Blood Bowl Team Manager Card Game - Foul Play

In my last post I talked about the Blood Bowl Team Manager Card Game.  This time I will be looking at one of its expansions Foul Play.

This expansion added 3 new teams, a few optional mechanics and a score track to use a 5th player.

So in the box you are going to get all the bits you need for the new mechanics and teams as well as new Spike! Magazine cards, new cheating tokens, new staff upgrade cards and new team upgrade cards for the new and existing teams which can be shuffled into the decks from the base game.

New Teams
So like I said you get 3 new teams with this expansion and they all belong to the PPG (Putrid Players Guild) so get there own deck of Star Players.

First up we have Nurgle.  They are of course similar to the Chaos team but have a few interesting changes.  The main one being Spread Disease,  when a player with this special rule is played in a match up a disease token is put in the centre of the match up.  Next time a player is moved to or committed to the match up that player takes all of the disease tokens currently in the centre and each reduces his star player power by 1, that includes other Nurgle players.  It does make the team feel very unique but the extra planning ahead to make sure you don't end up taking the tokens yourself helps keep them balanced with the other teams but it does make them probably more suited to people that have played a few games already.

Next we have the Goblins.  These are a personal favourite of mine and I used them a lot in the Original Games Workshop Blood Bowl as well as the computer game version.  They do feel a lot like they should, lots of very weak cards (most only have a star player power of 1 or 2) but the ability to team up and hit hard shows through.  They have the classic secret weapon players like the Looney, Frantic, Pogo and Bombardier who let these weak goblins deal damage against bigger and stronger teams.  Even the bog standard goblin has a little trick up his sleeve, unlike most other races whose linemen get Guard these guys get the chance to sneak extra men on the pitch.  When you play a goblin to a match up you draw the top card from your team deck, if it has a star player of 2 or less you get to play that instantly to the same match up.  This makes sure that you can keep up with teams playing with higher star player values than yours since you will end up with more cards in play than any other team (provided you don't get stomped on or sent off).

Last we have the Chaos Dwarves.  These guys probably play more like the base game teams than the other two included here. They play a little like the standard Dwarves but have weaker linesmen, Hobgoblins, cheat a bit more and a Minotaur and Centaurs thrown in for good measure.  What does set them apart is the Downed Skills (from the Sudden Death Expansion and also used by other teams in this expansion but not as much).  These skills mean that if you do manage to block and down one they get a new set of skills they can use when they are downed like fowling or moving the ball.

New Mechanics
So we also get some new Mechanics in this expansion, so I already talked about some in the teams but there are a few stand alone, I'm not going to talk about the 5th player since that doesn't really change anything (but is a nice addition).

We get one new skill Icon in this expansion, Fouling, and some cards use the Regeneration skill from the Sudden Death Expansion.  Regeneration is basically a Downed Skill that gives a player the chance to stand back up again when they are successfully blocked.  Fouling is a new icon which lets the controlling player look at one random card from their opponents hand and decide whether they can keep it or if they have to discard it and draw a new card from their deck.  It's a fun skill and can be great for getting rid of star players but you have to take a risk since they could get rid of that card and draw a better one.  It does take a lot of remembering to keep track of what cards they have, what has been discarded and what has been played so you know what could still be in the deck if you want to make an informed choice.

Next you get a new deck of Penalty cards.  These are cards you will be forced to draw for a few reasons like new Cheating tokens or if you lose one of the new tournaments.  These are all bad things, in fact the best card in the deck is "Nothing Happens".  They can force you to discard cards from your next hand, lose fans or lose upgrades you've earnt.  I really like this addition and think it makes the game a bit more interesting now there is a way to lose fans not just gain them.

The biggest two changes are Stadiums and the Corrupt Ref.  The Stadiums are a set of oversized cards laid out at the start of the game and each of your match ups gets played on top of them.  They add new special rules to the games like player limits, Star Player requirement or banning certain skills.  They don't change between rounds so will stay the same for the whole game.

I do like the Stadiums and they are simple to use and add more choice on where to go because of the extra rewards (seen either side at the bottom) or the special rules (top corners).  I don't like them in two player games though.  Because you deal out 5 and only play on the first two players join it can mean that you go to the same places over and over, especially if one stadium really benefits you and another your opponent.  I played a game with Wood Elves two player and we used the same two almost every round.  I (as the Elves) always chose to go to the stadium that banned the Block skill since Elves are not a heavy hitting team and it made it that much harder to get the ball off me.  My opponent always went for the stadium that banned the Pass skill since it meant I had to play there but couldn't use the Elves superior ball control.  It meant that we would each normally win the match up we committed to and unless the rewards were a lot better at another stadium always play on the same two.  This problem is more or less unique to a two player game since 3+ you have more choice on which match ups to join because if you don't want to play a match your opponent has joined you can leave that to the 3rd player and join the other two matches.  Of course it is possible to win in a stadium where your team's main advantage is taken away and in the example above I did win a few in the no passing and loss a few in the no blocking but I think it takes something away from the game being so limited.  I do use them in 3+ games and think then they are a simple way to change up the game and increase replayability.

Last but not least we have the Corrupt Ref, a shady figure who moves from match to match ignoring cheating.  The first player gets to pick a game where the ref starts each round and then each time a player is committed to that match up that player gets a face up cheating token put on them (not used until later when you reveal the rest of the cheating tokens) and then he moves to another match up based on the star player value of the player committed.  At the end of the round if the ref ends on a match where one team has no face up cheating tokens that player gets a Penalty card and the rest of the face up tokens on that match up are removed.

I like the ref, it does add a lot of interesting tactics trying to keep him away from matches where you don't want him and move him to matches that might help you by getting rid of face up cheat tokens you have that might get your players removed or give your opponents Penalties.  It can be hard to keep track of him and remember to move him around, we found that he does get forgotten some of the time when you first start using him.  Like the stadiums I prefer him in 3+ player games since otherwise he is just moving back and forth between the same two match-ups and you don't have the chance to mess with an opponent you are not in a match up against by moving him there.

Overall
I really like this expansion.  I just keep the new Cheat tokens, Penalties, Teams and Spike! cards mixed in with the rest of my base set and would use them (or at least have the option to draw them from the deck) in every game I play now, they add enough to make them worth using but without adding an extra level of complexity.  The stadiums and ref I'm more on the fence about, I think they are interesting but only in 3+ player games and I'd only use them with experienced players who could keep track of everything and maybe not even use them then it really depends on how I feel.

I haven't reviewed Sudden Death yet because I don't own it at the moment and have only played with it a couple of times.  However I do prefer the extra rules included in that expansion to this one, but I prefer the teams you get with in Foul Play and the ability to add parts you like and not the others makes it well worth getting if you are a fan of the base game.