Curious things occasionally occur at UltraNinjas HQ. There I was, tapping away at my Grand Slam Tennis review, when a colleague exclaimed ‘GAH! BLOODBOWL IS OUT’. I had absolutely no clue what he was on about but he seemed as excited as I have seen him since Wales won the Six Nations, so after a few minutes of investigation and a quick use of credit card purchasing power I found myself sitting in front of it wondering what the living hell I was supposed to be doing. That feeling partly still exists now, some 15 hours later.

Not that it isn’t a good game of course, which I suppose reflects in the score below. A curious mixture of American Football (of which I am very fond) and Warhammer (er… of which I am not), developers Cyanide (whom did such a good job with their own unlicensed tribute videogame Chaos League that Games Workshop invited them to do a proper game based on Blood Bowl itself) have taken their cues from a twenty-year old tabletop game and, as the rather large fanbase will no doubt be happy to hear, have faithfully shifted it off the coffee table and onto your monitor. Jam packed with complicated dice-based gameplay and rules, it’s not the kind of thing you want to just wander aimlessly through hoping you can pick things up on the fly.

On a very (VERY) basic level, the idea is that two teams of players battle it out whilst attempting to carry the ball into the opposition’s end zone, thus scoring a touchdown. There are a number of rules that apply, of course, such as each player on your team having four key attributes that govern whether they are good blocking players, runners or catchers, and hence you have to organise your squad on the pitch and move each player around during your sixteen turns (eight per half) to maximise your chances of notching up those points. Oh, and you get to batter enemies to the ground too, which is always a bonus.

Say, for example, the opposition team kicked off and the ball landed in your half. You may sit there thinking that getting the nearest player to run in and pick the thing up is a good plan, yet if their agility attribute is naff they’ll fumble it and you will lose your turn. Likewise, running up to an opposition team member and trying to lay him out with a character that couldn’t punch the head off a daisy isn’t going to do you any favours either, and chances are that the dice roll will go against you. The key thing to remember in Blood Bowl is that you must think out every move you do and try to make the most of each player’s stats.

There are two ways in which the game allows you to do this; on one hand you have the real-time mode in which you must think quickly and on the fly, whilst also included is a faithful recreation of the turn-based board game’s rules and play. Personal preference saw me plump for the latter mode as not only does it allow new players to get to grips with the rules and tactics needed to become slightly better than completely useless, but it also felt more considered, tactical and involving. Still, big thumbs up are due to Cyanide for making both offerings viable and enjoyable.

Whilst one way of looking at it is, as mentioned, American Football meets Warhammer, another way of looking at it is that it’s chess meets Speedball. Carefully positioning your players across the field and then using your turn to flatten opponents, create space and protect possession becomes really quite addictive as you learn different combinations and tactical avenues, and given that there are a number of different Warhammer races included that each have their own particular strengths and weaknesses there’s plenty of variation for players to get involved in.

Added in to this, the game throws a really decent stab at a career mode into the thing for good measure. You start off as a new team of whichever race you wish (Wood Elves are my choice, mainly as their cheerleaders are pretty awesome), purchase an initial squad of players and then level them up by playing in various tournaments and one-off games. It becomes annoyingly addictive crafting your own squad, levelling your players and purchasing various skills for them, and the addition of being able to sign star players for one game at a premium price is a nifty curveball you can throw your opponents too. Add in being able to arrange sponsorship, having the option to bribe referees to look the other way while you are committing a particularly nasty foul and the fact your fans will beat players up who you push out of the pitch’s boundaries and the fun keeps on coming.

Multiplayer options are present and correct obviously, with LAN and internet play sitting alongside hot-seat mode in which two players can swap turns on the same machine. The internet play promises to extend the length of the game even further with the offering of online leagues to compete in, so that’s another big fat plus point added in. Likewise, the game is graphically rather nice with detailed character models that convey the species very well, and the audio side features a posh commentator who livens up the matches with all sorts of Pimms and straw hats like comments.

Thus, even though at first you might find the learning curve… well… vertical, as soon as you do get your claws into what’s going on you find it very hard to stop playing. Another major thing that Cyanide must be commended on is how faithful they have been to the original game, which will no doubt leave fans with a smile on their faces. Possibly not the most anticipated game, sure, and definitely not one that was on my radar, but a bloody good slice of strategically slanted sports action it is.

BloodBowl is out now to download from the game’s official site, priced at £40. Retail releases for PC, 360, PS3, PSP and the DS are pencilled in for later in the year.