We may be six weeks late for Halloween, butBlood Bowl 3’sShambling Undead have never been known for their timekeeping. Season 3’s marquee signing is a team of zombies and ghouls known for their hard-hitting big guys and devastatingly slow movement. In their defence, it must be difficult to run with your feet falling off.
When the mummies aren’t tripping over their own bandages, they’re some of the hardest hitters in the game. Without the major drawbacks of being either Really Stupid or potentially swiping at their own teammates, they’re some of the best value blockers in all of Blood Bowl. Sure, they have their own drawbacks with movement three and an inability to pass the ball, but for standing in the middle of the field and dealing out Tutankhamunian damage to everyone who dares stray into their path? They’re unmatched.
Tip: I’d recommend taking Skeletons over Zombies in a Shambling Undead roster, seeing as opposing players you kill can be resurrected as free Zombie Linemen. But I’m no pro
Ghoul Runners are your ball carriers, and Blitzers, well, Blitz. They carry Dodge and Block respectively, making the Shambling Undead a fairly easy team to pick up for newcomers. Add to this the fact that killing opposing players can force them to resurrect on your side of the pitch as a zombie, and there’s a lot of fun to be had with this team.
The new team is the headline of any new Blood Bowl 3 season, but the Shambling Undead’s mummies and ghouls may be overshadowed by the other updates. Crossplay has been delayed because it “takes a little more time than expected”, according to Nacon senior brand manager Clement Nicolin. He is now expecting crossplay to launch with Season 4 next year.
However, players’ annoyance may be mitigated by the addition of statistics. While they weren’t quite ready for my preview, Nicolin assured me that it will be ready for the season launch today. This is a much-requested feature, especially seeing as stats were part and parcel of Blood Bowl 2, and players will now be able to view both player and team statistics from the roster menus.
It seems comprehensive at a glance, tallying up everything from the number of yards the ball has been carried, to the number of injuries your team has inflicted. It’s in-depth and presumably accurate, and I dare to think fans will be happy that this basic feature is finally in the game.
“The statistics aspect, that was not planned actually,” explains Nicolin. “That was not supposed to be there. But since we needed for some reason to delay crossplay, we wanted to add something else from the team. That’s the rework of the icons and all the stats added.”
As Nicolin mentions, a couple of icons have also been tweaked so they are more readable and less confusing for new players. The only teases I could get about future seasons is that, unsurprisingly, Necromantic probably won’t be next, as two undead teams in a row would be… yeah.
“It’s probably not a secret that [Necromantic] won’t probably be the next one because, doing two undead teams one after another is probably not what we want to do,” Nicolin says. “There is still a variety [of teams] we want to add in the game and there are still other important teams of the meta, of the game, that we want to be able to add.
“But Necromantic is an important one as well. We know there are a lot of Necromantic players, so it is quite high in terms of priority for us, but probably not the next one.”
That’s one team narrowed down at least. I’ll keep crossing my fingers for Norse to finally arrive, so the Fjord Mustangs can ride again.
