

Helmets add toughness to avoid injury, shoulder pads increase strength, gloves make players more agile and dexterous, and boots increase speed. As in a role-playing game, abilities can be improved with gear upgrades.

Individual players' skills can affect their chances of successfully blocking, dodging, tackling, and throwing or catching the ball, and also their combat moves. Each race offers a different balance of strength, speed, and accuracy. Gamers take the roles of coaches, drafting their teams from one of eight fantasy races, including humans, elves, orcs, and goblins. A tongue-in-cheek combination of Warhammer RPG-style battle and American football, the game is won by passing or running the ball into the opponent's end zone for a touchdown, but the players on the field wear armor and wield deadly medieval weapons. Brutally poor sportsmanship and fantasy combat clash in a gruesome battle for glory and gold, in Southpeak's PC version of Blood Bowl.
