Games Workshop has opened the newest edition of Blood Bowl which they are calling the Third Season Edition for preorders to be delivered on the 16th of November. This new edition has the Khemri/Tomb Kings vs the Bretonnians as the starter teams. The Bretonnians have never had official miniatures but did exists as an alternative team while the Tomb Kings did have official models they were quite hard to keep in one piece. So these are pretty good teams to see in the starter box. They also pair pretty well together as the 6 Dauntless players on the Brets help out against 4 Str 5 Tomb Guardians on the Khemri. I think new players with many of the other teams would really struggle to enjoy a game against the Tomb Kings. Here at least they give you can openers to go with the cans.
While they are calling it the Third Season edition I feel it will likely be abbreviated as BB2025 as BB3 is usually a reference to the current video game. The Third edition of Blood Bowl was released in 1993 with this really being like the 9th edition depending on how you count editions in the 2000's. I generally break this period into 4th edition/Gold Edition, 5th Edition being the LRB5 releases, and 6th edition being LRB 6/Competition Rules released by GW. The 2016 release was then the 7th edition of the game.
They present that most of the rule changes as small changes. One of the core game rule changes are the addition of new action for Secure the Ball which pretty much represents a player getting low to get the ball with concern of being hit or running immediately after. It is definitely a reflexive response on the designers to the failed ball pick ups that balance the bash teams against the agility teams. The Tomb Kings specifically get a huge boost as the main weakness of the team is that no one has better then Ag4+ so picking up the ball using either Safe Hands on the Thrower or a team reroll is at best like a 75% chance to get the ball. Now with Secure the Ball and a reroll it goes to like 97%. While certain models cannot use this Action (Big Guys and Models with Unsteady Trait), there are now a bunch of Str 4 ball carriers who can now get the ball very reliably. This definitely is pro bash teams.
They present that most of the rule changes as small changes. One of the core game rule changes are the addition of new action for Secure the Ball which pretty much represents a player getting low to get the ball with concern of being hit or running immediately after. It is definitely a reflexive response on the designers to the failed ball pick ups that balance the bash teams against the agility teams. The Tomb Kings specifically get a huge boost as the main weakness of the team is that no one has better then Ag4+ so picking up the ball using either Safe Hands on the Thrower or a team reroll is at best like a 75% chance to get the ball. Now with Secure the Ball and a reroll it goes to like 97%. While certain models cannot use this Action (Big Guys and Models with Unsteady Trait), there are now a bunch of Str 4 ball carriers who can now get the ball very reliably. This definitely is pro bash teams.
To sort of balance this they returned the passing rules to something much closer to the BB2016 rules with the removal of Wildly Inaccurate which killed pretty much any passing beyond Short range on anything but the most skill up thrower. The interception rules have also been simplified back to just a straight roll to intercept but the roll has been moved to the proper place in the sequence between the throw and catch rolls.
There have been extensive changes to the rosters, skill distributions, and advancement. The first thing for this is that corporate decided that the contents of the boxes in terms of the positionals are the max number of the positionals available for the teams. While this is a consumer friendly decision in a sense, it definitely strips many teams of key elements of their rosters. Khorne and Nurgle both lost half of their primary ball carriers, Humans and Orcs lost half of their hitting power, etc. Most of the rosters got some new free skills on the positions that lost numbers. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Another change is that they have decided that certain skills are elite. Block, Dodge, Mighty Blow, and Guard have been given this label. They now add more to player value on the roster when selected and might have more limited selection options in matched play. The problem with these skills being so good compared to most others has existed for a long time and probably would have been best done by splitting them into two skills. It actually would be pretty easy as they all have two applications. Block on Offense and Defense, Dodge when Moving and being Blocked, Mighty Blow on Armor and Injury, and Guard on Offense and Defense.
The problem with restricting access to the skills as a solution is that some teams are just full of the skills at the start. Dwarves, Amazons, Norse have these skills as core to their nature and now it is just a little boost for them. I remember going to an event years ago which tried to use a mechanism like this to help level the field and it just made people pick rosters that optimized their Block access from the base rosters.
It will be interesting to see how the broader event scene integrates this rules to their team building structure as while these groups generally leave the core rules the same, they have no issue adjusting the team building rules to try to even the playing fields.
There have been extensive changes to the rosters, skill distributions, and advancement. The first thing for this is that corporate decided that the contents of the boxes in terms of the positionals are the max number of the positionals available for the teams. While this is a consumer friendly decision in a sense, it definitely strips many teams of key elements of their rosters. Khorne and Nurgle both lost half of their primary ball carriers, Humans and Orcs lost half of their hitting power, etc. Most of the rosters got some new free skills on the positions that lost numbers. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Another change is that they have decided that certain skills are elite. Block, Dodge, Mighty Blow, and Guard have been given this label. They now add more to player value on the roster when selected and might have more limited selection options in matched play. The problem with these skills being so good compared to most others has existed for a long time and probably would have been best done by splitting them into two skills. It actually would be pretty easy as they all have two applications. Block on Offense and Defense, Dodge when Moving and being Blocked, Mighty Blow on Armor and Injury, and Guard on Offense and Defense.
The problem with restricting access to the skills as a solution is that some teams are just full of the skills at the start. Dwarves, Amazons, Norse have these skills as core to their nature and now it is just a little boost for them. I remember going to an event years ago which tried to use a mechanism like this to help level the field and it just made people pick rosters that optimized their Block access from the base rosters.
It will be interesting to see how the broader event scene integrates this rules to their team building structure as while these groups generally leave the core rules the same, they have no issue adjusting the team building rules to try to even the playing fields.
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