It's been five years since the release of the Blood Bowl Second Season Edition. Is it too soon for Games Workshop to release a new edition? This question is one that divides our community quite a bit. For some, the last edition had problems that this new edition removes, for example, the 'wildly inaccurate' result while passing rule and the new 'keyword' system which solves a lot of the uncertainty around rules and skills interactions.
On the other hand, it could be argued that releasing a new edition relatively quickly on the heels of the Second Season Edition (2020) means more changes, too soon and risks more inaccuracies arising through lack of adequate play testing.
The 'Living Rule Book' (LRB) era was a long, stable period in Blood Bowl's history, running between 2002 and 2016. Any rule changes made during this period were just small tweaks, instituted after thorough play testing, and ensured everyone was on the same page.
Let's dive in to the new Third Season Edition and assess the situation.
This is the first starter box of a Blood Bowl edition that doesn't contain Orcs. Historically we've seen Humans vs Orcs consistently up until the 2020 edition which deviated slightly with Imperial Humans vs Black Orcs. In this new edition we are being treated to Bretonnians verses Tomb Kings. This pairing started the return of Old World three years ago and at the time I wondered if we would see these races appearing as Blood Bowl releases, which we have here.
As discussed, new editions come with rule adjustments, and this edition is no different. We see the removal or adjustment of many disliked random elements that came with the 2020 edition. simplification Some skills have been simplified to make for easier play including 'Shadowing' and 'Tentacles' and as mentioned, the key wording system has cleared up a lot of confusion surrounding the interaction between skills and rules.
Almost all of the original rosters have been changed and this has caused some concern and trepidation in the community, however, I can't wade in on this debate as yet as I haven't had a thorough read of these changes. As always, the proof is in the playing and I believe that play testing will paint a more complete picture than simply reading the rules and will ultimately validate or highlight inadequacies in these changes. I'm personally glad to say goodbye to the 'wildly inaccurate' passing rule which made passing an unsustainable gamble and could easily derail a game. I also welcome the improvements to 'throw teammate' which means I will be happily flinging Halflings forever!
Token sprue. These will be useful for keeping track of the new effects.
I do agree with comments that say newer models have a tendency to roll when laid down and here we see Games Workshop's attempt to address the issue with the new 'Prone' and 'Stunned' tokens. However, I think this approach isn't ideal for gameplay as it causes visual confusion. A more elegant fix could be square or hexagon shaped bases, however, this could potentially change the aesthetic of the models which Games Workshop tries to avoid. I'm willing to give these tokens a try however I think they may prove fiddly to use, but for clarity I will continue to lay down 'Prone' and 'Stunned' players.
Token sprue reverse. As you can see, effects like 'Rooted' and 'Dodgy Snack' are the same on both sides. The tokens for a downed player have 'Prone' on one side and 'Stunned' on the reverse. I'm quite tempted to try some Gundam style panel liner to fill in the text indents and the space around the symbols with black. To my understanding it's just paint mixed with thinner and flow improver, so I might try to mix my own oil paint ink and see if I can achieve the same effect without spending money.
Tomb Kings Sprues. I really like these. Don't get me wrong, I love my 5th Edition team but of course I need two teams for those Tomb Kings on Tomb Kings mirror matches…
Bretonnia sprues. The Bretonnian roster has seen some different rules throughout the history of Blood Bowl and did appear as a digital team in Blood Bowl II, but this is the first set of physical models we've ever had, not counting the paper cut outs that appeared in First Edition: Death Zone.
Templates. I have so many of this sprue! I need to figure out a good use for them.
Divider reverse side. The 2020 edition featured dividers printed with images of the available teams and I'm sad we aren't seeing this return in 2025. I really enjoyed looking at the different teams and feel like this is a missed opportunity. On the other hand this is cleaner looking, perhaps?
Second layer. It's great that Games Workshop seems to be making an effort to reduce plastic with the introduction of paper wrappers for the dice, rulebook and pitch. The main box also came without shrink wrap, just two stickers holding it shut. The blue envelope holds the double sided pitch. The red envelope holds the rulebook and the small blue paper package holds the dice.
Check your dice! The box should include:
- 1 x each colour d16
- 1 x each colour d8
- 3 x block dice of each colour
- 2 x d6 of each colour
There have been some reports of people getting normal d6 instead of block dice or two d16 instead of d8. An interesting discovery is that these dice weigh 4g each instead of 5g, which was the weight of the dice in the previous edition. That is a 20% decrease in weight. However, I don’t think that they suffer too much because of this reduction, even though it is noticable, they still feel like quality components, but you certainly wouldn't want to go any lighter.
Rulebook. On the 14th of November, one day before the release, Games Workshop released an errata for the rulebook. Who is their proofreader? Anyway....
- Page 165. Chaos Renegade Teams - Ogre
- Add the Mighty Blow Skill
- Pages 172, 173 & 180. Human Teams, Imperial Nobility Teams, Old World Alliance Teams – Ogre
- Remove Mutation (M) from their Secondary Skills
- Page 180. Old World Alliance Teams – Halfling Hopeful
- Change the QTY to 0-3
As I didn't get around to marking up my 2020 edition rulebook, I had the above errata stickers from Rule Book Tabs lying about. They do a version with blank rings so you can write in numbers, which I should have gotten but I missed it when the kickstarter campaign was wrapping up because of IRL goings on.
Pitch, grass side. Good visibility with the alternating colours, like I did on my own custom sevens pitch.
Pitch, second side. The whole pitch is quite reminiscent of the second edition's styrofoam pitch with its skull motif and distinct square slab pattern.
Pitch grate which are the trap door squares for this side. I took a picture of this because, in my humble opinion, it looks too much like bad CGI from the 90's.
Dugouts, grassy side. Notice the tiny 'Spike! journals' on the tables! They made them about 5.6mm by 7.7mm, slightly smaller than the ones I made last year. I was struggling to find a fitting scale as the heroic scale makes things difficult. Basing my measurements on canonical star player height means the scale should be somewhere around 0.018 scale depending on which model you go with. However, model hands rock in at around 0.035 scale. However, the 'Spike! journal' is at a scale of 0.028, which seems like a good middle ground. I am tempted to try some other objects and see how they look at this scale. I have some ideas for sideline pieces that I could try.
Dugouts, second side. The balls on the table also look like bad CGI. I prefer when they take a photo of actual painted pieces and photoshop them in.
Plain 32mm bases. As you can see, we have not been given the bases with a slot and a hole at the front for the ball. The new possession token solves that I guess, but none of the new balls have a peg, so this could be a sign that Games Workshop might be moving away from the using Blood Bowl bases. Then again, the Chaos Dwarf box came with Blood Bowl bases for some of the hobgoblins, so who knows?
Bretonnia and Tomb Kings transfer sheet. It seems as though we have both team's full transfers instead of a reduced single sheet like Games Workshop gave us in 2016 and 2020. Surely setting up a separate print process would be more costly than using the same as the team box production line?
Assembly instructions for the Bretonnian and Tomb Kings teams, page 1. The starter boxes tend to come with these full colour instructions but I don't really see why. I don't feel they are that much clearer than the normal black and white instructions. Would it not be cheaper to have the same instructions printed as for the individual team boxes? I'd rather have the box a bit cheaper or they put some more lore pages in the rulebook. Or a poster to put on the wall. A map perhaps?
Assembly instructions for the Bretonnian and Tomb Kings teams, page 2.
Assembly instructions for the Bretonnian team, page 3.
Assembly instructions for the Bretonnian team, page 4.
Assembly instructions for the Bretonnian team, page 5. I do love these shots with the backdrops though. I've been working on trying to figure out the best way to do this myself for the last couple of years since I made my pitch.
Assembly instructions for the Tomb Kings team, page 6.
Assembly instructions for the Tomb Kings team, page 7.
Assembly instructions for the Tomb Kings team, page 8.
I'm cautiously optimistic about this edition and really looking forward to exploring it and sharing my adventures on the gridiron with you all!
Until next time, may all your dice be blessed by Nuffle!
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