Blood Bowl Sevens rulebook and battlefield
Blood Bowl Sevens rulebook and battlefield
With its wild and loopy gameplay and serious sense of humor, Blood Bowl remains one of Warhammer’s most enduring sub-lines. Set in the Old World, Blood Bowl takes your favorite Warhammer characters and sets them against each other… in a match of American Football? Though the game’s wild fun, it can sometimes run long… but Games Workshop is out to fix that with Blood Bowl Sevens, a new faster, more compact version of the game. GW sent me a copy of the rules to check out, so read on for my thoughts on Blood Bowl Sevens.
What is Blood Bowl Sevens ?
As mentioned above, Blood Bowl Sevens takes all the fun of Blood Bowl and shortens the experience, making the team smaller and with fewer rounds in the game. All your favorite rules, teams, and quirks are still there, with a few key exceptions we’ll speak to momentarily.
But what is Sevens? In the lore of the world of Blood Bowl, it’s best to think of Sevens as the Blood Bowl “minor leagues.” With games running during the off-season of regular Blood Bowl, it’s a chance for locals to get their bloody fix when the stars are resting and recovering from the brutality of the game.
Blood Bowl Sevens gameplay with miniatures on a football field
Peopled by inexperienced players, injured former pros (of which there are many), and older athletes aging out of the sport, Sevens is the place to get your knocks in, potentially gain the attention of the bigger leagues, and make some sort of name for yourself among the rabble.
Where Can I Find The Bloodbowl Sevens Rules?
The rules for Bloodbowl Sevens can be found in the latest issue of Spike Magazine, Issue 22. The semi-regularly-released magazine dedicated to updating the game’s rules as they roll out dedicates most of this issue to the rules tweaks that come to Blood Bowl Sevens.
Blood Bowl Sevens Rulebook
This issue of Spike Magazine is filled with all the fun (and funny) lore moments you’d expect from the game, including interviews with in-world characters, a look back at a player who died, and more. It’s fun, colorful, and still truly amazes me just how much work goes into the creation of all things Blood Bowl, considering it’s a secondary title for Games Workshop.
How is Blood Bowl Sevens Different From Regular Blood Bowl?
Here's where the fun comes in - Blood Bowl Sevens is meant to be a much quicker game. To start, the pitch you play on is a special, modified pitch (sold separately), which is much shorter and more narrow than a traditional Blood Bowl pitch. Each wide zone is only two squares wide (instead of the normal four squares), and the center field is significantly shorter, as well, coming in at only 18 squares long from end-zone to end-zone.
Along with that, you can only ever field seven players on the field at any given time, and you have a limited draft budget for team building. Normally, you can build a team using 1,000,000 gold pieces, but with Sevens you only have 600,000 gold pieces to work with. You're also limited as to the player positions you can draft.
Blood Bowl Sevens Skaven Team
The rules themselves put it nicely: "Simply put, due to the very nature of Blood Bowl Sevens, there just aren't as many top quality players playing it - if they were, they'd probably already be playing for the first team!" Because of this, you can have no more than 4 total players without the Lineman keyword. You can still purchase sideline staff, dedicated fans, etc. but some cost more than you're used to in regular Blood Bowl (for instance, an Apothecary, who normally costs 50,000, costs a whopping 80,000 in Sevens... it's hard to find good help down here in the minors).
Other changes include tweaks to some of the tables in the game, to accomodate Blood Bowl Sevens, including the Kick-Off Event Table, the Injuries Table, and even the Argue the Call Table (referees in Sevens aren't as likely to catch it when your team does something sneaky and underhanded... they're not the cream of the crop either).
In League Play, the list of available inducements is shortened to match the amateur nature of the game, and even the Prayers to Nuffle table is altered, as Nuffle prefers the focus on the big, bloody spectacle of regular Blood Bowl.
Blood Bowl Sevens Halflings on the field playing
The game also includes Sevens team rosters for Skaven, Norse, Goblin, Khorne, and Chaos Chosen teams. All in all, the game feels just as fun and splashy and big as normal Blood Bowl, even with the smaller scope.
Blood Bowl Sevens - First Impressions
In reading through the rules, I have to admit I was hoping for something a bit simpler than Blood Bowl proper. I love Blood Bowl, and love the care and dedication that goes into building the perfect team, finding the right support staff, and the lengthy but satisfying feeling of playing a full Blood Bowl match. While this play experience is shortened, nothing here's been simplified.
Which is fine, of course - it's nice to play a game of Blood Bowl that won't take the full afternoon. But a part of me wishes that this was almost like the Warcry of Blood Bowl, if that makes any sense. Give me simpler rules, ready-built teams I can buy all in one shot, simplified team building, and let this be a fast and dirty, run-n-gun style game.
That's not to say I didn't really enjoy my time with Sevens. It's great, because Blood Bowl is great. If you're already a Blood Bowl fan and want to catch up on this quick-play version of full-on Blood Bowl, I highly recommend checking out the latest issue of Spike. But if you're looking to just get into the game, you'll still need the core rules anyway, so might as well pick up the Third Season starter set (which was fantastic).
The Blood Bowl Sevens materials used in the creation of this preview were provided by Games Workshop.
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