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The Longclaws (Background)
11 years ago
So it seems folks quite like the Longlcaws art I've commissioned from Chocobouchees, so I figured now would be as good a time as any to expand on it and put the plan out there. I'll be doing two posts. One handling the background and another going over the team itself.
First, a history lesson...
Back in 2001, there was a board game called Blood Bowl that had just got its fourth edition published by Games Workshop. The game was a fantasy football game based in the Warhammer Fantasy setting and styled as a parody of hyper-violent football. Orks killing opposing players on the pitch was encouraged, it was only cheating if the referee saw it and hiring hitmen on MVPs. That kind of thing. It was quite popular and, in 1995, had an MS-DOS video game released, but since then things had been quiet as they focussed on the board game.
In the early 2000s, a French studio called Cyanide Studios approached Games Workship wanting to make a new Blood Bowl videogame. However, for whatever reason, GW wasn't on board with the idea. Not to be deterred, Cyanide instead made their own hyper-violent fantasy football game. It got released in 2004 as Chaos League, featuring quite a few similarities and a myriad of races to make a team from. One of these races was the Praetorians, a race of humanoid wolves who were great at long-distance running and fighting, but not very sturdy. These guys were my favorites and I think I had gotten pretty good with them.
Come 2009, Games Workshop had sued Cyanide Studios over the similarities between Chaos League and Blood Bowl. They settled out of court and the property was handed over to Games Workshop, resulting in Chaos League being unavailable for regular sale and unsupported. However, Cyanide instead got the green light to work on an official Blood Bowl videogame (released in the same year) that most folks are familiar with.
But where do the Longclaws come in?
The Longclaws were the team I had used in Chaos League. I found them fun to play and so last year I decided to translate them as best I could to the current Blood Bowl rules as a homebrew team. Some things don't translate over well (such as spellcasters on the pitch), but generally folks I played with did enjoy going against them, even if they did play quite Skaven-like. One friend suggested I put together a little rulebook of sorts instead of constantly referring to notes and so I approached the awesome Chocobouchees for the art, helping to put faces to the numbers on paper and, in my opinion, really bringing the team and characters to life.
Why hasn't Games Workshop done anything with Chaos League?
I actually asked them about this back in February 2012, and was pleasantly surprised when they got back to me. They didn't have any plans with the IP at the time, and since then they've worked with Cyanide to make Blood Bowl 2, so I think it's safe to say they're sticking with that. While I'm sad I won't get to see the Longclaws outside of custom minis, I can't fault them for sticking to their own creations. Who knows, maybe they'll squeeze in similar somewhere down the line.
First, a history lesson...
Back in 2001, there was a board game called Blood Bowl that had just got its fourth edition published by Games Workshop. The game was a fantasy football game based in the Warhammer Fantasy setting and styled as a parody of hyper-violent football. Orks killing opposing players on the pitch was encouraged, it was only cheating if the referee saw it and hiring hitmen on MVPs. That kind of thing. It was quite popular and, in 1995, had an MS-DOS video game released, but since then things had been quiet as they focussed on the board game.
In the early 2000s, a French studio called Cyanide Studios approached Games Workship wanting to make a new Blood Bowl videogame. However, for whatever reason, GW wasn't on board with the idea. Not to be deterred, Cyanide instead made their own hyper-violent fantasy football game. It got released in 2004 as Chaos League, featuring quite a few similarities and a myriad of races to make a team from. One of these races was the Praetorians, a race of humanoid wolves who were great at long-distance running and fighting, but not very sturdy. These guys were my favorites and I think I had gotten pretty good with them.
Come 2009, Games Workshop had sued Cyanide Studios over the similarities between Chaos League and Blood Bowl. They settled out of court and the property was handed over to Games Workshop, resulting in Chaos League being unavailable for regular sale and unsupported. However, Cyanide instead got the green light to work on an official Blood Bowl videogame (released in the same year) that most folks are familiar with.
But where do the Longclaws come in?
The Longclaws were the team I had used in Chaos League. I found them fun to play and so last year I decided to translate them as best I could to the current Blood Bowl rules as a homebrew team. Some things don't translate over well (such as spellcasters on the pitch), but generally folks I played with did enjoy going against them, even if they did play quite Skaven-like. One friend suggested I put together a little rulebook of sorts instead of constantly referring to notes and so I approached the awesome Chocobouchees for the art, helping to put faces to the numbers on paper and, in my opinion, really bringing the team and characters to life.
Why hasn't Games Workshop done anything with Chaos League?
I actually asked them about this back in February 2012, and was pleasantly surprised when they got back to me. They didn't have any plans with the IP at the time, and since then they've worked with Cyanide to make Blood Bowl 2, so I think it's safe to say they're sticking with that. While I'm sad I won't get to see the Longclaws outside of custom minis, I can't fault them for sticking to their own creations. Who knows, maybe they'll squeeze in similar somewhere down the line.
