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.

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.