These rules are designed to sort out some of the problems with the way that Big Guys (Ogres, Trolls, Rat Ogres, etc.) work in Blood Bowl. The current rules are okay as far as they go, but putting Big Guys on the Star Player cards was a fudge really, an as time has passed by I’ve become less than happy with using the Star Player cards as a method of getting Big Guys into the game. After all, according to the background you can have entire teams of Big Guys (the Oldheim Ogres being the most notable example), and I now feel that they should really be treated as races in their own right, with a team list just like the other races get, and that they should be incorporated into other teams using something like the Mixed Race Team rules that appeared in Citadel Journal #7. This would leave the Star Player cards to represent unique one-of Star Players.

Linked to the above is one very important question (to me, at least), which is: Why, in the game’s background, have teams of Big Guys always done so badly? After all, no team I can think of could take on even 11 Morgs (let alone 16!), but the Oldheim Ogres aren’t one of the really great teams, while the Craggen Counts (a team of Vampires!) was ‘systematically put out of its misery by its fans’. How could these things happen when Star Players of these races are so good?

The answer is, I think, that Star Players like Morg N’Thorg are truly exceptional players that lack a highly debilitating quirk or failing found in all other players of that race. Therefore, when writing up non-star players Big Guys, they should be given a really bad negative skill which crocks them enough to make taking a whole team of them as attractive as taking a team of Snotlings.

But enough ‘why’, let’s get on to ‘how’! The following rules are very rough at the moment, more of a discussion document than anything else. The rules are written for the ‘vanilla’ version of the game – i.e. the stuff from Blood Bowl and Death Zone only. If you want to add stuff from elsewhere (like the Journal), prepare to improvise! Finally, the rules are strictly optional, and should not be used without an opponent’s consent.

When using the Big Guy rules, you are only allowed to include one of each Star Player in your team. You couldn’t have more than one Morg, let alone four Count Luthor von Drakenborgs! On the other hand there is no limit on the total number of Star Players allowed in the team, just so long as they are all different. In addition, ignore the bit on the card, which tells you which team the Star Player will play for; this is replaced by the new Mixed Race Team rules below.

These rules replace the Mixed Race Teams from Journal 7. All teams now have a list of allied races, as shown on the table below. A team can draw allied players from any allied race. Allied players can be selected from the appropriate team list, or be a star player of the appropriate race. The limits on the number of players allowed in a team must be divided by four, rounding up, when selecting allied players for a mixed race team. For example, an Orc team can normally have up to 4 Black Orcs. This means that a team selecting Black Orc allies could have a quarter of this total (1 Black Orc) in the team. Star Players simply count as a player of their race. So, for example, if a Human team hired Griff Oberwald, he would simply count as one of the team’s Bltizers (albeit a very special one!), but if a High Elf team hired him he would count as a Human ally.

Allied players are hired using the normal rules. However, if you take a second or subsequent allied player for your team while there is still another alive and kicking in the ranks, then your fan factor is immediately reduced by 1 point to represent fans giving up on the team for hiring ‘foreign’ players. Fan factors lost in this way are gone for good, and can’t be reinstated if the player later leaves or is killed (although you can still gain fan factors after a match by rolling on the fan factor table). The only exception to this rule is ‘stunty’ players. Because fans don’t mind the little blokes so much (they’re ‘team mascots’), you can include up to 4 in the team before its fan factor will go down (i.e. each player with the ‘stunty’ skill only counts as ¼ when reducing fan factors).

A team with a fan factor of 1 can try and hire allied players if the coach wants. Pay out the money for the player and then roll a D6: 1-3 = the player is intimidated by the hate mail he receives and runs off (with his hiring fee, the git!); 4-6 = the player sticks it out and remains with the team. In either case, the team’s Fan Factor remains at 1 point.

Bull Centaurs, Rat Ogres & Trolls: Note that these aren’t on the list of allies above. This is because they are going to be incorporated directly into the Chaos Dwarf, Skaven and Goblin team lists!

Chaos: The fan factor of a Chaos team is not reduced for hiring allied players. However the special rules about team rerolls (see below) do apply.

The maximum number of allied Big Guys allowed for any team is 2 in total. This means that the only type of team allowed to include more than 2 Big Guys in its line up is an actual team of Big Guys (Ogres or Minotaurs).

Undead: Undead players cannot be hired by other teams, as they need the team Necromancer to, erm, remain active.

Finally note that it is intentional that some races can be taken as allies by a race they can’t ally with themselves. For example, Chaos Dwarf teams can include Goblin allies, but Goblin teams can’t include Chaos Dwarfs (after all, can you imagine a proud Chaos Dwarf playing for a team of Goblins!)

There is no denying that mixed race teams are simply not as efficient and well trained as other teams. To represent this the coach of the mixed race team must roll 1D6 for each allied player in his team at the start of each half (and the start of overtime if it occurs). Each dice that comes up with a ‘1’ reduces the number of team rerolls the coach has for that period by 1. If a team doesn’t have enough team rerolls to meet the loss, then the opposing team gains a number of rerolls equal to the shortfall. For example, a team with 4 allied payers and only 1 reroll manages to get three 1s at the start of a half. This reduces its rerolls to none, and gives the opposing team an extra two rerolls to use for the half! Note that this especially cruel if you go into overtime, as you are very unlikely to have any team rerolls left to have to give up!

In most leagues a Head Coach simply isn’t going to be able to field a team full of Big Guys, because they are not going to be able to afford to buy 11 players and still stick within budget! Therefore the Big Guys in the following list will nearly always be taken as allies for other teams, rather than fielded as a team in their own right.

League Commissioners who so desire should feel free to allow coaches to field Big Guy teams, but they will need to bump up the starting budget of the team to allow this to happen. Single race Big Guy teams must be chosen from a single line on the list below (i.e. all Ogres, all Vampires, etc.) and can’t take any allied players apart from Star Players of the same race (so you could include Morg in a team of Ogres, for example). By the way, note that all Big Guys are limited to a maximum of 12 per team, which means that you can’t have more than a 12 man Big Guy squad.

Not all the Big Guys are included above. Instead some are to be added straight into existing team lists. Therefore add the Bull Centaur shown below to the Chaos Dwarf team list, the Rat Ogre shown below to the Skaven team list, and the Troll shown below to the Goblin team list.

Skills marked on the list above with an asterisk (*) are new and detailed below.

Always Hungry: The player is always ravenously hungry – and what’s more he’ll eat absolutely anything! Should a player with this skill ever use the Throw Team Mate skill, roll a D6 after he picks the player to be thrown up, but before he throws them. On a roll of 1 he attempts to eat the unfortunate player! Roll the D6 again, a second 1 means that he successfully scoffs the other player down, with obviously fatal results for the latter. On a roll of 2-6 the other player squirms free and should be placed prone in a randomly selected adjacent square (if the square is occupied then the original occupant is pushed back and knocked over).

Bone Head: Roll a D6 before taking an action for a player with this skill. On a roll of 1 they stand around trying to remember what it is they’re meant to be doing. This means that they can’t do anything for the turn, and they lose their tackle zone until they manage to roll something other than a 1 at the start of a turn. In addition, bone-headed players must take their actions last of all during a turn unless there is a player from the team that is not a bonehead or really stupid in an adjacent square. This simply reflects the slow-witted and sluggish nature of these creatures unless there is someone around to tell them to get a move on (and now you know why the Ogre on the cover has a Goblin under his arm!).

Really Stupid: This is treated in exactly the same way as the Bone Head skill above, except that the player can’t do anything on a roll of 1-3 instead of only a ‘1’ unless there is a friendly player in an adjacent square who is neither a Bone Head or Really Stupid too (i.e. if there’s a sneaky Goblin next to the Troll, treat the Troll as a Bone Head rather than really stupid!).

Take Root: Roll a D6 for the player before the match starts. On a roll of 1-3 the player is slumbering in a wood somewhere and misses the match all together!

Wild Animal: A player with this skill tends to get a bit, erm, carried away during a match, and rather lets his natural enthusiasm overcome him. Wild Animals must take their actions first of all during a turn; if you take an action with Wild Animal after having moved a player that is not a Wild Animal, and then your opponent can call you for Illegal Procedure exactly as if you had forgotten to move the turn marker. In addition you must roll a D6 before taking an action with a Wild Animal. On a roll of 1 he goes berserk. Berserk players immediately drop the ball if they have it, which causes a turnover ate the ‘end’ of their action. The berserk player will then attempt to block the nearest player – friend or foe – attacking him as if her were making a frenzied blitz move. The berserk player will always go for an opposing player if there’s a choice, but otherwise decide randomly whom he goes for. The berserk move does count as the team’s Blitz action, with the exception that it can be made even if another Wild Animal from the team has already gone berserk and blitzed. Berserk Wild Animal – do – have to ‘Go For It’ in order to try and knock their victim over!

Whenever the player makes a block, it must be against the enemy player that was closest to him at the start of his move. If several enemy players are equally close you may choose whom to throw the block against. Note that this rule also means that wild animals force to attack friendly models must of for the nearest one.

For example, a Rat Ogre is given a Blitz action. There is an enemy model two square away and another one holding the ball that is three squares away. Although you want the Rat Ogre to block the ball carrier, you can’t, as he must throw the clock at the player that was closer at the start of the move.

Finally, if the closest enemy player is prone, then the player will foul them instead of throwing a block. They may do this even if another player from the same team has made a foul already during the turn.

Most Big Guys are very slow learners and so must earn double the SPPs to gain a Star Player Roll. For example, a rookie Big Guy needs to earn 11 SPPs to become ‘experienced’ and gains his first roll.

All Big Guys, with the exception of Vampires, are limited to taking Strength and General skills only. Vampires can take Agility and General skills only.

In addition, Big Guys are not allowed to use doubles on Star Player rolls to pick skills from categories not normally allowed to them. Instead a Big Guy can use a double on a Star Player Roll to do one of the following:

1. Add +1 to his Strength
2. Add +1 to his Armor Value
3. Remove any one skill he no longer wants!

Note that strength and armor values still can’t be improved by more than 2 points over their starting value, or to greater than 10 no matter what.

In my first version of the Big Guy rules, I lumped Vampires in with the rest of the Big Guys. With hindsight this probably wasn’t the best place for them. Although Vampires are as powerful in game terms as a typical Big Guy, the fact of the matter is that they are neither big nor stupid, and therefore the revised Big Guy rules don’t serve them all that well. A simple option would have been to add Vampires as an option to an Undead team, but I didn’t really like this all that much because it would mean that you couldn’t have all Vampire teams, and it wouldn’t really reflect the relationship between Vampires and Necromancers (e.g. Necromancers actually create and control most of the undead players in their team; Vampires on the other hand are free willed, intelligent creatures).

So instead I’ve come up with the following new rules for Vampire teams.

Vampires are amongst the most feared of all the Undead creatures in the Old World. These terrifying creatures of the night are incredibly strong and fast, and have a supernatural ability to transfix a living opponent to the spot with a withering hypnotic stare.

Considering this, it is strange that Vampires have proved so singularly unsuccessful at the sport of Blood Bowl. It’s true that they are not at their best during the hours of daylight, but they are still deadly opponents nonetheless. No, it is not the Vampire’s lack of ability on the field that has led to their downfall, but their behaviors off it. The fact of the matter is that the main reason for the Vampires’ failure is their woeful lack of control when confronted by a stadium full of what is (to a Vampire at least) their absolute favorite tipple – a pint or two of a living creature’s nice warm blood! What this means is that at any given time it is not uncommon for the bulk of the Vampires in a team to be found in the stands, grabbing a quick bite as it were, rather than playing Blood Bowl on the field like they should be doing. This is, of course, excellent news fro the team playing against the Vampires, if slightly less good news for the rival team fans…

Nonetheless, Vampire teams do play Blood Bowl. A Vampire Lord, a rather stronger willed and powerful member of the Vampire race, coaches all Vampire teams. Vampire Lords are exceptionally intelligent creatures who thirst for power over other races. This being the case exactly why they should want to coach a Blood Bowl team is by no means certain, especially as the team under their command rarely does very well, but nonetheless they do so.

All of the other players in a vampire team are the Vampire Lord’s creations: Vampires or human thralls. The vampires were once living creatures, which were almost – but not quite – slain by the Vampire Lord and then brought back to life as lesser Vampires under his command. Vampire teams generally also include a number of human thralls; weak willed mortal creatures that are willing to serve the Vampire Lord in return for the promise of immortality at some time in the future.

Vampire Lords are player coaches, and actually take part in the game rather than simply yelling at the players (and referee) from the sidelines. Although the Vampire Lord represents you, they must still be bought for the team, as shown on the team list below. The team will keep on functioning normally even if the Vampire Lord is killed, it being assumed that the next in line of the Vampires in the team (i.e. the one with the most SPPs) will elevate to the status of Vampire Lord and take over. The Vampire that takes over the team immediately loses the ‘off for a bite’ negative skill as soon as the old Vampire Lord dies, and its entry on the roster should be changed straight away to show that it is the new Vampire Lord of the team. Note that since you can only have one Vampire Lord per team, the only time you can ever purchase a Vampire Lord for a team is when it is first created! If for some reason there isn’t a Vampire to take over the team when the Vampire Lord dies, then the team will disband after the match.

Reroll Counter: 50,000

Off For A Bite: Roll a D6 for each player with this skill each time you want to set them up on the pitch. On a roll of 4-6 they can be set up normally, but on a roll of 1-3 they’ve popped into the crowd to bite the lily-white neck of an attractive maiden – and who can blame them! (steady, Jervis! – Ed), and can’t be used this drive.

Other Special Rules: Although Vampires and Vampire Lords are not considered to be Big Guys as such; they still earn star player points at half the normal rate (the Undead are such slow learners!), and they can use doubles to get rid of their negative ‘Off For a Bite’ skill. Vampires and Vampire Lords may take skills from the General, Agility and Strength categories. Human thralls are treated as human linemen for the purposes of gaining skills, etc.

And that’s that, for the time being at least! As I said right at the start of this article, these rules are still at an experimental stage, so don’t’ feel that you have to use them. If you do decide to do so, however, then please write in after your league’s tried them out for a while to let us know how things went. Good luck, and keep rolling those 6’s!

Q. JJ mentions that a team that used ‘Black Orc allies’ would be able to hire one Black Orc. This isn’t to say that a team, which was allowed Orcs as Allies, would be forced to choose whether to use Black Orc Allies, or Orc Throwers, for example – would it? Or is a team which can use Orcish Allies ‘limited’ to 3 (Orc) Linemen, 1 Thrower, 1 Black Orc, and 1 Blitzer?

Jervis: Correct. The team is limited to 3 (Orc) Linemen, 1 Thrower, etc.

Q. Griff would count as one of the Human team’s normal allotment of four Blitzers. Does this mean that a Human team could no longer take 4 human Blitzers (at only 90K apiece) and Griff Oberwald?

Jervis: Correct.

Q. How do the new Allied rules affect team roster limits? Is a Human team limited to 4 Catchers, no matter what race they may cull their Catchers from? Or does this just apply to Star Players of that race?

If this is the case, does The Mighty Zug, ‘Star Blocker’, count as a Human Blitzer? Does Hakflem Skuttlespike, ‘Star Mutant’, count as a Gutter Runner?

Jervis: Allies don’t count against the position limits of the team they join unless they are of the same race as that team. With regard to Zug and Hakflem, please use common sense to decide what position they count as playing in.

Q. Stunties only count for a loss of ¼ of a Fan Factor. According to the rules (as presented), a team that hires a Goblin ally and then a Dark Elf ally loses a FF point (because the Dark Elf ally was chosen with another ally ‘alive and kicking in the ranks’). If the same team were to hire the Dark Elf first, then the Goblin (as ‘1 of 4’) wouldn’t necessitate the loss of 1 FF.

Jervis: I’d say that you’d lose the FF either way (i.e. all fractions should be rounded up).

Q. Presumably, one now needs to be able to hire goblin allies to use Trolls as Allies, since Trolls won’t be a separate team, correct?

Jervis: Correct.

Q. Vampires aren’t on the Undead team roster - all well and good. However, shouldn’t Vampires, as Undead, be exempt from the loss of FF rule when playing for an Undead team? I can hardly imagine some fan of the Champions of Death going ‘ Geez, another dead player – I’m not rooting for these stiffs anymore!’

Jervis: I’d say yes to both questions (i.e. they do cause the team to lose FF and you do have to roll for the loss of rerolls).

Q. What are the guidelines for an Ally to force a loss of reroll at the start of each half? If the player is missing the game due to a Niggling Injury or a Serious Injury suffered in his last game, foes the Coach still have to roll for him? If the player dies or becomes Badly Hurt or Seriously Injured in the first half, does he need to be rolled for after halftime?

Jervis: You always have to roll (the loss represents the disruption to training and team spirit as much as anything else).

Q. Wild Animal – what, exactly, is the drawback to this skill? In theory, a Wild Animal could end up attacking one of his won players – but any tie means that he can attack the opposition. The potential to let lone Rat Ogres wander by themselves, occasionally springing ‘gift Blitzes’ on the other team, just seems a bit open to abuse.

Jervis: The drawback is that you lose some control over the player, and that they might end up trashing one of your own guys (which causes a turnover, by the way, as one of your own players will have been knocked down in you own turn!). This being said, I ten to agree that Wild Animal isn’t much of a negative skill, so I’m working on a new ‘unimproved’ version!

Q. JJ says that Big Guys must earn ‘double the SPPs’ to gain new skills, and then quotes 11 SPPs as the first skill cut off (as opposed to 12, which is double the usual 6). Should this really read: ‘it takes 11 SPPs for them to gain their first skill, and they then progress from there? Or should the SPP list for Big Guys and Vampires become a rather unsightly 12/22/52/102/etc?

Jervis: This is simply 2x5=10, etc. In other words you double the number before the break point, not the number after it.

Q. Can Rat Ogres use doubles on skill rolls to gain Physical Abilities? What about Minotaurs?

Jervis: Yes to both questions.

Q. Does a new Vampire Lord gain a point of MA upon attaining that status? Or does he just lode his ‘Off For a Bite’ skill? What if he’s lost that skill already? Or is a Vampire team that loses its original Lord just a ‘helluva’ lot worse off?

Jervis: You’re just a helluva lot worse off!

Q. Can Vampires and Vampire Lords use doubles on skill rolls to add +1 to their ST or AV? Can they choose Claws or Razor Sharp Fangs on doubles? (Just curious)

Jervis: Not at present, but nice idea.

Q. Can Vampire or Big Guy teams employ Wizards? And whoever heard of a Minotaur Wizard, anyway?

Jervis: Yes they can – and whoever said a wizard has to be of the same race as the team they play for?

Q. Do Undead players need double the SPPs to advance in skill level?

Jervis: No.