Blood Bowl - returns to Warhammer World 21st and 22nd May

[Mr Mystery]

[url=http://warhammerworld.games-workshop.com/the-bugmans-xxxxxx-league-cup/]Yes, Sportsfans, it's back with a bang![/url]

I may go to Nottingham that weekend, even though I suck at Bloodbowl.

[Erik Setzer]

Using the classic rules. Cool. I think the edits they made work for a quick weekend league, but I'd stick with stock for a long term league.

Maybe this will set a precedent and I can bring my copy of Blood Bowl (and the half-dozen or more teams I have for it) back to the local GW to play.

[Mr Mystery]

You can but ask

[Mr Mystery]

And now I've got five minutes....

With Blood Bowl confirmed for 2017 at that Toy Fair, it seems getting some games shown off in store isn't necessarily a bad idea.

This far out though - there's the risk peeps will take to eBay to get teams, which could cut into sales of new teams in the fyootcha.

But as I said, you can but ask. Manager's discretion etc.

[Erik Setzer]

When the old manager did a soft-of-after-hours league (that ended up with a set of BB on constantly display and people playing at all hours), he encouraged getting current models and converting them. Did that himself for a pretty awesome Nurgle team (including using the new-at-the-time Blightkings for part of the team). Some other people did it, with nice results. I'm fond of my own converted team, which I used despite having two existing Orc teams. Convincing people to convert their own teams isn't a bad idea, as it still gets them to spend money on GW models.

The tricky part would possibly be the rules and all. You'd hope they don't completely redo the rules to try to make sure people buy the new version (especially as that'd create a disconnect with the video game, which would be a nice way to introduce people to the miniatures game). I've got a classic set and I'd still be willing to buy the new set (provided it's not some insane price). Ideal would be for them to also sell the board and dice separate (and maybe the rules, but I'd love to see Specialist Games use "living rulebooks" again, and they're doing that for AoS, so why not?), then people can buy what they need to play and convert a team or use an old team. Might not be worth it, dunno. I imagine they'll at least try just selling the boxed game at first before trying to gauge interest of selling parts of it.

[Path Walker]

Talking with the team, they're looking at 2nd edition for the rules and starting from there. Shouldn't be too much to change from there.

[Mr Mystery]

2nd Ed - as in '2D6 table o' doom'

Or 3rd Ed, where the Block Dice made life simpler, if perhaps a wee bit duller?

But I agree with Erik - Living Rulebooks seem the way to go.

Far more so than 40k and Warhammer/AoS, Specialist Games are community efforts - they're games you really need a bunch of regular opponents for playing in at least a semi-organised way (perhaps not Epic though, but you get my drift).

Living Rulebooks can help with sales of models as well. Cunning tweak to Weapon#243 means people will be ditching their Weapon#4423 models in favour of those with the newly tweaked Weapon#243.

[Erik Setzer]

Yeah, "living" rulebooks means you can make those tweaks in large numbers when necessary without requiring people to buy a whole new book, something that's already causing a bit of ire in the 40K community. And if sales for something are lacking, you can tweak it just a bit to make it seem more desirable.

The proper way to do that is to also put out a notice via an article and/or email, noting the change, with a link to download the updated rules, and a link to purchase the model/s affected. Then people see the change, think, "Hmm, that's nice, but I don't have this model yet," and then notice the helpful link to go buy the model, and add it to their cart. Boom! More sales!

It might sound cynical, but linking to products in articles is a great way to get some quick sales. I insist on linking to products in pretty much every page I do for our Marketing team. G-Dub did it right when they used to have hobby articles and would link to the products mentioned. You give your customers value for free... but it's also marketing and subtly pushing them to make a purchase.

[Path Walker]

2nd Ed - as in '2D6 table o' doom'

Or 3rd Ed, where the Block Dice made life simpler, if perhaps a wee bit duller?

But I agree with Erik - Living Rulebooks seem the way to go.

Far more so than 40k and Warhammer/AoS, Specialist Games are community efforts - they're games you really need a bunch of regular opponents for playing in at least a semi-organised way (perhaps not Epic though, but you get my drift).

Living Rulebooks can help with sales of models as well. Cunning tweak to Weapon#243 means people will be ditching their Weapon#4423 models in favour of those with the newly tweaked Weapon#243.

He (Andy Hoare) said second was what they were looking at when writing the rules, not looking to change much from the core Blood Bowl gameplay. Maybe he meant the second edition of modern Blood Bowl, because the 3rd edition box was reprinted in 2002 with 4th edition rules!

I think they're aiming for everything to be standalone and simple, that was the impression I got. The Living Rule Book still survives and NAF keep the game going very well, but its a big commitment for a company, one they don't seem keen to take on.