BLOOD BOWL RULES By Jervis Johnson. The following rules changes are official additions and amendments to
the Blood Bowl rules that were presented in the Blood Bowl Handbook
and Death Zone Playbook. Unless the rule below says otherwise then As much as possible I’ve tried to organise these new rules in the same way as they would appear if they were actually in the Blood Bowl Handbook or Death Zone Playbook. The ‘headers’ before each rule (i.e. the bit that says ‘The Sequence Of Play’ or ‘Moving The Turn Marker’) are the same as those you will find in the original rulebooks, which should (hopefully) make it quite easy to find out where a rule should be placed. To make things as clear as possible I’ve included a ‘Fourth Edition Rules Index’ at the end of this section. When it is your turn, as soon as you pick up a model, roll a dice, play a card or declare you are going to use a skill or ability, then you can be called for illegal procedure. If you are called for illegal procedure incorrectly (i.e. you have moved the turn marker along or are called too soon), then you receive a bonus team reroll as a reward for the illegal call. You must declare which action a player is going to take before carrying out the action. For example, you might say "this player is going to take a block action". This is important for number of reasons, but primarily because of the following amendment to the turnover rules. Page seven of the Blood Bowl Handbook lists six events that cause a turnover. In addition to these a turnover takes place if a player starts an action and fails to finish it still standing on the pitch. Anything not specifically covered by these seven cases does not cause a turnover. A lot of players in Blood Bowl have skills, while some also have traits. Skills will be familiar to players of the 3rd edition of Blood Bowl, but traits are a new addition for the 4th edition rules. Although skills and traits are similar in many ways, they do work slightly differently. These differences and the general rules that apply to skills and traits are described below. The specific rules for each skill and trait describing the exact effect they have on the game are described in the relevant sections below, and also in Blood Bowl and Death Zone. Many players have skills such as block, pass, catch etc. You never have to use a skill just because the player’s got it. You can choose to use a skill that gives a re-roll or a dice roll modifier after rolling the dice. For example, you could say you were going to use the block skill either before or after making a block dice roll. If both coaches want to use a skill to effect the same thing and there is an argument about ‘who goes first’, then the coach who’s team turn is not taking place must use his skill first. A player that is performing an action may only use ONE skill during the course of that action. Players may use any number of skills at other times (i.e. during the opposing team turn, or while another player is performing an action in their own team turn), but may only use one skill, one time, during the course of an action they are performing. For example. A player with Block and Dodge performs a Blitz action. He starts in a tackle zone and dodges out, but fails the agility roll. He decides to use his dodge skill to re-roll the dice, and succeeds at the second attempt. However, because he has used a skill he may not use either Block or Dodge again in the course of that Blitz action. A second example. A player with the Accurate and Pass skills throws the football and misses. He can either use his Accurate skill to add +1 to the dice roll or use the Pass skill to re-roll the dice. He may not choose to do both things. Another example. A player with Guard is standing next to a player who makes a Blitz. The player with the Guard skill uses it to lend an assist. This does not stop the Blitzing player from using a skill during his action. It also does not stop the player with the Guard skill from using it or any other skill again that team turn. A final example. A player from the non-moving team is blocked by an opposing player. The player uses his Block skill to avoid being knocked down. This does not stop him using the block skill again during the turn, or when he takes an action next turn. Note that you can’t ‘go back’ in time and use a skill to effect an earlier action. For example, if a player was blitzing, you couldn’t have him throw a block, move a couple of squares, and then say "actually, I think I’ll use my pro skill to re-roll that block" – the skill must be used directly before or after the action it will effect or not at all. Now that players can only use one skill during the course of an action its important to define when you must declare a skill is going to be used. Here is how it is meant to work: Pick the player you want to take an action with. Point to the player and before moving them declare what action they will take. Carry out the action with the player. If you are going to do something which requires the use of a skill, or which a skill will effect, then you must declare whether you will be using the skill before carrying that thing out, but after declaring the action. The only exception to this are skills which modify a dice roll or that allow a re-roll, which may decide to use after rolling the dice in question. If you are using a skill when another player is taking an action then you need to declare it when the opposing player carries out the thing that the skill will effect, but before they do anything else. A little bit of leeway should be allowed here – you can’t stop an opposing player from using a skill by simply moving on so quickly that the opposing coach doesn’t get the chance to say he wants to use the skill! Again skills that cause re-rolls and modify dice rolls may be declared after the dice are rolled. If several players could effect a single dice roll then the coach whose turn is not taking place must declare skill usage first. Here’s a few examples: You would declare the use of the strip ball skill just before an opponent was pushed back a square, but after seeing the result on the block dice. You would declare the Throw Team-Mate skill before picking up the team-mate and making the pass, but after moving. You would declare that the team-mate had the Right Stuff skill after the player with Throw Team-Mate had declared his skill, but before the pass was made. You would declare the use of the Guard skill after the block the player is going to assist has been declared, but before any assists are worked out. You would declare the use of the Diving Catch skill after the ball had been thrown and scattered, but before it bounces. You could declare the use of the Claw skill before or after making an armour roll. A player with horns would need to declare the use of the skill after moving at least one square as part of a Blitz action, but before making the block. Most Big Guys (see the rules for Big Guys later on), and some other players, have traits. Traits tend to be habits or failings that a player has but which he has little or no control over. Because of this, a player must follow the rules for a trait if they apply, and cannot choose to ignore the trait and not use it. For example, Ogres have the trait of ‘bone-head’. Which means they must roll a D6 before taking an action and on a roll of ‘1’ they stand around going ‘duh’ (see below for details). Unlike skills, you can use, indeed may have to use, any number of traits in a single team turn. Using a trait does not stop you using a skill in the same team turn. When you make a roll on the Star Player table and you roll a double then you may choose to let the player acquire a trait rather then picking ‘any skill’ as is normally the case. However, when picking a trait the restrictions that apply to picking a skill DO apply. For example, if you rolled a double a Human Catcher could either take any skill or take either a General or an Agility trait. In addition the following restrictions apply to picking a new trait for a player:
The following table lists all of the skills and traits for the 4th edition Blood Bowl rules. The category each skill or trait belongs to is noted in brackets. Remember you must use a trait -you can’t choose not to use it.
A player is only allowed to try and pick up the ball when they move if they entered the square as part of a move, pass foul or blitz action. Players that move into the square with the ball at other times (i.e. when pushed back, etc.) can’t pick up the ball, and instead it will bounce one square. This does not cause a turnover. See the bouncing balls rules on page 13 of the Blood Bowl Handbook. Note that a player that moves into the square with the ball does not have to pick it up if he does not want to. If he decides not to the ball will bounce one square as described above. Again, this does not cause a turnover. The following injury table replaces the one shown in Blood Bowl and Death Zone. Roll injuries as normal, counting any bonuses that apply to the injury roll, and consult the new injury table. If you roll ‘an injury’, then roll a D6 and refer to the ‘Specific Injury’ table. No modifiers ever apply to the second dice roll.
A player does not have to try and catch a bouncing ball if he does not want to. If he decides not to then it will bounce again. This will not cause a turn over. As far as skills are concerned catching a bouncing ball is considered a catch, and skills that effect a catch can be used. Throw-ins may not be intercepted. You may only use team re-rolls to re-roll a dice roll that could directly affect a player in your own team. For example, it’s OK to use a team re-roll to re-roll the Block dice, as the result of the new dice roll could affect a player in your own team. It is not OK to use a team re-roll to re-roll an opposing players armour roll or injury roll, as the new result will only affect the opposing player. Also, remember that you can only use team re-roll during your own team turn. This means that it can’t be used to affect a roll on the Kick-Off table, or anything else that happens ‘between’ team turns, before or after the match, etc. You may choose to concede a match at the start of one of your own team turns, before moving the turn marker along the track. If you do this and you are playing with the League rules from Death Zone, then the winner gains all of the losers money and his MVPs, and may add +2 to his Fan Factor Roll. The loser automatically loses one Fan Factor and may not roll for a new one. In addition any players in the losers team that have 51 SPPs or more will leave the team on a D6 roll of 1- 3. Roll separately for each player with 51 or more SPPs to see if they leave. All teams now have a list of allied races, as shown on the table below. A team can draw allied players from any allied race. Allied players can be selected from the appropriate team list, or be a Big Guy or star player of the appropriate race. The maximum number of allied players allowed for a team is one ally from each allowed race. Note that Star Players still count as a player of their race. So, for example, if Griff Oberwald was hired by a High Elf team he would count as a Human ally, and they would not be allowed to take any more human allies.
Note that Bull Centaurs, Rat Ogres & Trolls: these are not on the list of allies on the right. This is because they are now incorporated directly into the Chaos Dwarf, Skaven and Goblin teams lists! Please note that it is intentional that some races can be taken as allies by a race they can’t ally with themselves. For example, Chaos Dwarf teams can include Goblin allies, but Goblin teams can’t include Chaos Dwarfs (after all, can you imagine a proud Chaos Dwarf playing for a team of Goblins!). Note that the entries on the table refer to the team list the ally can be chosen from. For example, if your team can take Goblin allies that it may include one player drawn from the Goblin team list (including a Troll, as these are now part of the Goblin List). Instead of picking a player from the team list you may take a Star Player belonging to a race included on the team list instead. For example, a team with Goblin allies could take a Goblin or Troll star player as an ally instead of picking a player from the Goblin team list.
Linked to the above is one very important question (to me, at least), which is: Why, in the game’s background, have teams of Big Guys always done so badly? After all, no team I can think of could take on even 11 Morg’s (let alone 16!), but the Oldheim Ogres aren’t one of the really great teams, while the Craggen Counts (a team of Vampires!) was ‘systematically put out its misery by its fans’. How could these things happen when Star Players of these races are so good? The answer is, I think, that Star Players like Morg N’ Thorg are truly exceptional players that lack a highly debilitating quirk or failing found in all other players of that race. Therefore, when writing up non-star player Big Guys, they should be given a really bad negative traits which crocks them enough to make taking a whole team of them as attractive as taking a team of Snotlings. To represent this all Big Guys count as players of their respective races. In other words all Ogre players are of the Ogre race, in the same way that all Human players are part of the Human race. The characteristics of all Big Guy players are shown in the team lists below. The Big Guys in the following list will nearly always be taken as allies for other teams, rather than fielded as a team in their own right. If you wish, however, they can be used to form their own teams. Single race Big Guy teams can’t take any allied players apart from Star Players of the same race (so you could include Morg in a team of Ogres, for example). Big Guy teams must start with at least eight players, and can have up to twelve. This aside Big Guys are treated exactly like a normal Blood Bowl team, and may hire extra coaching staff, use wizards, etc etc. Important Rules Change: When fielding Big Guy teams, when you create the team the minimum number of players you need to buy is reduced to eight, but no more than eight Big Guys can be set up on the field when the team sets up (rather than 11 as is the case for other teams).
Skills: Horns, Mighty Blow, Thick Skull Traits: Wild Animal, Always Hungry Team Re-roll: 100,000
Skills: Mighty Blow, Thick Skull Traits: Bone-Head Team Re-roll: 100,000
Skills: Mighty Blow, Stand Firm, Thick Skull Traits: Take Root Team Re-roll: 100,000 Not all the Big Guys are included above. Instead some are to be added straight into existing team lists. We’ve also added a new type of player for the dwarf and Goblin team lists. Therefore add the Bull Centaur shown below to the Chaos Dwarf team list, the Rat Ogre shown below to the Skaven team list, the Troll / Fanatic to the Goblin team list and the Death Roller to the Dwarf team list shown below.
Skills: Sprint, Sure Feet, Thick Skull
Skills: Mighty Blow, Prehensile Tail Traits: Wild Animal
Skills: Mighty Blow Traits: Really Stupid, Regenerate, Always Hungry
Special: Ball & Chain (penalty roll 8+), may not earn SPPs.
Skills: Mighty Blow, Stand Firm, Multiple Block Special: Death Roller (penalty roll 7+), may not earn SPPs. There is a complete list of all of the officially “sanctioned” Blood Bowl Star Players on page 30 of Blood Bowl Magazine. Note that you can still use the Star Players cards if you wish but we could not fit them all into this magazine if we presented them in that format! Astute coaches will quickly spot that the Star Player listing does not include any reference as to which teams the Star Players will play for. Instead the ally rules above are used to determine which team a Star Player will play for. For example Griff Oberwald will play for any team that can include Human players. You are only allowed to include one of each Star Player in your team. You couldn’t have more than one Morg, for example, let alone four Count Luthor Von Drakenborgs! Star Players may be hired by a team of their own race, or as an ally for a team that is allowed to take them as allied players. For example, Griff Oberwald can be hired by human teams or teams that are allowed to take human allies. If a star player is hired by a team of their own race then they ‘take up’ one of the position slots allowed for the team. For example, Griff were hired by a human team then he would count as one of the teams Blitzers. If a star player is taken as an ally, then they stop the team they have joined from taking any more allies of the star players race. For example, if Griff was hired by a team as an ally, then that team would not be allowed any more human allies, but Griff would not count against the teams complement of Blitzers. Some races are just naturally more organised and efficient than other races. To represent this the following races receive one Team Re-roll for free when they are created. This only applies when the team is first created, and does not apply to mixed race teams that include players of such races. In an existing league teams made up of the following races may increase their number of team rerolls by one. High Elf, Dark Elf, Wood Elf, Dwarf. Diving Tackle (Change From Death Zone Playbook): The player may use this skill if an opposing player that is taking a move, pass, foul or blitz action leaves a square in his tackle zone. Place the player using this skill prone in the square that the opposing player has just left. The opposing player must subtract –2 from his dodge roll. Leap Note that the new rules about using one skill per action means that a player will only ever be able to leap one square during the course of an action. Mighty Blow (Change From Death Zone Playbook): If this player blocks an opponent, or is blocked by an opponent himself, and the opposing player is knocked down, then you may add +1 to the Armour Roll or the Injury Roll. This skill may not be used by players with a strength of 2 or less. Piling On Piling on must be declared before the armour roll is made, not after the roll as is normally the option (you must decide to pile on after the block rather than after the armour roll). Side Step Note that Side Step may only be used to step into an unoccupied square, if there are no unoccupied square adjacent to the player the skill may not be used. Stand Firm Note that a player that uses this skill is considered to have been pushed back or have failed to dodge as far as other skills and cards are concerned, even though he does not actually move (so a frenzied player would keep on blocking him, etc.). IMPORTANT CHANGE: A player that uses this skill to remain upright when they fail a dodge roll remains standing in the square they were dodging from. Using Diving Tackle will mean that the player is bounced back to his original square. Sprint Note that the Sprint skills allows you to move into a third square when you ‘go for it’. The skill is used after the first two squares of movement have been completed. Always Hungry: The player is always ravenously hungry – and what’s more he’ll eat absolutely anything! Should a player with this trait ever use the Throw Team-Mate skill, roll a D6 after he picks the player to be thrown up, but before he throws them. On a roll of 1 he attempts to eat the unfortunate player! Roll the D6 again, a second 1 means that he successfully scoffs the other player down, with obviously fatal results for the latter. On a roll of 2-6 the other player squirms free and should be placed prone in a randomly selected adjacent square (if the square is occupied then the original occupant is pushed back and knocked over). Bone-Head: Roll a D6 before taking an action for a player with this trait. On a roll of 1 they stand around trying to remember what it is they're meant to be doing. This means that they can't do anything for the turn, and they lose their tackle zone until they managed to roll something other than a 1 at the start of an action. Daemonic Aura: A team may only include players with a Daemonic Aura if they have a team wizard (The wizard is needed to summon the Daemon from the realm of Chaos) If the team wizard is ever lost then all players with a Daemonic Aura are cast back into the warp and are lost. Players with a Daemonic Aura do not have normal armour like other players instead they are protected by their Daemonic Auras. This is treated the same as a normal armour value except that the dice roll is never modified for any reason. For example Claw or Mighty Blow could not be used to modify the dice roll. If the Players Deamonic Aura is beaten roll for injury as normal however if the player suffers “an injury” then he is banished from the mortal plane and should be deleted from the team roster as if he had been killed. Dauntless (Change From Death Zone Playbook): Dauntless used to be a general skill but is now trait. It may no longer be taken as a new skill for a player unless a double is rolled.. Frenzy (Change From Death Zone Playbook): Frenzy used to be a general skill but is now trait. It may no longer be taken as a new skill for a playerunless a double is rolled. A player with the Frenzy trait must take a block or blitz action if they are standing up themselves and there is a standing opponent in an adjacent square. If armed with a secret weapon they may attack with that instead. The player must follow up the opponent if they were pushed back, and then throw another block at them. Each additional block made by a frenzied player costs them an extra square of movement if they are taking a Blitz action, even if they don’t follow up. The blocks are free if the player is taking a Block action, but the player may not throw more blocks than his movement allowance. Off For A Bite Roll a D6 for each player with this skill each time you want to set them up on the pitch. On a roll of 4-6 they can be set up normally, but on a roll of 1-3 they’ve popped into the crowd to bite the lily-white neck of an attractive maiden – and who can blame them! - and can’t be used this drive. Really Stupid: This is treated in exactly the same way as the Bone-Head trait above, except that the player can’t do anything on a roll of 1-3 instead of only a ‘1’ unless there is a friendly player in an adjacent square who is not either a Bone-Head or Really Stupid too (i.e. if there’s a sneaky Goblin next to the Troll, treat the Troll as a Bone-Headed rather than really stupid!) Regeneration (Change From Death Zone Playbook): Regeneration used to be a physical ability skill but is now trait. It may no longer be taken as a new skill for a player. If you’re playing in an existing league where players have gained this skill, then they may keep it, but no more players can acquire it. If the player is badly hurt, seriously injured or killed then they are placed in the Dead and Injured players box in the Dugout as normal. Before the next kick-off takes place (or at the end of the match if that comes first) a dice is rolled to see if the player regenerates. On a roll of 1-3 the player suffers the effect of the injury as normal. On a roll of 4-6 to player regenerates and should be moved to the Reserves box. Opposing players earn Star Player points based on the original injury rolled. Split: This ability only applies to Pink Horrors. If the Pink Horror suffers “an injury” it splits into two Blue Horrors instead of being banished back to the warp. This may allow the Chaos team to have more than eleven players on the field. One is placed in the square the Pink Horror occupied the other scatters D6 squares as it pops into existence. If the final square is occupied or off the pitch then roll again. As long as one of the blue horrors survives the match then the team wizard will be able to bring back the Pink Horror for the next game. Blue Horrors are not added to a team roster. Take Root: Roll a D6 for the player before the match starts. Important Change: On a roll of 1-3 the player is slumbering in a wood somewhere and misses the first half of the match! Titchy: The player is incredibly tiny (even smaller than a Halfling or Goblin.) To represent this he makes all dodge rolls with a +2 modifier and may ignore any enemy tackle zones on the square he is moving to. Titchy players must increase the range by one category when they make a pass and opposing coaches may add +1 to the injury roll for a Titchy player. Titchy players count as “half” a player towards the limit of 16 players allowed in the team. In addition it is very hard for the ref to keep track of how many Titchy players are on the pitch at any one time. To represent this a coach may set up an extra D6-1 Titchy players every time he sets up his team, after setting up his normal allocation of 11 players. This may allow teams with Titchy players to have more than eleven players on the field. Unstable: Some creatures like Greater Daemons are Unstable and may disappear to a different realm at any moment (the Chaos Gods are fickle even in Blood Bowl games). To represent this roll a D6 for each player with this trait after a touchdown has been scored and at half time. On a roll 5+ then the player has disappered and may not be used for the rest of the game. They will reappear for the next match. Wild Animal: A player with this skill tends to get a bit, erm, carried away during a match, and rather lets his natural enthusiasm overcome him. Wild animals must take their actions first of all during a turn; if you take an action with wild animal after having moved a player that is not a Wild Animal, then your opponent call you for illegal procedure exactly as if you had forgotten to move the turn marker. Wild animals can never receive assists when the block or foul; they are simply too out of control for other players to help them out. In addition players with this trait also count as being frenzied (see above). Although the NAF rulebook bans the use of secret weapons, all kinds of weapons have been used by Blood Bowl teams in the past as they attempt to battle their way to a major tournament win. Dwarf and Goblin teams in particular have a well-earned reputation for using secret weapons and fiendish inventions to give their team the advantage. None the less, the use of secret weapons is simply not legal and referees have a nasty habit of sending off players who use them. The rules that follow allow players from all the different races to purchase secret weapons. When using these rules then you are not allowed to purchase any of the Star Players that have secret weapons. Instead you can purchase secret weapons for the ‘ordinary players’ in your team when it is created, or when a new player is added to the team. Each team can only ever have one player with secret weapons on the team roster at any one time (Goblins are extremely dirty and desperate so they can have up to four players with secret weapons). If you ever have more than one player with a secret weapon then you will have to start sacking players until you only have one player with a secret weapon on your team roster. Note that you can’t simply get rid of a player’s secret weapon. Once a player owns a secret weapon they become attached to it and wouldn’t give it up for all the gold pieces in the Old World. The costs and penalty rolls for all secret weapons are shown on the table above, along with the teams that may use the weapon. Allied players may only use weapons allowed in the team they are allied to. The cost of a weapon is added to the cost of the player using it. The rules for most secret weapons can be found in the Blood Bowl Handbook and Death Zone Playbook. The only exception is the dreaded ‘stink bomb’ (much favoured by Goblin teams) which is described below. Stink Bomb: The stink bomb is treated in the same way as a normal bomb with the following exception. Players in the square where the stink bomb ends up and, all adjacent squares, fall over coughing and choking. Lie them face up on the field but do not make an Armour roll for them. Players falling over in this way do not cause a turnover unless one of the players was holding the ball, in which case they drop it.
Important Change: The Hand-off is no longer a free action. Instead a player who is making a Pass action may choose to hand-off the ball rather than throw it at the end of his move. You may still make both a hand-off and a Pass in a single turn. This means you may now take up to two Pass actions per turn; one that ends with a hand-off and one that ends with pass. This change aside the hand-off itself works exactly as described on page 20 of the Blood Bowl Handbook. THAT ARE DOWN Players may not assist another player making foul if they are in the tackle zone of an opposing player. Add this rule to the end of the rules on fouling. In order for it to work you will need a new counter, anything will do: bottle caps, small coins, a bunch of keys, half-eaten sandwich etc., but the best possible ‘I’ve Got My Eye On you’ marker (abbreviated to IGMEOY!) is a painted referee model. Once you’ve got a counter, put it beside the pitch when you set up. Only one is ever needed per match. Here’s how it works: The first time a coach commits a foul, he must hand the I’ve Got My Eye On You counter to the opposing coach, who should place it on their re-roll track. All the time a coach has the counter on his reroll track, opposing players will be sent off for fouling if they roll anything other than a double, but not if they roll a double as per the standard rules! This radically increases the chances of being sent off, as they are under the watchful eye of the ref. The coach is allowed to keep hold of the counter until his own team commits a foul, at which point he must hand it over to his opponent, who can then place it on his re-roll track. In addition, the counter must be returned to the side of the board (i.e. so that neither coach has it) when a half ends or a successful illegal procedure call is made against the coach with the counter. In the case of the Illegal Procedure call, the counter is returned in addition to any other effect the call has. Apothecaries can only be used to heal injuries that occur on the pitch, or to cure niggling injuries. If used to cure injuries on the pitch then they must be used straight after the injury roll or not at all! IMPORTANT CHANGE: A wizard that casts a Fireball, Zap!, or Lighting Bolt spell must do so at the start of the team turn of the team they support. This is a change from the rules in Death Zone which allow a spell to be cast at any time, see the special play rules later on for a more detailed explanation of when things take that place at the start of the turn occur. A player only earns star player points for inflicting a casualty if he blocks an opponent, or is blocked by an opponent himself, and the opposing player knocked over on the pitch and is killed, injured or seriously hurt. Casualties inflicted in any other way do not count for star player points.
Most Big Guys are limited to taking Strength and General skills only. Rat Ogres and Minotaurs can take Physical Abilities as well (representing mutations). In addition, Big Guys are not allowed to use doubles on star player rolls to pick skills from categories not normally allowed to them. Instead a Big Guy can use a double on a star player roll to do one of the following:
Note that strength and armour values still can’t be improved by more than 2 points over their starting value, or to greater than 10 no matter what. When working out the team rating include the value of each player, re-roll, and the total number of star player points of each player, irrespective of whether what you actually paid for them or not, or if they have peaked, etc etc. Step 1. Changes from the ‘Hire Freebooters’ step to: Step 1. Hire Freebooters and Pay Appearance Fees When a player reaches 51 or more SPPs, he starts demanding an appearance fee in order to play in a match. At the start of the match the Head Coach must remove the payment (see below) from his treasury. If he does not have the money, or he decides not to pay up, then the player will not play. the player is still placed in the reserves box of the dug-out, and still counts towards the teams team rating, for ‘throw a rock’, and even MVPs, he just will not step onto the pitch unless his appearance fee is paid. If a coach wants to he may choose to pay a star players appearance fee part way through the match, as long as he has the money in his treasury, in which case the player will play for the rest of the match. As there are clearly coaches out there who delight in building up super-teams before which even the Chaos All-Stars would quake in the steel-shod boots, the following table allows a league commissioner to vary the level of appearance fees depending on what sort of league he wants to run. There are three levels, named ‘Monty Haul’, ‘Laissez-Faire’ and ‘Balanced’ respectively. Monty Haul leagues are run without appearance fees. Be warned that over the course of several seasons this will lead to the creation of ‘super-teams’ so powerful that starting teams will simply not be able or willing to play against them – just don’t say I didn’t warn you! (As an aside, the term comes from the name of a 50’s chat show host notorious for giving away big prizes, and was coined in the 70’s for D&D dungeons stuffed with huge hordes of gold and magic items.) Laissez-Faire leagues do use appearance fees, but at a reduced level from that recommended in the 4th edition rules. A Laissez-faire league will allow for the creation of very tough teams that a starting team will simply not be able to beat, but will at least stop such games being complete walk-overs that result in the starters being butchered. Balanced leagues use the appearance fee rules in their full glory. In such a league you can be sure that while highly experienced teams will have a big edge over starting teams, it will not be enough to guarantee victory. When combined with the ‘premier-league’ rules by Andy Hall that appeared in issue 2 of Blood Bowl Magazine I honestly have to say that anybody starting a new league would be foolish to choose to run it other than as a balanced league. But hey, that’s just my opinion!
Important Note: This rule does apply to Star Players. For the purposes of the table aboveStar Players are assumed to have a number of SPPs equal to their cost divided by a thousand. For example, The Mighty Zug has a cost of 120,000 gps, and therefore counts as having 120 SPPs. And yes, you do have to pay the appearance free right from the very first match you play... |
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it is in addition to the rules in the Handbook and Playbook.
In any case where there is a contradiction between the rules presented
in the Handbook and Playbook, and the rules presented below, then the
rules below take precedence. 
While
mixed race teams do take part in Blood Bowl matches there is no denying
that they are simply not as efficient and well trained as other teams.
To represent this the coach of mixed race team may not use his team
re-rolls on allied players in his team. 
These
rules are designed to sort out some of the problems with the way that
Big Guys (Ogres, Trolls, Rat Ogres, etc.) work in Blood Bowl. The current
rules are okay as far as they go, but putting Big Guys on the star player
cards was a fudge really, and as time has passed by I’ve become less
than happy with using the Star Player cards as a method of getting Big
Guys into the game. After all, according to the background you can have
entire teams of Big Guys (the Oldheim Ogres being the most notable example),
and I now feel that they should really be treated as races in their
own right, with a team list just like the other races. This would leave
the Star Player cards to represent unique one-off Star Players. 
Big
Guys are very slow learners and so must earn double the SPP’s to gain
a Star Player Roll. For example, a rookie Big Guy needs to earn 12 SPPs
to become ‘experienced’ and gain his first roll, 22 SPPs to become a
veteran, and so on.