Blood Bowl Team Manager

This week, the panel tackles Blood Bowl Team Manager: the Card Game.

Blood Bowl Team Manager, designed by Jay Little and Corey Konieczka, was first published by Fantasy Flight Games in 2011. In 2012, Blood Bowl Team Manager was nominated for two BoardGameGeek Golden Geek Awards, Best Card Game, and Best Thematic Board Game.

Episode Summary:
In this episode, we explore Blood Bowl Team Manager: the Card Game, a two to four-player light-weight game. We discuss the strategy of the game and how to manage the zones of control (called Highlights and Tournaments). We also explore the game’s ability to provide a great experience for any player count, even the odd count. We then move on to exploring card game complexity, the balance between factions, and production. Overall, this episode provides an in-depth look at how Blood Bowl Team Manager plays and our experience with it.

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Chapters:

(0:01:18) - Introducing Blood Bowl Team Manager
(0:12:32) - The Joy of Blood Bowl
(0:17:32) - Exploring the Design Complexity of Blood Bowl Team Manager
(0:32:09) - A Brutal Balancing Act
(0:41:48) - Polished Game Design at Fantasy Flight
(0:53:54) - Two-Minute Warning

Chapter Summaries:

(0:01:18) - Introducing Blood Bowl Team Manager (11 Minutes)
The game features a number of zones of control (based on player count) called highlights and tournaments. Players must use their star power and player abilities to control these zones to earn points and upgrades. There is a secondary fight over control of the ball token, worth additional star power. Cheating tokens can also be used to gain points and fans, which are the victory points of the game. They can also result in a player's ejection from the highlight, negating their star power. After a round is played and points are tallied, upgrades such as star players, team upgrades, and staff upgrades can be drafted to add to each player's team.

 

(0:12:32) - The Joy of Blood Bowl (5 Minutes)
The panel discusses the game Blood Bowl Team Manager and how it is a great game for three players, in addition to even player counts. They discuss the levity of the game, as well as its comedic art, and the fact that there is just enough dice-rolling involved. There is also a deck-building aspect where players can collect new players and ways to manipulate their deck. We discussed our own experience playing the game and found it to be a tight game with a small playing field, allowing players to see all their options. Overall, we found it to be a great game and enjoyed playing it

 

(0:17:32) - Exploring the Design Complexity of Blood Bowl Team Manager (15 Minutes)
The panel dives into the complexity of designing a card game with a football theme. Each player essentially has the same amount of resources and has the opportunity to (mostly) play to equal Highlights zones. Players earn the opportunity to earn many upgrade cards during a round, however, each player can only keep one of each upgrade at the end of each round. It is possible to have up to five of each upgrade by the end of the game.

 

(0:32:09) - A Brutal Balancing Act (10 Minutes)
We discuss the various symbols used in a game of Blood Bowl Team Manager. The panel discussed how the different teams interact with the symbols differently. For example, Dwarves don't interact with the Sprint symbol and Skaven interact with Cheating symbols. The Wood Elves were discussed in more detail, as they are passers and have an easy-to-remember symbol for throwing, which is a football. The conversation highlighted how the symbols are easy to remember as they have their analog in the other game pieces. The panel further explored the teams of Elves, Dwarves, and Skaven. It was noted that the elves have the ability to draw multiple cards and discard weaker cards, while the dwarves have a star power advantage and the Skaven are a bit more well-rounded, Jacks-of-all-Trades. It was further discussed that the difference between standing and tackled star power is a balancing mechanic used to make sure each faction has its own strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, we concluded that the game was well-designed in terms of thematics and gameplay.

 

(0:41:48) - Polished Game Design at Fantasy Flight (12 Minutes)
The panel discusses the well-balanced design of Blood Bowl Team Manager, a card game released in 2011 by Fantasy Flight Games. We compare the level of polish of the game to other Fantasy Flight games produced during the same time period. We also discuss the level of development that went into the game, referencing the two game designers, producer, editor, production management, executive producer, and staff playtesters. The conversation also touches on the differences between the production cycle of Kickstarter games and games produced by established companies, with the latter typically having more time and resources to refine the game.

 

(0:53:54) - Two-Minute Warning (6 Minutes)
The panel sums up its thoughts on Blood Bowl Team Manager: the Card Game. We share our experience playing it and our opinions of the game. The game was on the trade pile due to the difficulty of getting back to playing older games amidst all the new ones. It was described as polished, well-developed, and with a lot of playtesting and feedback given. The panel was pleasantly surprised to find the game in the collection, and we were happy to be able to play it again and relearn it.

 

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