Do you know what Blood Bowl needs more of? RULES! Lots of rules! – Noone, ever

For some reason I woke up the other day, and my head was just coming up with some really random rules for Blood Bowl! I don’t know why, but I thought I best write them down!

All of the below made up skills are entirely fantastical and not meant to be balanced! Just some (maybe) fun ideas I’ve had floating around in my head. Do indeed try these at home kids!

Let’s begin!

New Skill: Back Pass
When I first started playing Blood Bowl, I’d often describe it as “Rugby where you can tackle anyone… foul people and players die”, before I realised that American Football was more apt as a comparison. Still, I really like Rugby and I’ve always thought it would be cool to try a Rugby style approach to the game, but with your passes limited to one per turn (2 if you count handoffs), it’s not quite the same. Introducing the entirely balanced Back Pass!

If a player has this skill and the ball, they can pass the ball backwards (right?!) as many times as you like, but if you do so, you can’t pass/handoff regularly, in essence, it “replaces” the normal passing rules. You can only pass at the “Quick Pass” distance and the regular passing rules apply (fumbles, modifiers for tackle zones, etc).

This might make for some interesting plays and may work well with Dump Off as well. It might be too powerful with how quickly you can move the ball from one side of the pitch to the other but hopefully, the backwards only rule with stop you advancing too far too quickly. Or it’s too weak and a regular passing game just trumps it in every respect!

New Skill: Header!
Yet another real-life sports-inspired blood bowl skill! You know what’s fun…. interceptions. You know what rarely happens…. interceptions! Introducing the Header skill!

If a player with this skill attempts an interception, the can try to knock the ball away with their giant slab heads. Again, this is probably poorly balanced but hey ho…. Rather than the usual -2 for interceptions, if this player uses this skill they roll a D6. On a 1-4, nothing happens and the pass occurs normally. On a 5 however, the player manages to just get enough on the ball to interrupt the pass, causing the ball to scatter D6. On a 6, the player manages to direct the ball with their forehead, and the ball is now treated as a being inaccurately passed at Short Pass distances.

I quick like this one!

New Skill: Landing
It’s no secret I love Halfings, and I was really hoping we’d get a Throw Team Mate specialist with the new rules (the catcher is good but, not quite what I was looking for). So how about something that might make tossing your halfings across the pitch just a little better! This one is a bit boring, maybe just a reroll or +1 to landing in an empty square, but I’d love a skill that strikes fear into my opponent once he sees that Halfling fly over his front line!

New Skill: Spiky Bits
This blood bowl skill might be super situational, but could be REALLY fun! Here, the player adds additional spikes to their armour (even more so than usual!) so that when they’re thrown at another player they cause extra damage! If the thrown player lands on a square occupied by another player, they add +1 to the armour roll against the opponent. Hopefully, this will increase the amount of Goblins and Halfings being used as missiles…. so beneficial for EVERYONE!

I hoped you enjoyed these slightly random and totally balanced (*clears throat*) skills. Maybe one day GW will see this post and implement them into the game 😉