Is Blood Bowl Coming Back To The Pitch This Year?
March 27, 2013 by brennon
The rumour mill is firing on all cylinders this week as a new selection of theories and teasing details about Blood Bowl by Games Workshop escaped onto the internet via a Warseer post by two of the most on-the-spot spies Harry and Hastings.
Most of you will remember the game above you, and for those of you who didn't get a hold of it you most likely played the game in a variety of other forms. It truly is one of the best products Games Workshop have put out there and still holds up strong thanks to the Living Rule Book.
Well, this year could be the year of a new Blood Bowl Box. Check out a list of ideas for what could be in it...
- Plastic/Cardboard Pitch.
- Four Teams (Humans, Orcs, Elves, Chaos). The first two would be a good bet if the game were to return.
- Rulebook containing ways to play a mini-league with the four teams in the box.
Now that does sounds pretty interesting. While this is still very pie in the sky thinking this year does see the anniversary of the game and Games Workshop undoubtedly know that this will most certainly sell well.
If you want to know more about the rumours check out the thread on Warseer. Just remember that big handful of salt.
Would you buy Blood Bowl?
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Lets hope they don’t change it. The whole success of blood bowl is that it’s spot on. It’s jervis johnsons masterpiece. He says do himself.
Go the averland mooties, my halfling team. Three treemen and the rest halflings. Winners of several campaigns.
While undoubtedly there are many fans of this game, and quite rightly so – it was a classic of its day, I’m less than enamoured by the thought of it’s return. If they just “do a Space Hulk” and gloss up the previous version (version 6 or whatever the LRB is now?) then the game-play feels really old fashioned and clunky. Seriously, these days, who wants to play a game that takes all day? Back in the day there wasn’t much alternative, and the whole concept of a whacky fantasy sports game was pretty much a novelty, but nowadays? Sure… Read more »
You must be playing the wrong game; considering there is a 4 min time limit for each turn, and that can be drastically reduced by a turn over, I’ve no idea how you come to the conclusion that BB takes all day to play. Also, do you play minature games? Personally there a few things as entertaining as getting together with chums, playing with toy soldiers while having a few beers and eating snacks. As to why this is being done; maybe GW have been encouraged by the success / popularity of the Bloodbowl computer game and the Team Manager… Read more »
I don’t remember Bloodbowl taking all day to play – are my glasses rose tinted?
No they’re not. 4 minutes a turn maximum. 4 minutes to set up maximum. 2 hours 26 minutes maximum play time per game.
Tough call – while I love blood bowl, I already have the third edition (and the 1st as well!), so not sure what there is to be gained from an updated box set – especially since (a) it doesn’t quite suit the one box format as well as space hulk and dreadfleet, and (b) dreadball is now on the scene… Still think it might be on the cards… The other rumour is it being a new version of Warhammer Quest – that would work as a one box very well! 🙂
Would love the return of quest and it would tie in quite well with the app they’re making. You know gw love to make computer games then bring out a new rule set very soon after.
GW could support Quest easily and make it direct only if they wished – it would still sell. They have the capacity to produce single figure plastic sprues – so that’s all the heroes covered, they could do battle level bundles and…I’d go on but they’d be crazy not to revisit it at some point. Meanwhile people will continue to buy elsewhere for their dungeon crawling needs – again it’s an area of the market GW have ignored at a cost to themselves IMO…
I heard somewhere that all the files were lost for Warhammer Quest so they would have to start from scratch rule wise and floor tile wise. I don’t know why the couldn’t use a copy of the old rules and at the minimum have an intern re-type them, or something.
Yes they also say they don’t have a lot of oop moulds. Yet my dad has seen the store room they’re all in. GW understand supply and demand very well.
Well I can tell you that’s, for the most part, a fallacy. I have the original rules and the files – the bulk of which are easy to copy and reformat 😉 Quest is one of those games that doesn’t need a lot doing to it and is pretty easy to update all their new minis into. They don’t need new moulds as they have 80-90% of the monsters you’ll ever need. They just need new hero sculpts – what’s a dozen or so sculpts to GW? If that, even – they already have viable Elf, Wizard and Dwarf minis,… Read more »
Actually, it’s not a fallacy – exactly the same happened with the BB rules, which is why they had to be completely rebuilt (by a non-GW staff member – Tom “Galak” Anders) for the release of LRB3.
Well if I have the 3 main books that can all be copied and pasted then I’d say at the very least the bulk of the game is available…they may have lost the files but they still exist in some form – unless I’m just imagining things…which is…possible I guess? 🙂
@osbad – I have to disagree a little there. Bloodbowl is as nigh on perfect a miniatures game as you’ll ever get. If anything needs updating its the models and pitch design. If GW had continued to stock their range of “specialist” games and updated them accordingly over the years – most would only require new sculpts and a small tweak of their rules – then I feel they’d be just as popular as they were back in the day. In fact I’d go so far to say a lot of these alternate companies producing skirmish games, naval or space… Read more »
I find BB to be a mind-numbingly turgid experience but that’s just personal preference.
Even at it’s peak of popularity, BB shifted minimal amounts of minis and made very little profit. It’s not a case of them not being bothered, it’s that no matter how much they tried it made no sense to keep it on the shelves or keep supporting it.
Really? I remember the GW in bolton having a blood bowl table permanently laid out for years. It was very popular. The reason i suspect it was dropped was that you only need a few models for a team.
Which is why even when it was very popular, GW made very little money out of it. It used up resources and shelf space that could be used on far more profitable games.
True but it’s also a leader game. It’s cheaper so you can start off with it, then move on to the other games.
Dark Vengeance does that job just as well and generates large amounts of on-going sales. BB generates virtually no on-ongoing. The disparity in revenue for the same amount of resources is huge.
Yes dark vengeance does generate interest. But that’s because it’s supported in stores. You’ve just made my point for me.
No, you’ve missed mine. It’s not that BB could sell as many boxed sets as DV if it was supported in-store to the same extent. Maybe it could, maybe it couldn’t. It’s that the customer who walks out of the store clutching DV will likely come back and spend lots more money on other 40K minis. The customer who walks out clutching BB will spend very little money on other BB minis. You might argue that GW should just sell them both side-by-side and make a profit from both but leaving aside the fact that something more profitable would have… Read more »
Well, I guess we’ll agree to disagree 🙂
At the end of the day it must have some popularity or GW wouldn’t consider revisiting it through a boxed set at all. I guess you could argue the same for Quest etc as well, however it’s hard to tell without looking at specific sales figures during the periods these games were active…either way there must be some profit in it or the various alternate producers wouldn’t be in business.
I refuse to agree to disagree, does that mean we agree? lol 😀 I suppose the point that I’m trying to get at, and something I was first on the wrong end of back when Empire in Flames was released and crapped all over The Enemy Within Campaign, is that there’s a difference between popular and capable turning of a profit, and popular and capable of turning a huge profit. Taking Empire In Flames as it’s probably the best example. At the time (we’re talking c.86-90) GW were regularly releasing books for WFB, WFRP and 40K (or RT as it… Read more »
No my point was that as BB is a stand alone game it’s a cheap starter into the hobby. 40k and warhammer are not. You really need at least a 1000p of stuff. That’s not cheap. BB you need a team and to know someone who owns a copy. Back then it was about £12 for a team. £25 for the game. People get into it and decide to try the other more expensive systems.
And DV is a standalone game which then brings people into 40K. The numbers don’t lie, the more GW have devoted resources and shelf space to full-scale wargames that generate large quantities of minis sales and the more they’ve removed the games that do not, the more their revenue has grown. We can debate its merits as a game, its popularity, its ability to bring new customers to GW, even if its profitability. We can’t debate the bottom line. GW make more money focusing on 40K and WFB to the exclusion of BB and the like than they did when… Read more »
I am not disputing that WFB 40K are the cash cows. But how many of us got into the hobby because of smaller games such as heroquest, space crusade, battle masters or necromunda. They do get people into the hobby because they’re cheaper and stand alone. GW have forgotten this. That isn’t smart economics.
I must admit that I have only played it a couple of times. And hated it. Special rule on special rule – it felt like every potential twist of fate took about 17 die rolls to resolve. But I may have just had an unrepresentative experience. I appreciate a lot of people like it and it is probably the most popular of GW’s specialist games, but I can’t ever see it breaking out of that niche. If it had ever had the potential to break out of that niche and make serious profits, GW would have surely exploited it before… Read more »
The main question I have is will this be limited edition like dreadfleet and spacehulk
Probably – Ltd. Edition adds value to it 😉 This and I can’t see them supporting it as a ‘main’ game system again, which it pretty much was/is (?) in most European countries where GW has any presence (like Spain and France I believe). Hell, even Space Hulk had loads of extra missions they could have printed as a supplement in WD or else kept the game in print and provide them separately. As it is copies of Space Hulk sell for £80-120+ on ebay – which is simply money GW isn’t making. Hell they could still sell the minis… Read more »
I can’t see it making it as a “main” system again simply because the model count is too low to satisfy GW’s needs. Small companies could and can make a living, but GW needs much larger returns from “main” systems. It would need to sell in multiple 100,000’s of units to justify “main” status, rather than the 10,000’s of units it is likely to, which has always kept it as a specialist game, despite the fact that it has a relatively large player base. A simple matter of scale of the game and maths.
I think the main reason BB isn’t actually worth very much money to GW is that there’s little incentive for players to buy dozens, if not hundreds, of new minis every year. Even if they refresh the teams every “season”, the numbers still won’t add up to the sales they generate from a single new army codex. It’s really not that profitable (when compared to GW’s other products). They can take that effort and direct it toward more army updates for 40k or WFB. It might be worth their time and effort to release a special edition BB (which is… Read more »
I agree with your point but I’d say if something is profitable then it’s worth maintaining in order to keep customer loyalty – after all there is still a community out there that spends money for BB that GW isn’t seeing much of, whereas if they supported it and other games like it a little more they’d see some more profit each year, which would add up. There’d be nothing to stop them from doing a Blood Bowl week across their stores to promote the product one summer or one half-term for example. GW doesn’t have to give it the… Read more »
Principles is something GW can’t afford anymore. They’re a publicly traded corporation and they answer to their shareholders. Shareholders want one and only one thing: growth. BB is probably sustainably profitable, but it doesn’t have a great deal of year after year growth potential. Shareholders don’t like that so GW makes a special edition instead and they get a single-quarter spike in revenue. Shareholders like that. You make good points, but in the end it’s the economics. A company that isn’t publicly traded has a lot more leeway in this circumstances. As long as they can pay their bills and… Read more »
I agree with you completely – all I’m really saying is that the corporate mindset may (and I’d wager is) doing the opposite effect of what made GW into a big enough company that they could gain initial interest on the stock market. The corporate mindset is a detriment to the kind of business that GW ought to be — it may work for other’s but I feel not in this case. They are their own worst enemy. I know they have a legal obligation to their shareholders, however I believe they are making moves that only generate less money… Read more »
Even though i loved playing Bloodbowl, and indeed the average game didn’t last over 2,5 hours. I am wondering at the price they wil charge for it. If it in the range of dreadfleet and spacehulk, i’ll pass, for that kind of money dreadball is way cheaper and I would rather support them……..
Sorry GW, we the people now own Blood Bowl. It’s advanced without your help. New models are made by others and new team rules as well (official or not). As much as I would like to see a new version of BB, I feel like many others have contributed far more now than GW has as of late. It’s like they know they have the right to the game but really don’t give a damn about it until its time to tug at the cash cow strings.
Surely one exception,,, an unlikely one
If GW sat Jervis Johnson down and said “we’ll let you do EVERYTHING and ANYTHING. Everything you’ve never got to do, all that stuff in your notebook, we’ll let you do it for Blood Bowl, nothing is off the table, we trust you, you’ll direct the design team as well, the miniatures will be entirely under your control as well”
Then you have a different ball game.
I think they are trying to plug this as a lot of Kick Starters are doing so well. Personally, I think KS are doing so well as people are fed up with the GW side of things and a lot of people wanting to jump ship. As you correctly identify Manpug, GW own the name but the game belongs to the gamers, plus there is Dreadball which is a good favourite of the masses.
GW feel they are missing out, I am guessing. I would say yes they are. 🙂
I agree with manpug, but I have to say. My 3 fav games of all time were.
1. WH Quest
2. Necromunda
3. Bloodbowl,
But there are other companys making new team and pretty nice looking to. Can’t see how they could improve the game, I mean why fix something that ain’t broke. But still, will have to wait and see.
Necromunda is my fav game,i’ve got origanal models and also some of my gangs are made up of models from games like infinity.I’ve been playing games workshop games for about 20yrs but got very peeved with the way they bring out new games e.g. Inquisitor which i put alot of time and money into and then they just drop them after a year or so.
Damn, I’ve been saving to buy Blood Bowl so that I can start a league with my friends! :S Maybe I should just purchase the existing version – the new one will probably cost more than my car anyway…
Idea of Blood Bowl coming back is interesting idea and even with models and rules from other companies I wonder is there could be demand to this. Some people might want new BB from GW from one reason or other like having played classic BB before but not having owned it themselves back in day so maybe some people might buy it. Then again not everyone have even played BB but might be interested from it.
Personally I’d prefer a re-done Adeptus Titanicus. Give us titans, gargants and what not. Six or seven per side, none of this infantry nonsense, just giant machines smashing one another up. Re-do the stat lines so damage is all built into the weapon profile and cut down the number of dice rolls for a truly tactical game based on movement, crossfires, void shields (sacrifice moving for shields), go Ork, Eldar and Imperial. Three distinct models, put 5 models in the box and sell the titans separately for upgrades. I can’t be the only one wanting to field 15 titan armies… Read more »
This would be my number one choice for the next relauched game. i still have 12 of the original bettle back titans and once in a while get them out to slug it out with a bunch of mega gargants. I think warhammer quest is better suited to the Limited Edition treatment that space hulk got, as everything you will ever need could go in the box. The problem with blood bowl would be people who don’t play the four teams that come in the box would feel left out, and there’d be no point in releasing other teams later… Read more »
I know i’d pick up a copy of blood bowl if the models / cardstock was of the quality we saw in space hulk. Skirmish level games are going down well at the moment as they are much easier to pick up and play, and are great for introducing new people into the hobby. Space hulk was the first game i ever played back as a child, and the new version got my girlfreind into wargaming.
This is the sort of thing GW need if they want to attract new people into the hobby.
“Gondor has no King. Gondor needs no King.” To explain my Boromir quote further, Blood Bowl has got along just fine thank you very much with little or no love from Games Workshop. I would prefer they left it that way. Sure – a new box with new board/toys would be nice but the big fear is that GW will change the current rules to suit some marketing ploy. The Khornate Daemon team in the Cyanide game is such an example. The reason that Blood Bowl is still popular now has nothing to do with GW – in fact, I… Read more »
Why does anyone care about any potential rule tweeks? You could just buy the set for the board / dice / models / rulers whatever and then just download the 5th or 6th edition rules for free and use them if any new changes are silly. Your aren’t going to find your door knocked down if you don’t play with the new rules. Who is to say that GW hasn’t taken some feedback with regards to how the game is played online (i.e. look at the reasons why there are so many dwarf / chaos teams)? Also, people are wrong… Read more »
Unless the new sculpts are amazing, I suspect it just won’t be worth buying just for the minis. Especially since all the best looking BB miniatures on the market right now are not made by GW.
I have no experience with BB so I have no idea if it’s a good game or not. But it’s pretty clear that GW thought it unprofitable enough to stop supporting it once. I can’t imagine what recent events might have changed their mind about that… oh yeah, Dreadball’s very successful kickstarter campaign and all the hype that Mantic has been receiving surrounding the game might have something to do with it. GW has come to believe (possibly rightly so) that there is a larger audience for this than they previously thought. Seems like so many other recent GW decisions.… Read more »
Have you ever considered that it might be the other way round and that Mantic pre-empted a BB re-release with DB?
Seeing how closely GW plays their cards to their chest it seems rather unlikely that DB knew about this beforehand, especially when you consider that the DB kickstarter started almost a year ago now and they already had most of the game designed before launching that kickstarter (which implies they started work on the game probably almost a year before that). I find it highly unlikely that GW planned the BB release almost two years ago, it was leaked to Mantic (and nobody else apparently) and then Mantic quickly threw together a well-designed and stylistically interesting product in less time… Read more »
I got my dates a little wrong (comes with age). The DB kickstarter was a little over half a year ago. Still, I don’t see how Mantic could have heard about a potential BB refresh without anyone else knowing, and they still got a new game and a bunch of minis to market with a relatively limited set of resources compared to GW. Seems very unlikely.
GW plan a new army book/codex as much as five years before it gets released.
As to how Mantic might know what’s going in GW towers. That doesn’t seem to stretch the imagination too far.
@redben; allow me to reiterate what I believe you’re hinting at – Mantic learns of GW’s plans to put out a Bloodbowl reprint, decides that GW’s marketing research on one-box games is sound (as proven by the success of SpaceHulk and Dreadfleet) and quickly gets out a sci-fi themed game of their own, with miniatures completely incompatible with BB. All that cunning and they don’t make the minis derivative of BB, which could have, at worst, net profits from players of older editions and, at best, sell more stuff as the new edition of BB would have come out. Occam’s… Read more »
I’ll leave at saying that I don’t think DB’s release has anything to do with BB’s potential re-release and that the latter likely pe-dates the former.
I may be overly pessimist, but that’s how I see it going down; They’ve seen the potential with the success of the PC version and Dreadball, they want to tap into that. They’ll make it limited release, to profit from the hysteria by people thinking “I’m not missing this for the next 25 years again”. It will be a game-in-a-box format, since they don’t plan to support it beyond the initial release. My arguments are that there are four teams in the box and rules for a “mini campaign”. They could have given just two teams (making the price more… Read more »
I think you’re right to say that this would be a one-shot release with no future support. On the other hand there is an existing range of BB teams you can buy from the GW website so it’d be a simple thing to port them into the new BB.
Depending on how drastic a potential rules change would be and if GW would provide official updates to the statlines for those.
They might actually release updated stats in a direct-only overpriced booklet. :D:D:D
I really don’t care much because i’m already playing Dreadball ( two teams from the starter + the ladies team and maybe the Veer’myn in a near future ). I know Blood Bowl is a classic and surely it will be massively welcome by many but i’m also sure that GW won’t invest a lot of resources in it ( new teams, remake of all the old ones , seasons?!?! ) It will just re-release what it was with a better quality and better package, that’s why i prefer to put my money on Dreadball.
If its ture I will dance a Happy Little Dance as more people start playing giving me an excuess to pull out my teams and playing a game or to (or heaven forbid start a league).
I’ve been running a league at the Chelmsford Bunker since 2006 Swampy – you’ve missed three Bunker Bowl NAF registered tournaments too 🙂
I played in a league for a couple of years and loved it. I’m just starting a new one with some friends… Anyone has a release date!?
I cannot see it working honestly, Spacehulk, self contained, Dreadfleet (I think), self contained, Bloodbowl, you cannot make it self contained its the nature of the beast and what people will expect, I will be really disappointed if they attempt to cash on nostalgia by releasing a cut down version of a really classic game.
Call me cynical, but that’s exactly what I have no trouble imagining; heat up the hype with the anniversary, net a quick profit, add it to the overall half-year (third quarter, whatever) numbers and serve to the shareholders.
I’ll cut myself short, as we have no proof BB is even coming out, much less in what format. But based on (limited) observations of the GW’s recent practices, that’s where I see the trend going.
Bah thats the 3th time around that GW is bringing out old stuff. just like epic and space hulk.
whats next? gorka morca or necromunda?
I’ve tried to write a cogent, coherent and well argued response to this thread half a dozen times but what it comes down to is this – I own all the GW games I enjoyed playing (Quest, Necromunda, Mordheim, Bloodbowl, Battlefleet Gothic and 40k 2nd Ed.) and if I had the £75+ they’d probably charge for whatever they do release I find I’d rather spend it on one of the many new games that have come out lately – Infinity, Mercs, Carnevale, Malifaux and the Dystopian ranges to name but a few – I’ve even stopped going into the local… Read more »
How true. The what are you here to buy? Really pisses me off. Am i not allowed to browse? Do i have to buy something? Could you not just have a hello, if you need any help we’re over here.
And the hello, if you need any thing just ask was not random but something we were trained to do as staff, back when I worked for them. As well as building a rapport, listening to customer needs and offering advice. As for Bloodbowl, great – as long as it is back to pure third rules – I personally don’t like the latest incarnation – lacks the fun of the original. It is still however a great game. Oddly I heard that Bloodbowl got pulled from release last year due to Dreadball – I personally don’t believe it as I… Read more »
It’s certainly not a negative given the way those gaps are being filled now – there are some great systems coming out these days, some with similar settings to the GW universe and some that are very different … good days indeed.
Would love to see the return of BB – got the original at home in the attic, may have to dust it off…
I for one was a big fan of the GW Specialist Games range – especially Mordheim and Necromunda – shame they’ve essentially ditched them…
This is the 3rd or 4th year these same “rumours” have started to circulate, and there’s been nothing yet. And why would you do a 25th anniversary of 2nd edition? Why not 1st (whoops, missed that one) or 3rd (which would at least have some relevence)? Sounds like someone pulling figures out of their butt if you ask me. That said, I could see GW doing a “stand-alone” version of BB, but whether it would get brought (for me) would be on what the pitch and figures are like. I’ll ignore any GW-only rules, because when it comes to BB,… Read more »
With a dozen manufacturers making better mini football team minis than GW ever did, Dreadball rocking, Tutatis small scale fun, and even Elfball a nice option, why do we care if they relaunch a rehash.
Is it fair to compare teams that have recently been sculpted, to those GW did some 15+ years ago? I’d also debate that the vast majority of Elf football teams that are out there, are actually worse then the old GW versions, if only for the fact that the majority of Elf teams tend to be females wearing very little clothing. Personally, I couldn’t find “ratmen” teams I liked the look of, but that didn’t matter because I managed to make my own pretty easily using mostly just the Stormvermin box. It’s not like you have spend much imagination with… Read more »
If you’re not a fan of bare skin then don’t paint it like bare skin, I agree it wouldn’t help with all minis out there …. what you say about using alternative minis with a bit of conversion is true and even more effective when you start to use minis from any range – for skirmish games I’m a huge fan of Kev White’s range over at Hasslefree, minis for all needs and situations 🙂
Wasn’t part of BB’s profitability lost in to the other big two at the time due to many of us grabbing plastic box sets and converting our teams. I have used plastic skaven, 40k orks mordheim amazons, Khemri undead to name a few. All of which are recorded on other profit sheets.
@moodygit.
I believe lots of 40k/WHFB minis were used in the specialist games , as alternatives -proxies.
(Plastic minis being a fair bit cheaper than the ‘proper’ white metal ones.)
But this and the ‘easy introduction to GW games’ the SGs provided, were not really considered by GW corperate managment when reviewing product sales….
BB is currently the best game GW plc released, and let the fans develop, and third parties support indirectly.(IMO.)