RacketBowl Part 2, Tunbridge Wells, 8th November 2025

 In it's second year,  Racketbowl is fast becoming a mainstay of the Kent Blood Bowl scene.  It has a unique mafia based theme,  where the only star players allowed are custom gangster star players known as Wiseguys, and every team MUST take one. 

With 16 to choose from this not only gives a lot of modelling opportunities for anyone wanting to make one rather than proxy something, with all the wiseguys eligible for all teams,  it means there are a lot of possible options for you to choose from.

This year, 13 of the 16 Wiseguys were represented across 24 teams, compared to 12 across the same number last year.  However there was a more even split this year when last year 4 of the Wiseguys were selected 24 times. This shows the work that the team behind the scenes has put in making them more balanced for this year.  

With 30 teams and 16 Wiseguys to choose from, I suffered from a bit of analysis paralysis and left selecting my team until nearly the last minute. I will probably try to make an earlier decision next year as I wasn't completely happy with what I ended up selecting. The team budget is 1150, meaning most teams will need to give something up to fit in their Wiseguy. 

I fell back into amazons and looked for a star that would compliment them. I thought as they can always fit in everything they want,  it wouldn't be too difficult to fit in a star that compromised the team.  I ended up selecting Gorgeous George, affectively a nurgle bloater with Block, Guard and Stand Firm. I thought the added skills would compliment the amazon strategy. 

Round 1 v Ross (redfacedgoose)

I picked up Ross from Ashford on my way,  so obviously the fixture computer paired us up together round 1! Classic Blood Bowl. 

He had orcs with Keyser Soze - effectively a vampire runner without Bloodlust but with dodge, catch and sidestep. 

Things started off really well for me. Not only did Keyser Soze fail to pick up the ball, but my armour rolls were on fire, with a casualty and two knock outs in the first couple of turns. 

Keyser managed to pick up the ball and his 5 behind a few big scary orcs.  With the tackle blitzer on the sideline I took the opportunity to go for a surf. When rolling double both down I got greedy and rerolled it to push him into crowd rather than hit and running away for position. 

Keyser Soze was able to get around my team and a last minute one die blitz resulted in just a push.  I decided not to reroll this one and it wasn't too hard for him to get past me and get the touchdown.  

I had enough time left for the score and threw players up,  but without rerolls as they had been used either on double skulls or frivolously on the surf,  Ross was able to take out or cover my scoring threats and so it came down to needing a 5+ catch followed by a 3+ dodge after pushing some orcs around,  but the catch failed. 

1-0 down at half time and receiving, my team failed to pick up the ball and it bounced outside the ring of my players that surrounded it and Keyser Soze, and all the orcs who had recovered from their KOs werr able to be enough of an annoyance to stop me scoring an equaliser. 

Round 2 v Jez (paganaggent)

This was the third time I'd played Jez this year,  and he'll probably now be on my most played opponents in the new section on my NAF profile. 

Jez rightfully won the Goodfella Award for being dressed in a proper gangster suit, slicked back hair and complete with a pistol and also a great Bonnie Parker model.

 

This was an amazon mirror match.  Before the event I had looked at his roster and got a bit jealous.  He had gone for Keyser Soze which gave the amazons an agility and movement bonus and also Bonnie Parker, a halfling who was great at fouling. These both gave amazons a different dimension where my Wiseguy merely complemented what the team already had rather than giving them additional options.  

I had joked that we'd need to play each other to find out which roster was best, and now we'd get to find out. 

I received and picked up on my block blocker. This would obviously cause a lot of problems for Jez and I was able to score but as he'd focused on fouling my team off the pitch,  I did so earlier than I had intended,  forgetting that he had a very fast Wiseguy. Keyser was obviously given the ball and ran down the right flank. There was a possibility of a hit on the ball which at the very least would have forced a rush,  but my own rush failed. Fortunately my blitzer fell over in the key square meaning Keyser had to jump a prone player and make 2 dodges,  but he did it without breaking a sweat. 

In the second half,  I was able to get to put some pressure on and managed to get a one die blitz on the ball carrying Keyser which resulted in a pow and the ball scattering over Jez's line of players and landing in no man's zone.  With each of us having a number of tacklezones on the ball and having lost both my wise guy and my guard blocker I felt like I needed to try to make something happen and blitzed a player resulting in a chain push onto the ball.  Unfortunately it scattered into Jez's crowd of players rather than mine and it was caught by Bonnie Parker.  

It then ended in the hands of Keyser Soze again who was surrounded by team mates.  A successful 6+ cage dive resulting in an uphill block (as I'd forgotten to cover one assist) would have failed a knock down on the 4 dice I rolled anyway and Jez ended up with a 2-1 win.  

Round 3 v Lee (LeeFM)

I ended the day on bottom table against Lee and his dwarfs. Lee is friends with one of organisers and had come down from Milton Keynes for the event. He had chosen Marcellus Wallace who is a fairly standard big guy who - fortunately for me spent a good chunk of time in the KO box.  

My armour rolls were again on fire and poor Lee had played in the rain the whole day.  His elves struggled to pick up the ball and my zons kept swarming him and taking advantage. This ended up a 4-0 win for me.  The game was over before half time but I pushed for more scores in the hope of maybe getting the most touchdown award which it turns out didn't actually exist!

Conclusion 

I think I'm going to give amazons a break for a little while.  I've been playing them on and off for over a year and I had great fun at the first few events with them but I've not had as much fun with them recently (this might partly be due to the rulesets that I was trying to fit them into). With the new season coming this Saturday and most enthralled switching to that soon after,  I think I'll start to mix up teams a lot more to explore the new meta.