Blood Bowl 2020

[Bara]

Apparently new rules update is coming out and images were leaked.

Here's a vid of a guy talking about it

There are more images in the album I linked some here but not all.

Spoiler

This will be the rule set for Blood Bowl 3 for those who care for the video games.

 

[Jaedar]

Too small to read.

 

[Grunker]

Too small to read.

The_Sage has a good breakdown. It honestly doesn't look that shitty. Even though my beloved Skaven look kindda fucked currently.

 

[Jaedar]

The_Sage has a good breakdown. It honestly doesn't look that shitty. Even though my beloved Skaven look kindda fucked currently.

Hard to tell. Pretty massive nerf to some agility teams (passing is now its own stat, and most non-throwers have low values of it and there's no +1 passing range any more). Minor nerf to claw+mb combo is good though. Statups seem way more niche.

I really dislike the level up changes.

 

[Grunker]

The_Sage has a good breakdown. It honestly doesn't look that shitty. Even though my beloved Skaven look kindda fucked currently.

Hard to tell. Pretty massive nerf to some agility teams (passing is now its own stat, and most non-throwers have low values of it and there's no +1 passing range any more). Minor nerf to claw+mb combo is good though. Statups seem way more niche.

I really dislike the level up changes.

The current "consensus" amongst BB veterans (and I tend to agree with this view) is that a lot of the changes are surprisingly sensible and seem to be actually trying to solve some of the issues the communities have raised (granual skills like loner 3+ vs. 4+, Mighty Blow granularity, and if the PO change is reverted the new non-combo of MB and Claw seems a much better fix to bash, granularity of passes, throwers being actually relevant, more positionals, just some examples)...

..........................buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut that the new level up system is potentially incredibly horribru. This is my main fear as well. What BB needs is a price tag system (like NAF has been toying with recently) and what BB2020 seems to be trying is something along those lines but then not quite and with a whole bunch of what the fuck on top.

 

[sser]

Bash meta incoming.

This will be like a reset button on the game's designs and playability. How many games do that and come out looking better than before? I would have gone with the iterative approach, but GW also needs to go nuclear so they can justify models/books/etc. to print and sell.

 

[Jaedar]

The current "consensus" amongst BB veterans (and I tend to agree with this view) is that a lot of the changes are surprisingly sensible and seem to be actually trying to solve some of the issues the communities have raised (granual skills like loner 3+ vs. 4+, Mighty Blow granularity, and if the PO change is reverted the new non-combo of MB and Claw seems a much better fix to bash, granularity of passes, throwers being actually relevant, more positionals, just some examples)...

Oh, I can agree with that. Blood bowl does have problems, and this is *trying* to fix them. What do you mean by granularity of passes? As I read the rules, it is still pass -> stuff -> catch or turnover, just a bit more detail in the 'stuff'. Overall throwing seems nerfed (accurate is worse, -1 to all throw ranges, fewer pieces with decent base chance, easier to interrupt with new deflection) but also perhaps available to more teams?

I don't get the hate for throwers, having one player with accurate, safe throw, etc does enable some plays.

It seems they're also adding a worse block (that lets you reroll a single both down die), but I don't get the point since it seems they are also keeping block? One of my issues with BB is that there is a vast gulf in the usefulness of many of the skills, so you'll see the same builds involving block, guard, dodge, mighty blow etc all the time.

 

[Grunker]

The current "consensus" amongst BB veterans (and I tend to agree with this view) is that a lot of the changes are surprisingly sensible and seem to be actually trying to solve some of the issues the communities have raised (granual skills like loner 3+ vs. 4+, Mighty Blow granularity, and if the PO change is reverted the new non-combo of MB and Claw seems a much better fix to bash, granularity of passes, throwers being actually relevant, more positionals, just some examples)...

What do you mean by granularity of passes?

More degrees of failures

Overall throwing seems nerfed

Way too early too decide, and I suspect the opposite will be the case. While I am mortified that my rats will be hard hit by the fact that gutters can't pass, most teams now have Throwers that are hyper-relevant, yet cost just about the same as they did before. I suspect most of these teams will have dedicated throwers and that they will actually throw the ball - as opposed to (at least for very good coaches) current BB where throwing the ball means you done goofed.

With regards to the nerfs you're talking about, you have to see that in the light that many throwers now throw much more capabally as a baseline

Also remember that fumbles are now much more lenient. Less turnovers.

I don't get the hate for throwers, having one player with accurate, safe throw, etc does enable some plays.

It's an expensive crutch.

Moving the ball is both safer and less expensive.

(Don't get me wrong I suck so I pass all the time - but look at pro matches (many of them stream), you'll see them running the ball 95% of the time.)

but I don't get the point since it seems they are also keeping block?

They are throwing it on positionals - Black Orcs, for instance - meaning if you get Block it's sortta-kindda bloaty.

ne of my issues with BB is that there is a vast gulf in the usefulness of many of the skills, so you'll see the same builds involving block, guard, dodge, mighty blow etc all the time.

buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut that the new level up system is potentially incredibly horribru. This is my main fear as well. What BB needs is a price tag system (like NAF has been toying with recently) and what BB2020 seems to be trying is something along those lines but then not quite and with a whole bunch of what the fuck on top.

so yeah, I hard agree

 

[Grunker]

Bash meta incoming.

Huh? MA and AG is king currently, and while they're nerfing woodies, Claw and MB no longer work together and PO is all but dead. I don't think movement being king of BB is going to die anytime soon.

 

[Jaedar]

Also remember that fumbles are now much more lenient. Less turnovers.

This is not how I understand the rules leak. Seems you still get turnover whenever you make a pass and don't catch it? At least as I understand the sidebar in this image:

Spoiler

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p...bA-ujkbs_YRV7HOARikJx=w700-h525-no?authuser=0

Catching a pass if it scatters isn't going to happen any more than currently, ie will be very rare (even with diving catch there's only like a 33% chance you get to try iirc?)

Bash meta incoming.

Huh? MA and AG is king currently, and while they're nerfing woodies, Claw and MB no longer work together and PO is all but dead. I don't think movement being king of BB is going to die anytime soon.

How is PO dead?

 

[Grunker]

Last leak I saw (dunno if real tho) had them keep the new rule that requires a team RR for PO

 

[sser]

Bash meta incoming.

Huh? MA and AG is king currently, and while they're nerfing woodies, Claw and MB no longer work together and PO is all but dead. I don't think movement being king of BB is going to die anytime soon.

Because passing has been greatly limited. Elf teams can't dance and dunk on people like they used to. Conversely, pass nerfs don't hurt bash teams much if at all. Claw/MB is a concern between Bash teams, with everyone else as possible collateral (teams like Woodies, Norse, etc. don't care). Now Bash teams won't be in an arms race with each other, so you'll see ancillary support/control skills like Standfirm/Juggs/Grab etc. taken sooner which are all net negatives for agi teams. Dwarves and Lizards will dominate the utter shit out of this meta, and Orcs will be next though the Animosity malus is a strange nerf but not too gamebreaking.

 

[Grunker]

Dwarves? You have got to be kidding.

Lizards dominated shit before as well (being one of the only counters to the winningest AGI teams - Lizards were sort of like "the deck that beat the best decks but lost to everyone else" to borrow a TCG metaphor), so that's hardly a surprise since somehow GW left them untouched in the middle of the AGI nerfs.

But dwarves? One of the lowest win-rate non-stunty races in the game? Hell naw, brother. Getting your dudes around the pitch is still important even if the meta becomes more bash heavy. If dwarves become top tier, I owe you a beer, brother

 

[Grunker]

And again - passing has been limited yes, and Woodies got a much deserved nerfs. But until we see the new passers in actions, there's no telling whether the act of passing itself has been nerfed.

 

[sser]

Dwarves? You have got to be kidding.

Lizards dominated shit before as well (being one of the only counters to the winningest AGI teams - Lizards were sort of like "the deck that beat the best decks but lost to everyone else" to borrow a TCG metaphor), so that's hardly a surprise since somehow GW left them untouched in the middle of the AGI nerfs.

But dwarves? One of the lowest win-rate non-stunty races in the game? Hell naw, brother. Getting your dudes around the pitch is still important even if the meta becomes more bash heavy. If dwarves become top tier, I owe you a beer, brother

Win % is not the be all end all. Dwarves are definitely considered top tier in a tourney-format, which is why NAF has them there, and Dwarves consistently win the tourney-format which is what this BB2020 seems to be leaning into. Also gotta remember that newbies pollute a lot of data on teams like Orcs, Humans, Dorfs etc. which is why you shouldn't really pay attention to raw data. Also it does matter where they're being played. Undead don't even exist in the league I'm in because they get cleaved by the eventual clawpomb, but they're basically S-tier in the tourney format.

The reason I say Dorfs though is three simple reasons:

- Agility teams cannot bullshit nowhere near as well. Leap changes, elf linos/gutters etc. can no longer be miracle workers, have to depend on passers to recover and throw. Buff to Dwarves.

- Clawpomb is gone. Basically the #1 threat to both Lizards and Dorfs, and the one thing keeping them in check. Huge buff to Dwarves.

- They basically didn't even change. To me this is a big one. All these new rules and team changes, but Dorfs are basically still Dorfs. Pick up ball, cage, and move ahead. No nerfs at all.


I think Humans might sneakily be a top team for this reason as well. Lizards will briefly be held back by their 1000tv start, and then cut loose and run wild on everyone.

 

[Jaedar]

Clawpomb is gone.

Clawpomb is gone, but tbh I sitll expect to see clawmb a lot, even if it has been made 20% less reliable (or something like that).

Although seeing the new rules, clawmb is worse than just mb against AV7 teams, so you probably won't put it on everyone?

 

[Grunker]

Dwarves? You have got to be kidding.

Lizards dominated shit before as well (being one of the only counters to the winningest AGI teams - Lizards were sort of like "the deck that beat the best decks but lost to everyone else" to borrow a TCG metaphor), so that's hardly a surprise since somehow GW left them untouched in the middle of the AGI nerfs.

But dwarves? One of the lowest win-rate non-stunty races in the game? Hell naw, brother. Getting your dudes around the pitch is still important even if the meta becomes more bash heavy. If dwarves become top tier, I owe you a beer, brother

Win % is not the be all end all. Dwarves are definitely considered top tier in a tourney-format, which is why NAF has them there, and Dwarves consistently win the tourney-format which is what this BB2020 seems to be leaning into. Also gotta remember that newbies pollute a lot of data on teams like Orcs, Humans, Dorfs etc. which is why you shouldn't really pay attention to raw data. Also it does matter where they're being played. Undead don't even exist in the league I'm in because they get cleaved by the eventual clawpomb, but they're basically S-tier in the tourney format.

The reason I say Dorfs though is three simple reasons:

- Agility teams cannot bullshit nowhere near as well. Leap changes, elf linos/gutters etc. can no longer be miracle workers, have to depend on passers to recover and throw. Buff to Dwarves.

- Clawpomb is gone. Basically the #1 threat to both Lizards and Dorfs, and the one thing keeping them in check. Huge buff to Dwarves.

- They basically didn't even change. To me this is a big one. All these new rules and team changes, but Dorfs are basically still Dorfs. Pick up ball, cage, and move ahead. No nerfs at all.


I think Humans might sneakily be a top team for this reason as well. Lizards will briefly be held back by their 1000tv start, and then cut loose and run wild on everyone.

I'm not just talking win%, it was just one of my examples. If you talk to pros, they consistantly highlight mobility as being king of the meta, and you can see it reflected in the leagues as well.

Now, I didn't realize you were talking tourneys. Tourneys are not on my radar at all, especially NAF, since they enforce their own tiering and pricing rules that attempt to balance out the teams. The NAF ress tourneys are not played using BB rules but using BB rules with a lot of additional homebrew on top.

That also means that all NAF has to do if something is off in the new rules is restructure the pricing rules they already have in place. So maybe dwarves get less skills in the new NAF pricings or whatever.

Perpetual leagues, season-based leagues, online tournaments etc.: these to some degree have to live with whatever native balance is in the new rules.

 

[Grunker]

sser you're also kindda stating a case against yourself there at the end Humans are primarily awesome as a sort of pseudo-necro/lizzie - i.e.: as a counter to AGI teams. I realize they could be sleeper OP in the new rules, but it's sort of a knock against them if you're right that AGI teams take a hit. It means their strongest match-ups are less relevant.

But overall, I think the hit to AGI was deserved. The common misconception amongst 95% of BB players is "CPOMB OP, you're a lunatic if you play elves." The actual reality is kind of the opposite. CPOMB makes bash worse and elves better - the latter having the clear best team in almost any format (woodies). Best defence against bash is to just limit amount of blocks, and claw is 20k wasted TV against AV7.

 

[sser]

sser you're also kindda stating a case against yourself there at the end Humans are primarily awesome as a sort of pseudo-necro/lizzie - i.e.: as a counter to AGI teams. I realize they could be sleeper OP in the new rules, but it's sort of a knock against them if you're right that AGI teams take a hit. It means their strongest match-ups are less relevant.

But overall, I think the hit to AGI was deserved. The common misconception amongst 95% of BB players is "CPOMB OP, you're a lunatic if you play elves." The actual reality is kind of the opposite. CPOMB makes bash worse and elves better - the latter having the clear best team in almost any format (woodies). Best defence against bash is to just limit amount of blocks, and claw is 20k wasted TV against AV7.

Their strongest matchup leaning even heavier in their favor, and their worst matchups getting nerfed is ... a team buff.

Think of it as like when BB2 was released and half the teams were Dwarves. You have to account for environment.

One reason I'm eyeing Humans is because they didn't change much at all and in fact gained some. If everyone else is getting nerfed, it's the same thing as Dwarves, where they rise up simply by avoiding the nerfbat. Humans have always been a strong team at the low-mid TV range, but then gradually get mulched by clawpomb and agi-bullshit in an eternal format. But those two things are nerfed. The question's always been, why bother playing Humans when you can just play Dark Elves. But if all the elf pieces are no longer ball hawks, then the answer is pretty much what it always has been: Humans get far easier Strength access and can bash as well as any non-Claw team.

 

[Grunker]

You have to account for environment.

That's... a weird case to make considering that was exactly my point:

- Currently hummies are sort of good against agi and TERRIBLE against Bash. Just hideously terrible.

- That keeps them kind of relevant still since many AGI teams (chiefly woodies of course) are dominating.

- Woodies are now getting nerfed, might drop out of favor.

- Ergo, the environment stands to become less hospitable to humans even if they get buffed.

I don't see how you can read that line of arguments and tell me that I should take the environment into account. I mean you can disagree - your points about CPOMB are completely true - but I'm clearly making a case with the environment in mind. Moreover, I didn't say humans were going to be shit - my point was exactly the point you made to me: that we couldn't look at them in isolation but had to look at the context where it looks like their largest strengths will be less relevant than they are now.

Of course I completely agree with the end reasoning. All the midrange teams which dominate AGI teams had the fatal flaw that CPOMB just knocked them over.

All in all, that's why I'm cautiously optimistic about all the changes. They're hitting bash pretty hard, but not without ackknowledging the fact that bash was already not that great, so the dominating AGI teams are getting hit.

My biggest problem right now is that I'm scared Lizards will become the new woodies. Who is going to stop them? CPOMB was their one and only counter.

 

[sser]

Your insistence that the team is bad to begin with is a bit misguided.

Tourney format: Humans are already competitive and one of the stronger early teams. When you say bad against bash, what you really mean is...

Eternal format: Humans are competitive early and mid. What happens late? The mass arrival of murder teams and broken agility teams.

^ Bash team issue speaks for itself. So what does broken Agility really mean? It's actually a two-fold issue: the obvious, surface level observation that they can simply make plays at higher probabilities, simple enough. Everyone who has played the game long enough has seen how busted a natty 1turner is or some AGI5/6 leaping POS. But the more indepth realization: the reason you pick an Agility team is because you can play and win a game with a handful of pieces. At high TV, attrition damage goes through the roof. Agility team can still win with an army of loners, Humans cannot.

Humans are not alone in this aspect. Amazons, Dwarves, and at a longer continuum, Lizards are all on this exact same spectrum. Undead are the kings of it. Undead are the top tier low/mid-TV team. Yet they don't even exist in eternal leagues. All these teams stand in this awkward spot because of the dominance and statistical bullshit that is Clawpomb. If you can't fairly join the Clawpomb arms race, then you go around it with Agility. Which brings me to...

Ergo, the environment stands to become less hospitable to humans even if they get buffed.

Genuinely don't follow this logic whatsoever.

The environment stands to become less hospitable by taking away all the tools which make Humans a poor choice (note I didn't say a poor team)? Okeydokey

 

[Grunker]

If your premise for discussion about the rules is "when you factor in NAF house ruling" then we can't really discuss this topic. I mean it's obvious: I'm arguing whether a Toyota Yaris is fast, you're arguing whether it's fast with a custom model turbo engine

The environment stands to become less hospitable by taking away all the tools which make Humans a poor choice

I mean you can disagree - your points about CPOMB are completely true -

Me: It's a knock against humans that the thing they're best at is less relevant

Also me: however you are of course completely right that their main weakness is alleviated, I am not arguing this

You: WHY ARE YOU SAYING THAT IT IS A KNOCK AGAINST HUMANS THAT THEIR MAIN WEAKNESS IS ALLEVIATED OMG TOP LUL

 

[Jaedar]

My biggest problem right now is that I'm scared Lizards will become the new woodies. Who is going to stop them? CPOMB was their one and only counter.

They have lost break tackle (it has been reworked to +1 to dodge rolls, +2 if 5+ str making it a lot worse on agi 1/2 players) which makes the sauri a lot less manouverable. So I think they will become very vulnerable to having the sauri marked while the enemy advances the ball with a minimal cage.

 

[Grunker]

My biggest problem right now is that I'm scared Lizards will become the new woodies. Who is going to stop them? CPOMB was their one and only counter.

They have lost break tackle (it has been reworked to +1 to dodge rolls, +2 if 5+ str making it a lot worse on agi 1/2 players) which makes the sauri a lot less manouverable. So I think they will become very vulnerable to having the sauri marked while the enemy advances the ball with a minimal cage.

Break Tackle sauri were VERY late game. You need Block, Guard, Tackle often even MB on 1 or 2 before you started building specialized BT sauri. Maybe you got a single one if you really needed it before then. It's not nothing, but compared to the rest of the nerfs to stronger teams - and factoring that pretty much their only weakness in the game is out - I definetely think Lizards will be dominating. This seems to be what most pros lean towards as well.

(Again unlike sser I'm talking the rules - not NAF house-rules or special tournament environments)

 

[Jaedar]

My biggest problem right now is that I'm scared Lizards will become the new woodies. Who is going to stop them? CPOMB was their one and only counter.

They have lost break tackle (it has been reworked to +1 to dodge rolls, +2 if 5+ str making it a lot worse on agi 1/2 players) which makes the sauri a lot less manouverable. So I think they will become very vulnerable to having the sauri marked while the enemy advances the ball with a minimal cage.

Break Tackle sauri were VERY late game. You need Block, Guard, Tackle often even MB on 1 or 2 before you started building specialized BT sauri. Maybe you got a single one if you really needed it before then. It's not nothing, but compared to the rest of the nerfs to stronger teams - and factoring that pretty much their only weakness in the game is out - I definetely think Lizards will be dominating. This seems to be what most pros lean towards as well.

(Again unlike sser I'm talking the rules - not NAF house-rules or special tournament environments)

We will see. I think one break tackle saurus is a very good thing to have for mobility, you are very weak to just being bogged down with one lineman per saurus otherwise. But I am not that good at BB obviously.

It's pretty cool they dare to make such large changes to the game at least.