Most fans are familiar with the origins of Blood Bowl: how the Orc warband leader Mungk stumbled upon the strange silver dome that was actually the Shrine of Nuffle, and the Dwarf seer known later as Roze-El explained the secret rituals to the astonished armies. The Dwarves made sure they kept the actual rulebooks a very closely guarded secret, and for more than a hundred years, only the enlightened eyes of the seers could gaze upon the holy texts of Nuffle.

One day in 2500, however, a High Elf warrior from Ulthuan named Sethryn Wyrmsbane led a scouting party deep into the halls of the great shrine. His goal was simple: find a clause in the rulebooks that forbade the inclusion of lesser races on the field, so the High Elves could have the game to themselves!

While Wyrmsbane did not find what he wanted, he did stumble upon something far more important. Locked away in a vault was a dusty old tome. The language was difficult to understand, but by studying the pictures contained in the text, the High Elf saw how warriors playing the sacred game could 'kick' the ball during play. Apparently, a player could actually kick the ball to score; he didn't have ot carry the ball over the goal line itself. Kicking the ball wasn't quite like passing it, however. It seemed to involve a special ritual of surrendering possession, so in every case, a team that kicked the ball away had to surrender its initiative and let the other team run a play.

Wyrmsbane declared his mission a success and took the book back to Ulthuan, where High Elf scholars well versed in the game of Blood Bowl pored over the contents. When they finally finished, they explained the new rules to their fellow High Elves and began training their Phoenix Warriors in the ways of kicking.

Eventually news of this reached the Dwarf seers, who were none too pleased with High Elves encroaching on what had long been 'Dwarf territory.' They weren't very happy with the new rules, either, as Dwarfs have shorter legs than most other races! The High Elves weren't surprised, and accused the Dwarfs of hiding the book when the game was discovered for just that reason. The Dwarfs denied this vehemently, of course, and after entering the name of Sethryn Wyrmsbane in the Great Book of Grudges, they began what is sure to be a long debate about the 'proper' place of these rules in the game of Blood Bowl!

These rules are designed to allow you to include Kickers in your Blood Bowl league. If you want to use these rules, you'll need to make a few alterations to the usual Blood Bowl rulebook. The first thing you'll need, of course, is Kickers, but you'll also find rules for new skills and modifications to the usual game of Blood Bowl.

Adding Kickers to a roster is very simple. Any team that has passers can hire Kickers instead. 'Passers' can be Skaven Throwers, Dwarf Runner, Phoenix Warriors - really any such players, so long as they have normal access to Passing skills.

If the Passer has the Pass skill, then the Kicker gets the Kick skill instead. Additionally, he loses access to Passing skills and gains access to Kicking skills, which are explained below.

The player has the same cost as a Passer of his race. If your league uses allies, you can take a Kicker ally from any allied race that uses Passers.

Once per team turn, a player on the moving team is allowed to make a Kick action. The player is allowed to make a normal move, and after he has completed the move, he must kick the football. Note that the player does not have to be holding the ball at the start of the action; he could use his Movement allowance to run over and pick up a dropped ball and then kick it, for example.

First, the Coach must declare where the player is trying to kick the ball. To do this, he lines up the Throw-in template over the player's head, with the 3-4 arrow (which indicates the intended direction) aimed at any adjacent square.

Next, the coach must make a roll to get the kick away. Look up the player's Agility on the Agility table to find the score required to successfully kick the ball.

Roll a D6, and add or subtract any of the modifiers that apply to the dice roll. A roll of 1 before modification always fails, and a roll of 6 before modification always succeeds. If the final modified score equals or beats the required roll, the player has kicked the ball away without mishap. If the dice roll is less than the required total, then the kick has been shanked, with the effects described below.

A player who has successfully kicked the ball away must then roll a D6 for the direction of the kick, using the Throw-in template. A roll of 3-4 is right on target, but any other roll will indicate that the kick has been shanked, if it wasn't already!

The ball will travel a number of squares equal to the roll of one dice plus the player's Agility score. A shanked kick will travel half this distance, rounded down (so a roll of 2 plus an Agility of 3 yields a 5, which is cut in half and rounded down to two squares).

If a kicked ball lands in a square occupied by a standing player, then that player may attempt to catch it, following the normal rules for catching the football (the kick counts as an unaccurate pass +0). If it lands in a square that contains a prone player, or in an unoccupied square, then it will bounce as normal.

A kicked ball that goes into the stands is immediately thrown back in by the eager spectators, again following the usual rules. The one exception to this is a ball that is kicked clear over the last seven squares in an opposing team's End Zone. This is called a 'Field Goal,' and is covered below.

When a player kicks the football, various things can go wrong. Usually the ball will go in the wrong direction, or fall short of the goal. These events are handled by the normal Kicking rules. Sometimes, however, the Kicker may completely fumble the kick, dropping the ball in his own square, or an opposing player may block the ball before the Kicker gets it away. Both of these events are handled by the rules below:

One player on the opposing team may attempt to kick block a kicked ball. To be eligible to attempt a kick block, the player must be standing adjacent to the Kicker, and must be in one of the squares targeted by the Throw-in template used to determine the direction of the kick. The opposing coach must declare the one of his players will try a kick block before the Kicker rolls to see if his kick is away, just like a player has to attempt an interception before the Passer rolls the pass. Look up the player's Agility on the Agility table to find the score required to successfully block the kick.

Roll a D6, and add or subtract any of the modifiers that apply to the dice roll. A roll of 1 before modification always fails, and a roll of 6 before modification always succeeds. If the final modified score is less than the required total, then the player fails to block the kick, and the kick can carry on as normal. If the dice roll equals or beats the required roll, however, then the player succeeds in blocking the kick. A blocked kick will bounce once from the kick blocker's square, as normal. A blocked kick counts as a Turnover, and the moving team's turn ends immediately.

Sometimes a player attempted to kick the ball will drop it in his own square. This is more likely if the player has any opposing players breathing down his neck! To represent this, if the dice roll to get a kick away is 1 or less before or after modification, then the Kicker has fumbled and dropped the ball. The ball will scatter once from the Kicker's square. A fumble counts as a Turnover, and the moving team's turn ends immediately.

In accordance with the sacred texts of Nuffle, a Kick action always results in a Turnover, no matter what the result of the kick itself. The Turnover does not take place until the player ahs completed the Kick action and the ball has finally come to rest.

If you use the Field Goal rules for your league, then a Touchdown is worth three points instead of the usual one. A Field Goal is then worth two points.

A team scores a field goal when one of its players taking a Kick action kicks the ball over any of the squares in the opposition's Field Goal area and immediately through the End Zone, into the crowd. As soon as this happens play stops, the crowd cheers and whistles, and the cheerleaders dance about waving pom-poms. The coach of the scoring team has our permission to leap about and cheer a bit, too, while moving the Score Marker two spaces along the track of his side of the board.

The Field Goal area consists of the middle seven squares in the opponent's End Zone, as indicated by the shaded area in the diagram below.

IMPORTANT: A Field Goal counts for a score only if the ball is kicked out of bounds after last passing one of the indicated seven squares. Balls that bounce out of bounds after landing in one of the indicated squares, or that go out of bounds somewhere else and are then thrown out of bounds over any of the indicated squares, or that get kick blocked or fumbled over the line, etc. do not count as field goals, and the crowd will throw these balls back into play using the normal throw-in rules.

If you are using these rules, then at least one player must be set up to kick the football. This player may not be set up in either Wide Zone, nor may he be set up on the Line of Scrimmage (the same restrictions that apply to using the Kick skill on a kick-off).

If the kicking team has failed to set up a player to kick the ball, or was unable to do so, then the receiving team is awarded a touchback - the other players are so hopelessly uncoordinated, they can't ever seem to keep the ball in play!

In order to sue the Kickers of course, you'll need a whole set of Kicking skills. And your're in luck because we have them right here!

The first thing you should do is change the Kick skill from a General skill to a Kicking skill. In addition, insert the following bit into the skill description:

Once you've done this, you're fee to add the following skills and traits to your league!

The player is skilled at kicking his opponent right where it hurts in a swift and devastating attack, and may use this skill instead of making a Block. This attack is a great equalizer, so ignore the Strength values and any assists for the players involved. Roll on Blocking dice instead, consulting the table below.

The player may add +1 to any attempt to get the ball away when he kicks it.

The player is skilled at 'hooking' the ball when he kicks it. Once the ball is in flight, the player may re-roll for direction after the ball has traveled at least three squares. Re-align the Throw-in template over the ball, lining up one of the throw-in arrows with the original flight direction.

The player is skilled at kicking the ball 'just right'. When he kicks the ball, treat the distance roll as a range. The player may choose to drop the ball into play at any point along the flight path.

The player has a rocker of a leg! Add +2 to any distance rolls for this player when he kicks the football.

Finally, you'll need to expand the descriptions of the Nerves of Steel trait, the Pass Block skill, and the Very Long Legs physical ability so that they include kicks. You will probably also want to change the Very Sunny description so it covers kicks, and maybe even make a few house rules for certain Special Play cards (like the Magic Hand of Jark Longarm, which you could use to automatically perform a kick block, for example).

A successful Field Goal is worth two Star Player Points, and a successful Kick Block is worth two SPPs as well.

One thing you'll notice is that Kickers not only provide you with a valuable defensive ability courtesy of the Kick skill, but that they really open up the offensive possibilities. The days of one-turn scores only for select teams like Skaven and Wood Elves is over, as every team has the ability to put two quick points on the board! This means that a team can score at ANY time, which removes the number of 'dead turns' in the game during which nothing can happen score-wise.

In fact, the new options put a whole new twist on the game. For starters, you'll find that your old defensive strategies won't necessarily work against the possibility of the kick. You can no longer count off the number of squares to the End Zone and say to yourself, "Well, my opponent can't score next turn, so I can take it easy and not worry about the ball." Offensively, you can use this to your advantage if you can "sell" the field goal to your opponent - especially if you're really trying to maneuver your team into position to score a touchdown! The threat of the Field Goal is going to keep coaches on their toes, no doubt.

These rules also put a new premium on skill that were, shall we say, 'underemphasised" in third edition Blood Bowl. In particular, you'll probably want to get a few Pass Blockers on your team as quickly as possible! As a counter, or course, your opponents are going to find Nerves of Steel very appealing. Even passers are more likely to take a skill like Safe Throw, which isn't very popular in a lot of leagues but will become more necessary with the ever-increasing number of Pass Blockers looking for interceptions!

As a coach, you'll also have some choices to make. Maybe you want to use a Kicker for defensive purposes. Maybe you don't have good receivers (Dwarfs come to mind) and want to use two Kickers instead. Or maybe you want to do without the Kickers entirely and count on a lineman to pick up the Kick skill on a roll of doubles.

Teams like Skaven and Wood Elves could even do without Kickers altogether, choosing instead to use a doubles roll to give the Kick skill to one or two of their four receivers. It's a risk, but these players make devasting Kickers if their coach is willing to burn a few doubles rolls on Kicking skills instead of Very Long Legs or Stunty, or a pair of 5s that would normally result in MA +1.

If your league uses the Ally rules, you'll have even more options! For example, my Amazon team uses a Human Thrower as an ally to run the offense, while I use two Amazon Kickers as potential scorers/defenders.

The concept of the Field Goal was lifted right from American football. So why the three-to-two split on TD's and FG's? Well, for starters, it matched up very well with the proposed SPPs awarded for each action. It also means that you can actually win games with Field Goals, instead of just using them as occasional tiebreakers in a game betweeen evenly matched teams. It's even quite consistent with the earliest professional rules in American football - in fact, it will probably surprise a lot of you to know that a field goal was worth more than a touchdown for almost 30 years!

I've playtested these rules myself in about two dozen games so far, and I've seen them used by other coaches firsthand for another dozen or so after that. In addition, Tom Anders (whom many of you will doubtless recognize from the Blood Bowl mailing list or the Blood Bowl Central web site) ran a test league that used these rules in over 200 matches! The feedback I've received from over 20 coaches has been very valuable, and they've helped tweak the rules 'just right,' in my opinion. One majore change was the decision to make the 1-2 and 5-6 results on the Directional roll turn into automatic shanks if you didn't have the Kick skill. This means you can still use regular linemen or other position players to try Field Goals, but without the Kick skill, this will always be a risky proposition no matter how high your MA or AG.

The flexibility for coaches and league alike really provides a fresh twist on the game, so why not try these rules out in your league and let other coaches know what you think?

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Did you know ...

The current Reikland Reavers Star Kicker Luther Von Hoofer is so confident in his abilities that he welcomes all would-be kickers in a punting contest. The rules are simple - if the challenger can kick the ball further than Luther then he will give them his Appearance fee from his most recent match.

For months, as Luther predicted, he was undefeated for the first couple of months until, one day a rather stout looking Dwarf, obviously drunk, challenged Luther. The Star Kicker was unimpressed, after all Dwarves ahve short legs - how could he hope to match the distances Luther could kick the ball? The Dwarf kicked the ball and to Luther's astonishment it flew over the stadium wall and out of sight. After much blaspheming Luther paid up and even then did not notice the glowing Rune of Great Kicking branded into the leather of the Dwarf's boot.