wrestle with the origins and image of the Blood Bowl world.

While yet to decide what they are going to send for the tournaments, the BothDown boys assure me they're looking for something. Personally I'd love a BothDown pen!

Finally, BL!TZ Magazine is a different form of media again, an e-magazine. Published quarterly (although in the midst of a bit of a hiatus), BL!TZ started off detailing the ins and outs of the Adelaide Blood Bowl scene as Southern Strike magazine. But it went national after the first State Championship and is now up to issue 5. BL!TZ will be donating the souvenir Coach's Packs for the tournaments, an A5 booklet that each coach will receive detailing the representative teams, rules, venue, itinerary and providing space to record how the tournament went (as well as get some autographs).

To all of these sponsors we say a big thank you! Stay tuned to find out more about t
 
As we hit the final run-up to the tournament I wanted to highlight our generous sponsors. First up are Mantic Games, who's recent fantasy football game Dreadball rocketed into prominence late last year during an incredibly successful Kickstarter.

Mantic produce a range of games and miniatures in the fantasy, sic-fi and fantasy football realms. Kings of War is a high fantasy war-game and Warpath is a sci-fi war-game. In each case Mantic offer cost-effective and high quality miniatures to fill out the ranks.

They also, obviously, produce Dreadball, a fantasy football game set in the Warpath universe. 

For the AusBowl State Championship 2 and SA Open, Mantic has generously donated a copy of the Dreadball game and four separate Dreadball teams; Corporation, Forge Fathers, Marauders and Veer-myn. These will be available as major prize picks for competitors at the SA Open.

Thanks to Mantic for their assistance and support.
 
The countdown to the tournament has begun, with less than two months to go. The representative teams are almost all pinned down and many people are planning to attend the Open from around Australia. Here in SA we're starting to look at some of the details, like mini games and competitions on the day.

One of the things that makes Southern Shrike Bowl a big success is the mini competitions, where each round has a series of objectives (other than winning) that can win a small prize, like some dice or a miniature blister. These will be a feature of the tournament along with a series of mini-games between rounds.

The exact nature of these games is a secret that will be revealed closer to the date, but the prizes for the mini games have now been completed. Painted by SinisterDexter (yep, that's me), these four Bloodweiser Babes (or should that be SA German Club Bier Babes?) are up for grabs.

But who are our four beauties? Well, first up we have Ava. Don't let her signature freckles fool you, Ava is an adrenaline junkie and loves adventure sports, like Blood Bowl. When not helping out in the dugout she can be seen lending a hand in the crowd with any 'surfed' players. And when we say lending a hand, we don't mean helping them up!
Next up is Gretchen. A softly spoken girl, Gretchen loves romantic walks on the beach... especially when there's a Beach Bowl game going on. 
Gabbi's family emigrated from Araby generations ago and she has been warmly accepted into the Imperial community, lot least because they have contributed such beauty to that community. Gabbi is a self-confessed party girl and can often been seen in local pubs quaffing a stein, or five, of Bloodweiser.
And finally we have Svenja, blonde bombshell of the Bloodweiser girls. A workaholic, Svenja is an active cheerleader  as well as a nurse at the local hospital and a firefighter. We all know she can't put out the fires in her admirers' hearts, are she is a favourite of the dugout.
 
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So, we've been working with an interim logo for a while now based on the AusBowl website logo with a splash of added red. But behind the scenes, el Presidente of BBLOC SA, Casper, has been working to finalise a brand spanking new logo for the tournament, that can be seen on the right.

While I've got your attention, I also received confirmation today that Fantasy Flight Games have come on-board as a sponsor, donating some copies of Blood Bowl: Team Manager to the SA Open prize pool.

Hope you enjoy the new logo and catch you next time.

SinDex

 
Last night three dishevelled figures met in a dingy bar and drunk themselves into a stupor while plotting the next steps towards global domination!

Well, OK, we weren't all that dishevelled considering I was wearing beige dress shoes, Adam was in a suit and Casper, well, his nic is "Vain" for a reason. And you can't really call the Griffin's Head, with its new designer interior, "dingy". And three beers is hardly a drunken stupor. And, yes alright, we were discussing the AusBowl State Championship and SA Open, but apart from that all of the details above are correct!

This discussion was an important one because it pinned down some key details and allowed us to open registrations for the SA Open. We've set the entry fee at $30 up until 22 February, and $40 thereafter, to try and encourage early registration (as it helps us with planning in the run up to the event). This $30 will cover access to the venue, seven games over two days, eligibility for a range of prizes (both tournament-based prizes and some additional draws and games), player gifts (yet to be finalised) and a souvenir coach pack.

While we're talking about prizes, however, it is worth reiterating what is on offer. Mantic Games have offered us a copy of Dreadball, which I am going to try to paint up before the tournament begins, as well as one of each of the four Season 1 teams (Corporation, Marauder, Forge Fathers and Veer-myn); Three Die Block have offered a painted Amazon team, Tin Soldier Penrith have offered two boxed sets of Games Workshop's Dreadfleet; Intergalactic Games have offered a custom pitch and some Lead Adventures miniatures; Cyanide has offered two product keys for their Dungeonbowl online game; Focus Interactive have offered six product keys for Blood Bowl: Legendary Edition; Southern Shrike Bowl have offered a SSB prize pack; and KO'ed Dice Bags have offered four dice bags with dice. With more to come, it is an exciting prize pool.

Payment details and registration forms are available online in the "SA Open" page of this website, so head on over for more details.

In addition, we will soon be opening a series of discount orders with various suppliers of fantasy football miniatures. With everyone congregating in one place it is the perfect time to pick up any teams or supplies you've been looking for both with a significant discount and without the need for additional postage costs once they arrive in the country.

The only sad news we have is that we have had to cancel plans for a dedicated fantasy football painting contest alongside AusBowl SC2 and the SA Open. With the tournament looming we needed to look realistically at what we could do, and this was looking to be beyond us.

But all guns are firing for the tournament and the painters can still be involved in the Best Team competition by being involved in either the AusBowl or SA Open.Get those registrations in for the Open and good luck if you're still hoping to make a representative team.


 
As carols start to replace top 40 hits and the dust of months sitting on shelves starts to be disturbed on prematurely merchandised christmas gifts and decorations, many people, me included, gain a little bit of breathing space from the hustle of the working year. Thus, while the blog has been silent for some time, I have a bit of time to discuss what's been happening since the last update.

Most exciting is the development of representative teams and SA Open attendees! At least ten people have already confirmed their attendance at the SA Open, from three different states, with a whole host of others, from other states, promising to come along if they don't make their undecided representative team. Based on this it would seem the Open will be very well attended and, with a good local SA showing, could be a massive tournament in its own right. When combined with the State Championship there is a possibility of breaking records set by EucBowl and CanCon. A list of confirmed attendees is on the SA Open page of the website. Let me know by email ([email protected]) or on AusBowl.com if you plan on being there.

In addition, we now have three complete teams (NSW, SA and WA), and one partially complete team (NZ), for the State Championship. Victoria is currently in the final stages of its selection process as well.

We've also been talking up the possibility of a Barbarians team as NT was unable to put a team together. As yet we are unsure whether the Barbarians will be able to compete. However, if not our contingency plan is to allow competitors from the SA Open to play against the representative team that currently has "the bye" in any round. Exactly how this occurs will be determined if required.

BBLOC SA has been working hard to get some of the other details of the tournament up and running and, while the AusBowl Painting Contest is currently looking a little bit shaky, everything else is steadily falling into place. We hope soon to start some fundraising raffles, both fantasy-football related and looking to the wider wargaming community. The venue is sorted and we hope everyone will join us for dinner there on the Saturday evening. The rules are now locked down, including the schedule and scoring systems, and the sponsors page provides details of some of the amazing prizes available for the SA Open. We are turning our attention to player gifts and trophies in the near future, so stay tuned for details of those.

For the time being, from all those involved in organising the AusBowl State Championship 2, have a fantastic holiday season (even if you don't actually get a holiday) and a blitzing start to 2013.

SinisterDexter
 
I've been trying recently to pin down some additional detail on several areas of the website as we move ever closer to the competition. In particular, the rule set has now been almost entirely pinned down, with the only gaps being how match-ups will be determined in the ASC2 and how scoring will be undertaken. Apart from this the Rules section is complete and provides coaches with exact details on how to build their teams and how this event will differ from other comparable tournaments.

I've also now added some detail in regard to the AusBowl Painting Tournament (APT) which will run at the same time. Ever since we first discussed hosting this event in Adelaide, we've been talking about also having a dedicated fantasy football painting competition. It's no secret that this is close to my own heart as, while I've been lucky enough to make the SA state team on both ocassions, painting has always been my main focus and I love to see amazingly painted miniatures and teams line up on the pitch with one another. I know there are many others in the same boat and, to make a rounded event, I feel that including painters in the "AusBowl" event is vitally important. In future years I would like to see it become a feature of both the State and Team Championships, although this decision rests, ultimately, with the organisers for any given year.

The categories that are planned for the APT are Player, Big Guy, Team and Open. The first three should be fairly obvious, although team has been defined further. Open is for anything else: dioramas, custom pitches, large scale models, etc.

It is also important to note that we are not requiring entrants to actually be present at the tournament, so long as they can get their entries there somehow. Given that there are a large number of players converging on the tournament from across the country, we figure this gives everyone the best opportunity to be involved by using attendees as mules (of course, this is at the discretion of the mul... err... attendees). I'd love to see the painters from around Australia come along though. Perhaps it is selfish, but having the chance to share a beer with danielcollins, DevilsReject, the Chad and many other gamers known for their amazing painting (yes, even Sart) would be awesome. Either way, however, seeing their work in the flesh would be almost as good.

It's also important to note that this stands apart from the Best Painted Team awards in both the AusBowl State Championship and SA Open, which are open only to competitors in those events and which will be judged by peer vote.

Once you've finished reading this, nip over to the "More" tab on the main page and select "Painting Contest" to see the rules as they stand. Keep posted on this too as we have some ideas re the trophies and 'branding' of the contest going forward.

Until next time...
SinisterDexter
 
I've made a couple of updates to the site today to start being more specific about the rules of the tournaments. This is relatively easy for the most part because the rules are very closely based on the Southern Shrike Bowl 2012 rules. Having said that, there are some small changes that are fairly important.

First, the SSB MVPs are not available for AusBowl or the SA Open, meaning Cirwin and the "Whack a Wardancer" competition is not happening in March 2013.

Secondly, there has been a bit of discussion regarding the skill packages and the relative strength of the Agility upgrade package. At SSB 2011 any player could be given the +1AG upgrade, leading to a bevvy of AG5 Wardancers (although, interestingly, the tournament MVP was a Wardancer without the AG upgrade). In 2012 the stat upgrades were limited only to 0-12 or 0-16 positionals. This led to only one coach using the stat packages (a halfling coach). For the AusBowl State Championship 2 and SA Open we are looking to take a middle road and allow stat upgrades to be given to any player of 0-4 positional or greater (ie - 0-12, 0-16, etc). This stops power pieces like Wardancers becoming too powerful, but still allows the skill package to make some difference to the tactical milieu.

There was some discussion around potentially including wizards... but this has since been designated a bad idea. 50k special play cards are the current topic of conversation and may be included, but this is yet to be determined.

Obviously some rules need to be included to cope with the team nature of the Stat Championship, and some of these rules are still being ironed out along with the scoring structure. I am personally terrible at all that stuff, so I've left it to the rules lawyers on the BBLOC to deal with it. Either way, the gaps will be filled relatively soon.

In the meantime, the rules as they stand allow teams to start to work out the race and team composition they may bring to the tournament. In a nutshell, the team creation rules are:
  • CRP plus NAF approved teams
  • 1.15m
  • one of five skill/stat packages applied to the team
  • inducements available but no more than one Star (two for stunty teams)
  • Representative teams cannot take more than one of each race across the six representatives.
Full rules can be found on the Rules page (see the tabs along the top of the page).

I also wanted to note that I've been looking into accommodation options for interstate teams. I had sent a few emails out to enquire re package deals but hadn't received any response. But with around six months to go I wanted to give people the best head start on booking accommodation they could get. As previously noted, Adelaide is truly alive in March and accommodation will fill up very quickly, so booking soon is really important if you want to come along.

As the tournament is in the CBD, pretty much anything central is very very close. There are a number of backpackers in the CBD for those who are looking for a very cheap option, while budget hotels and motels also exist both in the CBD and just outside it. As the venue is on the eastern side of the city, accommodation in Parkside and Kent Town is also within walking distance. If you're bringing the partner or have the luxury of a slightly larger disposable income, there are some incredible options very close to the venue as well. I've listed a few options on the Location page, along with website links for them.

Can't wait to see everyone there.
SinisterDexter
 
Just a quick note today as I upload some of the sponsors that have come on-board to support the ASC2 and SA Open. WE sent a call far and wide for sponsorship support and, considering this is only the second time this tournament has run, we were relieved to get any responses at all. But responses we did get!

If you haven't already, check out the sponsors page on the site and check back there regularly as we move closer to the tournament date. Some of the prizes on offer for the SA Open are already spectacular, such as a fully painted copy of Mantic's new game Dreadball (thanks to Mantic Games) and a fully painted amazon team (thanks to the Three Die Block podcast).

There is also more to come as many businesses offer exceptional discounts for orders of their products. We will be holding a mass group order for a range of different miniature manufacturers closer to the tournament date, so start making your wish list and stay tuned.

I'd like to sincerely thank the sponsors that have already come on board. If your business can help out, please drop us a line at [email protected]

SinisterDexter