And after playtesting, I think the current edition has a few things going for it, and a few that don't; and it is, I am sure, a work in progress. What follows are my thoughts on each large angle of Fourth Edition Blood Bowl. I will add sections to this report as I go, in order to include some of the minor changes that did not make it into this first draft.

You can find my suggestions for changes in the revamped Modest Proposal section of the website, located here.

Here you go, then!

OSPA
The original intent of OSPA is good, in my opinion: it cuts down the influence one player can exert on the game, and reduces the overall power level. I myself was quite tired of seeing a number of "auto players" - players with so many skills and re-rolls that they hardly ever failed at anything! Every coach of a successful team was down to using re-rolls for AV rolls, injury rolls, and the occasional double-skull block. No other players needed the re-rolls for anything else!

Along comes OSPA. It sounds very good at first: a player can only use one skill per action. If he gets thrown off by muffing a clean pickup roll, and he has to use Sure Hands, then he's not quite focused enough to use his Pass skill. Ok. That seems easy enough.

But then it gets a little more complicated. Players can gain traits as well. Traits are more difficult to get, but they essentially legitimize certain combinations, undercutting OSPA to some degree and upping the confusion factor by a power of two.

At first, I figured this was no big deal. How hard could it be, remembering which skills were now traits, and using only one skill per action?

Well, I found out how complicated it could get in short order, when a Block-slash-Dodge player declared a blitz, used Block to knock down the defender, and dodged away from another target. I rolled a 1 for the dodge, and it was just second nature to say, "Dodge skill," and throw my Dodge re-roll. Of course, I couldn't do that. I threw in a team re-roll, and my opponent agreed that the original re-roll stood, and we continued on.

Certainly, this gaffe of mine had a lot to do with the hundreds of 3rd Edition games I have played. However, it was counter-intuitive, and I imagine many coaches have had similar problems adjusting to the new paradigm. If it's causing problems with a two-skill player, how much worse will it get on a player with three skills? Four skills? Five?

This is one strike against OSPA. However, it gets stranger, because the moving player is the only player so affected. You want to use Dodge on your Pass Block? Go ahead! Nothing will stop you, even though this has to be at least as difficult as using two skills as the active player. After all, it's the acting player's turn. The opposing player is interrupting a turn. He is acting out of sequence on short notice, usually triggered by an action on behalf of the moving team. Additionally, the catcher downfield can use Diving Catch and Catch in the same turn; only the moving player gets burned.

There's another downside to OSPA. At least two skills, Leap and Jump Up, were reduced to near uselessness. Who will use Jump Up to throw a 'free' Block if he cannot use any further skills, and must rely on the mercy of the dice? Leap has no possible re-roll recourse beyond Pro and a team re-roll, but the skill is now useful for little more than leaping fallen logjams. These weren't the most powerful skills out there. They're now shunned by local coaches.

Recently, coaches on the mailing list have asked questions about Secret Weapons and OSPA. This is simply a new problem joining the line of older complaints.

New Skill Descriptions
By and large, I like these a lot. Diving Tackle is aligned much more closely to the 2nd Edition Heroic Tackle skill; after all, it's Diving Tackle, not Diving Block"! It seems more anti-Agility than not, but let's face it, you can kill a Dwarf's chances of dodging with this skill.

Stand Firm's new description is a little cludgy if you look at the skill "realistically," but no one should. This prevented a nice "free square" abuse from an overpowered skill.

Frenzy's change? I liked it a lot. The negative skills? Maybe not the easiest way to handle Big Guys, but I certainly understand the rationale. (We could debate Wild Animal for a while, but let's not bother...)

I don't think any other skill had me screaming. Playtesting of the new Vampire Count teams has confirmed what I've long held to be true: Hypnotic Gaze is too hard to track when several players have it, because it can be used before, during, or after a player's action, at any point in the turn. It's essentially "free" in the same sense that a hand-off was once "free". Of course, the free hand-off was removed in 4th Edition. Unfortunately, Hypnotic Gaze would fare poorly under OSPA if a coach had to use it during the moving player's turn; and it doesn't make a particularly apt Trait, either.

IGMEOY
When Jervis first suggested this on the list four or five years ago, I thought it was horrible idea! However, it's really not that bad at all. The basic idea is sound: the ref is going to pay more attention to you if you keep giving the boot to your opponents!

However, IGMEOY as presently constructed has two problems. The first of these revolves around the AV roll. Because the success rate is tied to the AV roll, coaches often wonder whether or not you can re-roll the AV roll if one of their players gets caught. On the one hand, the new re-roll rules state that you may not re-roll AV; on the other hand, they state quite clearly that you may re-roll anything that directly affects your player. Unfortunately, a caught AV roll is a little of both.

We solved this problem by using a simple 'ref roll' to resolve the issue: when you laid in the boot, your opponent rolled a 'ref die'. If the ref did not have his eye on you this turn, you were caught on a roll of 6; if he did, on a roll of 2 or more. This kept the fouling odds the same as they exist under the normal rules, with the added benefit of eliminating the 'Can I re-roll this' question.

Unfortunately, resolving the second of IGMEOY's problems did not prove so simple. In the first 4E test game I played, my opponent and I did not foul much at all. This was hardly out of character for either of us, as we tend to focus on the 'real' game action. I frequently played entire 3rd Edition games and threw only four or five fouls a game, tops - and I played Undead! I simply didn't have enough spare bodies to manage it on a consistent basis, so I got by without it more often than not.

In every game since that first one, however, a disturbing trend has emerged. One coach will lay in the first boot, usually early, with a big bonus more often than not. The opposing player will simply never retaliate, holding onto the IGMEOY counter until the half ends, at which point he might throw a boot, depending on the situation (if he's trying to achieve or prevent a score, he won't throw a foul; otherwise, he will). He won't give it up because holding onto the counter is simply too enticing: you can strike whenever you might like, and your opponent can strike again, but he'll almost -certainly- be caught.

I like the change to the rules for assisting a foul. We played without assists for quite a while here, and this is a nice balance. I might even suggest finally allowing 'defensive assists' on a foul: after all, four players hanging around Morg aren't bloody likely to let some little git come running in to lay the boot on their Star Player! However, this rule works fine, IMO.

The lack of SPPs for fouls met with agreement here in Western New York. However, it does introduce one additional complication: we tend to write "X hurts Y" on our gamesheets, and if we forget to mention the foul that caused the injury, we will assign SPPs when we should not. The only obvious solutions involve extra care on our part, or a restoration of SPPs for fouls. (The same, I should note, holds for pushing players off the pitch.)

Appearance Fees
I have not playtested these rules. My analysis of them, however, holds the following to be true:

• I dislike rules that encourage coaches to hold on to money. This is omne reason I think about adding the Crush, but can't stand the idea of paying the player to prevent him from leaving. Coaches hoarding money to handle an ugly mechanic? It just gets uglier.

• We have had only a small handful of players with 101+ SPPs. (I've never had one in all my years since the debut of 3rd Edition!) However, we've had a handful of 51+ SPP players, and they're not that dominant. Annoying, yes; but not impossible to stop.

• OSPA already ensures that these players have more options, but not much more power, than your average one-skill player. And then you have to pay for them.

• Appearance Fees help ensure that the treasury determines the winner in a game between evenly matched teams at fairly powerful TRs (powerful enough to have a few Stars or 51+ SPP players). I don't like this one bit. The game should be decided on the field, rather than in the treasurer's office!

Special Plays
I liked the changes to the timing of the cards, which really help clear up possible confusions. The cards were generally toned down as well. This is pretty good!

I also felt cards dominated the game more often than not, so the 'card on a 6' rule is good with me. Let the game get decided on the field!

Morley's Revenge was just wrong, and it's good to see GW noted a few complaints and changed it. I have a few specific comments on the cards, but they are noted in the Solutions section of the Modest Proposal.

I find it interesting that the cards seem to take it easy on bigger teams, while the other changes (OSPA, Appearance Fees) do not. For example, you can only lose a re-roll for this game. In another example, a coach will only become unavailable for this game. (Strangely, a player can disappear forever.)

This discourages trades - if you'll only be affected for this game, why should I spare you that re-roll? That's a good thing, in my opinion. However, it doesn't help limit team growth, and that might be bad.

I did like the double change to Extra Training: you can use it in addition to a team re-roll, and it can't give you a half-price team re-roll in the pre-game section. That's great! Puts more emphasis on team re-rolls andstartup, and drains more gold out of the coffers.

Secret Weapons
Although the Deathroller and Fanatic exceptions look strange, I think the Secret Weapon system works much better now. I gave a Chainsaw to an Undead team for a test game, and what fun that was! Started the thing four times on the first try, and never got thrown out until the last drive in a 4-1 victory...

Allies
The ally rules are interesting, but they have obvious balance issues. I'm not looking for equality, but I don't find it playable when one team (Chaos) can hire a full 11 players with ST4 or more. We've also had 'cheese' problems crop up when one team is allowed a "Goblin" ally, and hires a Troll instead. Even worse are those beardy bastages who hire a Bull Centaur as a "Chaos Dwarf" ally, or a Rat Ogre as a "Skaven".

Fortunately, Milo Sharp provided a great new way to handle allies, and I have included this stroke of genius in the Solutions section of the Modest Proposal.

Declarations
We played with declarations for a while. They force coaches to think ahead and commit to an action once undertaken. Furthermore, the game was 'meant' to be played with declarations. Many leagues already play this way, so I'll settle for an end to the debate and leave it at that.

Sigurd's Injury Table
This is so automatic, and has been for so long locally and on-list, that I almost forgot about it! Obviously, this is a great change, as it doesn't change the total casualty count, but allows teams to live long enough to become factors in league play!

New Teams
I like the fact that we now have Khemri and Bretonnian teams and the like. I do question some of the design decisions, however. Titchy Side Stepping Snotlings are obviously causing problems. I also think there must be a better way to integrate Daemons onto a Chaos team. And although I love the Amazon squad to pieces, the Unicorn gives me great pause, while I recall the words of a wise old necromancer to a coach who wanted to use squigs:

"Pets don't play Blood Bowl!"

Re-rolls
Although I mentioned this before, the new re-roll change is very good. You could make the case that players can hit better and smarter, and thus should be allowed to use team re-rolls in such situations, but this prevents a lot of overkill caused by team re-rolls and the Pro skill.

Wizards
Similarly, this change suits me just fine. It's a little cleaner than a playtested suggestion about "no turnovers as a result of the spell," although it does restrict the amount of use you can get out of the spell. Is the Wizard still worth 150K? Who can say? All I know is, Zap needs a boost, because it's still underused.

This is quite a change, and a lot cleaner than the old 'interruption' mechanism. It is somewhat limiting, however, and might be a tad too strict (I've played teams on both sides of the finesse-bash divide, and don't feel differently when considering this from either side.)