I’ve formed a perfect – if vertically challenged – cage around my ball carrier, a plucky hopeful called Fredegar. Just two goblins stand between him and the endzone, and he’s sure to score the touchdown next turn, even if one of themisbouncing up and down on a pogo stick. Things are looking good for the Liverpool Lunchboxes. Until the bomb hits.
The Bomma is one of many foul-loving positionals the Goblins can add to their roster in Season 6 of Cyanide’sBlood Bowl 3. After minor updates last season to allow crossplay to be added without too many hitches, we’re back with a bang. Literally.
The bomb takes out five of my poor Halflings. Three are knocked prone, one is injured, and my Catcher straight up dies. My ball carrier is one of those knocked prone. He, understandably, drops the ball. Turnover.
This is the third illegal manoeuvre my opponent, Blood Bowl associate producer Remi Gallois, has thrown my way. As well as chopping down my Treeman with a chainsaw and sending a Doom Diver towards my cage by way of Troll throw (albeit overshooting and landing in the crowd), he’s consistently chucked bombs towards my poor ‘flings. The first missed, tickling a Treeman, and I caught the second, returning it to sender before the fuse burned out. The third, well, we know how that turned out.
The first half ended 0-0, but Gallois didn’t have enough bribes to stop the ref from sending off his key positionals. In the second half, he was down a few gobbos and I could press my advantage. A well-baked play down the right wing saw my Lineman score a vital touchdown, but no sooner had I done so than Gallois responded with an incredible one-turn touchdown. My kick off landed in the crowd (Fredegar, the kicker, is getting fired in the morning) and a fortunate bounce meant it landed right on one of his Goblin Linemen, who probably had a name but it wasn’t have been as cute as any of my Halflings’ so I didn’t bother remembering it.
The aforementioned Lineman was promptly picked up by a hulking Troll stood on the line of scrimmage and yeeted down the pitch. The Goblin somehow landed on his feet and walked the ball to the endzone without a modicum of pressure from my lads.
Blood Bowl 3 Season 6 is about fun. That’s why we’re getting two stunty teams, all manner of secret weapons, and a host of new star players. But Cyanide knows that not everybody plays for fun, and the two new teams will be unlikely to fare too well on the ranked ladder. Therefore, it’s added a couple of nice tweaks to the classic Blood Bowl formula in order to help the half-pint players out.
The two teams can both be unlocked for free by completing the same Blood Pass. The same 50 levels, twice the teams.
Firstly, there’s a whole new game mode, called a Community Event. You can use premade Halfling and Goblin teams (that will change over the course of the season to give you a chance to try out all the stars and positionals) to fight sorry,playagainst each other in a low stakes environment. It’s a great way to see just how fun it is to play these teams, and might give those hardened competitive players a chance to see how we fun-loving players like to play Blood Bowl.
There’s also the option to slightly alter your matchmaking to find teams with a higher Team Value than your own. Select from a dropdown list to be matched up with teams anywhere from 50,000 to 1,000,000 more value than you. This is specifically intended to aid stunty teams, so they can take more inducements, star players, and rerolls in order to level the playing field.
All star players now have their unique abilities functional, which should give your matches that bit of extra flavour.
One notable absence is Deeproot Strongbranch, who didn’t make it into the game. Gallois says that, “The star players that were produced were decided a long time ago, so they didn’t all have rules.” Deeproot was also very expensive to model, which is another reason he didn’t make the cut. However, Gallois says that he might arrive at a later date. “We’re planning on adding star players every season,” he tells me, “and he’s on the shortlist.” Halfling players should keep their fingers crossed that they have their heroic Ent on the pitch before too long.
A gruff team talk and the substitution of star player Cindy Piewhistle later, the Halflings were on the offensive again. Unfortunately, Cindy’s bombs weren’t as effective as the Goblins’ – they train hard for these illegal manoeuvres – but there were enough gaps in their defence to allow me a simple path to goal. A combination of great injury rolls and sendings off meant that Gallois’s team was down a fair few players, and even strength two Halflings can deal with the stragglers if they have the numbers advantage.
Despite Da Black Gobbo’s infuriating combination of Dodge and Sidestep getting him into all sorts of awkward positions to scupper my drives, I made a break for the endzone in the final turn. With no star player points on the line in the Community Event mode, I just legged it with whichever player had the ball and passed two Go For Its to seal the win.
While I’m by no means a competitive player (and I play the tabletop version of the game far more than its digital counterpart), I rarely stoop to the level of playing stunties, who are largely considered a handicap to any player. But after the fun I had playing with Blood Bowl 3’s Halflings and against the conniving Goblins, I’m definitely going to finish painting my miniature versions and converting a second Treeman. As luck would have it, he can play for my Gnomes, too. And after Gallois’s extravagant play to bring himself level in our taster match, I might have to start a rigorous training regime for my folks to ensure they can accurately throw their teammates on demand.
