Death Zone season 2, what might be

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Mystic Force
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Death Zone season 2, what might be

Post by Mystic Force »

I think its about time to speculate on what comes next for the world of bloodbowl. We have had time to digest the new rules and Christmas dinner, and process the New Years day hangover, so we should be ready. Now some people here know more about this than they can let on, but hey the rest of us can play


What we have so far

So far we have had the new box set, DZ 1 and Skaven team, with the Dwarf team to follow. Persuably we have other teams to be released from the DZ 1 supplement to be released. If they followed a schedule of one a month that would fill up half a year. And it seems logical to release all the teams from DZ 1 before the release of DZ 2. The urgency of DZ 2 is lessened by the release of the Teams of Legend PDF.

If there was one team that is going to be last for release from this batch I think it will be High Elf, for two reasons. Not much love in the fluff and an article on conversion featuring HE linked on bloodbowl.com, "here kids while you wait a long time for these why not try this..." I am not prejudice I love HE but as I already have a complete HE team, I will be using my resources to fill in the gaps in my library. So no loss to me personally.

What next

So DZ 2, i think a safe bet here is more teams. But which one? Some posters mentioned a while back that Chaos would get something special and that team releases would be theemed. So this could be a potential, with regular chaos, the cyanide Khorne team, we already have nurgle, but what else? A demon team? The other gods Slannesh and Tzench? These would be completly new to us. From the teams of legend we have the Norse who are maybe Chaotic humans, so have an outside chance. Chaos Dwarves have chaos right there in the name. But of all the old teams that they made models for this would seem to be the most vulnerable, for lack of support in the warhammer world, and no miniatures for conversion. But I still expect to see the team at some point, I live in hope. Chaos renegade team, again chaos is in the name and all the minatures available in other ranges by then if goblins come out (see below)

I think an outside choice here is goblins miniatures , their release allows 3 new teams, goblins, chaos renegades and underworld, that they specifically added to the Teams of Legend list. Plus they can be used on an Orc roster. This way you have a reason for people who have purchased Skaven or Orcs to spend some money. Underworld seems kind of Chaosy to me with all the mutation stuff. But maybe instead of releasing a whole team, they release a smaller pack of goblins to go on the other teams and revisist goblin teams later with the release of all the secret weapon players.

Another theme area is the undead. With the undead, necromantic, Khermi and Vampire team. That set clearly go together. But 4 seems too few, and a little limited in scope and play style, but I dont know which other fits naturally.

Lizards go with Amazons and Amazons pair with Norse, and if you make Lizards do you add Slann making a new team?

That leaves Ogres and halflings with maybe goblins. With special weapons distribution to other races? Plus we have the left over Bretonians from BB 2. But will they add that team, i dont know.

Rule addition.

First the missing things still to add, the most obvious being inducements notably wizards.

We also have the Major tournaments, with them mentioned and possible rewards indicated, but under the new league rules system from DZ 1 they would have to be updated.

Now this one is where I go out on a limb. DZ1 states that " this is one way to a league" which presumably means there are others, and maybe, maybe they will give us a different league setup. The options here are perpetual bloodbowl, or open bloodbowl like the 3rd ed rules for league play, which would tie more into the Major tournament play maybe. Or going back to what i saw posted previously, specialised leagues for certain subsets of teams, Chaos, stunties.....

Other less consequential stuff would seem to be more famous team rosters to play with. And we will getting more star players along the way.

It seems logical there will be more special play cards, with a group called magic items appearing at some point. But I wonder how they will be released.

Note all of this is conditional on bloodbowl selling in sufficient numbers to get continued support.

Of the new release I will get all the rules supplements, I will add some teams to my collection, but not all of them. I would like dwarfs, as I use to own one but gave it away to a friend who painted them "while between jobs" and I would like a Skaven team and a different elf team to add more agility to my collection. Beyond that I have a nice range of stuff, so I dont need many more teams, but I would like more. Mission two is to have some of the people I got to play bloodbowl aquire their own teams, maybe pointing them towards some of the gaps in my range for the variety.

Now what do others think? Or what have I missed?

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Re: Death Zone season 2, what might be

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Re: Death Zone season 2, what might be

Post by Bakunin »

some said goblins would get 6 sneaky gits/weapons

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Re: Death Zone season 2, what might be

Post by Pedda »

Bakunin wrote:some said goblins would get 6 sneaky gits/weapons
I've heard the same thing. Two new secret weapons in addition to the four that they already have.

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Re: Death Zone season 2, what might be

Post by Milo »

Interesting speculation.

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Re: Death Zone season 2, what might be

Post by Milo »

Mystic Force wrote: It seems logical there will be more special play cards, with a group called magic items appearing at some point. But I wonder how they will be released.
I believe there will be a new set of special play cards coming out February 4th, with two new decks in it.

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Re: Death Zone season 2, what might be

Post by lunchmoney »

Does GW have a plan to make BB a living game akin to FFG's Living Card Games (Arkham Horror, Netrunner, etc)?

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Re: Death Zone season 2, what might be

Post by Babs »

I do know that there will be optional home field 'Stadium Rules' in Deathzone II, in the same order of Official Canon and weight as the Referee rules.

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Re: Death Zone season 2, what might be

Post by Milo »

Babs wrote:I do know that there will be optional home field 'Stadium Rules' in Deathzone II, in the same order of Official Canon and weight as the Referee rules.
Are you referring to the Referee Rules in White Dwarf?

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Re: Death Zone season 2, what might be

Post by faust_33 »

Since I started purchasing Blood Bowl minis after CRP, I have no idea what their release schedule was like in the past. My guess is that they wouldn't release a team every month. I was imagining 2-3 teams a year, 3 at best. Does that sound about right?

Speculation wise, hard to say. We know that Dwarves are coming, and sounds like Goblins are next. Which I guess means that it doesn't matter which rulebook the teams were posted in. It seems they are looking for "fun" miniatures to crank out. Even though I'm not a fan of Dwarves, seeing the mini of a Death Roller is always exciting. Same probably goes for the Goblin Special Weapons for most people. Having just typed that....I really hope a Goblin Death Roller isn't one of the rumored new special weapons!

So, if I'm right and we only get one more team during the year, my guess would be Elves. Probably Wood Elves, given their popularity. This would allow them to get one more big guy out, the Treeman. If Peter Jackson were releasing another Tolkien movie, then I'd probably bet on that one. My guess is based on what we think we know right now: Human (good), Orc (evil), Dwarf (good), Goblin (bad)...some other 'heroic' team. Most fantasy games have Humans, Dwarfs, and ... Elves. Wood Elves have been pretty popular as a choice for finesse players. It's a long shot, but that's my guess.

Now which team would I really like to see instead? So many of them, but I coached a team of Undead for quite awhile. I like the old minis, but I imagine the news one could be quite cool looking as well. Maybe with some slightly beefier Mummy's to represent their strength.

Edit: Probably also never happen, but would love to see a Fimir team. I only know them from the Hero Quest boardgames, but I always thought they would be a cool Blood bowl team if they were to add something new.

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Re: Death Zone season 2, what might be

Post by Regash »

faust_33 wrote:Probably also never happen, but would love to see a Fimir team. I only know them from the Hero Quest boardgames, but I always thought they would be a cool Blood bowl team if they were to add something new.
Since GW released the "Teams of legend" PDF, I guess that new teams will not be introduced to the game.
No word about Khorne or Bretonnia, although they technically exist.
And Slann have been ditched again by GW.
Fat chance they'll have something new.

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Re: Death Zone season 2, what might be

Post by CyberedElf »

In the solely speculation realm:
I expect the next DZ to be magic based. Introduce more inducements like potions and bring back the wizard. If they were to add a new race, a magic edition could include Tzeentch.

I originally expected new teams every two months and a new DZ each year. That appears wrong, as of current rumors.

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Re: Death Zone season 2, what might be

Post by Babs »

Milo wrote:
Babs wrote:I do know that there will be optional home field 'Stadium Rules' in Deathzone II, in the same order of Official Canon and weight as the Referee rules.
Are you referring to the Referee Rules in White Dwarf?
Yes, in that these rules will need to be 'agreed' to by the League Commish, much like the text for the ref states that both coaches must agree to using the referee prior to the game in order for him to be in use.

I notice that the new rules seem to have three levels of 'Authority':
1. "Core Rules"

2. Optional Rules. The ref rules in White dwarf is the easiest example. Special Play cards for exclusive events (such as Bugmans Full Beard is another) Another strong example of this is that they have pushed Illegal Procedure and the 4 minute turn rule into this category, with additional clarifing text in addition to that quote below. Another example is the League structure in DZ Season 1, again with additional clarifying text.

3. Still in Development. I think teams in the Leagues of Legend PDF could well be revised before they appear in Deathzone as #1. The Special Play card deck "Magic Items" are referred to, but not in existence yet, as another example. Wizards and how they work we know will be in the pipeline.

My big bugbear is not #3, but the greyspace between #1 and #2. For example, I received an email about Grak and Crumbleberry, telling us that he was effectively in Category #2. What makes this confusing and annoying is the catch all clause at the beginning of all additional rules in the Blood Bowl rulebook (beginning of page 22) stating that you can basically do whatever you like, and muddying the whole thing:
All of the following extra rules are optional. This means that both coaches must agree which (if any) they are going to use before the match starts.
This makes for standardised league play - let alone tournaments, a confusing affair that needs clarifying in the tournament and league rules pack at best.

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Post by Mystic Force »

Thank you for your responses, I have learned a lot of already available information that I had not seen, as basically coming here is my only source of what is happening.

I think on reflection 1 team release a month would be on the fast end. Releases must be frequent enough to sustain interest, while far enough apart to add excitement. But I think 2-3 teams a year is too slow. At that rate new recruits to the game will start to look elsewhere for miniatures to fill in the gap, that would be a bad outcome for GW. Between team releases they will likely release other stuff, there are plenty of star players, theamed boards and special play cards to keep a regular drip. So maybe a team every 2 months with a sprinkling of other goodies. Given the time lines of design and production the progress of various teams to be released must be underway already.

GW policy has been to allow any of their products to be used no matter how old, in warhammer and 40K, so the Teams of Legend is a nod to this. With the exception of the Slann we have all the teams from an earlier iteration. And as they note in the PDF we have two teams that although they didnt have released miniatures for them as teams, they did have released bloodbowl minis to construct the whole team. I think that some of the rosters will be different from what we see in Teams of Legend when they are released in a Deathzone supplement.

I think we will see at least one team not on the Teams of Legend during the releases of Bloodbowl over the next few years. But I have no idea if it will be Slann, BB 2 or completely new.

As for timing on DZ 2, I think maybe a year might be the right wait.That way some feedback from actual real world play might be able to creep in. But GW have historically not been the best at that, a whole other thread that one.... Again time frame of production might be the limiting factor on that one. It would be a very strange decision to release a raft of new rosters before you could play all of the DZ 1 teams with new minis. So I expect release schedule to be our best indication of when we will see DZ 2.

A magic theamed supplement is definitely a possibility. This rather goes to the heart of what bloodbowl is though. Is it (1) a sport played with fantasy creatures or (2) fantasy creatures playing a sport. By this I mean is a competitive game that just happens to use well known fantasy archetypes, and the rules of balance take precedence (1). Or is a fantasy game where the object is to score, with random wackiness along the way (2).

Now that is a long subject to dive into, but my quick answer to that is it obviously lies somewhere in the middle. The fluff and 3rd ed rules put the game more in category 2 the LRB process and tournament sceene moved it towards catergory 1. 5th ed/DZ 1 pushes it back in the direction of 2, but how far?

Looking at other examples I have some (limited) knowledge of . Gaming in general seems to have evolved more in the competitive direction indicated by the success of Magic and X-wing. But over the last few years there have been things like Talisman as well, which really doesnt matter who won, its about the interesting journey. I am myself more towards catergory 2 in gaming terms, but I think that competitive gaming has been more the direction for a number of years now.

Please add the phrase in my opinion to all statements of things other than known facts to the above. Didn't want to keep writing that over and over again! I know nothing except what is printed in BB and DZ 1 and some of that turned out to be printed in error!

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