// PC GAMER — GAMING
Warhammer: Blood Bowl is Blood Bowl 3.5 rather than a whole new game, but based on the beta it's definitely an upgrade
An exclusive early look at the upcoming playtest for Blood Bowl's next iteration.
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It's a small thing, but being able to save and quit when I'm playing against the AI is a definite improvement in Warhammer: Blood Bowl. Though matches didn't take a huge amount of time in Blood Bowl 3, there were still nights where I'd find myself with 40 minutes before I should really go to bed thinking I can squeeze another game in, and then realizing too late I absolutely cannot.
A bigger change in Warhammer: Blood Bowl, though one that also makes it easier to squeeze in another match, is Rumble Mode. Based on the tabletop format called Sevens, it's a shrunk-down seven-a-side version of Blood Bowl played on a smaller pitch, inspired by 40K in 40 Minutes and Rugby Sevens. Each half has six turns instead of eight and rerolls cost twice as much, making failure much more common—and since a failed action results in a turnover in Blood Bowl, that speeds up play as well.
Rumble Mode isn't exactly the same as Sevens, though I'm playing the beta so details are subject to change. It doesn't have the Desperate Measures inducements, for instance, and you don't have to make one of your linemen a veteran (who is slower, but can reroll a few specific actions). But it still plays faster, and shakes up the tactics in interesting ways.
There's no line of scrimmage for a start. Instead of having to put three players on the frontline where they'll be biffing or being biffed from the outset, there's a no man's land between both teams. That means fragile teams aren't potentially down three players on turn one, which would be even more disastrous with only seven on the pitch.
The smaller pitch makes slow players less of a liability, and the expensiveness of rerolls means skills that let you reroll, like Dodge, get even better. My beloved Halfling team finally has a place to thrive, especially since their Halfling Master Chef can steal precious rerolls from opponents.
You can learn to play Rumble Mode easily since the first chapter of the campaign, carried over from Blood Bowl 3, now defaults to it. The three beginner games you play as default Ussingen Rookies have become seven-a-side, which makes the second match against Chaos Chosen a bit more challenging—getting the assists you need on those Strength 4 Chosen felt trickier to me.
From there you can opt to play the rest of the campaign in either Rumble Mode or as traditional matches, and Rumble Mode is also available in Eternal League, competitions, friendlies, and basically everywhere. It'll be interesting to see how popular it ends up being.
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