A Scot's Saunter to Swedish Nationals

by Chris Hastings, HighlandEnoch

Good day to all those reading this madness and come with me as I regale you with the tale of how a chance encounter on an Irishman’s discord led to me taking part in my first national outwith the land of Alba leading to one of the most enjoyable tournies I took part in, met some glorious people who are now good friends and of course rolling some clickity clack math rocks.

So to explain how I ended up even considering going here I had at the time recently joined Keithabix’s Discord channel (sorry never joined sooner good sir) and just random chats away about various tourneys such as bLEEdbowl and then one of the member Wotan83 mentioned Swedish Nationals. We ended up having a discussion about the Nationals here and in Sweden with Wotan mentioning theirs being a team tourney and coaches can enter solo then be assigned to a team. The seed was planted in my head and then after approval from the lovely better half Mrs Hastings as Keith has dubbed her I paid in and got myself all organised. As I kept in touch with the TO Smulzer who was a gem dealing with my madness by sheer chance Wotan’s team had a drop out as such I was assigned into the squad by the person who got me into the whole idea. From there the madness began.

Now fortunately for me Wotan and Bitter (The other member of our team) were more going for fun and just experienced it all as such they didn’t mind what team I went with. So with this my Nurglings who want to Gnomes were quickly locked in and I began to formulate ideas with the team. So Swedish National’s ruleset being team centric meant they took some ideas from Eurobowl 2024 as well as some of their own tweaks. It has a 6 tier system with incremental increase in gold and Skills and while their gold is a bit higher than the norm most tiers have 1 less skill than the norm so a bit of balance. In the team aspect they had packages players in a team could take with no repeats; these would give extra gold for a skill, an extra secondary but you get capped how many times you can have that secondary appear, the ability to stack or to stay Vanilla. Finally, which is something I did like is they tiered their Stars. So weaker stars were lower tier while stronger higher and the Mega Star no go tier. So if you had a baseline stronger team you get only the weaker Stars and then the weaker teams get the better ones so it offered some funky balance. They also had a few extra inducements like the Ballistic Master and the Team Mascot for those extra 30ks you could consider or if you perhaps took the extra cash.

So I stuck to a fairly normal Gnome Set up with All positionals, 6 Linos, Karla Von Kill with 3 rerolls and an apo. With 9 Skills, 3 being allowed to be secondary, I did 6 Dodge for the positional Gnomes and 2 Lineman, 2 Block Trees and for a bit of fun a Kick Lineman. I figured this could let me mess with slower teams by punting the ball further back or closer to me as I chose to enable better odds to score. I didn’t take any packages since I had no need. Wotan had gone for a Wilhelm Tomb King Build with extra Secondary to max out on Block Tomb Guardians while Bitter went OWA with Zug taking the stacking package to make a monstrous Ogre. We would do our best, have a laugh and drink Irn Bru as the day went on as this was the requested import from my teammates.

The first day of travel took a little while due to gaps between my connecting flights and the train to Sala but in all honesty it was easy to get to. I arrived late into Friday and I knew some of the coaches had planned a meet up, but I was tired. However, as I arrived in Sala some other coaches also arrived. I decided to say hi and met Bjorn who was one of those running the tourney alongside Smulzer. So I had a quick chat and despite some odd foreigner entering they were all polite and it made me feel welcome which I had worried wasn’t going to be the case. I made my way to the cabin I hired, made sure all my stuff was ready and mentally prepared for the weekend of madness ahead.

Arriving at the venue and then entering what caught me first was just the branding of the event, banners with the sponsors on them and the Swedish National logo all over the place so it stuck out plus gave it a nice identity. I left my jacket downstairs and then made my way up to the area where the tournament where seeing so many coaches was glorious and made me feel at home. Though I noticed a few oddities, there were quite a few folk dressed quite funkily. Some folk dressed as chefs, a bunch dressed like 1940s Englishmen, a Chaos Chosen blocker and some lads looking like they came out of Dirty Dancing and even some folk wearing kilts. This was perhaps the first different oddity I liked in that the National has a best Dressed contest just for some fun and it seems their community fully adopted it. Eventually I met up with Wotan and Bitter formally introducing ourselves, sharing our cross culture treats, having Fergus our Highland Cow mascot, ready to go we made our way to the table we would play and after the speech from Smulzer a ceremonial whistle was blown to officially start round 1.

So round 1 we played against the team of Pieces, a combination of Vampire, Necro and Humans (Sadly their original player of Amazons was ill so Humans took their place) and I faced Aeonax with his Vampires. Normally this is a team I am comfortable with knowing where to position to try and deny the Hypno Gazes and just fouling pieces off the board. I mean this would help if I was a competent coach which sadly I am not. I received and set up nicely with the Fox getting the ball and being safe within the nest of bodies just unfortunately a Tree rooted Turn 1 (this may be a theme of the entire tournament). The Vamps disengaged and kept their distance moving to my Turn 2 I advanced up. I figured I was ok but quickly I learned this was not the case. Aeonax proceeded to go through the string of Vampire Hypno Gazes with a couple riskier ones and eventually got their Thrower onto my Ball Carrier Fox and just outright deleted them in one swing with ball recovery to boot. So I entered the catch up game. Turn 3 I was able to clear the Thrower with the ball with a Beastmaster who killed him but Vampire regen was all good. I threw a team mate to help mark a piece though before I moved them I decided to dodge in my 2nd Fox to recover the ball. With only 1 single dodge with inbuilt reroll I felt confident…sadly they failed the one dodge onto the ball bouncing the ball outside my area. The Vampires recovered the ball on Turn 4 and made a break for it though a Thrall decided to fall over and KO themselves in the process but better than a Tree punching you in most cases. Turn 5 I threw another Line Gnome to get into position to help a Beastmaster go for the 2D Blitz on the Ball Carrier with another assist and the Beastmaster decided a Double Skulls into Double Skulls was better removing themselves from the board though the Apo saved them. From here things went downhill as Turn 6 the Vampires scored. Turn 7 I tried for a quick 1 turn in return but rolled a one to root so I lost a square in throwing then fumbled the Throw with a reroll involving three ones in a row. I mean it is exceptional luck in a sense. Once the 2nd half began the pain only got worse. I tried to plant the ball near my line since there was a gap but the ball went back the way 3 into his half after the kick cutting the distance in half. I dealt with constant hit and run from the Vamps slowly removing pieces via KO or kills and my return Blitz could only ever tickle a Vampire at best. This led to a quick score from the Vamps again with the loss of an Illusionist and Dodge Line Gnome as well as a few KOs of positionals. I received once more but my line was thin and my Trees figured rooting again was smart leading to the 3rd touchdown for the Camps and Aeonax winning 3-0. While I didn’t get much of a chance to do much at times I still enjoyed myself being unable to contain any laughter at how dumb my Trees were or that I just couldn’t do much beyond Stuns. I was fortunate that my team did manage to secure a round win for us so the overall team Record is 1-0-0 while I was 0-0-1.

A packed building for day 1 with two of the teams aiming to win Best Dressed in the foreground, one via Hypnotic Gaze and the other by Halfling Maste Chefs.

After a hearty lunch it was onto round 2 where initially we drew against TLM who were made up of Swedish National members and I had the unfortunate luck of facing Melisqus with his Undead which is a match up I dislike in general but also he is seen by many as the best Undead coach in Sweden so a double whammy of pain.

I begun to prepare for a thrashing but thankfully we got a redraw due to an error and paired against Misters of No Mercy where I got paired against Oxinotl who was running…Undead….crud…and apparently he had put a lot of time into them as well. He had taken the extra secondary package so he could have a Block Mummy, Guard Mummy, Guard Blitzer, Tackle Blitzer, Block Ghoul and Wrestle Ghoul. I opted to Kick this time as I won the toss figuring I had better odds trying to get a 1 turn if he ran the clock to turn 8 and then try to stall out the 2nd half with shenanigans. And so a slow grind game occurred with not much happening beyond Karla dashing back and forth to hit targets while the Trees screened against the Mummies. However I would take any chance I could to get a Ghoul or two when possible to try but I was suffering small hits here and there but I ended up being down a Fox by the first half who the Apo could not save. The 2nd half is where things got messier. After an initial good Drive my Trees both rooted leaving them as roadblocks which could easily be avoided and with the Mummies suddenly waking up breaking open my line more a Blitzer KOd my last Fox. Add in a Ghoul recovered the ball it felt like I was heading to another loss….well assuming if I played sensible anyway. One of my brave little Lineman walked to the Tree and requested to be launched. He flew through the air majestically before it turned into a small explosion. The Lineman first hit a Mummy stunning them, it then bounced to the ball carrier Ghoul Casing them before finally bouncing on a Blitzer and knocking them down. The ball scattered just outside the cage next to the downed Blitzer with Karla adjacent. Karla scooped up the ball and ran while the rest of my team screened to prevent and easy catch up. A Mummy took down an Illusionist but Karla made a clean break and with a Go for it she scored on the final turn securing me a 1-0 win. It was a glorious game despite so little dice rolling happening as it was pretty much a who blinked first situation…unfortunately flying Lineman don’t blink more screaming. Wotan managed a 2-1 win with Bitter securing a 1-1 draw giving us a team record of 2-0-0 and my own record of 1-0-1. For playing for fun we were doing well.

Onto Round 3 after much fun discussion and…we are on Table 1 against The Prio Trio…Now there are many places I should be in Blood Bowl and Table 1 is not one of those places and oh boy was I facing a team that looked creepily familiar. Ivan Tomb Kings with it being practically the same build I took to Mulligans in 2024 along with this my teammates noted these lads play a tad seriously so you know I was feeling grand. Suncar was an absolute gentleman as we had a quick chat while we got set up. As I mentioned I feel like my past was coming back to haunt me with this being a team I truly enjoyed. Another flip and I won so I chose to Receive given my reasoning was I could stall out the Tomb Kings long enough via Kick and such they wouldn’t score too briskly. My Trees swung and took down a Skeleton on the first turn albeit one of them Rooting…again….I should mention every game this day on turn 1 a Tree rooted. The same one each time. It was infuriating. And so a slow grind began as I knocked down and fouled where I could with Ivan and Karla performing a hit and run dance against stragglers making it an interesting situation as we both knew in this scenario our key pieces were our frail ball carriers and our Stars. I scored with a Fox by turn 5 and kicked deep. Add in some changing weather the ball landed far in the back meaning my only fear was a crazy pass play and being punched. I managed to avoid such a fate with a few Gnomes KOd but they recovered and came back for the 2nd Half. So this is where the sheer madness came in. I kicked deep and up until turn 5 this was nearly the same however due to some shenanigans I managed to get a hit on the ball carrier dragging them down with Wrestle and the only thing that could catch the ball was a Tomb Guardian in a Tackle Zone which means it needed a 6….so of course it got a 6 and thus the lumbering march continued. I kept screening as best I could, dragging out each turn slowly and painfully as more players got KOd until Turn 8 when with his Tomb Guardian with the ball a little out of position I used a blitz to clear the way to mark him with my Illusionists. Due to how this all landed there was no way for him to escape without a dodge roll and 2 go for its with no rerolls in order to score. I somehow was still at my full 3. So surely Nuffle wouldn’t mess with me again. One again I was wrong and the Guardian managed to make it, bringing it to a 1-1 Draw but I had the One Turn. So I set up and Suncar set up to defend. We had spent most of this game laughing at the sheer insanity. Add in the ball scattered off meaning I could hand it to my Dodging Lineman I was in a perfect situation. I cleared the Tree, I did a perfect throw, my Lineman landed in a Tackle zone on a 6, he made his dodges and then all he needed to do is make 1 go for it with a reroll and the win was mine….I watched in abject horror when I snake eyed. I was annoyed but I couldn’t help but laugh. The rolls were amusing and it was a good game. Sadly Wotan and Bitter lost their games leading a team loss leaving our team 2-0-1 and myself 1-1-1. 

A Scotsman with his little mascot being pulled to Table 1 by his more competent team mates.

Overall I enjoyed day 1 with me reflecting a little at some of the interesting skill picks along with appreciating the agreed standard the swedes hold such as owning their own chess clocks. Afterwards we went out for a nice meal arranged by the SWEBBA where I got to chat to a few other coaches such as Kaith who was cosplaying as one of the Chaos Chosen players in his team though he forgot his Loom Band being generally geekery and what out scenes were like along with having a whisky to calm my nerves with the team I made my way home in the cold night of Sala and rested for the next day wondering what madness awaited me the next day.

I was up nice and early as Round 4 began at 8:30 as the 2nd day aimed to finish a bit sooner so people could journey home. The team met up and we checked to see if our opponents were TLM….so much for escaping them but I was against Skuld this time who was using Ivar OWA. Not really relaxing either as it represents another Star that could hurt me. However this game devolved quickly after Skuld won the toss and chose to go first with a High Kick letting him secure the ball. The initial turns he avoided the trees having Ivar run in and out hitting my flanks while I initially tried to mess with his cage and hold his Ogre in place with my Trees but eventually a bad turn of luck hit Skuld with Ivar double skulling leaving him on the ground on turn 4. So this led to a dark moment. His cage had moved far enough down with enough support I wasn’t able to get in without mental Throw Team Mate or dodge luck however I am not one opposed to fouling which I had been doing a fair bit. So I figured I could score a one turn throw this time and try to remove Ivar which would weaken this team a small chunk. Proceed that my Gnomes kept on stomping till he was dead. He was not just a little dead but very dead. Add in I scored the one turn on turn 8 I felt good entering the 2nd half as now all I needed to do was remove the Ogre or Halfling to prevent the one turn in relation if I scored late and to me it was in the bag. But oh boy is this where I pushed my luck too far. After initially breaking free with a fox, marking the only player, a knocked down catcher, who I believed could have made it and the Halfling KOd in my head I was going to score but I missed a lone lineman who could do 2 go for its to get the blitz off. The only beneficial result was a Pow as I had my 2nd Fox close enough to make a recovery and still score if the first was taken out but as Nuffle deems a Pow was rolled, my Fox was cassed and thus the dominos of pain occurred. Now I will say Skuld did not get many chances to hit my players as I knew I didn’t want to end up in too much of a slog but any time he did during the 2nd Half a played was KOd. I did all I could to stop this, throwing my remaining Linemen, up hill Blocks and each time I got the ball out of his hands another player recovered it and eventually on turn 8 the Human Blitzer managed to recover the ball one last time and score. This game was intense as each turn I had less options but where in prior tournaments I would have gotten tilted and gave up I never stopped trying and Skuld oddly being so determined each time as well sort of fed into my mindset. He was the superior coach but I learned from playing him and enjoyed the game. His 2-1 win was well deserved but sadly Wotan had lost his game with Bitter drawing his leading to a team loss making our Team record 2-0-2 and mine 1-1-2.

And so day 2 begins.

So going into Round 5 I set up my new goal. I would not end the day with 4 losses. I would happily take a 1-2-3 record but I was determined to not be in the negative. With this we were paired against Small Gods with me against Kanto using Dark Elves. A nice young lad who was oddly excited to play against Gnomes due to not having played them much prior to this. His line up was interesting in keeping the normal 4 Blodge Blitzers but went with a Guard Lino and a Leader Runner. Felt nice knowing I could kill the Witch Elves a little easier but oh boy did turn 1 make this game a mess for me off the bat. I received and on the kick off event we got Officious Ref who sent off my Illusionist. I managed to get a lucky knock down on a Blitzer and got enough Gnomes to make a gang foul worth it turn 1 while also preparing to screen to help secure the ball if the Elves leave an opening…proceed to roll snake eyes and a 1 on the Appeal the Call meaning I was down 2 Players turn 1 and can’t risk a foul again. It was an interesting start. The Dark Elves just ran and pushed down, killing the Beastmaster on the way but an Apo saved them but turn 2 with only 8 players wasn’t the best. However my Trees decided to wake up with each offing a Dark Elf putting them to 9 players so the numbers begun to balance up. The Dark Elves however managed to stun and push further down the field. I tried to keep up but I couldn’t break in or even inflict any other casualties or KOs and the Elves danced around me until they scored in T8 while KOing a small portion of my team. I got some back and with a reroll in hand I felt I could score a one turn since the back line was a little thinner. Unfortunately the ball went deep and thus the one turn was off. Thankfully my KOs revived and onto the 2nd half I went. The initial turn was fortunate removing another Elf taking them down to 9 with a secured ball. Kanto pushed hard but my Trees behaved and kept walking up with the fox along with Karla on a corner it made it a bit risky to chance pushing in for the ball. Turn 4 is when a small choice came up. I was in range to score after a punch and blitz to prevent any dodge rolls which I did and led to 2 KOs. 7 Dark Elves I felt I could push with my full Gnome team to steal the ball and score especially with the Kick Gnome being able to plant it well. So I went for it and scored to initiate the play. I planted the ball deep on the next drive and aiming to yeet some line gnomes up to help box them in. With this as expected Kanto pulled back and I pushed up with throwing Gnomes but I could keep a decent back up so they couldn’t break through too quickly. I forced them to the edge over the next turns but I miscounted a turn and lost a turn somehow leading to me making my push 1 turn too late. It was possible but required perfect rolls and scatters which I almost managed but due to misjudging where I could mark and with who it did not work. It ended up a 1-1 draw meaning my goal was achieved for the tourney. Kanto and I chatted afterwards and discussed where we could have done better. Bitter unfortunately loss while Wotan won meaning it was an overall team draw. So with this our team record was 2-1-2 and my own was 1-2-2.

With this we had our lunch and I helped with the draw of the SWEBBA Community Team draw they do yearly like the SBBC does with everyone contributing minis to the team to win it. Then it was hitting me a bit this was the final round and despite coming in as a random entrant I enjoyed this tournament and knew I wanted to come back next year but till then I had one last round to go and I wanted to do the best for the team.

So with Round 6 we faced the He-Man Hunters whom I bonded with a little as they also had a Gnome coach so we had a good chat before I sat across from Adso and his Orcs. He ran a 4 Block Big ‘Un, a Block Troll, a Strip Ball Blitzer and a Dirty Player Gobbo. Made an interesting situation as I am more use to seeing Guard on Orcs when I have played them so seems they were going more for safety but that much S4 was still an issue with my one advantage being I moved faster. So I decided to kick deep again and go from there. Adso got the ball and decided to bash a little but 2 Trees with some support behind did make it a pain for him to do as he wished. I played stand offish never basing and just hit and ran again like I have done prior against Suncar though least I wasn’t dancing with Ivan. During this I managed to kill the Goblin with Karla and once the Orcs clumped up I grabbed a Lineman and sent them flying in to break it up. Yet again a perfect scatter and the Ball Carrier was taken down with another bounce killing a Big Un thankfully. This put an end to the drive and the half meaning entering the 2nd half I felt better since all I need was a Fox carrying the ball and break away. The ball landed near the middle pretty ideal for me leading to a nice recovery and move up but things started going a bit south. One of my screening Lineman died putting me a player down. I pushed up and knocked down some Orcs with my Trees while stunning them giving me some safety but in return a Big Un blitzed down another Gnome, this time an Illusionist. I figured I could screen and stall as I made my way up but eventually the Trees rooted leaving them behind and each turn my defensive line was being removed by another Orc blitz. It hit my turn 5 when I was down 4 players and I had done no real damage to the Orcs so I opted to score and kick back to Adso hoping with a deep kick I could hold him off with 4 turns to go. I put my remaining players up and the ball scattered all the way to the back corner. It was ideal as I could hope but the first swings on the line led to a Tree being Stunned and the other knocked down so I had to give up the line and not send anyway to try and be cheeky on the ball and went back to just hit and run. Knocking down who I can and where. The next turns didn’t achieve much but I was able to pin the Orcs to the side and in a bit of a mad play I dodged in my Illusionist to 2 dice up hill the Thrower and it worked. 2 Double Both Downs led to the ball going loose and bouncing away. I realised given it was my turn 7 he only had one scoring threat so I opted to pile around them as well as mark the ball with as many bodies as I could. Karla and the Trees managed to mark the main bulk of the Orcs. In my head I had won since it would require a lot of 6s to even try it. Adso spent his Turn 7 trying to break clear, getting some bodies off the ball while his blitzer dealt with the horde of tiny friends around him. The ball didn’t move. I decided to chance my luck so after my safe moves I moved to try and recover the ball. With a reroll in hand a 3++ would mean I could make a break for it and throw a short pass to an empty square to guarantee the win….except I rolled snake eyes and the ball bounced outwith the safety zone I made. Adso had a slim chance but he need to get a Pow on a one dice block, a pick up, 2 go for its, a 6++ Pass with a 6+ catch, a 5+ Dodge into a 3+ Dodge into 2 more go for its. It was slim but at this point Adso realised this was the only play and despite me wanting the win I cheered on Adso for this insane feat. He sent in the initial Blitz and managed the Pow clearing the ball. His Thrower then managed to get in and grab the ball reaching as far as he could to prevent any intercept attempts and go for the pass. He rolled a 6 without the reroll. I was laughing at the sheer glory as he managed the catch as well, even making the 5+ dodge and then unfortunately the last dodge is where the fail occurred. I shook his hand and said in my head this was a draw and for the final play I would see at this tournament it left a glorious impression. Bitter managed to secure a win with Wotan only getting a draw which while I was sad for him I couldn’t help but celebrate with the Gnome coach. We ended the day 3-1-2 and my own record being 2-2-2.

With this the tournament was at an end with Wotan and Bitter pleased given we came to have fun but did quite well ending in 14th out of 48 with our two losses to 2nd and 3rd place. We did not see the prize giving as Bitter and Wotan mentioned if I was ok with leaving a bit earlier which for me was beneficial for making it to my hotel at Arlande Airport. However to not skip such things I would be amiss to mention the final results. The Finska Roverband took 1st place only losing 1 game between all three coaches the entire tournament which apparently the 1st Swedish Nationals they won as well leading to this back and forth of a Swedish team winning the next year and then the Finns trying to win it back while TLM took 2nd and the Prio Trio taking 3rd. However Kaju the captain of the Prio Trio took best individual performance with a 6-0-0 record using Ivar OWA (Which I noticed was a favourable pick) and Hell_Cap taking Best Stunty with his Halflings at a 5-1-0 record. Also most importantly Lady Chatterley’s Alskare won best dressed (pictures below of their glorious outfits) which I believe is a tradition we need to adopt over here.

Best Dressed if you will 😊 

They were even kind enough to offer me a lift as they were heading to Stockholm saving me a bit of money. I made my way round wishing coaches the best I had played as well as a few who went out their way to talk to me by having the oddity of a Scottish coach there. I went up to Smulzer and thanked him for this event promising I would spread the word of this event. I gifted Fergus our wee Highland Cow mascot to Wotan for him and Bitter to keep so they had something to remember me by beyond the Irn Bru I filled them up with. The trip back we discussed all the moments we enjoyed, how well we did, what tournies we all had lined up with Wotan asking me if I would come back again. I knew as mentioned earlier after round 5 I wanted to come back so I confirmed I would and hopefully with more fellows with Scotland in tow which made him excited. With this we made it to my hotel and I parted ways with Wotan and Bitter who made that weekend a glorious time for me as they were new friends I never expected to make. 

Fergus now officially a Scottish/Swedish citizen hoping to see as many tournies as possible.

Reflecting on it all the event was fun and one of the most enjoyable tournaments I had went to. It felt fresh for me like the first time I ever attended a tournament in Scotland which was Mulligans back in 2022. While it is a little further than the norm I would recommend anyone to consider going to this tournament. The community was so welcoming, the ruleset has a fun spin that lefts you get creative especially with some ideas (Looking at the Halflings who won Best Stunty came in individually second using a Grab Gang Foul build of brutality) and you get to see another wee bit of the world. I do plan on going back in 2026 and I hope with this fun little report blog or whatever you call it you will consider coming too.

The winners Finska Roverband

Kaju the best solo winner