On the southern Norsca coast, the Skaeling live on the shore of the Sea of Claws. The sea is one of the most dangerous in the Old World, where if the wreckers do not raid you, the foul weather and huge waves will sink you.

The Skaeling believe their god, Mermedus, lives at the bottom of the sea, dragging down unsuspecting ships. To appease him, the Skaeling make human and animal sacrifices, casting the bodies into the sea.

Amongst all the Norscan tribes, the Skaelings are the most feared. They are infamous sea-reavers and pirates who regularly invade the Bretonnian coast, board ships for treasure and slaves and raze fishing towns.

The roster is made up of Skaeling and slaves. The slaves can be sacrificed before the game to bring extra luck. The rest of the team Skaeling warriors.

Positionals

Huskarls

Huskarls are the elite troops of the Norse Lords. They are strong frenzied fighters that show no fear. Their primary role is to act as bodyguards to the Norscan Lords. And for their service the chaos gods grant their gifts. They are like giants among men. Marked out by their gods and easily intimidate their foes. And when they have a moment's peace, they join the local Bloodbowl team to keep in top physical condition and to have fun.

The characteristics of this player are the same as a Chaos Warrior. In addition, they have the Frenzy skill to represent their overwhelming combat style.

They also have the new trait, Gift of the Gods. This trait gives the player Disturbing Presence as well as mutation access.

Skaeling Berserker

These berserkers are similar to the common Norse Berserkers, but are more brutal and fight with no fear. Most of them are drawn from the cult of Claws of Skael, a particularly violent group within the wider Skaeling society.

In order to represent this, these players have the same characteristics and skills as a Norse Berserker, with the addition of Dauntless and Thick Skull.

Skaeling Reaver

These players are the hopeful ones, who are looking to impress their coach and the gods so they could become berserkers or Huskarls. They carry out the work of bullying the slaves, taking orders from the Huskarls and any other odd job that needs doing.

They have the same characteristics and skills as a Norseman player with the addition of Thick Skull.

Slave Sacrifice These are made up of people captured by the reavers as they maruade the ships and shores around the Sea of Claws. They are cheap players, but unreliable. This is represented by the Loner trait.

At the beginning of the game a slave can be sacrificed to the gods to improve the teams luck in the game.

Sacrificing Slaves

Before the start of the game a team can sacrifice a slave. A coach cannot sacrifice one, if it takes the number of players below eleven. For examples, a Norse Reaver team cannot set up a game without 11 players. The coach can only make one sacrifice per game.

The table below shows how many extra induced rerolls the team gets for the different types of slaves. The coach cannot sacrifice journeymen slaves as they do not own them. The gods reject the sacrifice of slaves ves who have a niggling injury or a characteristic reduction.

Roster

Design Notes

This team brings in a new mechanic which allows the coach to remove a slave and exchange them for 1 or 2 rerolls. In simplest terms, the coach can buy a reroll inducent for 30,000 GC. The team can easily lose the slaves during the game and the extra rerolls help balance out the impact of the poor players.

Rerolls are set at 70K to represent the chaotic nature of the team as well as the inclusion of linemen (slave sacrifices) who have Loner. They are effectively a mixed race team like Old World Alliance.

This team has not yet been playtested, but it is likely that this team will be Tier 1 at lower TVs, but drop to Tier 2 as the team plays more developed teams.

The team is designed within the constraints of the miniatures in a Norse team.