With the launch only a week away, we thought we’d cover the Blood Bowl 3 changes that a coach making a move over from BB2 might expect. If you’ve only ever played the video games then you might not be aware of the various changes that Blood Bowl 3 brings. We’ve seen Roster updates, changes to Re-Rolls, new skills, changes to the SPP systems and much more we’ll cover below. While we’re not going to cover every single change made (especially as Cyanide has a history of doing their own thing, looking at you AV8 Catchers!), we’ll be going the ones we anticipate coaches making the transition may be surprised by or just might not even notice. Obviously, the great thing about the digital version is any Blood Bowl 3 Changes will mostly be automatic, but they’re worth pointing out for those who have firmly stuck to BB2 over the past few years.

So with that, let’s go through some of the bigger Blood Bowl 3 changes you might see in a week’s time!

No Team ReRoll Limit Per Turn

This was an unexpected change in Blood Bowl Second Edition but having played quite a number of games with it, I personally think it was a good one. Rather than being limited to just one Team ReRoll per turn, you can now use as many as you wish, with the caveat you still can’t ReRoll a ReRoll. This means you can, if you so wish, Rush (or Go For It in BB2 terms), and then ReRoll both times, should you fail for each movement. This makes a lot of multi-dice actions much safer but it burns through your ReRolls much, much quicker than before. If say you had 3 Team ReRolls, in BB2 you’ll only run out by turn 3 if you used one per turn. Now, you can in theory use all 3 in a single turn which will hinder you for the rest of the game, so it makes management of your ReRolls all the more important.

Passing is its own Characteristic

Every player now has a PA Characteristic on their stat sheet and players no longer use their Agility when passing the ball, or when throwing their own teammate. This has made passing on the whole a bit harder, as most players have pretty bad PA stats unless they’re a dedicated thrower which usually come with a 2+ or 3+. It has also (sort of) nerfed most Elf teams, as your entire team can’t just Quick Pass on a 2+ anymore, but they’ll usually have a 2+ Thrower to do the heavy lifting (unless you’re Dark Elves…sorry). It’s worth noting that Catching is still Agility based, so if you’re AG2+, you can still Hand Off on a 2+, so Skaven, Wood Elves and Elven Union teams can rejoice!

Player Characteristics have been changed

Further on the above, the player Characteristics have been simplified. Movement and Strength remain the same, but Agility, Passing and Armour are all dice rolls. For example. AG4 is now AG2+ and AV9 is AV10+. This makes it much easier to work out the rolls you’ll need for each player at a glance. There are also some adjusted limiations here, such as Movement having a cap of 9, so no more MV10 Gutter Runners.

Players buy skills with SPP, rather than rolling.

Gone are the dice rolls when a player levels up, instead it’s more like a point-buy system where players spend their SPP on skills and characteristics. Primary Skills are cheaper than Secondary Skills (which you previously had to roll doubles for) and you can choose to randomly pick a skill for a slight discount too. Characteristics are the most expensive and are randomly rolled on a D16, which does mean there’s now only a 1 in 8 chance (as you’ll need a 15 or 16) you’ll get a Strength increase, after you’ve spent 18 SPP to even attempt the roll! You can horde SPP too, although you must spend at least some of it once you have enough to roll on the Characteristics table, so you can choose a cheaper option if you wish. Overall, it gives far more player agency when levelling up your team as you’re not longer beholden to a roll each time you level (which you’re forced to do in BB2 as well). You can choose to gather SPP for better Secondaries, or just throw cheap Random Skills to quickly level up. I’ve covered this in more detail here.

CLAW/PO/MB is GONE!

A big one for those coming directly from BB2. Piling On as a skill is gone entirely, somewhat replaced by Pile Driver, although that is a free Foul as opposed to a direct ReRoll. Claw and Mighty Blow now no longer combine, you now must either use Claw OR Mighty Blow. This is a nerf for “killer” teams but honestly it’s a welcome one as it means you’re not going from AV10+ all the way down to AV7+, with a ReRoll. Lizards and Orcs may also rejoice!

Winnings are no longer a dice roll

In BB2, at the end of the game, you rolled a D6 and those were your winnings, with a ReRoll if you won the game along with some small bonuses. This meant that you could get kinda screwed even if you won the game, making it harder to replace losses. Now, winnings are tied to your Dedicated Fans and how many touchdowns you scored. At the end of the game, both teams combine their Dedicated Fans (what BB2 called Fan Factor) and then divide the total by 2. You then add on how many touchdowns you scored and multiply the total by 10,00 for your total winnings. This means you’re getting a pretty consistent amount of gold per game and a nice bonus for scoring lots! You can also buy Dedicated Fans when you make your team for 10k each and they’ll make their money back quickly. These do increase and decrease as you win/lose games but seeing as you add both team’s Fans together, you’ll get a nice chunk of change even if you lose to someone with lots of fans! I do love this change overall, it’s fluffy as it represents earning ticket sales from your team’s fans, but also takes away unnecessary randomness.

Other Blood Bowl 3 Changes:

As I said, there are a lot of potential Blood Bowl 3 Changes, so here’s a quick rundown of some others:

• Most actions must now be declared. This is done via an action menu at the bottom of the screen when clicking on a player. This is actually pretty significant as most BB2 players will be used to performing Pass/Hand Off actions after moving, as opposed to doing so afterwards. Tabletop players have been doing this forever, but it’ll take some getting used to on the digital version.
• Leap is worse, you now get a negative modifier for how many tackle zones you leap out of/into (whichever is higher), sorry Marv!
• You can now Argue the Call when a player gets Red Carded, potentially avoiding the expulsion.
• The Casualty table has been changed to a D16 rather than D68 and Stunties get their own Injury table too.
• Updates to inducements, including a Prayers to Nuffle Table which can grant you some fun bonuses.
• Kick Off Table has changed, for example, Blitz is now only D3+3 Open Players and Throw a Rock has gone!
• Interceptions can both be caught as normal or Deflected instead, which scatters the ball into an adjacent square.
• Stalling is now an actual thing that can be affected by certain Prayers to Nuffle.
• The Wizard Lighting Bolt now changes a player into a Frog…. great stuff. There have been some inducement adjustments/additions as well.
• Star Players now all come with a unique ability, like Morg being able to reroll his Throw Team Mate once per game.
• Lots of Skill changes and additions/removals.
• Team updates, go here for more info.
• You can Jump over prone players!!
• Teams Team Value is now slightly different, stuff like inducements and how many prayers you gain is based on Current Team Value (CTV), which is calculated based on your player costs, other team cost (rerolls, coaches), but is then reduced by missing players and other factors. TV is your overall total, CTV is the total you use when calculating the difference between teams, and these two values can be different.
• Expensive mistakes are a thing if you have too much money. Importantly for BB2 players, having over 150k does not affect your CTV but you might find your players have knicked some of it for themselves, or your Cheerleaders demanded a wage increase (basically you lose a certain amount based on a table and how much you have)
• ReDrafting (which might and hopefully will come later!!!) is a between-season balancing mechanic where you have to re-buy your team based on a budget determined by games played, wins and more. Players will also demand a bigger wage!
• You can attempt to heal players by Temporarily Retiring them, although this takes them out of your remaining games and they still use your positional slots.
• And more!!!

Overall lots of Blood Bowl 3 changes, most of it good in our opinion! Most of this we anticipate actually being in the game but we’re not going to know until we get the chance to go through the admin and league stuff on February 23rd. As mentioned, we are planning to make the change to Blood Bowl 3, so we’ll hopefully see you there for Campaign 4 and Season 10 of GRUMBBL!