GMG Reviews - BLOOD BOWL - Second Season Edition Rulebook by Games Workshop

[@RATBON3]

“Rushing” is never going to stick 😂 “Go for it!” For life 💪🏼

[@Hopkinsamadeus]

I hear a lot that some people don't like the cartoony feel of Blood Bowl. but that's because they don't understand Blood Bowl was always a parody of Warhammer Fantasy battle, where crazy, goofy, and just downright stupid things would happen and the actual existence of Blood Bowl is just ... well , silly. the art and models often reflect the ridiculous nature of Blood Bowl. If you are into hardcore strategy games that are super crunchy and grim dark ........ Blood Bowl isn't for you. Outside of that 4 way warhammer fantasy battle game I can't remember the name of, I can't think of a more table flipping, friends losing, random BS game than Blood Bowl. the best laid plans of Skaven and Men are turn over with a single dice roll and you are out of re rolls ..... Yes I got the fowl .... NO!!! the reff caught me and there goes half my team!! my star player ko'd on the opening turn of the game!!! wut!! Yes to all this and More!!! Blood Bowl must be played tongue and cheek and you just have to laugh when your Troll spends the entire game eating grass and your blitzer slips and breaks his neck!! when a Goblin goes for the block and kills your catcher!! yes to all this and SOOOOO much more!! So if goofy art bothers you .... this isn't the game your looking for , you can go about your business, Move along....

[@procrastinatinggamer]

There was an old song going over all the ways your turn can fail, called “That’s Blood Bowl”. I think it’s up on sound cloud somewhere but the opening lyrics were. “When your dude GFIs and he falls down and dies, that’s Blood Bowl, When the crowd’s cheering ‘luls’ as you roll double-skulls, that’s Blood Bowl,” It was all to the tune of “That’s Amore” (or however that was spelt).

[@Will.C.]

BLOOD BOWL! The game system with the newest Lizardmen sculpts. GW's favorite child is not 40k, it's BLOOD BOWL! Home of the newest and best Empire/Snotling/Halfling/Necromantic models! Even had Made to Order Chaos Dwarf Team support in 2019! Still has Tomb Kings!!! Ramtut III outlived Settra!!

[@paulvernon2956]

Blood Bowl is the greatest game GW has made, in my opinion. Thanks for the videos on it.

[@bradp6452]

Every change will add a new line to the book of grudges.

[@MitchellTF]

Everything NOT changed that they wanted...will add to the book of grudges.

[@rev.timothyhafner8108]

Hilarious

[@knightofthefallen7416]

"Every seasoned coach loves to grumble". Especially the Dwarven ones.

[@oliverizzard8751]

Your Dad got you bloodbowl! I'm jealous of your childhood.

[@rastamann2009]

Mine got me Epic Space Marine, 2nd Ed :) I was a happy puppy for a long time!!!

[@TheBFAIL]

My buddy Matt's dad will periodically ask him "They make a new edition of Bloodbowl yet?". Honestly I think all these mid 80s game have some loving creators behind them. I really enjoy the tie to some kind of creative accounting phase (See Battletech, Necromunda, Bloodbowl) theres alot of special stuff to make your team really yours.

[@shinankoku2]

Couple of thoughts ... - I love the art work. - l like the collapsed rules/it seems like the same game/I’m good with all that. - what happens when you stall? I like the idea that it’s penalized now, anyway. - I was thinking that Quidditch teams would make a good Kislev Circus/Slann/whatever-the-hell-they’re-calling-the-leaping-team-nowadays-team. - I don’t like animosity on the orc team. That’s the change no one asked for. - I love BB, but I’m suffering GW game fatigue. This isn’t helping.

[@dralasitedralasite6266]

So far, Stall just gets you a possible penalty on the prayers to Nuffle table. Might be updated in future expansions?

[@randombloke82]

At around 18:20 I think you mixed up the dodge rules with the jump rules; jumping over Prone players is a new thing. Also, re: Stalling; check result 14 on the Prayers to Nuffle table.

[@otro_dany_mas]

6:04 that slan fan look awesome

[@ForzaTerra89]

I love bloodbowl. Very excited for the new edition

[@richmcgee434]

Worth mentioning that Passing is now its own attribute, or whatever the right word is, where it used to be part of the many functions of Agility. That lets them give players with zero passing ability (eg Dwarf Slayers) a decent Agility without having to stick in a special rule to keep them from passing, and it also means in theory you could have a thrower with a bad Agility score - dead eye and good arm, but trips over their own feet when pressured.

[@Original-Yellow]

Initially I was worried because I love blood bowl and thats a big change but it seems like its well intentioned and healthy for the game.

[@TheClassicWorld]

I am building my own system now. I could not decide on such issues. In theory, you could end up with at least 10 skills/attributes, where they are really only nested in 3-5 overarching skills (such as agility, depending on how you define such things). For an example, the fairly decent study of sports by ESPN gave scores by 10 skills and 1-10 score each for a max of 100. They were things like power, strength, speed, agility, and hand-eye coordination. It's all a matter of how you want to nest your game, where the focus is (Coach freedom, general mechanics, theme, narrative, etc.), and what is needed. In theory, Blood Bowl should have many related-yet-individual skills, such as hand-eye coordination, agility, speed, strength, power, flexibility, nerve (morale/fearlessness), and more. In fact, the ESPN study showed that American Football (pretty much Blood Bowl) is the 5th or so most difficult sport in the world, and shows the 10 skills required to varying degrees. Of course, GW made choices for certain reasons back in the 1980s, and they now seem to have made other choices, for other reasons. It's all quite personal to what you want from the game, I would say. Technically, it's illogical to be good at throwing yet bad at walking -- but not impossible. Somebody could be great with arms but not so great with legs, but not to that extreme. I believe that humans with great hand-eye skills also have at least decent foot-eye skills. It's a connected system, and also seems to be related to IQ and other things, but that's real life, and may or may not be useful in the context of game design (more so, when it's not actually meant to be a realistic game, haha). Since the game is a joke (a joke about Football + Fantasy Battles), it makes perfect sense for it to be a bit crazy and unrealistic. I cannot comment on which is best -- Passing as nested in Agility, or as its own Skill. It's personal to each Coach and the overarching system. I assume Blood Bowl Season 2 wouldn't function too well if you forced in the old rule of Passing being nested in Agility, for example. Generally, if you have high Agility, then you have high Passing. If you want to avoid this, then, yes, it might be objectively best to have Passing be its own Skill. So, they may have made a simple mistake back in the day. But, in reality, 'Passing' is an admixture sub-skill of Strength, Agility, Speed, Hand-Eye Coordination, and other things. So, they could have simply made 'hand-eye coordination' the 'passing and related actions' skill. But, did they need to? They were not worried about keeping a realistic, logical system -- they just cared about game design and making this all very simple to follow: so, calling the Passing-based skill, 'Passing' was a natural choice. Seems very reasonable in that context. Of course, the other way to solve it is to put 'Passing' in 'General Skill', and 'Advanced Passing' in 'Agility'. Or else, to nest a number of skills into 'Agility', such that it also includes 'Passing'. GW seems to have done this back in the 1980s? Very interesting choice they made, because there is no way they had access to such sports studies back in 1985, so I wonder how they came to this framework. Maybe just talking with experts, or their own feelings? Or merely an outcome of their game design process? Anyway, nesting such things into 'General' seems to neatly solve all the problems without having to strangely have 'Passing' be a Skill, which is illogical. But, if 'General' is already used for other things, and cannot include 'Passing', then you will have to simply make 'Passing' its own thing, if making it another skill, such as hand-eye coordination is needless. Of course, still, in reality, 'Passing' is not a Skill, it's a sub-Skill. That's like saying 'Hitting things hard' is a Skill. No, it's not. It's a sub-Skill under Strength/Power (and some Durability or likewise might be a good idea to not hurt yourself from hitting things, though this is largely unrelated to the generation of force itself). Lots of men can hit things hard, and that's almost always because of their power/strength, and not much else. If you want to hit moving things, then you need other things. If you want to hit things really hard or in a very narrow way, then you also want speed. And, if you want to hit things for 5 hours, then you need some durability and a lot of endurance (its own skill, though closely related to a few others). Typically, games -- mine included -- put most of what I just said about hitting things under 'Strength', because it's the easiest to deal with and follow. The only things you would want to make a Skill, or else a whole other system/function, are things like Movement and Fighting as an in-game combat system. In theory, Movement is under Agility, Speed, and Strength. I have nested Speed in Agility, personally. But, because Movement wants to be innately separated from the standardised Skill system, it's best to just decouple it (at least, for most games, but you could have a split system, where speed/otherwise skill = better movement, and movement skill/system = standard movement). Likewise, even though 'Fighting' is really under Agility, Speed, Strength, Power, Durability, Hand-Eye Coordination, and Nerve (maybe a few others), because it tends to serve as a clearly separated function, unrelated to the game (sport) itself as being played out most of all, then it's best to have direct fighting/melee be its own system, or Skill (depending on how your systems are built). Game design sometimes demands that you break real-world logic and consistency. You could make a more realistic game, and it would also be very annoying and boring to play, and require dozens of hours per game. Think World in Flames wargame, but a sports version. Interesting idea, and I would love for it to exist... but not so fun for most people. P.S. In case you do like the sound of a realistic sports wargame, look into Guild Ball, as it's one of the best examples of it. It's a bit like Warhammer Fantasy with Football (English Football). It even has the stupid, annoying Movement system using a ruler, where you then measure again to change direction. Although this Movement system is detailed and quite accurate, it's actually not perfect, so I don't suggest it (other than in games like Warhammer. It works here because you're only moving towards a target, not directly to or beyond). In Guild Ball, you use this Movement system to also move around other models: this is less than ideal, as it turns out. In this case, it's best to just move via a ruler in one direction, once -- all the way through a model's path if required. This is actually better, overall -- and saves time (measure once instead of twice). But, for Blood Bowl, you might not want to get out a ruler every 5 seconds. I have avoided this mess of ruler-movement, and the mess of a grid system for Movement in my own sports wargame simply by not using a grid or measures/rulers for Movement. I don't have any suggestions in terms of 'fixing' Blood Bowl, though. That's not for me to figure out or dictate at all. People can live with the game as created, or homebrew it if they need to; I'm fine with whatever Coaches want to do, haha.

[@ashloveday3283]

New coach here! Looking forward to my first game

[@DarkAutumnScribe]

I am so psyched for this!!!

[@TrentRosenbaum]

Great run down for the latest rules. I love the part where you pause to read and their is a beastman cheerleader on the opposite page. It make it seem like you really don't know what to say about it and you just move! Are you going to be filming any more Blitz Bowl matches, I love that format?

[@asowle]

Thought wow i can watch you go though the book.. and seconds later...your playing it..!!! so much to watch today.. thank you.

[@MrBizteck]

Dannmit man .... youve convinced me ... Ive ordered the box ....

[@MrBizteck]

My league had a different penalty shoot out. Pick a player ... that was on the pitch Roll 2 block dice ... if you rolled a skull you miss. Do this best of 5 then its sudden death like football. If the coach had any rerolls left they could be used.

[@ErikHolten]

13:22 (excitedly explaining player positions) "and then Big Guys! who are typically anyone who's…" (realising what he's actually trying to explain) "…umm, a, like, a huge dude."

[@bradp6452]

Sort of funny watch you pause as you read things since they do not always make sense. Like the wildly inaccurate pass which scatters like a kick off from the thrower compared to the fumble which just drops next to him. Or the stalling where you were trying figure out why it was risky(there is a result on the prayers of nuffle table which cause stallers to be hit with a rock 1 in 3 times)

[@craigstidham3318]

So I’m looking at the star player points, page 71. “Must spend their SPP(there’s that unnecessary acronym 😆). So if a experienced player earns 4 SPP and you wanted to wait to choose a primary skill (costing 6) you can’t because you have to spend 3 SPP for a random?

[@Xaltotun]

I recently got the starter set, but I am wondering, what should I use the referee models for? Are they just for show/immersion?

[@GuerrillaMiniatureGames]

Bribed ref tokens usually?

[@tomemaster1744]

Ordered my first ever Edition of Blood Bowl because of the Black Orcs. I'm very excited about this! I recently started playing Blood Bowl 2 (the computer game) and I find it quite hilarious.

[@dwpowell]

Pumped. Thanks Ash!

[@jakessofa8187]

Hey Ash, great run down as per the norm with yours! Question in regards to the dodging, reading those rules you have up, where did it say that you have a -1 from the players you're dodging away from? It just says if the dodging player is being marked in the square they are moving into, then its a -1 modifier, like how the old rules were.

[@dralasitedralasite6266]

Here's the new rule section on Dodging (truncated to remove page numbers and extra typing): If an active player is being Marked...by one or more opposition players, they must 'Dodge' in order to vacate the square they currently occupy and move safely into another, otherwise they will be tackled and will Fall Over in the square they wish to move into. To Dodge, a player must test against their Agility as described...Declare that the player will Dodge from the square in which they are being Marked and move them into any adjacent, unoccupied square: *The Agility test is made after the dodging player has been moved, Rushing (the new term for Go For It) first, if necessary. *No matter how many players were Marking them, the dodging player is only required to make one Agility test to Dodge. *If the dodging player is being Marked in the square they have moved into, apply a -1 modifier per player Marking them. Note that if the player is Open in the square they have moved into, there are no modifiers to apply for being Marked. However, there may be modifiers to apply for other reasons, such as Skills and Traits being used by an opposing player.

[@jakessofa8187]

@@dralasitedralasite6266 thanks! So, that sort of shows my question in regards to -1 modifier per player applied to the square you're dodging out of. It only mentions that you have a -1 for each player for the square you're dodging into. Which is what the rules are currently. My question really is because Ash mentioned it was the square out of and into, which ever was worse, which is a huge change, especially for dodging teams.

[@dralasitedralasite6266]

LRB/2016 says that you have a -1 penalty for each tackle zone on the square you're leaving and doesn't care about the destination square. So it's the origin square that determines how hard it is to leave in the previous edition. The 2020 rules apply the penalties, if applicable, only for the square you're dodging into. So even if you have three guys guarding your player, if he moves to a completely open space, he takes an agility check without any modifier (I guess they're just glad to see him go?). I suspect this will be FAQ'ed since I essentially copied the rules pretty closely, removing page number references that didn't help in this discussion. On the take the worst penalty (origin or destination) that was mentioned, I believe that's from the Jump action.

[@jakessofa8187]

@@dralasitedralasite6266 yeah nah I don't think that was correct for 2016, don't have my rulebook handy, but the cheat sheet states -1 for each tackle zone on the square you're dodging into, not from

[@paulthompson7361]

I don’t think the rules have changed for dodging. I believe what Ash was mistakenly referring to was the new Jumping move.

[@jonathondaniels2127]

Bloodweiser Keg? What happened to the Bloodweiser Babes..?

[@chadhackman1540]

I am pumped for this set! Since I've been holding out on a second troll for my Snotling team, the included variant troll is extra value. I like most of the changes and agree that this edition is the best release. Some of the terminology really shouldn't have been changed, though. It is Skydome, not Rogers Centre.

[@ja37d-34]

The rulebook looks real nice, I like this game, I think, hehe. Bought it the other week..

[@syteanric]

So imperial nobility are basically Bretts?

[@sirbobulous]

They've moved my beloved High Elves to legends! I might not get nice new models. 3rd party proxies I guess.

[@randombloke82]

They’ve been a “team of legend” since 2016 - so were the ogres, wood elves etc. Don’t give up hope.

[@sirbobulous]

@@randombloke82 well that's promising then

[@richmcgee434]

Plenty of 3PP options out there, many as good or better than GW.

[@jasonfisher4599]

I’m going to still be calling it going for it I doubt that will ever change in my head lol Also they have changed the SPP spend rather than make random rolls I interested to see how that works as it takes some of the random development of players that I really enjoy about blood bowl

[@randombloke82]

There are five columns of options on the skill table, in order of increasing cost: random primary skill; choose primary skill; random secondary skill; choose secondary skill; random stat. So you can roll randomly for a skill for really cheap or you can save up and pick one. Primary and Secondary skills are the old regular and double rolls. Oh and every roll is cheaper than the equivalent old rank so teams will develop faster.

[@reptar33]

We can use our 2016 models with this set and not have buy new models?

[@GuerrillaMiniatureGames]

Absolutely. Nothing new required

[@reptar33]

@@GuerrillaMiniatureGames That just made my day!

[@Grendelnz]

Some f us can use our 1990 models and they are still relevant.

[@d6damagewargaming409]

So hang on... Did I hear you correctly... I can use my special play cards from BB2016 with BB2020?

[@harrysmith2128]

God I hope that’s right, I’ll feel a lot less annoyed by the new edition of that’s the case.

[@d6damagewargaming409]

@@harrysmith2128 I think I confused that the pitches from last season are still valid with the cards... Wishful thinking on my part I think 😂

[@Joth4851]

I dont see why not, as long as you play with your friends. You might have to do a few "translations" to the new edition but if you want to, use them.

[@philipcampanaro8124]

Get one of the Undead teams and you won't need an Apothecary.

[@RationalOrc]

the stalling rules are the best change hands down. That was always an unsporting Meta

[@GuerrillaMiniatureGames]

Definitely. Caging is one thing but running the clock is another.

[@Hundmathr]

Errybody needs a goblin hype-man.

[@thomassmart4227]

Are there no rules for legacy teams like amazons and chaos dwarfs?

[@TheSonicshredder]

GW has a document for the teams of legend on the site, I know chaos dwarves is in there.

[@randombloke82]

www.warhammer-community.com/2020/11/12/blood-bowl-team-updates-for-the-new-edition/ scroll to the end of the article (or read it I guess) to find the link.

[@Aki777craft]

There is a PDF

[@richmcgee434]

@@Aki777craft A free pdf, even. Azrael Rose provided the link already. Nice to have them properly updated - and interesting to see what tiers they stuck various teams in.

[@TheJankmaster]

Don’t like the current BB art, but not bothered by it.

[@craigstidham3318]

I’m reading the rules, I think the previous rules gave players a quick ‘read and play’. This rules set gives a veteran really what they want..a more complete and complex game. The star players (sadly, mostly ) aren’t available anymore from Forgeworld. How the book is written and the use of acronyms is kind of annoying (as they assume you remember what they mean. And...not a huge fan on how you build the models themselves. And why are we given a box of humans and orcs...again?!

[@kylegavinsimone]

Why did you keep looking up above your head?

[@V081WLBlue]

The sound on your videos is very boomy

[@TheJankmaster]

So wait, we’re making Blood Bowl great again?

[@efinel]

I'm new to it, but I love this game. However, I think the rule book is terrible. Whatever you want to look up, it will have a tiny paragraph and tell you to go see another page. Look up what happens when your catcher fails to catch the ball, for example

[@BB-pn2qv]

I am soooo tempted, but...

[@Aki777craft]

Do it daddy

[@Jaxtor1]

Orcs getting animosity and the new passing skill make this edition way less fun to me.

[@MitchellTF]

I get the feeling the reason they had such a dripfeed of content...is they hadn't finished WRITING it yet!

[@SuperDoggy99]

So, they've divided the orcs, humans, and chaos into multiple teams--with multi-race variants--which completely "dulls" the asymmetry of the teams, while at the same time cutting classic teams that have been with the game since the early 90s. Why? What's the point of that? They kill teams like High Elves, Vampires, Norse, Khemri, etc.--presumably because some players/designers didn't like having too many teams in the same racial "family"--but then they go and create a similar situation with minor team variants that provide less uniqueness? The stat changes are also bizarre; sure, it saves a step--but those calculations become second nature once you start playing. Seems completely unnecessary. As someone who's been playing BB since 1988 (2nd ed.), I'm not "feeling" these changes at all. Oh, and the AoS-inspired sculps are just so ... "uughh".

[@Hades13]

They made a new "team of leged" pdf files, you can have Amazon, High Elves and so on. So, you have multiple team for Elves too. I don't think have multiple team for some race is so bad, if you make a good difference between them. For example I never understood why we have both High Elves and Pro Elves (Or Elven Union): they are totally the same team in the end. Black Orcs new team and Orcs team are totally different about playing styles. For new player the new stat change will help a lot. For veteran player it will change nothing. And get used sound just like an excuse. Also the new stats are usueful: people will made less mistake when calculating (some people can't remember all the results, expecially when they play just once in a while). Not 100% necessary in my opinion, but totally good. And the Pass Skill is a good add-on (or blast from the past, depend when you started to play): the positional like thrower now are much more different and specialized (like american football), but also can make a good pick now for some teams (for example Skaven) that before this changes never thought about get a thrower. In the end I think GW did a good job this time. Maybe just one rule need a FAQ, MAYBE.