With Season Six about to end, many of our coaches, old and new, will need to start about which Blood Bowl team to play in the new Campaign once the season ends in but a few short weeks. For many this will be an easy choice, returning to an old favourite, trying out a team they’ve never played before or perhaps picking a competitive choice to go for those oh so coveted GRUMBBL trophies. For others it might be a little tricky, so today we’re going to have a look at some slightly different ways to pick your Blood Bowl team, but with a GRUMBBL specific twist.

Over the last few seasons, with the pandemic making me work from home more often, I’ve had some spare time to collate all of the data over the entirety of our League’s history, all the way from the SQ Invitational to GRUMBBL Season Six, so that we can get an idea of how each Blood Bowl team performs in our funny little competition. Overall we’ve played 1078 games (as of 10/03/2022), with a total of 47 teams coached by 39 different players. giving us plenty of numbers to look over. It is of course, worth mentioning that while it’s going to be fun to look at and speculate with our own data, it’s not going to be the most accurate just due to the small sample size, but this is GRUMBBL and things such as accuracy, precision and facts aren’t going to stop us! It’s worth noting we’re still playing in Blood Bowl 2, so the new teams and rules won’t be included…. but hopefully soon!

The way we’re going to do this is to have multiple categories, all being themed on how a coach might want to play a team, from high scorers to big winners. We’ll then take a look at the top five teams in that category and make some recommendations based on that data. Of course, if that’s not your speed at you want to look at big piles of numbers (I know I do!) then you can see the list here.

Quick Links for the Lazy:

• I want to win!
• I want to score!
• I want to punch!
• I want to play a team nobody has played

Which Blood Bowl Team to Play if: I want to win!

Sorted by Win+Draw%

There’s no better feeling than winning, let’s be honest, so the above table shows the best performing teams when it comes to just that.  There are a couple of interesting stats here, first, you have Win+Draw% & Win%, which give an overview on how often the team comes out on top of a game, with the former including draws as half a win and the latter being purely about the wins themselves. Then we have Pts/G, which show the average amount of points these races have accrued over their lifetime in GRUMBBL.

Necromantic, Lizardmen and Dark Elves are no surprise here, all of which are considered to be very good teams and capable in the hands of new and experienced players alike. Lizardmen and Dark Elves in particular have quite a few trophies between them as well, so if you’re looking for some silverware then they’re a very good choice.

Khemri and Bretonnia are slight outliers here and their percentage stats benefit from having fewer games between them than the Necromantic have overall. That being said Khemri seem to have a knack for doing well in GRUMBBL and tend to come out of the gates strongly with their unique ability to take 4 Big Guys straight away, something a lot of beginner teams can struggle to handle. Bretonnia aren’t exactly slouches and have and good Touchdown Per Game rate which has clearly helped them eke out those wins. Both of these teams are a little harder to handle for newer coaches but will provide a nice challenge for our more experienced ones.

Which Blood Bowl Team to Play if: I want to score!

Sorted by TDF/g

In order to win, however, you need to score, and the above teams do just that very well. The above table shows how many Touchdowns the team has scored as well as their Touchdowns Per Game rate.

In terms of the teams, there’s nothing really out of the ordinary here. You could argue that Kislev and Humans aren’t typically high scoring teams, however, that’s clearly not the case in GRUMBBL! Both of course have pretty potent catchers, giving them the agility and movement needed to get the ball into the endzone. Elven Union have done a great job despite their significantly lower game count, but like most elves, they’re all about scoring so their place here makes sense. You could argue High Elves and Woodies should be up here and they’re not far behind, but not quite cut it in GRUMBBL it seems!

Of course, if you really want to score, it’s Skaven all the way. 2.17 touchdowns a game is insanely good, especially considering the number of games they’ve played. It is, however, coupled with a poor defensive performance overall, which is why despite the sheer amount of TDs they pump in, they only sit at an average 50% Win+Draw rate, which is very low considering their offensive output. What it needs is a coach who can couple these scoring potential with a good defence, then they’d be in for a few trophies themselves. Or alternatively, just score MORE!!

Which Blood Bowl Team to Play if: I want to punch!

Sorted by TDF/g

The other side of the Blood Bowl coin, with one being scoring, is of course HITTING THINGS. Much like with the scoring table, this one shows how many casualties the teams have caused (these must generate SPP, so no fouls or surfs here), as well as their per game rate.

Again there are no real surprises here outside of one, which we’ll get to. Chorfs are of course famously hard-hitting, Humans can get 4 very nasty Blitzers once they get Tackle/MB plus the Ogre can deal some damage too. Undead have their Wights to take down key targets while the Mummies bully the lines, and finally, Lizardmen can easily get 6 lots of S4 Mighty Blow with ease, making for some nasty lineups. Chaos and Dwarves are big omissions here perhaps, but those teams haven’t really had their way with the GRUMBBL leagues…. yet!

The big surprise here, more so that they’ve managed to muscle their way past the aforementioned missing teams, is of course Halflings. They’re a team full of S2 stunty players and Trees that, while starting with two massive Mighty Blow wielding trees, often only manage a couple of injuries on the line before they either take root or are just dodged away from. The reason they’re here is, honestly because of the Hamilton Hopefuls. Out of the 150 casualties caused, the Hopefuls contributed 109 of them with an insane 2.9 casualties per game all by themselves. As the coach of this team, this was purely down to the Trees getting Block very, very quickly as well as leaning into taking Deeproot every single game, the legendary treeman putting in so much work, especially early on when teams couldn’t really deal with him. They’re not an easy team to manage and the other four are infinitely more likely to fulfil your deep dark desires of pitch clearing your opponents…

But will it be as SATISFYING?!

Which Blood Bowl Team to Play if: I want to play a team nobody has played!

Unfortunately, if you want to play a team that literally hasn’t been played yet in GRUMBBL, you’re out of luck. But the five teams above count amongst the most “unpopular” teams in our league, so if you fancy something a bit different, these are the teams for you.

Goblins and Ogres make sense here, they’re both stunty teams that die very quickly and due to that don’t progress nearly as quickly as others. Ogres potentially less so as the Ogres Players themselves should stick around long enough to get a boatload of skills, but not every coach wants to deal with that much bonehead. Goblins are a very unique team to play with their secret weapons and are more suited to tournament play where you can allocate skills to the weapons as opposed to having to wait a LONG time for them to level up in a league. We haven’t actually seen a Goblin team in GRUMBBL for six seasons so, perhaps it’s their time?

Bretonnia and High Elves as well aren’t big surprises, mostly as they are alternative teams that do the same thing but better, so for a coach that wants to do well, they might want to look elsewhere (although as above, Bretonnians seem to do well in GRUMBBL!). Woodies aren’t exactly an easy team to play either and die to a stiff breeze, but when they get going they can be a dominating force and very hard to handle.

So, what should I play?

That’s going to be down to you fellow coach, but hopefully we’ve given you something to think about for the upcoming seasons. We love seeing a variety of teams but even more so we love seeing our coaches try something they perhaps wouldn’t have considered before or just a whole new playstyle entirely. It would take 24 seasons to play every single team in this game, and that’s if you switched team mid-campaign as well, which would take roughly 8 years to do… so why not start now?!

If you want the full table, you can check it out here. This will be updated after each competition so keep checking back to see how your teams are fairing in GRUMBBL. It’s currently updated as per the date of publishing this article and we’ll certainly post new guides as the seasons go on and we accrue new stats, or perhaps new teams in the future!