Download the Rules from the Foul Play Expansion for Blood Bowl: Team Manager

Well, Jim, recent efforts to enforce penalties have certainly met with mixed success.

You’re right about that, Bob. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen so many completely enraged Chaos Dwarfs.

And that’s saying something, though some teams have been getting on good terms with the new ref…

Blood Bowl becomes more wild and unpredictable than ever with the upcoming Foul Play expansion for Blood Bowl: Team Manager. In an unprecedented move, the Team Managers’ Union has introduced penalties, and while a suitably corrupt ref is helping players cheat, rumors are wild that many of this season’s Blood Bowl games will be played in brand-new stadiums.

In our last preview of Foul Play, we looked at the three new teams that make up the Putrid Players’ Guild: Chaos Dwarfs, goblins, and the servants of Nurgle. Today, we’ll bring you an inside look at the newest mechanics in Blood Bowl: Team Manager. As an added bonus, you can now download the rules (pdf, 3.1MB) for Foul Play from the Blood Bowl: Team Manager support page!

Penalize the Play

For the first time ever, Blood Bowl officials have decided to institute penalties, punishing excessive cheating. Managers in Foul Play can receive penalties in a variety of ways, including from additional cheating tokens. When a manager receives a penalty, he must draw a Penalty card from the deck, keeping it facedown until each manager’s improvement pile is revealed in the Scoreboard Phase. At this point, the card is revealed and takes effect.

Penalties can afflict managers in a variety of ways, but they share one thing in common – they’re almost never pleasant for the punished manager. You may lose fans from the Roughing the Ref penalty card, and Downsize may force you to draw fewer Staff Upgrades. Sometimes, Chaos Karma downs your players even as they tackle the opposition, and in extreme circumstances, a Red Card removes a Star Player from your roster!

Corrupt Judgments

Blood Bowl officials may hope to reduce cheating through the introduction of penalties, but enterprising teams find ways to cheat more and cheat better by enlisting the aid of a corrupt ref. As teams prepare for kickoff, the corrupt ref is placed by the first manager at any matchup’s midfield. Whenever you commit a player to a matchup with the corrupt ref, you immediately receive a faceup cheating token, allowing to know the effects of the cheating token ahead of time and plan accordingly.

After the corrupt ref dispenses a faceup cheating token to the player just committed to his matchup, he heads elsewhere, moving from matchup to matchup as shown by the diagram above. The corrupt ref always moves toward the Spike! Magazine deck, and he moves a number of spaces equal to the Star Power of the player committed to his last matchup. In the example above, a Bull Centaur with a Star Power of three was played to the corrupt ref’s matchup. The corrupt ref moves three spaces, moving toward the Spike! Magazine deck. When he can move no closer, he returns to the space farthest from the deck, and begins to move towards the deck once more.

After the Scoreboard phase begins, the corrupt ref punishes those who refused to work with him by issuing a penalty to each manager at his matchup who doesn’t have a player with a faceup cheating token. Then, the corrupt ref removes all faceup cheating tokens from the matchup before they take effect. By playing your team well and planning ahead, you can use the corrupt ref to neutralize faceup cheating tokens that would harm you, or to remove faceup cheating tokens that could help your opponent.

Into the Stadiums

In this season of Blood Bowl: Team Manager, matchups are hosted in a variety of new stadiums. Stadiums offer a location for your struggles against other teams at matchups. In addition, stadiums offer both sides a bonus by granting an extension to your team zone payout. The bonuses to be added to a team zone payout are shown on the stadium card and remain constant, no matter which matchup is played in that stadium.

Each stadium also has its own unique restrictions. The Barak-Varr Bowl, for example, bans players from using the regeneration skill while committed to a matchup there. Other stadiums have even more exotic conditions. The Aldorf Oldbowl requires all players to have at least two Star Power, whereas the Nehekhara Death Dome allows no more than two players per side. Of course, it wouldn’t be Blood Bowl if teams had to play by the rules! You always have the option to ignore the stadium’s restrictions, but if you commit a player that breaks the stadium’s rules, you must take a penalty card.

Take Your Positions

Penalties await team managers that break the rules in Foul Play, but as usual, there are ways to get around restrictions. Head to the stadiums, gather your players, and get on the ref’s good side. A new season of Blood Bowl arrives in Foul Play!

Download the rules from the support page, then pre-order your copy at your local retailer today.

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