So, in my November current thinking blog post, I mentioned that Slann will no longer be accepted into the competitive division, and initial responses in the forum thread appear to be focusing on it more than I expected. Because of this, I want to write something about my thinking behind this decision. Perhaps you won't agree with me, but I hope that you will at least understand my position and not think it's completely arbitrary.

First some background about the Slann. They were added to FUMBBL when the Blood Bowl Rules Committee (BBRC) was a thing, and a number of people from the "Blood Bowl Community" were working with Games Workshop to improve the rules and make the game better. For reasons beyond the scope of this blog post, this cooperative rules design ended and the BBRC was dissolved. As this was happening, the BBRC had essentially green-lit the Slann as a roster to be included, but GW chose to veto the roster for inclusion and they never officially saw the light of day. At this point, GW chose to publish what's called the Competitive Rules Pack (CRP) rules, which were essentially the rulebook with all the fluff and flavour text removed in favour of a strict set of rules and nothing else. At the same time, a version of what "could have been" showed up from an unknown third party (the name Icepelt was used at the time) which was more or less Living Rulebook 6 (LRB6); the name stemming from what the rules were called during the BBRC "era". This LRB6 set of rules included the Slann as a roster and was largely adopted by the community as about as official as it could be without being published by GW. FUMBBL, as well as The NAF, adopted the Slann as official.

Over time, Cyanide's Blood Bowl games appeared, and GW released BB2016. This resulted in a situation where what's "official" was further diluted. We now had three separate sources for rules and rosters: GW, The NAF and Cyanide. I chose to not implement the Cyanide rosters on FUMBBL because I didn't deem them "official enough" at the time, and it was easier to leave things be than make the statement and change.

So before the bb2020 rules, FUMBBL was somewhat confused in direction. We allowed the Slann in the competitive divisions, but not the Khorne Daemons, or other Cyanide rosters. With the continued development of BB and BB2, Cyanide's version of the game has become something that a lot of people are used to, with it being their initial encounter with the game.

Now, with bb2020, I have the opportunity to clean up what I feel is a statement of non-support for Cyanide's games and clarify the position of what I feel the competitive division(s) should be: A pure implementation of the official ruleset.

Now, The NAF have published a document showing their suggested roster for Slann and by doing so adopted the responsibility for them. While they are a large organization that I have a lot of respect for and hope for a very long cooperation with, this is essentially a house ruled roster they have come up with rules for. They are not an official source of rules, nor do they want to be (as far as I am aware).

Cyanide has developed and effectively published rosters as well in their games. Some are only available in their first game and are essentially deprecated, others are not. What happens with BB3 is anyone's guess (although rumour has it they're more strictly controlled by GW on what they're allowed to add).

So, coming back to FUMBBL and Slann.

The core tenant that matters here is that FUMBBL has from day one been a project intending to keep to the official rules. In my opinion, GW is the only truly official source of rules for the game. I simply can't draw the line in the sand and say The NAF is official and Cyanide is not. I can't justify saying that Garion's work on Secret League is less official than The NAF's Slann roster. I can't decide if Simyin is more official than Cyanide's rosters.

All of these options are, and will continue to be, options as part of the custom ruleset feature on the site. The League division is an important part of FUMBBL's identity at this point; this is where The NAF have been running their tournaments and this is where Garion runs Secret League.

Slann were available in the competitive divisions because they were so close to the border of being official that I chose to identify them as such. Partly to show appreciation to the members of the BBRC for their work with a game which had been essentially dead for years prior to their involvement.

With the BB2016 updates to rosters, and the large BB2020 change of system, any version of the Slann published outside of GW (who are likely to never introduce them), I can't justify Slann as anything but a house rule and as such I believe they well and truly belong in the league division.

And with that, I don't think I can be more clear about my opinion regarding Slann. I hope you understand my position even if you don't agree with it.