Every time Games Workshop plans an announcement, people hold their breath. First they want to see if the logo for their game is included among those that are going to be mentioned. If it’s not, they’re sad. Games Workshop never thinks about my game. If the logo is present, people begin biting their fingernails like they’re at an immigration interview or a tax audit. This can only go one of two ways and the second one is probably bad.
The “second” one, in this scenario, is inevitably a new edition.
I’ve been back in the hobby just long enough to have seen the game that brought me back into it, Blood Bowl, go through three editions now. I played the 3rd Edition back in the 90’s and, for me, that was Blood Bowl. When I picked up the 2017 starter set though, the rules were more or less the same as I remembered them. In fact, I didn’t notice any difference whatsoever. But I wasn’t one of the die hards who had been playing Blood Bowl during the dark, unsupported years, so I don’t know how much it was changed or tweaked during the Living Rulebook era.
There was a lot of speculation, of course, because the internet is a thing…
What I was aware of was the “Second Season Edition” that came out in 2020. That was a big one. And there were nerves about it. GW is going to change passing! GW is going to nerf various teams! GW might remove a stat! GW might add a stat!
There was a lot of speculation, of course, because the internet is a thing, building and playing miniatures is a very time intensive hobby, and that time means we’re really invested in what happens to the thing we’ve been doing. Also… it was the Pandemic, so people had a lot of time to speculate…
But, in the end… it turned out okay! As a box, it was significantly better than the 2017 box. The rule book had rules for every team. Sure, the Star Player list was pared down but it was still respectable. They did add a stat, Passing, which kind of nerfed Elves but allowed other, non-agile teams to field some throwers if they wanted to.
About the worst thing that could be said about the edition was that the passing table was made kind of strange. Roll a natural “1” and you fumble the ball. Roll less than a 1 after any modifiers and it became a Wild Pass. This meant you pulled out the d8 template, rolled on which direction the ball headed in, and then rolled for distance. Yeah, you could end up throwing the ball behind you. It was a weird rule but it was colorful. And, as all the pros would tell you, it was fine because nobody in their right mind played a passing game in Blood Bowl anyway.
And, for six years, those were the rules that got played with.
I admit that my tournament attendance has dropped to basically one a year but one thing I’ve never heard at any of them were people complaining about the new rules versus the 2017 or pre-2017 rules. They had just been adopted and that was that.
one thing I’ve never heard […] were people complaining about the new rules versus the 2017 rules
Then 2026 rolls around and the rumor mill begins churning about another new edition. And it’s the same cycle all over again.
In terms of playing rules, I think that the Third Season Edition, as it’s called (but not to be confused with the 3rd Edition), was actually a smaller update than the Second Season. No new stat was added this time. There were a couple of tweaks made, for instance a check to see if a non-agile player can pick up the ball if no one is around. And the Wild Pass was removed altogether. Now it’s just a plain old fumble like it was before. They re-organized the rule book, they made skills and traits alphabetical instead of in skill groups. And Star Players, while still valid and a much bigger pool than they were reduced to in 2020, were basically removed from the book itself.
No, the biggest change were the rosters.
Prior to the Third Season, there were teams that essentially required two boxes of miniatures in order to field an effective roster. Orcs were one of these. Each box only came with two blitzers and two black orcs. And, because of the way Games Workshop makes sprues, two throwers came along which was one more than anyone ever considered fielding. So if you wanted to field the full compliment of four blitzers and four black orcs, you needed a second box. Skaven were the same. If you wanted four Gutter Runners, you needed two boxes.
plastic is expensive whereas ink is cheap
Now, I will credit Games Workshop with something and that is that when they put out the Snotlings, aside from the two trolls, you had a complete team. Damned box even came with two pump wagons! And you always had to buy big guys like trolls and ogres separate. But the whole team was in the box. As it was with the Necromantic Horrors, the Norse, Amazons, and on… Maybe the first “one box team” were the Halflings but… they’re halflings… and snots made sense for the same reason. But when the rest of the teams started coming out as one box teams, gotta say, Blood Bowl was looking like a real deal.
The problem is… they decided to make all the teams one box teams. And that didn’t mean they were redesigning any of their sprues. Because plastic is expensive whereas ink is cheap. And because their sprues only included one blitzer and black orc, guess how many the team would now be limited to?
I have to say, it’s kind of weird to make a team that’s been around for a while, like the orcs or the skaven dependent on what kind of sprue you designed ten years before as part of a starter box you weren’t fully sure was going to sell. The old orc and skaven rosters went back to at least the Living Rulebook which meant they probably went back as far as 3rd Edition (90’s). That a lot of meta to toss out because your sprue design has two throwers no one asked for and two blitzers people wanted more of.
But, and this is the last point about new editions, this leads me to what I read someone else say: new editions allow for changes in the meta, whether you want them or not, that stops a guy who’s been playing orcs for twenty years from continuing to play them the way he’s mastered them and win every tournament. The fact is, orcs play different now. I don’t know if they’re better but they’re definitely different.
All of this is strangely relevant now because it’s been announced that Necromunda is getting a new edition called “Warhammer Necromunda Skirmish” or “Warhammer Skirmish Necromunda” or possibly “Necromunda Warhammer Skirmish”. It’s unclear. But it’s already been announced that they’re revising the gangs and superseding the rule books we already have. Since they’ve already stated that we can still play with the gangs we have, one assumes that anything legal now, stays legal, even if there might be some stat changes. But… since no one has seen the books (or they’re not talking if they have) no one really knows yet what changes are coming. They could be good, like a new passing stat. Or they could be weird, like a Wild Pass. But, one thing is for sure. It’s going to be different. And that’s not necessarily bad.
