Talk Fantasy Football

Not sure if this has been mentioned anywhere yet, but from this source:

Cyanide is also pleased to announce a new partnership has been signed for the third edition of Blood Bowl, the iconic game from Games Workshop. Blood Bowl 3 will coincide with the release of the new paper edition in 2020, which is being revamped with all-new game rules. More information about Blood Bowl 3 will be shared in the coming months.

Relevant part is "the new paper edition in 2020, which is being revamped..."

Any news and/or rumours here?

Oh good, another edition. And no reason to keep anything mirrored to CRP


Is 2020 not just a bit hot on the heals of 2016 which is still releasing rules?

Can we panic now?

Yes. Yes we can.

Interesting find Dode!
I think 4 years for a rules edition is pretty long for most gaming systems. Even for Blood Bowl it's been pretty frequent except for the two long periods between 3rd and 4th and CRP and BB 2016.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Bowl - see history.

First ed to 4th ed were every 3-6 years it appears followed by an LRB every 1-2 years for 8 years then a 7 year gap before BB2016.

I'd guess given the low level of resources available for BB rules writing and the success of the gaming system with minimal changes in BB2016 I would guess GW wouldn't want to make much in the way of changes. They would want it to be compatible with all the Spikes that came before as they clearly don't have the resources to rerelease all the teams again in a short period.

Splash release of a new edition puts it back in the friendly local gaming stores and allows a new generation of gamers to get the bug. Spike's really only cater to the existing addicts.

I see a system of alternate activations of the miniatures

And a box lizardmen VS amazons

Any word on who is creating the rules anywhere? Is it the same team as 2016 edition, or not?

On Facebook some are noting this may be a mistranslation of the Cyanide post. I think the word coincide (in French) means more 'to match' (the BB2016 rules set) rather then 'timed to occur at the same time as' (a new edition.)

Not sure what is true but I think it's probably unlikely GW would allow a licensed video game to inform the public their release of a new table top rules set before GW could formally announce it.

I hope you're right, and the "coincide" thing may well be true. That still leaves "the release of the new paper edition in 2020, which is being revamped with all-new game rules" to deal with.

As a French Canadian reading the press release, "coincide" is to be understood as to "accompany". So both the computer game and the tabletop game would probably be released around the same time.

I imagine that if they took the game apart the community would simply ignore them. FUMBBL still exists. The NAF control most of the competition rules as opposed to GW. While they seem likely to keep it close to the GW rules if they make changes here and there to rosters I think any wholesale change of the game would be met with opposition.

So it seems likely it will just be an update on par with what BB2016 did to the game.

Though it does seem weird that GW allowed it to be announced this way so maybe it is a typo on the new rules?

In English, the whole press release is misleading and can be understood in at least two different ways. In French, it's very precise. It says something along the lines: "Blood Bowl 3 will accompany the new paper edition which will change skin in 2020, through a complete overhaul of its game rules."

It can't be misunderstood.

But also, it's not originating from Games Workshop, so it's not canonical!

I'll copy my initial FUMBBL post on what I think.

Well firstly; this information is coming from Cyanide...not GW. So the more cooks passing along the information, the more chance of mis-comunication. My initial thoughts are:

I think the fact that Cyanide are making a new edition isn't anything spectacular. As long as the game is popular, they'll make new editions. So my thoughts on the possibilities are as follows:

A: There's no actual confirmation that anything is going to change on the 'paper' edition. This is all coming through the computer games network and very liable to be inaccurate or hyped. It could be very well that a new version with all new rules put in one box is released or a compendium or compendium of a compendium (i.e. almost no impact to us). Cyanide have a fair bit to catch up and remove to be 2016 compliant anyway.

B: Due to the relative success of Cyanide's game, they've decided to up their involvement in the game. They have now a percentage of control over the actual game and with GW will make a new version, that'll be tailored to the computer game market as well as the TT market. Instead of what is now where the computer game's an adaption of a board game.

C: Blood Bowl as it is, essentially isn't a GW made game. The game is what the community developed and has been taken back by GW; who are now making changes. This is possibly a problem (that BBRC has made a large part of the game GW are selling). Possibly legally this is a problem, so they wish to have full control and full rights of their current game and intellectual property.

All 3 I think all are very plausible. I'd say A is the most conservative and therefore the most likely.

and then some follow up:

From PC Gamer

"which will hopefully address at least some of James' complaints in his 2015 Blood Bowl 2 review, particularly its reliance on dice rolls for even the simplest actions"

"The basic pitch is kooky, turn-based fantasy football, but what’s actually there feels needlessly convoluted and difficult to parse for newcomers,"

Clearly from these 2 statements PC Gamer (and possibly Cyanide (surely not but from the past mistakes...)) do not understand the position of Blood Bowl. They are believing that the game can be changed considerably to be tailored to Cyanide's game as that's Blood Bowl...right? However the reality is that the game is successful due to it being a port of the board game. Without the board game existing, Cyanide's game would be long gone....proof of that is the lack of success of the real time version.

So...all my theories still stand. B suggests what PC Gamer are suggesting. However the lack of knowledge shown in that article A or C are just as likely. The article (for me) shows a lack of understanding BB or the current position of BB.

Ask this question. Let's say that GW mess around with the rules so much it's basically a new version. Where would the NAF stand on that? If the new version (which it would very much likely) be an inferior version of the rules they play.

The NAF have shown they can stand alone without GW, and probably wouldn't down grade. What would happen to FUMBBL? Christer in the past has stated he'd follow NAF's standpoint. And what would happen to Cyanide? They'd almost certainly lose their high end competitive scene and would consist of GW fanboys the established Cyanide scene, and the game's reputation, but would not come from the competitive BB scene anymore. Is that enough or would prove to be more popular? I very much doubt it. In the past Cyanide have shown an amazing lack of knowledge of the BB scene.........so the above scenario is I guess possible but probably not that plausible.

Wow this story has really taken off. Newest rumour is it's going age of sigmar based. So possibly it's going to be more roster based overhaul. Thus GW and cyanide would align. Rosters in the past have been a sticking point between the 2.

No one has refuted it yet. Maybe this is telling? Hopefully JY-T or someone in a similar position can say something on this subject.