Subject:  [BBOWL-L]   P: All kinds of stuff (long)

Hello Guys. Sorry for the long gap since my last message - things have been
rather hectic at this end, what with sorting out the Chaos Codex, answering
zillions of questions off the net about our games, not to mention
Christmas!

Anyway, this weekend I managed to make a bit of time to make a couple of
amendments to the Big Guy rules, and read through the back-load of BBOWL-L
digests I've been collecting. Here goes then...

HOBGOBLINS

A couple of you have commented that the background notes on the Hobgoblins
makes great play about how stupid they are, but that this really isn't
reflected in the rules. This is a fair comment, and something that
obviously ought to be rectified! Therefore I'm going to impose the
following rule on the Studio League for a trail period:

"Hobgoblins Blood Bowl players are noted for their stupidity, although it
has to be said that this isn't a trait of the Hobgoblin race as a whole.
(In fact most other races in the Warhammer consider Hobgoblins to be sneaky
gits who will stab you in the back as soon as look at you, and will only
fight if the odds are heavily stacked in their favour. This is actually
rather an accurate character assessment, and as a result only the _really_
stupid ones get conned into playing Blood Bowl!) To reflect this the coach
of a team that includes any Hobgoblins most roll a D6 for each Hobgoblin
player at the start of the match. On a roll of 2-6 the player can be used
normally, but on a roll of 1 the player has either arrived late because
he's forgotten about the match, or is having trouble tying up his
boot-laces, or is doing something equally stupid, with the result that he
may not be used during the first drive of the match."

NEW RACE RULES AND STUNTY GUYS

Some concern has been raised about the fact that the new Big Guy rules may
make life a little bit more difficult than it already is for Goblin and
Halfling teams. This may well be true, and if it is I say "hurrah", because
that's just the way I want it!

This may seem rather cruel, but one thing I've purposefully avoided doing
with Blood Bowl is making all teams even. In fact I'd actually prefer it if
Goblins and Halfling were *less* effective than they are at present,
because this is the way they are portrayed in the Blood Bowl background.
Basically if you're the coach of a stunty team you should expect to lose
any games you play unless you happen to be up against another stunty team.
On the other hand, if you do win against a, erm..., taller team, boy is
you're opponent going to try and keep it quite!

The fact that this isn't really the case yet shows that I simply haven't
gone far enough making life difficult for the little guys. But don't worry,
I'll (we'll?) get it right in the end...  : )

The above being said, including Trolls as part of the line-up of a Goblin
teams does make a lot of sense, as there are close affiliations between the
two races, so I'll happily go along with John Parson's revised Goblin teams
as follows:

0-16    Goblin  40K     6       2       3       7       RS, Stnty, Dodge
0-2     Troll   100K    4       5       1       9       MB, Regan, RS*, AH*

Note that this means Trolls should come off the 'Big Guys' team list.

I *don't* agree with Treemen being included in Halfling teams, however, as
the two races aren't all that closely connected in the background of the
Warhammer World. I also think they should be kept out of the Wood Elf team,
as although these races are closely linked, the Treemen are a sentient race
in their own right who can choose to ally with the Wood Elves or not as
they see fit.

Whilst on the subject of allies, I've started going over the Allied Team
Table, and I'll try to get an ammended version to the list asap.

VETERANS

The idea of allowing coaches to include players in their team who have
already accumulated SPPs is rather a good one. However to stop players
exploiting this ability in a boring manner to, say, give all of their Chaos
Warriors the block skill, I'd suggest that each veteran you take for your
team after the first is *not* allowed to take a skill you've already chosen
for another veteran player in the team (i.e. all the vet's have to have
different skills).

FUTURE OF BLOOD BOWL

I notice that there are still a couple of Blood Bowl coaches who are not
yet up to speed on what our future plans for the game are. For those of you
that missed my previous posting on this and my letter in 'arcane' magazine,
the gist of what I said is:

1. Although Blood Bowl is no longer available in *all* stores in *some*
countries, you can still get it and the full range of Blood Bowl miniatures
from GWUK mail order. Phone (0773) 713 213 for details.

2. You need to remember that all the material for *all* of our games is
produced by a very small team of designers. With the best will in the world
there is no way that we can contiguously support all of the games we
produce all of the time. This means that some games occasionally get put on
a back-burner until we can get round to them again. At present Blood Bowl
falls into this category.

3. The above being said Blood Bowl will be supported by articles in the
Citadel Journal. In fact the Big Guy rules posted to this list will be
featured there quite soon. We can do this because the stuff in the Journal
is considered unofficial, so we can use it to try out new ideas and
'experimental' rules. If you don't get the Journal yet, I'd highly
recommend you check it out.

4. At some point in the future (say in a year or two's time) we'll be able
to get Blood Bowl off the back-burner and bring out a new edition, as well
as 'back-filling' the gaps in the existing range of miniatures. Contrary to
popular opinion, I haven't got any plans for any major revisions to the
game apart from the Big Guy rules that are already being discussed on this
list. In any case, any changes that are made will be available on an update
sheet for _all_ players that have the 3rd edition if they want them, so
they won't have to get the new edition unless they want to.

BLOOD BOWL SOCCER

The stuff I've seen look very interesting. Has Martin though about
submitting his rules to the Citadel Journal for publication? If not I'd
recommend he does so, as stuff like this is what the CJ is all about.

LEAP AND DIVING TACKLE

A player with diving tackle may throw a block at a leaping player that
lands in his tackle zone. The bit about ignoring tackle zones under the
leap skill is simply to make it clear that no dodge roll is required.

WILD ANIMAL

Some coaches have asked if a player with this skill must check to see if he
goe berserk before carrying out an action in the opponent's turn. The
answer is no.

Also, if he throws a block at a friendly player, then the opposing coach
can make any decsions for the victim of the wild animal's block.

REVISED VAMPIRE RULES

In my first version of the Big Guy rules, I lumped Vampires in with the
rest of the Big Guys. With hindsight this probably wasn't the best place
for them. Although Vampires are as powerful in game terms as a typical Big
Guy, the fact of the matter is that they are neither big nor stupid, and
therefore the revised Big Guy rules don't serve them all that well. A
simple option would have been to add Vampires as an option to an Undead
team, but I didn't really like this all that much because it would mean
that you couldn't have all Vampire teams, and it wouldn't really reflect
the relationship between Vampires and Necromancers (e.g. Necromancers
actually create and control most of the Undead players in their team.
Vampires on the other hand are free-willed, intelligent creatures).

So instead I've come up with the following new rules for vampire teams:

Vampire Teams

Vampires are amongst the most feared of all the Undead creatures in the Old
World. These terrifying creatures of the night are incredibly strong and
fast, and have a supernatural ability to transfix a living opponent to the
spot with a withering hypnotic stare.

Considering this it is strange that vampires have proved so singularly
unsuccessful at the sport of Blood Bowl. It's true that they are not at
their best during the hours of daylight, but they are still deadly
opponents none the less. No, it is not the vampires lack of ability on the
field that has led to their downfall, but their behaviour off it. The fact
of the matter is that the main reason for the vampires failure is their
woeful lack of control when confronted by a stadium full of what is (to a
vampire at least) their absolute favourite thing to drink - a pint or two
of a living creature's nice warm blood! What this means is that at any
given time it is not uncommon for the bulk of the vampires in a team to be
found in the stands, grabbing a quick bite as it were, rather than playing
Blood Bowl on the field like they should be doing. This is, of course,
excellent news for the team playing against the vampires, if slightly less
good news for the rival teams fans...

None the less vampire teams do play Blood Bowl. All vampire teams are
coached by a Vampire Lord, a rather more strong-willed and powerful member
of the vampire race. Vampire Lords are exceptionally intelligent creatures
who thirst for power over other races. This being the case exactly why they
should want to coach a Blood Bowl team is by no means certain, especially
as the team under their command rarely does very well, but none the less
they do do so.

All of the other players in a vampire team are the Vampire Lord's
creations: vampires or human thralls. The vampires were one living
creatures, which were almost - but not quite - slain by the Vampire Lord
and then brought back to life as lesser vampires under his command. Vampire
teams generally also include a number of human thralls; weak-willed mortal
creatures that are willing to serve the Vampire Lord in return for the
promise of immortality at some time in the future.

Vampire Lords are player coaches, and actually take part in the game rather
than simply yelling at the players (and referee) from the sidelines.
Although the Vampire Lord represents you, they must still be bought for the
team, as shown on the team list below. The team will keep on functioning
normally even if the Vampire Lord is killed, it being assumed that the next
in line of the vampires in the team (i.e. the one with the most spps) will
take over. The vampire that takes over the team immediately loses the 'off
for a bite' negative skill as soon as the old Vampire Lord dies, and it's
entry on the roster should be changed straight away to show that it is the
new Vampire Lord of the team. Note that since you can only have one Vampire
Lord per vampire team, the only time you can ever purchase a Vampire Lord
for a team is when it is first created! If for some reason there isn't a
vampire to take over the team when the vampire lord dies, then the team
will disband after the match.

Qty     Title           Cost    MV      ST      AG      AV

1       Vampire Lord    180K    6       5       4       9
        Skills:Block, Dodge, Hypnotic Gaze, Regenerate

0-12    Vampires        110K    6       4       4       8
        Skills: Hypnotic Gaze, Regenerate, Off For a Bite*

0-12    Human Thralls   50K     6       3       3       8
        Skills: None

Re-roll Counter: 50K

Off For A Bite: Roll a D6 for *each* player with this skill each time you
wants 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.

Other Special Rules: Although vampires and Vampire Lords are not considered
to be big guys as such, they still earn star player points at half the
normal rate (the Undead are such slow learners!), and they can use doubles
to get rid of their negative 'off for a bite' skill. Vampires and Vampire
Lords may take skills from the General, Agility and Strength catagories.
Human thralls are treated as human Lineman for the purposes of gaining
skills etc.

That's all for now. Have fun!

Jervis

*Disclaimer* This stuff is just our own opinions - it ain't official until
it's in print!