With Blood Bowl 3 now out and about, some of our coaches might have noticed some blood bowl skill changes in the new game. If you’re an entirely digital player, you probably didn’t read the Blood Bowl 2020 ruleset while still playing Blood Bowl 2, so we’ve come up with a quick, handy guide to get up to speed, especially if you’re still holding back on BB3 or just haven’t quite noticed the changes yet!

Overall those that exist mostly do the same thing or at least feel the same, with some minor adjustments for the new ruleset. Some are completely gone and others are brand new for this edition, in fact, the overall amount of skills has gone up by a fair bit! We’ll briefly talk about how the blood bowl skill changes affect the game, their overall usefulness and if we think they’re an improvement or have been hit with the good old nerf bat! We’ll also make a note of those unchanged so you don’t have to go digging to see if Block changed… because it hasn’t!

General Blood Bowl Skill Changes

Unchanged: Block, Dauntless, Fend, Frenzy, Kick, Strip Ball, Sure Hands, Tackle, Wrestle

Nothing really to say here, all of these continue to be good! Strip Ball does lose a little bit of effectiveness vs mutations teams however due to Monstrous Mouth now existing. Block continues to be the premium skill it’s always been.

Changed: Dirty Player, Pro, Shadowing

• Dirty Player didn’t actually get changed itself, but like Mighty Blow it’s no longer just a flat +1, there’s a variable modifier. This won’t matter for regular players who only have access to the +1 version, but some star players get +2.
• Pro got a little better! It’s now a 3+ roll as opposed to the 4+ from previous editions. Easier to access for Big Guys too now
• Shadowing, oof. Not a skill you used to spam but it got a bit worse this edition. If your MV7 Chameleon skink tries to shadow an MV6 lineman, it’ll take a D6 roll of a 5+ to actually follow them as you need to get 6 or more (so (5+7)-6=6). Previously the same Chameleon Skink would need a 6+ on 2D6. In layman’s terms, the BB3 roll is 33.33% and the BB2 roll is 72.2%. At least a natural 6 succeeds but while it’s a much simpler skill to use, it’s hard to pull off, especially against its intended targets.

Agility Blood Bowl Skill Changes

Unchanged: Catch, Diving Catch, Dodge, Jump Up, Side Step, Sprint, Sure Feet

All fun stuff! Most of this includes re-roll skills so aren’t affected by having multiple team rerolls per turn.

Changed: Diving Tackle, Leap, Sneaky Git
New: Defensive, Safe Pair of Hands

• Diving Tackle gets a simple change, this now works on Jumps & Leaps, so a very small buff.
• Leap sadly isn’t as great as it used to be, by virtue of how Jumping works rather than just the skill itself. Rather than a +1 to the roll, it reduces any negative modifier applied to it by 1 to a maximum of -1. It effectively means you get to ignore a single tackle zone when leaping out or into a marked square, assuming there are 2 or more. This means that a Wardancer for example, leaps into a normal cage on a 4+ rather than a 5+ (2+ AG, -3 from the tackle zones, one of which is ignored by Leap). You’ll really want to buff your Agility before getting this.
• Sneaky Git technically is the same as of May 2023, but currently, in BB3 it’s using the original implementation where you can still move after fouling. Will eventually be adjusted, but as of the time of writing it’s flat-out better.
• Defensive if you couldn’t tell from previous articles, I LOVE this skill. On your opponent’s turn only, if your Defensive player is Marking a Guard player, then Guard is turned off. This goes for ALL of the Guard players you’re marking, making it pretty good in my entirely personal opinion (not so highly rated by the rest of the community, sadly). Great on ball carriers as it stops Guard being used to take them down.
• Safe Pair of Hands is like Side Step, if the ball itself had that skill. When your ball carrier is knocked down you may place the ball in an unoccupied square adjacent to the carrier and it does not bounce. A pretty nice defensive skill, but I’d be investing in protecting the carrier first.

Passing Blood Bowl Skill Changes

Unchanged: Dump Off, Leader, Nerves of Steel, Pass

Dump Off sadly took a bit of a hit with Dark Elf Runners coming with PA3+, and you very rarely chose to take it anyway. Leader gains value from the multiple team rerolls per turn rule.

Changed: Accurate, Hail Mary Pass
New: Cannoneer, Cloud Burster, Fumblerooskie, On the Ball, Running Pass, Safe Pass

• Accurate gets a nerf, now only +1 on Quick and Short passes. Oof!
• Cannoneer is Accurate but for Long passes only. Not quite the replacement for Strong Arm we hoped for and doesn’t stack with Accurate. It’s… ok?
• Cloud Burster is pretty cool in theory, especially with Deflections being a thing. Probably won’t get much use out of it, however. Used to be the first part of Safe Throw, but instead of just cancelling the Interception on a successful ag roll, it now forces the interceptor to re-roll.
• Fumblerooskie is a skill I quite like, at any point during your Move or Blitz action, you may leave the ball in the square you just left along your path. This essentially gives you another “hand off” to move the ball even further. Great on fast teams like Elves and Skaven, as you could leave the ball near someone who’s bogged down with tackle zones (thus making a catch risky), dodge them out, pick it up and run off.
• On the Ball is Pass Block and Kick-Off Return merged together to create a single skill. The move from General to Passing is a bit of a shame, but you usually found Kick of Return on thrower-type players anyway.
• Running Pass lets you move after your Pass action. Cool but situational, the best use I find is Passing and then moving to provide an assist elsewhere.
• Safe Pass lets you keep hold of the ball should you fumble a pass. This is the latter half of the old Safe Throw, which got split into this and Cloud Burster.

Strength Blood Bowl Skill Changes

Unchanged: Grab, Juggernaut, Multi-Block, Stand Firm, Thick Skull

As of the time of writing, Multi-Block is not in BB3, but it does the same thing. Grab also explicitly stops Side Step, rather than the two cancelling each other out.

Changed: Break Tackle, Guard, Mighty Blow, Strong Arm
New: Arm Bar, Brawler, Pile Driver

• Arm Bar applies +1 to the armour or injury roll when an opposing player fails their Dodge, Leap or Jump action. works very nicely with tackle to make Elves really think twice before dodging away.
• Brawler lets you re-roll a single Both Down result when Blocking (but not Blitzing!). Kind of like a mini-pro and I quite like it as an easy way to help out Big Guys. Block is of course objectively better but this works well early on, especially if you’re struggling for SPP.
• Break Tackle no longer uses your Strength stat in place of Agility when you fail a Dodge, it’s now a straight +1 if your Strength is 4 or less, then +2 if 5 or more. This means the range of players this is worth on is much greater while still being very good on Big Guys. Minotaurs and Ogres especially love this as they dodge on a 2+, but Trolls still dodge on a 3+. This could be good on ST4 players with AG3+ as well and is AMAZING on Jaguar Blockers, who with an easy-to-get skill, get a 2+ dodge with a reroll. I love this.
• Guard now gives assists to Foul actions as well, tasty! Not universally amazing (although still incredibly good!) with Defensive existing now, but that’s not a reason not to take it.
• Mighty Blow gets the variable modifiers as well (+1 when taking the skill on a regular player, +2 for some Star Players) but now only works when the player with the skill makes the Block action. No more getting hit with that +1 when you roll double skulls. Can’t be used with Stab or a Chainsaw either.
• Pile Driver is Piling On, but instead of a straight-up re-roll it’s a free foul action, so no Mighty Blow or Claw combos here! Is it worse than Piling On? Yes. Am I sad about that fact? Hell no! Piling On had literally no risk to it and turned high tv games into who can roll 7+ the most. This is much better for the game.
• Strong Arm hurts. This now ONLY gives +1 to Throw Team Mate actions which is just…oof. I loved the idea of some throwers with one massive, muscly arm managing massive movement of the ball. I don’t think this was needed, Passing already took a pretty big hit to its effectiveness and having an expensive +1 available in most throwers’ secondaries would have been perfectly fine, especially if they kept it for Short/Long Passes and Long Bombs only.

Mutations Blood Bowl Skill Changes

Unchanged: Big Hand, Disturbing Presence, Extra Arms, Foul Appearance, Horns, Two Heads

Extra Arms and Two Heads continue to be awesome mutation skills and the latter certainly gains some value with Leap getting nerfed.

Changed: Prehensile Tail, Tentacles, Very Long Legs
New: Iron Hard Skin, Monstrous Mouth,

• Iron Hard Skin prevents Claw from being used, but I just don’t see it being used unless the player already has it.
• Prehensile Tail gets a minor change in that is explicitly states only one marking player may use this skill.
• Monstrous Mouth rocks, giving you re-rolls to catch and protection from Strip Ball. This + Extra Arms makes for a superb target for handoffs.
• Tentacles gets a similar change to Shadowing in that it’s 1D6 instead of 2D6 (so that a natural 6 always succeeds) and your target number is 6+. The sequence is different as well, in BB2 it was the marked player that rolled, now it’s the Tentacles player. We’ll do another comparison, with a Strength 5 Rotspawn marking a Strength 3 lineman.
  BB2: The Rotspawn needs to roll a 4+ on 1D6 to hold the Lineman (5+4=9 | 9-3=6), so this is a 50% chance to hold
  BB3: The Lineman needs to roll an 8+ on 2D6 to run away from the Rotter (3+8=11 | 11-5=6), so this is a 41.7% chance to get away, thus a 58.3% chance to be held
  So it’s a bit worse in BB3, but still pretty decent and easier to work out. I prefer it being a roll the Tentacles player has to make too, feels more fluffy!
• Very Long Legs like Leap gets hit hard by the Jump changes. Decent-ish if you have both as Leaping into a regular cage means you ignore 2 of the 3 tackle zones, but the minimum of -1 hurts. +2 to Interfere is fun though!

That pretty much covers all the blood bowl skill changes. If there’s anything we missed or something you think we should cover, let us know!