I'll start by saying I love the Games Workshop Blood Bowl game, I used to play the table top version when I was younger and play the PC version online these days. That's why I picked up this card game from Fantasy Flight.
The theme of the miniature game has been translated to the card game really well, you can cheat, beat and injure your way to victory. The base game includes 6 teams, Humans, Wood Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Skaven and Chaos. Each team feels very different to play but all seem very well balanced. There are expansions that each add 3 new teams taking the total to 12 but I haven't played the expansions enough yet so will talk about them another time.
The object of the game is to end the session with the most fans. You will do this by playing in the highlights for each week for rewards. Each week will have a Spike! Magazine card that gives special rules for that week or a tournament for the week that all players can compete in for huge rewards. You will have the same number of Highlights as players and 2 Players can compete in each Highlight so you are going head to head with people to win the rewards. The rewards could be Team or Management upgrades that give you special rules, Star Players that can make your hand stronger or Fans, which you need to win.
Each round you will have 6 player cards in your hand and can play them on any of the available Highlights or tournament. The player cards will all have special abilities and special rules and a Star Player Rating. Some cards can move the ball token, let you draw another card from your deck and discard one from your hand, take a cheat token (which can be really good or really bad) or block opponent's cards. To block you roll a number of dice based on your star player rating and your targets rating, if you succeed you knock the target over, if they were already knocked down, you injure them and the card is discarded.
Once each player has played their 6 cards you enter the Scoreboard Phase where you will add up the Star Player Rating of your players in each match up, the player with the highest Rating wins the match up and get bigger rewards. Cheat tokens are reviled here and can get players sent off, earn extra fans (Blood Bowl fans love cheating) or increase a players Star Power. The ball also gives you extra Star Player points if you have it in your half at the end of the game.
Once everyone has taken their rewards you play a new Spike! Magazine card and draw the new Highlight cards and start again. The last Spike! Magazine card of the game is always the Blood Bowl. Once you finish the round with the Blood Bowl, the player who earned the most fans wins.
So thats a quick idea of how the game works.
This game has become a real go to game with my friends, we play a game almost every time we get together, someone is always asking for it. Because it's from Fantasy Flight the cards are really good quality so even after a lot of use aren't showing any signs of wear.
It's a quick game to teach people, most people get the hang of it after the first couple of rounds if they are playing with at least one person that knows what they are doing. It isn't too long maybe an hour to hour and a half per game depending on how many people are playing. This can be made longer or shorter by having more Spike! cards in the deck before the Blood Bowl card, normally it's 5 rounds but 3 works well if you want a shorter game.
There are different tactics when deciding which rewards to go for and so far we haven't seen one which is the best, some people trying and boost there team with Star Players and upgrades for the first few rounds so they can win more fans in the later rounds. Others go straight for Fans to try and get a lead early, the risk is that if other players get more boosts later in the game you might struggle to win Highlights. Both seem equally valid to me with people getting wins both ways. My group have added a rule were we keep our fans secrete through the game and only revile them at the end after everything is added, it helps keeping an element of surprise and suspense when you don't know how far ahead or behind everyone else is to you.
The game obviously has a screw you element, you are playing head to head with players so if that isn't something you like it may not be the game for you. I think the humour of the theme helps soften that. The number of Highlights and Spike! cards add some variety to each game you play and the different feel to each team helps replayability. Chaos are really focused on hitting the other team and cheating while Wood Elves play the ball a lot more but as I said seem very well balanced with each other. There are also the expansions that add extra teams, more cards and things like magic balls, stadiums and a Ref, but I will talk about them another time.
Over all I think this is a great game and if you enjoy the theme or just want a head to head card game it's worth checking out.
Review for the expansion Foul Play is here
No comments:
Post a Comment