I coached my first goblin team on tabletop at the Gritty Goblin Bowl IV this weekend, so I thought I'd share some of the miniatures and fluff, since we certainly did not impress on the pitch (1 win, 3 losses, 1 tie).

Minis for the Secret Weapons (Fun Parts)


Hat-tip to Torchlight Models for the great STLs for the miniatures

Team Fluff (Or How a Championship Skaven Squad Became A Not-So-Championship Goblin Squad)

Filthasmellphia Fleagles Team History

Formed in 2462 in the underworld city of Filthasmellphia, the Fleagles boast a rich and storied history as a skaven team. Most notably, the team drew inspiration from the town’s fictional mouse boxing hero, Mouseky Malboa, to capture the Gritty Goblin Bowl II championship in 2499. With 5 TDs from fleet-pawed gutter runner A.J. Brownrat, the Fleagles went 4-1 on the day and claimed the title in a controversial 3-way tiebreaker with a goblin squad and elven union team.

But the Fleagles’s championship came with a price. In order to win the tournament, the Fleagles apparently struck a deal with the goblin wizard who was on the sidelines. They convinced the mischievous mage to tweak Nuffle’s blessings and curses on the field to favor them, promising him a giant wheel of moldy cheese. During the post-tournament celebration, however, the Fleagles ate all the cheese, leaving the goblin wizard holding nothing but a mighty big grudge.

In the weeks following the victory and subsequent celebrations throughout Filthasmelphia (featuring plenty of rats climbing lamp posts and setting fire to carriages), Brownrat and his teammates were all visited by a tiny, robed figure who mumbled about Gork and Mork and then disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Soon after, they all began to feel a bit … strange.

First, their whiskers fell from their snouts. Then their fur began to drop out in patches. Round ears grew large and pointy, and snouts stretched into long and crooked noses. Most importantly, their love for speed and agility was replaced with a passion for mayhem and carnage.

When the team met for their first practice the following season, Brownrat, now a pink-skinned abomination, brought with him a chainsaw instead of a football and demanded to be called A.J. Bloodrat from now on. The team’s thrower, Jayflem Hurts, started hurling bombs instead of passes and declared his new nickname would be Jayflem “Dis Gonna” Hurts. Meanwhile, former stand-out blocker, Lane Cheezeson, showed up not with the normal ball of mozzarella he normally carried with him, but instead with a huge ball and chain, with which he soon cleared the pitch during the first blocking drill.

As head coach Nickon Spearinme looked at the carnage breaking out on the field, he gasped every Blood Bowl coach’s greatest fear:

“Nuffle be damned! I’m coaching goblins now!”

But rather than shrink from the challenge, Spearinme and the Fleagles have decided to lean in and live out that old Mouskey Malboa edict (with a slight twist, of course), “Keep killing forward!”

Now, they return to the Gritty Goblin Stadium for the Gritty Goblin Bowl III with their beady eyes set on reclaiming the title—without the gobbo wizard’s help. Doing so, they think, will force the goblin mage to accept that they never needed his help to begin with, dispelling his curse and turning them back into skaven. There’s only one problem—if they actually win, why would they every want to stop being goblins?

What I Learned

Mainly, what I gained from the experience was a deep respect for goblin coaches. Win or lose, anyone who coaches goblins gets a hat-tip from me. Those of you who win with goblins ... well, I'll just take the hat off and hand it to you because you're just on a different level as far as I'm concerned.

As far lessons go, let's talk secret weapons. For me, the fanatic (ball & chain) is the most fun piece to play with--especially when he has sure feet. The randomness was a blast, with less disappointment and frustration than the other secret weapons on the squad. Sadly, there was one game in which he tripped on his first GFI on my first move of the game, failed the sure-feet reroll, and immediately died. I felt the kind of crushing sadness a child feels when his first lick at the ice-cream cone sends all the scoops tumbling to the floor.

The looney (chainsaw) was not nearly as fun. He tended to just do one thing and then quickly die (maybe I should have protected him better). The Bomma seemed to work like a machine that manufactures disappointment. Maybe it's just me, but every time you roll under a 4 and the bomb doesn't blast someone, it feels like such a let down. To stick with the childhood memory analogies, I would compare it to opening an action-figure shaped box on Christmas only to find a pair of socks inside. Like the wizard in most games, the threat of the bomb seemed much more powerful than the bomb itself.

The Real Lesson--The Failures You Make Along the Way

However, most importantly, playing with goblins was a great reminder about why I love this game, win or lose. Blood Bowl, as we all know, is largely about mayhem, randomness, and frustration. We do what we can to limit all that with the way we coach, and the best coaches are masters at this. (I'm sure the best goblin coaches are levitating Zen masters at this.)

Coaching goblins in 7s with no-rerolls kind of felt like Blood Bowl squared. And getting comfortable with knowing your plan is crazy and likely doomed, that failure is waiting around the corner of every rolled die, kind of felt liberating. Failure is always out there with any team. Even when a wardancer or gutter runner just needs to make one dodge to score, we've all seen it go sideways. So leaning into failure, getting comfortable with the terrifying monster that is random madness, felt surprisingly comforting--kind of like petting growling, rabid wolf. (Even if the wolf bites your hand off, the moment you spent petting it still has that same stress-reducing effect they say petting any dog has, right?)

So, yes, I'll probably run back to elves for the next tournament, but here's to goblins for teaching me, at least for a moment, to make like Dr. Strangelove and "stop worrying and love the dice"!

(Big thanks to Gritty Goblin Games and lancelott for hosting the tournament!)

One Last Mini