From BloodBowl, I became a bit of a fan of American Football. I kind of dropped out of both for a while (sometime after 3rd edition), but I got back in to the NFL when I was up late watching Daunte Culpepper and the Minnesota Vikings who became the team I followed. I love vertical football - players like Randy Moss, Vince Young, Mike Vick*, LaDainlian Tomlinson, Reggie Bush, Brett Favre et al, but blood bowl very rarely resembles this type of play. So many teams have this very limited tactic:
1. Build Cage with ST5 players + 'guards'
2. Block players down to arrange 2d blocks
3. Move cage forward
4. Repeat 2&3 until a TD is inevitable with the variation of stopping to inflict more damage on opposition players to restrict the time they have to score.

Unless you have a similar number of Guards, ST4+ players, players with block (and to a lesser degree dodge and tackle), this style is tediously effective and practically unstoppable. What I'd like to see is the following:

1. The first move on the offence has to be either a blitz, or to move the ball carrier. The second move has to be the other one. If the first move is neither of these, then the ball carrier has to stay still and no blitz can be declared
2. The first move on the defence has to be the blitz. Again, if they don't blitz, it is still considered to be used for this turn.

I don't know what effect this would have on the game. I believe it would mean teams would have to be more aggressive in trying to score, but it could also push the balance too far in favour of Elven and Skaven teams. To counteract this, I'd change the dodge skill effect to something like allowing the player to use agility to defend blocks (compare AG instead of ST) which would mean the only re-rolls on dodges would be team re-rolls (which could be made more expensive for agile teams) and maybe only allow this new dodge on a double on the SPP roll.

Players pushed out of the sideline would roll a D8 for injury - 1-6, stunned, miss next turn before re-entering on a square beside the half way line, 7-8 KOd as usual. This would encourage more running/Wide receiver play on the wings, and make Frenzy less debilitating.

I'm thinking this through on the fly so would like any feedback on:
1. What the effect of the changes would be
2. If other changes would be needed (like should players that won't move any further be allowed to stand up before the Blitz/ball move)
3. If there is a way to play-test these changes on this site

Thank you for reading, PM me any ideas, or opinions on mine, and I'll take them under consideration (and maybe compiling the ideas in a further blog)

Neil



* My admiration for his style of play does not affect my contempt for his role in the dog-fighting ring. I believe if he is allowed to return, he should donate 20-30% of his wages to animal welfare charities. Even if he isn't genuinely remorseful (which I'm sceptical about), this would at least be restorative justice.

EDIT: Correcting a typo...