Eurobowl is the world’s biggest Blood Bowl Tournament after the World Cup, and this year saw nearly 800 coaches travelling to the beautiful city of Budapest in Hungary. The competition is split into two parts: the Eurobowl itself, contested solely by official national teams composed of 8 players, and the Europen, which is open to any team of 4 players. This year I once again went along representing London’s oldest and most storied league, the ECBBL, for six of the most competitive games of Blood Bowl you could find.
The Ruleset
EB25 had a somewhat controversial ruleset, with low TV caps, and some significant restrictions on repeated skill selections. This meant some teams like Lizards were not really viable at all, and some other meta favourites like Dark Elves were really struggling to find good builds. However, with everyone playing on a lower power level, many teams were still able to find strong builds, and this EB meta had been very well tested in multiple tabletop and online tournaments in the months before the tournament.  You can see all the rosters that coaches ended up taking to the event thanks to the ever-amazing Mike Davies on his tableau site.
In terms of matchups, for every round after the first, which was drawn completely randomly, squads and individual opponents within those squads were all matched using the Swiss system, meaning that the best coach on each squad would play the opponent’s best coach, and so on. The first tiebreaker for team and individual standings was Strength Of Schedule.
Team Fabio
Our four-man squad was composed of myself, Jujuu, Tyler_Swaft, and BBart, all coaches from London’s ECBBL league, and stalwarts of the London and UK tourney scene. Thae Fabio name had sprung out of a joke related to the fact that my three team-mates all had long hair, evoking the magnificence of kitsch 90’s model and romance novel icon Fabio. I got in the spirit of things by wearing a wig for proceedings, which was not something I ever thought I would be doing at a tournament, and leaning into our theme, we eschewed the usual dice-based gifts to bring bottles of shampoo for our opponents (it would be fair to say not all of our opponents had much use for shampoo).
For our roster decisions, Jujuu and Tyler had particularly been on incredible runs in the past year, with both having outstanding results and rankings with Elven Union and Amazons respectively. So with both these races looking very good in the meta, these two locked their races in. Bart was keen on Necromantic Horror, and soon decided that was the team for him, while I was quite torn between Skaven, which I had played a lot this year, Undead, and Dwarves, which had shown strong results in EB testing. Ultimately I decided to go for some bash fun and chose a Dwarf roster with four Guard and four Mighty Blow, as possibly a last hurrah for them in their current form with Blood Bowl Third Season on the way.
Day One, Round 1
Our first round opponents were a strong team from Turin in Italy, the Minotarri Boomers, who had brought a couple of squads to the tournament. I was drawn against Amazons, which was an absolute dream of a matchup for me, and though I knew my opponent, Kaltenland, was a very strong player, I had high hopes that my bash focus would pay dividends.
Initially things went mostly to plan for the Amazons, who took the opportunity presented to them to make an early score. But soon the repeated doses of Dwarven violence took their toll, and when the Dwarves found an equaliser before the half, the ‘zons were on the back foot. In the second half attrition became a major problem and the Dwarves were able to make an 8-turn score to take the game 2-1.
My team-mates had a win, draw, and loss apiece, which meant with my win we took the round. A great start against a tough opponent!
Round 2
Incredibly, despite having 130 teams in the competition, our round two opponents were fellow Londoners, friends, and housemates in our Budapest accommodation, the Salt Bowl League Ultras. On the top table I was matched into the Salt Lord himself, Salty Murcutt, who was playing Humans.
This turned out to be a classic game of two halves, with the humans able to keep pace in the blocking war in the first half and score on their drive. However some late damage from the Dwarves had them in trouble as the second half began. The damage increased, and Rob had to try some risky stuff to stay in the game. Unfortunately, his Halfling missile hit one of his own players, and I then ramped up the removal, leading to an easy score to see the game end 1-1.
On the other tables the rest of team Fabio took care of business with three wins, giving us a comprehensive second team win of the day.
Round 3Â
Riding high, we knew we would have a tough opponent, and that turned out to be one of the most famous French squads, Les Azes. My opponent was Drizzt31, playing Tomb Kings with Ivan Deathshroud. I was extremely daunted by this as I knew that the Tomb Guardians and Ivan would be a very difficult combo for my Dwarves. And so it proved to be. Both teams started the game in violent fashion, with the Khemri cas’ing a Guard Blocker, followed by the Dwarves cas’ing a Guard Tomb Guardian (who failed regen). This was swiftly followed by the TK’s cas’ing a Mighty Blow Blocker, but when I got a hit on Ivan and cas’ed him, things started to turn against us as he crucially succeeded his regen roll. The cas rate continued on both sides, but two more TK’s succeeded in their regen rolls, while my box filled up, and Ivan even used his Dwarfen Scourge ability to put another one in there. Ultimately, their strength and durability told, and they were able to dominate the late game and hand me my first loss, 0-1.
Fortunately, despite my loss, my team-mates managed two draws and win, and so we halved the round overall, and ended the day with a very respectable two wins and a draw.
Day Two, Round 4
Round four brought another strong opponent in Team Spain. I was matched against Major and his Necromantic Horror.
Sadly this game was a big damp squib for the Dwarves, who did almost no damage and were outmaneuvered and out-positioned. The combo of Guard Flesh Golems and Guard Wraiths was a nightmare for me, and Major used them extremely well. The closest thing to a chance came early in the first half, after the Necro failed two consecutive pickups and then had to eat a double both-down on turn three. I tried to put some pressure on the ball to take advantage of any further pickup issues, but the Necro recovered and then took advantage of the holes I had left. It was probably a mistake by me, but I felt under pressure to make something happen in tough matchup. So, a second 0-1 loss for me. My squad-mates had another loss, but also two wins, meaning we halved another round, and now sat on two wins and two draws.
Round 5
After two successive draws, we had fallen out of the elite group, but were nevertheless matched into a team of good and experienced players, the Dartslovers, a mixed team from The Netherlands and Belgium.
My opponent was Jelmer, playing Humans. This time, the Dwarves rediscovered their punching gloves and unleashed an almighty beatdown. By turn three of Jelmer’s opening drive, Two Guard Blitzers and the Guard Ogre had been removed, and though the Humans were still able to sneak a score, they had left a lot of time and not a lot of bodies to defend with. What followed was something of a procession, as the Dwarves found the equaliser in the first half, and with some unlucky KO rolls, Jelmer had to defend the second half with 8 players. We swiftly removed some more, and though Jelmer played his heart out with what he had, I was able to make the T16 score to win the game.
That win turned out to be pivotal, as our top two players had drawn and lost, but with BBart finding his first win of the tourney on the bottom table, we took the round overall. It was a great feeling for me and Bart, and a thrilling demonstration of what team play is all about.
Round 6
So, one last game, and with three wins and two draws under our belts, we knew one more win would probably see a very strong finish. The final round matched us with the Swedish team Grumpy Old Men, who were actually very lovely and friendly men, and my opponent was Lixtor with Undead.
This was a strange game in which I dominated his drive and he dominated mine.  I was happy to kick and try and do some bashing while holding my line, and things went very much to plan. Lixtor was ultimately forced to make a very risky break with his runner on the sideline as time in the first half run out, but unfortunately he had made a bit of a mistake and missed that my Runner could actually Blitz his ball carrier, which I duly did, and surfed him, enabling the ball to be safely secured and the score prevented. However with everything looking rosy, two late casualties for the Undead suddenly set up a very different picture for my drive.
Down players, a deep kick was the last thing I needed, but so it went, and I immediately found myself scrabbling to get numbers back to protect the ball. What followed was eight turns of incredible pressure from the Undead and series of improbable escapes for the Dwarves, including four pushes on the ball on the final turn that would probably have won Lixtor the game with any knockdown.
Ultimately, my valorous draw was rendered irrelevant, as my three squad-mates subsequently won, and we finished with a strong team win to end the tournament on four wins and two draws.
Final Standings and Awards
It was actually a couple of days before we found out our final finish, but in the meantime, our countrymen in Team England were declared overall Europen winners after defeating a Polish team on the top table for their sixth straight win. That was a fantastic achievement, especially given that the English squad had included two races in Slann and Black Orcs that were not obvious meta picks. Massive congratulations to PeteW, Don_Vito, GreenskinPhil, and Elplanet4, and also to the non-playing Team England captain, Wulfyn.
Amongst the plethora of awards given out at the closing ceremony, our squad-mate Jujuu received the best defense prize after conceding only one touchdown across his six games. We later discovered that Team Fabio had also conceded the fewest touchdowns of any of the Europen teams.
Finally, somewhere on the London Underground on the way home the next day, I ultimately discovered that we had finished third overall, which was beyond my wildest dreams. A massive credit to my team-mates, especially Jujuu, who led us from the front, but a true team win with everyone’s results crucial in the final analysis.
The Eurobowl
A brief word about the headline tournament itself. Eurobowl 25 was claimed by Team France, who pipped Wales and Spain to the title on tiebreakers, after all three teams finished on five wins and one loss. This was a second consecutive win for the French, who certainly showed across their various Eurobowl and Europen teams that they have fantastic coaching strength in depth. Many congratulations to them.
It was also great to see the Ukrainian team, fair to say they received incredible support from the crowd; and our non-European teams Australia and the USA, who help make it a very special international occasion.
Final Thoughts
Despite initial scepticism, I enjoyed the unique EB25 meta and I heard no complaints from others at the tourney about it. It had probably narrowed the list of viable teams, but in a highly competitive environment this is somewhat inevitable anyway, and we saw a good variety regardless, with each of us playing against five different races in our six games.
I really enjoyed playing the Dwarves, and I was glad that my somewhat one-dimensional roster actually did what it was supposed to. 20 Cas over 6 games was a strong return. Only the Tomb Kings matchup felt very bad, and while all of the Regen teams were an annoyance, the games were close and even enough.
The Tournament was incredibly well run; the venue was excellent, (the toilets were certainly a massive upgrade over the Athens experience) the food good (and copious), and the pitch that was gifted to everyone was superb.  Overall it was a great reminder of the unique experience of Team Tournament play, and Eurobowl has now given me two of the most rewarding times I have had in six years of tabletop Blood Bowl.
Budapest is a beautiful city (and cheap!), check out the ruins bars and thermal baths if you get the chance. A big thank you to our opponents and to the organisers, and now we can all look ahead to Poland and Warsaw for Eurobowl 26!
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