Blood Bowl is a sporting and fighting game American football game played with two teams of Tolkienesque fantasy races. They compete to either get the ball to the end zone or kill all the opponent players. Despite the violent overtones, it's a finely balanced board game that has developed over many years along with a tradition of hand-painting plastic figures.

Play involves placing your players on the field in offensive or defensive rounds. You then take turns to move, attack, dodge, block, throw and catch. Whether you're successful at each action is determined by your player's stats and a dice roll.

As play progresses you need to carefully choose the order of actions, as one failed move results in a turnover and play going to the other side. As you get to grips with the action you can add in new aspects such as the crowd and other elements affecting play on the pitch.

How you play is determined in part by your team. In the box, you get Humans and Orcs but can also purchase a range of other races to play with. Stronger teams opt for more fighting while faster, lighter teams run and throw the ball.

What results is a finely honed game. It's been around for many years, and the latest edition of the rules has come from years of development. The history brings with it the tradition of painting miniature plastic player figures as with tabletop war games Warhammer and 40k, also from Games Workshop.