Greetings friends from across the Wye border!
My name is Harrison (NAF Name: BigMace) and I, amongst many other things, am the commissioner for the Forest of Dean Blood Bowl league and I’ve been playing Blood Bowl for 4 years (mostly casual play). Our league is just about to start its second season as a permanent entity F.o.D.B.B.L which isn’t just a league, it’s about building a community and I’d love to share this story with you.
For those of you that don’t know the Forest is a relatively small, spread out and sparsely populated community, covering the West of Gloucestershire. Growing up as a table top gamer there weren’t really any local places for me to play. On a Saturday I’d either get an hour to play on Gloucester or the odd occasion down Newport Spytty as they were my two closest venues, this was the same for a lot of Foresters.
So I ended up playing the same repetitive games every weekend with my youngest brother. Since then the hobby took bit of a back seat for a long time with uni and general life getting in the way.
The start of my table top gaming journey kicked back off again late 2021 on the back of an awesome Dungeons and Dragons campaign ran on Roll 20. Some of us decided that we wanted to get into a miniatures game and we explored a lot of options before falling on blood bowl.
Once a month we met up at the High Constable Wetherspoons in Gloucester for a day of 7’s, beer and food just casually playing with friends. This has now developed into a group called the Gloucestershire Grudge bowl.
Off the back of this, my friends Gareth Sloanne (Trash Mammal) and Joe stone (StoneKnight, stone knights 3D forge) joined their local leagues between IGBBL (Incom Gaming Blood Bowl League), GoBBL (Gloucester open Blood Bowl League) and AoBBL (Atlas Open Blood Bowl League) as they were based Gloucester and Cheltenham way. As there were no leagues on the Forest I travelled to Gloucester (an hourish on the bus) sometimes twice per week just to be able to play regular blood bowl.
I found out about the Forest of Dean Gamers club in 2023. A nice little gaming community ran out of Oaklands Sports and Pool hall on a Wednesday night and one of the members Shaun Jewitt (little ninja, little Ninja Painting), ran an 11s blood bowl league myself putting quite a lot of input into the league as a lot of these players never played before and weren’t 100% sure of the rules.
Around this time I started going to tournaments, as it was the most feasible way for me to play with my friends in a more “competitive” format. However, it got to the point where I was often travelling to tournaments on my own, not knowing anyone. As someone who suffers with mental health, this is quite a daunting experience. I wanted things to change.
I was quite fortunate that I had Pete Curran (8ulldog) who I’d met a couple of times in the Gloucester league and did wonders for my confidence by introducing me to the Cheltenham group from Incom gaming lead by Stephen Smith and a couple of others who I’d be able to hang around with at events. This was great but it wasn’t the same as having friends and regular team mates to engage with.
Fresh off the back of NAFC 2024 I finished 52nd out of 350ish contestants with my chaos renegades (episode 10 of Scouse boys Miss Next Game podcast gives an accurate review of our crazy game) with a 4-0-2 final standing. Needless to say I was inspired. When I got back from the event I spoke to Shaun about running the next blood bowl league. It was always a casual thing but I wanted permanent blood bowl.
So I ran the first F.O.D.B.B.L (Forest of Dean Blood Bowl League) with 10 players. My commission painting (bigmaceminiatures) subsidised the league. I charged £5 per player and we ran on Tourplay for 7 months, everyone got 2 custom FoD d6 from Black Orc Down, a custom forest of dean gamers leather dice tray plus trophies (1st and 2nd for 2 divisions, wooden spoon, most cas, most fouls, a grand final and a consolation cup). My wife will hate to find out, but I know spending the money on this first league and giving 110% was pivotal for setting its permanence and growth for the future. I had to set a standard.
I’d met Brian Treherne and Davd Hopkins from Dukes Gaming earlier on in the year at the Welsh Nationals and we instantly bonded over being terrible. We didn’t know anyone, stood outside Firestorm Cardiff like a collection of wooden spoon auditions. I kept in contact with Dave and Brian and we were talking about how they are from a small growing community at Duke’s Gaming Pontypool and how they were struggling for players. Brian told me that he runs a tournament called Dead Pancreas Society. I offered to paint a Blood Bowl team for him which turned from a Blood Bowl team and a game with a couple of mates to Border Wars: First Invasion.
This has been set up with the concept of it being a non-NAF blood bowl event as an inter club tournament between the Forest of Dean Blood Bowl League and Dukes Gaming. This event is designed to work as a platform to allow coaches to get an experience of a tournament setting and meet other players from different clubs to build social connections. I’m pleased to say it was a huge success! 20 coaches (from each group) plus some fill ins met and had a great time. We did have some more experienced players such as Orcster for Dukes Aces and 8ulldog for Team Forest to help make up the numbers and it was fantastic that vets helped support this community idea.
6 months on, 22 March 2025 the Forest hosted BORDER WARS 2: COUNTERSTRIKE. The event was designed to be played every 6 months, alternating venue between Dukes Gaming and the Forest of Dean venue. The rules set mostly didn’t change: 7 tiers for teams, no giants, no mercenaries and no star players; only stunty teams able to stack skills. Real basic Blood Bowl.
For prizes and gifts, other than Black Orc Down dice and trophies from the trophy store (I normally get some printed and paint myself but family illness made this unfeasible) everything was made by Forest of Dean crafters and businesses. Shirts were from Forest Apparel, gifts were made by Ag-New designs and Handmade by Amber. Head Bunny Gaming (a local 3D printing business) set up a stall to show their wares and provided a £20 gift voucher as a prize for best painted.
A few members from Forest of Dean Gamers Club came too, Anthony Davis who runs the board games section and Matt Palmer who organizes the games and judged the best painted competition. It was all so special, my wife and 3 year old daughter could make it as well as Brians wife so our families could get a glimpse at our hobby and community.
With 2 events and 2 Forest wins we are all looking forward to meeting up and having a chilled bevy after Border Wars 3 in October as our community grows, with Dukes Aces still having all to play for.
Forest Of Dean Blood Bowl League – https://www.facebook.com/groups/905785611692552/
BigMaceMiniatures – Facebook Page – https://www.facebook.com/people/Big-Mace-Miniatures/61555996636397/?_rdr
Dukes Gaming – https://dukes-gaming.com/