Mighty Melee’s First Blood Bowl Tournament – Nuffle, TourPlay and a Very Good Sunday
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Our first ever Mighty Melee Blood Bowl tournament is in the books!
We might already be three seasons into our own Blood Bowl leagues, but when it comes to running a full one-day tournament – and particularly understanding everything going on in the back end of TourPlay – we're still very much noobs.
Frankly, some of TourPlay's settings would probably baffle Nuffle himself.
More on that particular fumble later...
12 Coaches, Three Games and Plenty of Blood Bowl
We welcomed 12 coaches to Mighty Melee Games for three rounds of Blood Bowl.
That's half of our 24-coach tournament capacity. Naturally, we'd have loved to fill every seat, but 12 was more than enough to create a great atmosphere, plenty of variety across the tables and some properly competitive Blood Bowl.
Most importantly, we had a great time running it.
A huge thank you to Andrew, our Player Ref for the day, for helping keep everything moving, and to all 12 coaches who joined us – particularly those who travelled to Market Drayton to take part.
Our tournament was also part of the Midlands Tournament Series 2026, putting Mighty Melee alongside Blood Bowl events taking place across the Midlands throughout the year.
View the Midlands Tournament Series 2026
The event was also NAF affiliated – for those of you who do NAF!
View the Midlands Tournament Series on the NAF
Three Rounds of Blood Bowl
Round 1 saw Ash C's Circus Of Filth, Rhys J's Orcs and Chris H's Da Immortalz all get off to winning starts, while Draken Darkstars opened with the biggest win of the round, 3–0 over Mind Goblin.
Things tightened up in Round 2. Circus Of Filth and Draken Darkstars fought out a 1–1 draw, while Rhys J handed Chris H a 1–0 defeat.
That result was something of a milestone. Chris has won our last two Mighty Melee Blood Bowl leagues and is currently in contention to make it three in a row. In fact, the loss to Rhys was his first ever defeat in Blood Bowl at Mighty Melee.
That left plenty riding on the final round. Rhys J and Ash C met at the top end of the field, with Circus Of Filth taking a 2–1 win to secure the tournament. Chris bounced back with a 2–1 win over Skrorgasbord, while Draken Darkstars beat The Snivlers 2–0.
Three rounds done, one new champion crowned, and Chris's unbeaten MMG run finally brought to an end.
The Results
After three rounds, Ash C took the win with Circus Of Filth, followed by Rhys J and Orc in second.
| Position | Coach | Team | Race |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 1st | Ash C | Circus Of Filth | Nurgle |
| 🥈 2nd | Rhys J | Orc | Orc |
| 🥉 3rd | Chris H | Da Immortalz | Orc |
| 🪓 12th | Danny W | Mind Goblin | Goblin |
Danny W and Mind Goblin therefore took home the all-important Wooden Axe.
View the full final standings on TourPlay
And Then Phil Fumbled the Ball...
This is where Phil managed to fumble the ball after the final whistle.
When we initially configured the tournament, TourPlay was using its default tie-break settings rather than the order published in our tournament pack.
Our published tie-break order was:
Match Points (2/1/0) → Buchholz → TD Difference → CAS Difference → TD For
Once the error was spotted and the correct tie-breakers applied, TourPlay recalculated the standings using Buchholz – effectively Strength of Schedule – as the primary tie-breaker.
That resulted in Chris H and Orklabe swapping 3rd and 4th places.
Not ideal, entirely our mistake, and apologies again to both coaches.
The standings were corrected as soon as we spotted the problem and are now final and consistent with the published tournament pack.
We've also learnt a little more about the mysterious inner workings of TourPlay, so we'll make sure the configuration is properly checked before the first dice are rolled next time.
Nuffle 1 – Phil 0.
A Slight Problem With the Hobby Awards...
There's another lesson we're taking into the next one.
At Mighty Melee, we normally try to give player skill and hobby skill equal recognition at our events. Winning games is great, but so is bringing along an army – or in this case a team – that looks fantastic on the table.
We'd therefore planned awards for Best Painted and Coolest Team.
There was, however, a flaw in our otherwise flawless plan.
Both teams we'd picked for our hobby awards turned out to have been painted by somebody other than the coach – either commissioned or bought painted.
Absolutely nothing wrong with that, and both looked fantastic. It just doesn't quite work when the whole point of the award is to recognise the hobby work of the person standing in front of you!
So, lesson number two from tournament number one: we'll be getting a bit more creative with the hobby awards in November.
Blood Bowl at Mighty Melee
Blood Bowl has a relatively small but very enthusiastic following at Mighty Melee, and we'd love to see that community continue to grow over the months ahead.
We're now running quarterly Blood Bowl leagues alongside quarterly one-day, three-round events, giving coaches a choice between an ongoing season or simply turning up for a day of tournament Blood Bowl.
And if organised play isn't your thing, that's absolutely fine too.
Our Discord community is the best place to find other local coaches, arrange a casual game and get involved without committing to a league or tournament.
We'll Do It Again in November
Most importantly, we enjoyed this one enough that we're doing it again.
Our next Mighty Melee Blood Bowl one-dayer will be:
Three rounds. More Blood Bowl. More questionable dice.
And this time Phil might even set TourPlay up correctly before we start.
Thanks again to Andrew, all 12 coaches who joined us, and everyone helping us build the Blood Bowl community at Mighty Melee.
We'll see you back on the pitch in November. Book you spot here.
Mighty Melee Games
Battle. Bond. Belong.