Let’s be honest, the hardest decisions in Blood Bowl aren’t strategical, or which team to pick, or whether or not to make that cheeky Go For It which would benefit you but not really that much but you do it anyway because it’s another tackle zone on an enemy player… nope, none of these!

Instead, it’s actually choosing a Blood Bowl Team Name!

I have personally spent, many a sleepless night thinking about the name of my next team, whether it’s just for some casual play in the ladder, or a brand new GRUMBBL Campaign. You’ll be stuck with this name for anywhere between nine to something like fifty weeks if you keep them for all three seasons, so it has to be a good one! Other people will see your Blood Bowl Team Name, they’ll judge it, compare it to their own, so you have to make sure it’s memorable, witty and funny all at the same time.

In all seriousness, I think a lot of people either go all-in with naming their teams and players or they just don’t bother and throw in something generic. For me, my blood bowl team name is just as important as any strategy or build that comes after it. It’s what makes the team mine and differentiates them from any other duplicate races or my rival coaches. For this article, I’m going to use the team I’ve spent the most time with as an example of why I think naming your team is important and of course that team is The Superfreakonomics.

By far the easiest way to start naming your team is to pick a theme. This can be a beloved Film, Video Game, Friends, Flower Arrangements… whatever you want! For those who aren’t aware, The Superfreakonomics were named after a TV show that both myself and my fiance very much enjoy, “How I Met Your Mother”.  The Team Name itself comes from a band that one of the characters in the show creates and their ground “McLaren’s Pub” is named after the bar in which the main cast resided in for…. pretty much the entire series!

The player names were then chosen from various in-jokes or character nicknames that cropped up throughout the series (with the exception of Yryyel who I forgot to name and in Blood Bowl 2 you can’t go back and edit the name after buying them…. for some reason! Although he has been one of my best players since his purchase so, I’ll forgive Cyanide here, for now). Honestly, my particular favourite being Beercules, the MV5, Guard, Dodge Line-elf who has basically taken the brunt of 3 seasons worth of punches for the team.

You can apply it to pretty much anything as well. We’ve had Warhammer teams, Alcohol teams, GRUMBBL Admin teams, Infamous Politician Teams. I even have a Pro Elf Tabletop team named after Santa’s Reindeer! They were even painted Green & Red for some festive colouration.

Even if you’re struggling to think of something, just pick something that’s the flavour of the month and go from there. I’m sure there are Coaches who have themed teams after *insert currently popular piece of media here* to great effect. Worse comes to worst you can always just name the players after friends and family, just don’t tell them when you accidentally kill the player representing them by failing an easy 2+ dodge!

I think a lot of coaches do prefer going up against teams with some effort put into them as well, particularly when it’s likely you’ll be going up against them up potentially up to twice a season if you’re in the same Division and you get placed in the Cup together. Legendary players who perform great feats are also more easily remembered if they have a name that isn’t just generated by the game.

You can, of course, try and come up with something entirely unique if you’re feeling particularly creative or masochistic, but starting with a Theme is always going to give you a good base to start with. We’re definitely big fans of the more thematic side of Blood Bowl in GRUMBBL and certainly, one of our favourite moments is seeing what new and crazy ideas a Coach has come up with for naming their team.

I hope that maybe this gets some creative things going for your next Blood Bowl Team Name! I know a lot of this is obvious but I think we all sometimes get a bit of writer’s block when it comes to this, so hopefully, this just gives you that kickstart if you need it. I definitely want to see a team for Season 4 based on types of garden flowers now! I’d do it myself but I already have my Hamilton themed team ready to go!