Geek Syndicate Issue 8 | Page 107

Geek Syndicate

Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
Players: 2-4
Suggested Ages: 14+
Play Time: 90 mins

Blood Bowl, Games Workshop’s
fantasy-themed
sports parody, has been a
feature of our gaming life for
decades. We own every single
edition and expansion, from
the primitive original box set
to the flawed-but-playable
PC adaptation. Cy adamantly insists that it’s the single
product of genuine, lasting
value ever produced by Games
Workshop … because shut up,
that’s why.
Blood Bowl Team Manager,
from Fantasy Flight Games,
represents the first attempt
to do something revolutionary
with the format of the game,
taking a much broader, topdown view of the fantasy sport
and somehow turning it into
something faster, leaner and
more open in scope. Dispensing with over-priced miniatures and twenty-seven-year-

old rule sets,
BBTM takes the
form of a card and
dice game for two
to four players.
Each player has
the task of shepherding a team of
traditional Warhammer
World
psychopaths
through a series
of tournaments
toward the fabled Blood Bowl
championship.
Primary gameplay involves
the allocation of team member cards to specific match
“highlights”.
These
represent key moments in a given
match in an attempt to collect the appropriate payouts
from each matchup or tournament. These payouts include increasing your team’s
fan base, drafting new players
or purchasing various types
of upgrades. At the end of the
game, once the winner of the
climactic tournament is determined, the player with the
greatest number of fans is declared the winner. It’s all pretty simple in practice and the
strategic card play system is
satisfyingly meaty.
As always seems to be the
case, FFG has done an excellent job with the game components. The card art is perfectly
suited to both the practical
needs and theme of the game
and the supplied tokens are
more than rugged enough to

Image © Fantasy Flight Games

Blood Bowl Team Management Card Game
Image © Fantasy Flight Games

TABLETOP
GAME REVIEW

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