I mentioned meta as a concept when I wrote about the announcement of the new Necromunda edition back in July but I thought it would be interesting to address it specifically again in light of a lot of the changes that have been made that I’m not in love with.
Not too long ago, there was a thing called the Living Rule Book (LRB) for Blood Bowl. You can still find it and download it. It kind of fit somewhere between Blood Bowl 3rd edition and the official Blood Bowl relaunch in 2016. It was based off the rules of 3rd edition but it had some tweaks here and there the community had made in some kind of consultation with Games Workshop and it basically kept the game going through the “dark days” of no official support. With this being the case, and the 3rd edition having been released in 1994, players who favored Orc teams fundamentally played the same team for close on thirty years.
Yes, Black Orc Blockers were renamed Big’un Blockers in BB2020 because GW decided they wanted an actual Black Orc team. But the basic concept of 0-16 linemen, 0-4 blitzers, 0-4 black orcs, 0-2 throwers, 0-1 trolls, and a handful of goblins remained more or less intact from 1994 until the release of the “Second Season” edition this year.
someone who got really good at playing orcs in Blood Bowl back in the late 90’s could comfortably play the same team up until very recently
This is not to say the game didn’t change. Old teams that had been in the LRB disappeared. New teams were added. But it’s safe to say that someone who got really good at playing orcs in Blood Bowl back in the late 90’s could comfortably play the same team up until very recently. And this is because they knew the “meta” of the team. They knew what skills to give a leveled up black orc to make him more dangerous. They knew how to use Block on a blitzer to maximum effect. They knew when to cage around a thrower and when to let him out to grab that touchdown.
They had to make adjustments. When playing against elves, they had to worry over the agile bastards Dodging into the cage. And Undead teams and mummies were something even black orc blockers had to worry about. But, fundamentally, they knew how their team held together and could play them essentially the same.
Until this year.
This year, Games Workshop decided that all teams should be one box teams, meaning a single box at the hobby store got you all the guys you needed to field a team. Which was great news for new players but less good for our hypothetical orc player. Every box only contains two sprues of miniatures and every sprue only has one blitzer and one (as was) black orc. But, also, one thrower.
Guess what orc players would field four of but never two of? If your answer was blitzers/black orcs and throwers, I haven’t lost you!
But, now, these are the rules for orc teams and they play fundamentally differently. No more can you make up a line of four of the toughest orcs in the game with four fast, blocking orcs coming around the side to flank you. Now you have half. The game our orc player thought he knew changed under his feet. And it didn’t just happen to him. Ask Skaven players how they felt about losing half their Gutter Runners.
Is this a flaw? I would argue it’s not. In fact, thirty years of playing the same team in much the same way actually sounds more like the flaw. Perhaps after year fifteen, it’s fair to assume that that is just how an orc Blood Bowl team is supposed to play but no where is it guaranteed.
I’ve played the meta with my Roses of Saint Sydrena, a Sororitas-inspired Escher gang I’ve written about before (and will write more about another time). The whole concept was a gang of Escher who found and adopted Sororitas armor and, to make it work, I had to equip them with actual armor. But the old N23 carapace armor was kind of crap and expensive to boot! But mesh armor with an armored undersuit, well… it provides all the same protection for far fewer credits and none of the drawbacks.
Needless to say, with the release of N26, this playing the meta bit me and my concept in the butt. There were no longer dozens of types of armor to pick and choose from. Now, there’s basically no armor or really expensive armor and not a lot of space in between. I used my knowledge of the rules to try to get something cheaper than I should have. Now I’m paying full freight.
Most people also exploited the rules when it came to juves, if I’m being honest. Canonically, juves have always been shit. They’re disposable members of a gang that you used to soak up bullets and maybe get a lucky shot in. The fact that people leaned into the pluses of cheap weapons to make them actually useful was a version of playing the meta. Juves were never good. They were never meant to be good. But, that we found the right rules combination to make them okay, was playing the meta. In N26 juves are, well… just garbage. Perhaps this is what was always intended. Perhaps they over-corrected. But the meta around them changed.
As I explored my various gangs and their recomposition into N26 gangs, I discovered something interesting. The closer I stayed to the rules as intended (RAI) the less my gangs had to change. The more I exploited the various nooks and crannies of the rules as written (RAW), the more I found my gangs weren’t making the transition. The perfect example here is the difference between my Orlock gang versus my Enforcer gang. My enforcers were straight down the middle in terms of concept and execution and they remain, essentially the same gang. My Orlocks, well… less so.
The closer I stayed to the rules as intended (RAI) the less my gangs had to change
I brought up a version of this in my criticism of N26, the idea of testing something for how it’s supposed to be used versus how it’s actually used. In software we have to deal with this all the time. I imagine it’s the same in game-rules design. But instead of having clients break things in new and interesting ways, there are tens of thousands of gamers looking at your rules to find the smallest edge. It’s almost like it’s half the job of a game designer to find and patch the RAW so that they match the RAI.
Obviously games change between editions. I don’t think anyone knows this more than a 40k player. And, as much as I like to sometimes tease 40k and 40k players, getting a new edition every three years and various changes issued online in the meantime means they’re constantly having to roll with the changes to their army’s meta and the game’s meta as a whole.
My argument isn’t that we’re owed the same interactions with our gangs or armies or teams every edition. Rather, it’s the opposite. As these things change, we actually need to change with them. And there’s no hard and fast way to future-proof your gaming collection against what might come. But one way to guarantee you’ll wind up burned is to rules lawyer your way into believing one specific, perhaps niche way is the only right way to play. In that way lies only madness.
