Hello sports fans and welcome to our look at Spike! 20 and the Tomb Kings! They may have ruled the sands of Khemri for centuries, but how are they on the gridiron? In this full review we’ll be taking at look at the team, how they play while also checking out all the extra bits of rules material that is in the Spike! Journal itself.

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us over a copy to review! If you would like to support the site then why not order your copy of Spike! 20 through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

We’ve also filmed a full video look through of Spike! 20 which you can see just below or over on YouTube

So let’s dig up the latest team and see how they do in Blood Bowl!

Spike! 20 Review

It’s a busy day for Blood Bowl today with not only the brand new edition of the game with the Third Season Edition up for pre order, but there’s more goodies with both the Tomb Kings and Bretonnians on the way alongside their Spike! Journals.

So what is a Spike! Journal? All of the full rules for all the Blood Bowl teams are included in the Core Blood Bowl Rulebook, so Spike! has a slightly different role compared to other Games Workshop supplements. Instead, Spike! is pitched as a fictional fan magazine – the kind of thing you might be able to pick up “in universe” if you’re a supporter of the fictional team. Because of this, a lot of the content of the Journal are things such as the fictional history of both the team itself along with the background and match stats of the most famous Tomb Kings team, the Nehekhara Nightmares. What’s really nice is like with the Bretonnian book we get not just the fictional 2504-2505 historical team roster, but also a showpiece game against the Lizardman team the Itza Nokouts. This is really cool as it gives you the rules to replay a particullary famous game with two geared out and developed teams with Special Rules to recreate what happened during the actual match. You also get a number of achievements for each team recreating key moments. This is really fun and allows you to do things such as have two games, swapping the teams each time and see which of you can complete the most achievements.

With the Spike! Journal being set in universe we also get a lot of fun stuff like fictional interviews and articles framed as if they are about the “real” team, which is always really fun.

That’s not to say there isn’t gaming material in here, While the core rules for the Tomb Kings are included within the core rulebook, Spike! Journal goes a little deeper with some quite detailed analysis and tactics on how to use the team. Like with the other Journals this even goes as far as suggesting starting lineups or even suggested ways of how to set up your team depending on if you are offense or defense, which really helps steer you on how to use the team in your games if you are new to them.

So what is the team like?

First up we have the Skeleton Linemen, these are the core of your team and are dirt cheap at 40k gold. They have pretty rubbish stats with an AG of 4+ and a PA of 6+ but what they have going for them is that they are pretty resilient with Thick Skull and Regeneration (Like all of your Skeletons) which means that its going to be harder to injure them, are are more likely to get stunned instead.

Next up we have the Tomb Kings Thrower. You don’t have any dedicated Catchers, but these guys are quicker than your Linemen but have a better PA stat of 3+ and slightly more armour. Critically these have the Pass and Sure Hands skills making these the only reliable players for picking up the ball and passing it (though your other players will struggle to catch from a pass – so may be better to hand off the ball onto another player)

You do get a dedicated Blitzer in your team with the Tomb Kings Blitzers – these have similar stats to the Thrower with extra movement and armour compared to your standard skeletons, however again their agility is pretty rubbish. They are the only player on your team with the Block still however, which makes them really important to have in your starting lineup.

The final positional in the team is the Tomb Guardian. These are your toughest player with a ST of 5 and AV of 10+. They also have Brawler allowing them to reroll a “Both Down” result, but watch out for the Decay rule which gives any casualty rolls against them +1. Like all your other players they still have Regeneration though, and the fact you can take 4 of these makes them the real building blocks of your cages and making sure the rest of your team is safe. They are super slow though, so make sure you plan ahead and get them in position.

The team looks like it will take a lot more skill to use than the Bretonnains, who are a bit more forgiving, but there’s lots of stuff you can go with the Tomb Kings, especially once you get some skills on them!

Like with the other Spike! Journals you also get some extra additional rules for flavour.

First up we get an alternate league in the form of the Khemri Classic Cup. This is a Tomb Kings flavoured set of rules such as a new Kick Off chart, Weather table and even the option of buying Canopic Jars that can be smashed open at the start of a turn to gain access to a random ability – some of these are good, while others are bad, so it’s always a gamble smashing one open – though if you’re lucky you can increase the movement of your players, which is especially helpful for the Tomb Kings!

We also get rules for the special balls included on the sprue – with the Canopic Jar Ball and Sphynx Ball getting some fun flavour – such as the Sphynx having a +1 armour roll modifier to anyone carrying it as the undead cat claws their eyes out!

Alongside the book there’s also a Tomb Kings pitch getting released, and the rules for this are also included in the book too. Like with the other Spike! Journals these are used to add some flavour to your games, and in my leagues we tend to have each coach use their special pitch as their “home” pitch, so during the course of a league you get the fun of playing across a number of different pitches with their own flavour.

While not required purchase if you want to use the Tomb Kings on the pitch, I do think the Spike! Journals are a great buy for getting into the flavour of the team. The gaming material is helpful for learning how best to use the team, but the background side of things is also an amazing read and put a smile on my face. If you’re looking to get a Tomb Kings team then I’d highly recommend picking this up!

Spike! 20 is up for pre order today and is released Saturday 15th November

Games Workshop provided Sprues and Brews with a free copy for review purposes.

Published by Matt Crowther

View all posts by Matt Crowther