Welcome back, sports fans! The third season of the Rain City Games Open Blood Bowl League is about to begin!
League communications will be conducted through a private channel on the Rain City Games Discord server.
For this third season, the league will use the current Blood Bowl: Second Season Official Rules, including many rules from Death Zone: The Ultimate Blood Bowl Companion (see below).
Each week of the league will run Tuesday to Monday, and coaches will play their weekly match sometime during that period, though a single week’s grace period will be made available to each coach each week. Official timeslots will be made available for in-store matches, but coaches are welcome to arrange alternate times with that week’s opponent if needed.
Ideally, all matches will be played at the Rain City Games Vancouver location and it will be each coach’s responsibility to work with Rain City Games staff to coordinate table reservations, however coaches are allowed to use other venues, though they obviously won’t be able to make use of any supplies, dice, boards or minis that Rain City Games can provide.
Regular Season Matches
The League will consist of two divisions of teams, each playing eight League Matches over an eight-week round-robin format. Each week, coaches will play a single League Match against a different opponent from their division (if possible), as assigned by league officials.
Exhibition Matches (AKA “Friendlies”)
Each week, coaches are authorized to play a single exhibition match against another opponent outside of their division, provided they have never played against that opponent before. These matches will not affect a team’s League Standings and are not mandatory; however, teams can still earn gold, Star Player Points* as well as have players get injured/killed, thus a team’s rating may increase or decrease as a result. Coaches are expected to self-organize for exhibition matches.
*No Star Player Points will be awarded for MVP of an exhibition match.
Post Season Matches
At the conclusion of the Regular Season, the top four teams of each division will take part in a single elimination tournament, playing one opponent per week, to determine the winner of the Rain City Games Open League and the Douglas Splotch Memorial Trophy.
A team’s rating in the standings will be calculated as follows:
If two teams are tied in points at the end of the regular season, the tie will be broken based on how well painted each team is, as decided by the league commissioner.
*Should it be determined that both coaches were equally responsible for not scheduling their match, both teams will be awarded 0 points.
There will be a $50 league entry fee, payable upfront. Payment must be made by 6:00pm on May 7th. After paying the league entry fee, should any participant also purchase at least $50 worth of Blood Bowl products from Rain City Games, they’ll receive a one-time $15 discount on their purchase.
Pitches, dice, and other supplies will be provided by Rain City Games for coaches to use in-store. Additionally, Rain City Games owns a handful of teams of miniatures and can provide them for in-store use to any coach that does not have their own, but coaches are expected to have their own miniatures by the end of the regular season.
All miniatures used must be official Games Workshop (GW) miniatures with the following restrictions and/or allowances:
Rain City Games has the following teams available for use in-store:
Each coach will be required to sign up for a TourPlay.net account to register their team and track their team’s progress in the league.
Lastly, each coach will be expected to join the Blood Bowl channel of the Rain City Games Discord server. All league announcements will be made there.
For this league the rules found in the Blood Bowl Second Season: Official Rules rule book will be used. Additionally, many rules from the Blood Bowl Second Season: Death Zone rules companion will also be in use (see below). Finally, this league will adhere to the most current official Blood Bowl Rules Errata which can be found online.
Death Zone rules not permitted in this league include:
*While no coach may voluntarily use any of these prohibited rules, the league’s commissioner may instruct coaches to use some of these rules occasionally during the course of the league.
House rules: This league will employ a “Team Captain” house rule (see Team Construction for more information).
All inducements found in the Blood Bowl Second Season: Official Rules rule book will be permitted in this league with the following exceptions:
Additionally, all inducements in the Blood Bowl Second Season: Death Zone rules companion will be permitted in this league with the following exceptions:
Placing bounties on individual players will be permitted during the league. The following rules will apply:
Teams will be constructed with 1,000,000 gold pieces as per the Official Rules.
Eligible teams include the following:
*The rules for this team can be found in the Teams of Legend PDF on warhammer-community.com
Tier 2 teams are allowed an additional 25,000 gold pieces to construct their team. Tier 3 teams are allowed an additional 50,000 gold pieces to construct their team.
Finally, after construction, the team’s coach will designate one player as their team’s captain who will immediately receive ONE free randomly rolled primary skill. This upgrade may take a team’s value above 1,000,000 gold pieces.
Any coach wishing to re-draft a team from a previous Rain City Games Open League season may do so according to the rules as laid out in the Official Rules, with the following stipulations:
The coach of the winning team of this third season of the Rain City Games Open League will have their team’s name added to the Douglas Splotch Memorial Trophy. That coach will also receive a $75 Rain City Games gift card.
Additionally, the coach deemed by the league’s commissioner to have the best-painted miniatures will receive a $25 Rain City Games gift card.
$10 will be added to the prize pool for every participating team in the league beyond the twelfth. This extra prize pool money will increase the gift card prizing with 75% of it going to the champion and 25% of it going to the best painter.
