Continuing our belated look at Blood Bowl Season 2, this time we’re going to take a wee gander at some of our favourite new Blood Bowl Skills, of which there are a fair few! As with any update to anything, we’ve been given a pretty decent selection of brand new skills in this new edition, alongside some of the adjusted ones. Today we’re going to highlight some of the ones I particularly like, whether for competitive reasons or because they have some particularly fun effects! There’s a slight bias to passing/agility skills here just due to how I play, but I do think they’re some of the more interesting ones.

So in no particular order…

Brawler:

Brawler is a skill I feel has been a long time coming. Until now, we’ve been without a block-oriented Re-Roll skill, whereas pretty much all other aspects of the game had something that did so (Dodge, Sure Feet, Pass, Catch etc), allow for more reliable plays and less reliance on Team Re-Rolls.

What I love about this skill is that it gives those with Strength Primaries an alternative to Block, something that you ALWAYS took immediately if you could get it in the old game and may Strength Access players sorely lacked unless they were fortunate enough to roll doubles. Now, your S4 guys are much more reliable and feel like the wall of strength that they should be.

What’s nice as well, is combined with Block, it means that rolling a Both Down isn’t just going to leave two Block players stood in the same spot doing nothing, you can at least try for something else (at your own risk of course). In particular, the Brawl/Block combo is going to be great on Push/Both Down rolls, giving you a chance at a re-rolling for a knockdown, without the risk of a Skull ruining your day as you can just choose the push instead.

Overall I like it, it’s not particularly flashy or anything but it tones down Blocks overall superiority as a skill just a little bit, which is nice considering how ubiquitous it is on high TV teams.

Defensive:

As an elf player, I LOVE Defensive SO MUCH. In the old edition, as an Elf or Agility focused team, there wasn’t really much you could do about Guard other than run away from it and hope the 1s on your D6’s were taking a nap. Now Defensive means you can (on your opponents turn only) cancel our all Guard players adjacent to the Defensive player. This is GREAT as a counter, particularly as part of a screen as it means just throwing Guard players towards you for 2 Dies is going to be much harder with a few Defensive skills in the way about. This is definitely going to be a Skill I give to a few Elf Linemen after Dodge and pared with Side Step is going to do wonders against teams that rely on Guard too much.

It’s a shame it doesn’t work on your turn but I wonder if they tested it and found it was too powerful, it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the case.

Fumblerooskie:

A skill that I feel has been looked over somewhat. When the new PA Stat was revealed and AG2+ players took the hit of no longer being able to casually pass on a 2+/3+ whenever they felt like it, a lot of Coaches thought that Passing focused teams were going to struggle (not the case IMHO, we’ll be fine). Well, with this Skill, you can drop the ball along your player’s movement path without causing a turnover, leaving it free for another one of your players to pick it up.

I feel like it’s going to be great on AG2+ Players, particularly when you’re just out of range of that Hand Off and you’ve already passed with your dedicated thrower. Drop it on the ground not far off the Endzone, pick it up on a 2+ and score! In many ways, it is basically a Hand Off with a bit of Running Pass added in seeing as you can drop it then carry on moving your player. In theory, you can make 3 passing moves in one turn, Pass, Hand Off, Fumblerooskie… that’s a long way for the ball to travel in one turn!

This is DEFINITELY going on my Dark Elf teams who got hit much harder by the Passing trait addition, their Runners are only PA3+ so even Quick Passing isn’t as good as it used to be. It could be pretty strong as well when combined with Witch Elves, as with MV7 they’re very quick and Jump Up means they can easily retrieve a dropped ball nearby.

Running Pass

Something I got VERY excited about when I saw this. In the old edition, once your Thrower had made his pass he was basically out for a turn and often left in no mans land. With this, however, they can toss the ball then join in the fray, something that I think will be perfect on those AV9+ Throwers who will be very useful as a fairly sturdy assist piece.

What I like about it most is your Thrower can now participate a bit more in defending the Catcher after the pass. Before, unless you had Nerves of Steel, you HAD to avoid any tackle zones in order to prevent the -1 modifier, leaving them pretty much doing nothing in the middle of nowhere. Now, however, you can put them in marking duty after the pass, potentially adding TZs to a Sacker or Sweeper, meaning a much better chance of them failing to take down your Catcher.

Again it’s another one for the agility types, but a pretty interesting one I think!

Projectile Vomit

This one is technically considered a “trait”, but it’s too hilarious not to include here. In essence, it’s basically Stab, but with a chance for the Troll (the only ones who seem to get it) to cover themselves in acidic bile on a 1. If you roll a 2+ however, your target is instead covered in acid and an unmodified Amour Roll is made.

I’m not sure if this Skill is good but… who cares?? YOU’RE LITERALLY TAKING DOWN PLAYERS WITH PROJECTILE ACID HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE IT?! It could be good against higher strength targets who have Block, but they tend to be high AV, making it a low chance of actually hurting them. Another viable target is AV8+ Dodge or Blodgestep pieces where you have a pretty low chance of actually getting them down. Obviously, Mighty Blow is better, but the look on an Elf or Skaven coaches face when you MELT THEIR PLAYER, will be priceless.

New Blood Bowl Skills Conclusion 

There’s a bunch of new Blood Bowl skills in this edition and we’re pretty excited to try them out once, y’know, we can get together and play the game! These ones are just a few of our favourites, there are many more besides,

In fact… we’ve even got a poll going to see YOUR favourites!

[democracy id=”2″]

If you’re already starved for Blood Bowl content, remember to check out our Blog & News page for tactics, team ideas and general ramblings about the new edition.

We hope you all have the best 2021 that you can have, we know it’s scary out there at the moment, but please stay safe and hopefully, you can find some fun and & enjoyment from this silly little sports game of ours. Don’t forget that we’ve also begun updating our player builds for you to see which of the new blood bowl skills might be best for your players!