smeborg
Joined: Jan 04, 2019
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Jan 14, 2026 - 07:47 |
 
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At the risk of annoying everybody (lol):
- I rather like the BB2025 re-design and ruleset. To quote Christer: To close this off, I think this ruleset is looking good at this point. A lot of things are much much clearer in the rules, and the changes are seemingly pretty good overall in my opinion. Some rosters get hit pretty hard, but my hope is that those rosters will get an update reasonably soon, and that we'll get back into some sense of balance again. I am excited to see how the new meta will unfold over time.
- I acknowledge that this post discusses seemingly simple and preventable errors - but I have confidence that they will be corrected by GW. Overall, I suggest, a relatively low level of errors for a work of such magnitude and complexity.
- There is (I suggest) a laudable intent behind the re-written hiring rule (to prevent "gaming the system"), which could perhaps be met by a cunning re-wording.
- I have my own concerns with one or more specific rules (balance), but I will keep these to myself and wait to see how things work out in practice.
Each time there is a significant new edition (e.g. BB2020, BB2016, long before that the period of turmoil with Gold and 4th Edition), criticisms are heard the loudest. Yet, each time, the game increases significantly in popularity. This would appear to be the case especially with BB2025 (which sold out early in my neck of the woods).
[BaronBucky - no need to apologise profusely! But a tip (which I try to follow - not only in BB) is to "sleep on it" for one night before jumping in with both feet. And as part of this, a little humour and/or self-deprecation in the initial post can go a long way (to help achieve distance/impartiality for readers).]
Hope that helps! |
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Joost
Joined: Mar 17, 2014
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Jan 14, 2026 - 09:13 |
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| Carthage wrote: | Hanlon's Razor.
Never attribute to malice what is perfectly explainable by ignorance.
Perfectly explainable that it slipped through QA cracks because of time. They were clearly trying to hit a Christmas shopping period so its reasonable to assume it was rushed. Rushed people make mistakes; not just in logic but even in picking an outdated revision of a page for production and its missed. |
I second this 100%. Except that I thought Hanlon used "incompetence" instead of "ignorance". |
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MattDakka
Joined: Oct 09, 2007
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Jan 14, 2026 - 12:02 |
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| Chingis wrote: | | MattDakka wrote: | | I'd say ignorance is malice, in this case. |
Malice is intentional. It is literally a thought, a desire.
Ignorance cannot be malice, definitionally. It's literally the exact opposite of a thoughtful intention! |
They are not the same things, but both of them may have harmful effects.
1) if GW appoints clueless game designers to make a BB edition the rules are going to be bad, so there is some "malice" in that (selling a not polished enough game, not caring about the rule quality);
2) if clueless game designers accept to do something they are not up to the task, they know they could make a disaster, again, there is some "malice" in that.
If I can't repair a car I don't accept to repair a car.
I can be ignorant (I don't know how to repair a car) but if I still want to do it I'm malicious (because the car will have issues or will not be repaired at all and I can guess that even if I'm ignorant about repairing cars). |
Last edited by MattDakka on Jan 14, 2026; edited 1 time in total |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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Jan 14, 2026 - 12:35 |
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I suspect that some of the most rabid, ranting maybe comes from people who think "If I let something as broken as this get into production, I'd be fired." 
Well, this is only a game. If they get it wrong, the patient doesn't die.
The main goal is most likely to sell stuff. So, the rules only have to be good enough to get stuff sold.
They'll design the rules to encourage people to buy more stuff.
If people don't like elements of the rules, they can change them.
Once you've bought your stuff, you can use it in anyway you like.
People get especially worked up on Fumbbl because the main division stays as close to the rules as written as possible. Until now, no matter how awful.
Elements of these rules are so bad that there may well be house rules if there are not corrections before [C] is ready to switch.
[C] is the fastest way to get a game. So, if people don't like it, that can cut a big chunk out of their enjoyment of the hobby.
But that is not GW's problem.
If you bought any new stuff because of the new edition, GW are totally winning. |
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Official + Secret League rosters, old style skill progression, NO re-draft OR full 2016 rules. OR... 4000TV All Star Bowl - ALWAYS recruiting! |
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Garion
Joined: Aug 19, 2009
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Jan 14, 2026 - 12:48 |
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Not just fumbbl
cyanide also tries to be as close to official as possible, as do NAF tournaments...
So between the 3 it accounts for the majority of people that play Blood Bowl
Sure there are local leagues, and they can do what they like. But creating house rules to make a game function is not a good indication of a well designed game. |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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Jan 14, 2026 - 13:22 |
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Garion
Joined: Aug 19, 2009
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Jan 14, 2026 - 13:38 |
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| koadah wrote: | Both Fumbbl and NAF are talking about fixes. The bigger your league, the closer you'll need to stick to "official".
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only on an interim basis.. when the FAQ comes out things should be clearer |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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Jan 14, 2026 - 13:45 |
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MattDakka
Joined: Oct 09, 2007
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Jan 14, 2026 - 13:47 |
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You can make good rules (not perfect, but good enough) and sell stuff too, the two things are not mutually exclusive.
If the aim is selling stuff, I'd say that teams with more positionals would be more appealing. There could be a basic Human team box with say 2 Blitzers, 1 Thrower and 1 Catcher, and an expansion box with 2 Blitzers, 1 Catcher, 1 Thrower and some Linemen (if 0-4 Blitzers were allowed, instead of 0-2).
Instead, GW decreased the positionals. |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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Jan 14, 2026 - 14:13 |
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| MattDakka wrote: | | You can make good rules (not perfect, but good enough) and sell stuff too, the two things are not mutually exclusive. |
Ture. But the rules are not the priority so you're going to get screwed over every five years.
| MattDakka wrote: |
If the aim is selling stuff, I'd say that teams with more positionals would be more appealing. There could be a basic Human team box with say 2 Blitzers, 1 Thrower and 1 Catcher, and an expansion box with 2 Blitzers, 1 Catcher, 1 Thrower and some Linemen (if 0-4 Blitzers were allowed, instead of 0-2).
Instead, GW decreased the positionals. |
Yup. I'd have thought that too.
But I guess they have crunched the numbers and come up with this strategy.
If it turns out to be wrong, they'll switch it all back.
I won't be trimming my teams down.  |
_________________
Official + Secret League rosters, old style skill progression, NO re-draft OR full 2016 rules. OR... 4000TV All Star Bowl - ALWAYS recruiting! |
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Drrek
Joined: Jul 23, 2012
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Jan 14, 2026 - 15:18 |
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| koadah wrote: | | MattDakka wrote: | | You can make good rules (not perfect, but good enough) and sell stuff too, the two things are not mutually exclusive. |
Ture. But the rules are not the priority so you're going to get screwed over every five years.
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This is a shortsighted view (from them, not you, I know you don't control the rules). Yes, they might sell more models right now by treating money as the only priority, but good rules are what will keep people playing the game long term (note: good rules aren't necessarily rules you or I think we like. People will often hate rules that are actually good for the game).
Also, the statement that you can houserule if you want is basically meaningless. We don't play with a group of clones of ourselves that want rules exactly the way we want them. Because of that, 95% of the time, unless a rule is so egregiously bad that absolutely everyone dislikes it, games will be played under the official rules, because it's easier to do that than to negotiate which house rules people want to use. |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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Jan 14, 2026 - 15:45 |
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| Drrek wrote: | | koadah wrote: | | MattDakka wrote: | | You can make good rules (not perfect, but good enough) and sell stuff too, the two things are not mutually exclusive. |
Ture. But the rules are not the priority so you're going to get screwed over every five years.
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This is a shortsighted view (from them, not you, I know you don't control the rules). Yes, they might sell more models right now by treating money as the only priority, but good rules are what will keep people playing the game long term (note: good rules aren't necessarily rules you or I think we like. People will often hate rules that are actually good for the game).
Also, the statement that you can houserule if you want is basically meaningless. We don't play with a group of clones of ourselves that want rules exactly the way we want them. Because of that, 95% of the time, unless a rule is so egregiously bad that absolutely everyone dislikes it, games will be played under the official rules, because it's easier to do that than to negotiate which house rules people want to use. |
As I said, it depends on how big your league is. The smaller the league, the easier it is to get agreement.
It would be interesting to know how many people who buy the Box never play NAF or in a league bigger than e.g. 6 people.
Edit: With this particular userbase some people actually like the churn |
_________________
Official + Secret League rosters, old style skill progression, NO re-draft OR full 2016 rules. OR... 4000TV All Star Bowl - ALWAYS recruiting!
Last edited by koadah on Jan 14, 2026; edited 1 time in total |
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Zlefin
Joined: Apr 14, 2005
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Jan 14, 2026 - 15:56 |
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Why is this thread coming up now? iirc all the announcements from the new ruleset came out some time ago; yet now i'm hearing a lot of talk about problems/poor editing that I don't recall previously.
It does sound like they need to hire better editors though; or that they shouldn't have hired whoever they used for this one. |
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Garion
Joined: Aug 19, 2009
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Jan 14, 2026 - 16:13 |
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| Zlefin wrote: | Why is this thread coming up now? iirc all the announcements from the new ruleset came out some time ago; yet now i'm hearing a lot of talk about problems/poor editing that I don't recall previously.
It does sound like they need to hire better editors though; or that they shouldn't have hired whoever they used for this one. |
The thread came up because Christer has published a document on how Fumbbl will handle all these unclear rules, until we get an FAQ
FYI:
https://fumbbl.com/BB2025.pdf
But there was a huge amount of chat about rules that don't work when it first came out... I think most people are just waiting for the official FAQ in may |
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JackassRampant
Joined: Feb 26, 2011
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Jan 14, 2026 - 17:17 |
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Isn't the corollary to Hanlon's razor, "sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistingushable from malice"?
This is weaponized incompetence if it's incompetence at all. These guys can afford lawyers, they can afford game designers. Systems might not work as intended the first time, but this is their third go-round on this game, and umpteenth rodeo for this sort of thing. A little silliness is par for the course, but by and large, whatever they're doing, they mostly meant to do, and if the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing for long enough to get it into print, the left hand was being kept in the dark.
No, this has to be presumed intentional. They're not Mr. Magoo, they're Columbo. They live and breathe your thinking they're a bunch of bumblers, it's hilarious. I mean, that's how I'd do it.
And I would do it too. Like, can you imagine the bad taste that we must have left in their mouths? They knew they had to take this thing back and that it would take a protracted evolution to de-LRB-ize the whole thing and put their stamp on it.
Did they rewrite the rosters to fit the minis, or did they decide on this before they started on the whole thing, and come up with a rough schedule that made maximum sense to push as many figs as possible before finishing the process of molding this into a game built for the manufacturer and not the community?
I don't think BB2025 is a reaction to BB2020 or an evolution out of BB2020. I think it's the next stage in the process after BB2020. But there will be a test for this.
Does AG1+ get FAQ'ed, or does Jordell? Or will they play coy a bit and do neither? |
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