Silly Side Quests - a look back at 2025
- Jock Wright
- Dec 22, 2025
- 10 min read
Updated: Dec 23, 2025
Was it all a great big adventure?
You remember Hogmanay (New Year’s Eve in Scotland) well, right? When promises are made in the face of the new year ahead, some made drunkenly perhaps, some given more thought.
Well about this time last year I asked an array of Scottish coaches and coaches from further afield what might be their Blood Bowl New Year resolutions and silly side quests for 2025. You can catch up with what folks said in part 1, part 2, part 3.
In the cold light of day as we near Christmas and 2026 swiftly following I thought it might be fun to take a look back at the year in Blood Bowl and see how these resolutions and silly side quests bore out.
I set myself a couple of big challenges for 2025, namely;
Make a success of Home Nations II and cement it in the calendar as a ‘must-do’ tournament
As Scotland Captain encourage and lead a squad of at least twenty Scottish coaches to Budapest and bring home Hosting rights for Eurobowl to be delivered in 2028
Launch the NAF Super Series concept and encourage coaches to travel in between communities both nationally and internationally.
Home Nations is now a ‘must do’ tournament, set to become the largest UK event in 2026!
On the big ticket items I’m pleased to say I pretty much achieved everything I wanted and more. The Home Nations II with Wobert, Barney_the_Lurker and Sizzler helped to deliver a cracking Home Nations in July.
Italy pipped England to the post making them the bridesmaid on tie-breaker for the second year in a row, whilst Tactics and Theatrics bested defending champs - Team England to ensure both the Bowl and the Open ran to the wire in the final rounds.
However, more importantly though, 264 coaches had a cracking weekend and no doubt shared their experience with friends in their communities. As a result, Home Nations III set for July 2026, sold out in eight minutes! (Read the tournament report here)
We’re expecting to host 336 coaches from at least ten nations in Loughborough next year, making it the biggest tournament in the UK and a ‘must-do’! A personal thanks to the team that helped me deliver this event, and indeed to the coaches who support the Home Nations to make it an unmissable Blood Bowl weekend.
Scotland the Brave - The Squad Delivers!
I had the honour of captaining Team Scotland for the first time as we headed out to Budapest and it went as well as I could have possibly imagined, even after losing the first two rounds!
As far as I’m aware Scotland had its largest ever travelling contingent to a Eurobowl as thirty Scots took to the pitch in Hungary, whilst enjoying a bowlful of goulash and forged friendships old and new over a fun weekend.
In the Open Team Scotland managed an impressive 4-1-1 and landed in 13th out of 140, congrats to the guys. Whilst Team Scotland in the Bowl rallied after two losses to pip Lithuania on tie-break to win hosting rights - a long-held ambition for the Scottish community.
The moment going up on stage with the team to accept hosting rights from Matt_Timebandit will stay with me for a long time. Now we have the fun of organising Eurobowl XVIII in the autumn 2028 - planning has already begun!
Super Series launched - more to be done
I’m grateful to Topas, the NAF Series co-ordinator, for working with me and supporting me to launch the idea of the NAF Super Series. We launched three series this year as a pilot:
The Triple Crown
The GB Team Championships
The European Team Championships
This is where I have work still to do. The three Super Series were launched but I’ve only tabulated the Triple Crown, which included The Welsh National Championships, Mulligan’s; Scotland’s NAF National (tickets still available for March 2026!) and the NAF Champs. Congrats to AndyDavo, the winner of The Triple Crown, the first NAF Super Series!
With it being a busy year I’ve not had the chance to tabulate the GB Championships and the European Team Championships - something I aim to rectify in between Christmas and New Year, and all being well perhaps on a shiny new website if I don’t get waylaid on the eggnog!
The plan is to see the NAF Super Series grow in strength to support and encourage travel between communities. I’ve been speaking with Wolter, TO for the Danish National with a view to developing a Super Series for European National tournaments. It may well be a project for 2027, but watch this space.
Silly Side Quests kept me going
I had the ambition of becoming the no. #1 Slann coach in the world, but a terrible showing at Mulligan’s where I lost three matches shut that down. However silver linings I switched to High Elves in preparation for Eurobowl and became the no. #1 High Elf Coach in the world.
I’d aimed to get myself up to twelve races played, fell just short on eleven, but topped and tailed the year with Nurgle in Cork at Bleedbowl and Gobbos at Krampus Bowl in Vienna! I had a lot of fun playing races I wouldn’t ordinarily play.
I managed to visit all the new countries I had planned for 2025 apart from France. However I was canny enough to have Stimme separate the individual UK nations into their constituent parts. So I’ve now been to thirteen countries and I have a silly side quest for a few more that I’ll write about in a future blog.
So I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Blood Bowl and the community in all its glory in 2025. What about a few of the other coaches who started out with some Silly Side Quests?! Read on:
Kilowoggy, from the US.
The big hairy goal for Kilowoggy going into 2025 was, along with his org team, to win hosting rights for the 2027 NAF World Cup. Unfortunately Malta broke the Americans' hearts. Nonetheless Kilowoggy had other challenges to visit all fifty US states to keep him busy.
He had this to say when I caught up with him and asked how his 2025 had gone, "Unfortunately I fell short of my goal this year as I only added four new states and attended twenty-one tournaments (Ed: that still sounds like a lot of Blood Bowl!). Sometimes life gets in the way of the fun stuff. I was able to go on a great streak of award wins, got a couple of tournament wins and ended up winning the COBBRA Regional Series. So that helps make up for it."
Mournival, Scotland’s NAF Rep
Like me, Mournival is a keen traveller and purveyor of Blood Bowl communities. He’d set out to visit many new places and asked about his 2025 he had this short and sweet reply,
“Defo highlights were travelling to more non UK events this year, especially Bilbao, Copenhagen and Budapest. Blood Bowl is great, but having the opportunity to meet new people and seeing awesome places is where it’s at.”
Stewbacca, TO for the Kent Team Championships
When Jock asked me to write something last year, I said I would be looking to get a team at a rating over 200 Elo. Directly underneath my ramblings/resolution was Andy Davo’s where he said he was trying to get five additional races to 200 Elo, gazumping my resolution to get just one race there!
At the time I was writing that, I had either applied for or just been accepted as part of the Squad England. I never had any thoughts that I would make either the Eurobowl or Europen for Team England, but I wanted to be part of the squad and try to learn from some of the best players in the country and improve my game. The quest to get a team at 200 Elo was perhaps part of wanting to prove myself good enough to be part of the squad.
My favourite event of the year was Elfbowl in Brighton – not just because I won the event, which is obviously nice – but because the focus of the event is touchdowns with touchdowns scored being the first tiebreaker. It felt like a really fun way to play the game, and I think it’s how I would have approached it if I was given the game to play as a kid.
One thing I’ve been focussed on over the last couple of months is Kent Team Championship 2026 (shameless plug: 21/22 February in Canterbury, teams of four, tickets available) and how we would adapt the ruleset for the new edition – and how we can enhance running the event.
For personal goals in 2026, I will be looking to get wood elves over 200 Elo. They’re my favourite team (by far) and whilst the way that I like to play them has been hit by losing two catchers, it will be an interesting challenge to adapt to playing them a slightly different way.
I’m also going to look to get a stunty cup with gnomes (which I’ve not yet played) to complete the set of getting a stunty cup with each of the teams, and also to play Bretonians to get me to the full thirty-one teams played. I feel this last goal is the most achievable of all!
Runbad, Team Canada Coach and Twitch Streamer
“Looking back at my goals for the year, I am happy to say I achieved them. My vampire rating peaked at 227. However, they settled at 205 after Eurobowl and a mediocre Chaos Cup. I have put them down now after 84 NAF games in about a year.
I am also happy to say I achieved twitch partnership with support from my great community there. The highlight for the year was having the opportunity to represent Canada at Eurobowl. It was a great experience and I hope to do it again very soon.”
Torquemada, Team England Coach and the no. #1 Vampire coach in the world
Karl is a good friend of mine and Tactics and Theatrics team mate, and he very kindly gave me the low down on his year and a quick look forward to 2026 to wrap up this blog.
"Wow, that's 2025 gone already. Feels like no time at all, and yet somehow also like 10 years worth of stuff has happened. The big one, of course, is the new edition. Even though it hasn't been out for that long, so much of my time in the last few weeks has been spent studying the new rules, theorycrafting, and trying to solve the considerable issues with the writing. It feels almost weird now to think of BB before the Third Season, but there's been plenty of that in 2025 too.
So, as for the goals I set for myself at the start of the year. The main one was to play for England in the Bowl -and I did! I went 3-2-1 and sat on table 1 for games 3-6, which was exhilarating, and all I could ask for in my first time out with the big boys and girls. Of course, the moment I was selected for the team, my focus became preparing for Budapest, so the sidequests had to be deprioritised a bit. Still, there’s quite a lot I did get done:
Completed Side Quests:
World #1 Vamp: Vamps were the obvious choice for me at Eurobowl, so this one wasn’t too bad
Two Shields: The re-focus due to EB meant I did far more team events than individual, so it’s not surprising that these came from two team events - Monkeybowl and Tilean Team Cup - both of which I attended with T&T (Tactics and Theatrics).
Run my own tournament: Done! Pitch Invaders Open was a big success, and I had a ton of fun running it. We’ll be going again in 2026, and I’m excited to make it even better than in 2025 - see here for details
Sort of:
70% winrate: I didn't quite get to an all-time 70%+ winrate in Second Season rules, but I did hit 73% for the year in 2025. Though as far as the Third Season is concerned, I'm on 70% after all of one tournament. That counts, right?
Tournament Series: Speaking of T&T, while the EB focus meant I wasn’t really gunning for any individual series, there's a decent chance we may have won one off the teams ones! Just waiting for a certain Scot to crunch the numbers ;)
Incomplete:
Two teams up to 200: I finally got my beloved Union up to the 200s. I didn’t quite get the second one, sadly - a bit of a rough run at Bilbali meant my Renegades ended up 3 points shy.
Arena runs: Got pretty far, but predictably, when Vamps came out on BB3, that was kind of that for any further non-vampy runs.
24h Tournament: Not yet - hit me up if you're running one!
Looking ahead to 2026, getting my head around this new edition meta is my main priority. There's gold in them thar hills, and the first coaches to find it are going to be at a big advantage in the coming year. I'm looking to travel a lot next year, studying local metas that emerge in other scenes in Europe and beyond. But there's plenty more besides:
Eurobowl: Bar none the best BB experience I've ever had. If Team England calls again in 2026, I will answer, whatever the ruleset.
Do more community work: I'm happy with my BB this year, but it's the community work I'm most proud of. I want to do more of that in 2026, online and on the tabletop.
Find another main team: I think vamps are still fine, but the era of povertybowl we appear to be in means they're probably sitting on the shelf for a bit. Plus, it's always nice to try new things!
24h tournament, still on the list.
Get some more painting done: I recently picked up an airbrush and want to learn how to make the most of it. New edition and new meta means plenty of opportunities to attack that grey pile!
Get a little further in the World Champs: I qualified for the BB3 WC play-ins this year, but crashed out pretty much immediately. I've learnt from my mistakes though and I'm ready to go again in 2026."
Well that was 2025, I may well get round to a resolutions piece for 2026. However for now, Merry Christmas to you all and thanks to all you readers of the Scottish Blood Bowl Blog!
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