Daemon Teams

Yeah, there were some rules for daemons in the Journal. They were, frankly, a little frightening. Have any of you actually played against a Bloodletter as scripted there? Strength 5 and Frenzy??? Anyway, here are some saner rules (and the Pink Horrors are a hell of a lot more fun). Now would probably be a good time to pay homage to the guy who did the Journal rules but I can't remember who he is. The only thing that's the same here is that the Greater Daemons are Star Players. Not the world's greatest contribution to plagiarism...

Beyond the chaos wastes lies the realm of chaos, or at least a massive shattered gateway to that place. Through this gate flow the winds of magic, swirling in a spectrum of magical colour to their destination in the centre of Ulthuan. Also through the gate comes the corrupting substance Warpstone, which collects in huge drifts about the north pole of the Warhammer world. But these are not the most terrible of what passes through the Warp Gate. Most terrible are the daemons, sentient creatures of warp matter held together by a will that can carry them into the material world. Daemons live on the emotions generated by the living, and they absolutely thrive on a Blood Bowl crowd. But if the season’s a bit off, and the fans aren’t up to their usual bloodthirsty mania, why not take material form and go and join in?

Daemons can form their own teams, but more often they like to simply sign up with any Chaos team that can be bothered to summon them. Daemons tend, however, to be a little unstable, and are prone to being catapulted back to the realm of chaos whenever they suffer some little mishap which disrupts their form, like stubbing their toes or being crushed by an irate Blitzer.

Khorne Team

Nurgle Team

Slaanesh Team

Tzeentch Team

For all teams: Re-roll counters: 70,000 each

You may recruit a daemon team, in which case you suffer from all the normal penalties for daemon players (namely that they keep disappearing). It is assumed that your coaching staff are Chaos warriors or marauders so treat yourself as a Chaos Warrior team for this. A daemon team can include allies from the Chaos Warriors, Beastmen, Dark Elves and Undead team lists. Anyone else is much too scared of them to ally. Daemons may choose General and Strength skills. In addition, Horrors and Daemonettes may choose Agility skills and Horrors may choose Physical Abilities if they roll a double.

A daemon team is not recommended, however, and the best place to include daemons is in a Chaos or Chaos Warrior team. If your team has a Chaos Sorcerer (or Wizard if you are not using the Alternative Wizards rules) you may include up to four daemons in your team depending on your chaos power. Note that these are not allied players and none of the allied players rules apply. If your team is dedicated to Khorne, and you are using Alternative Wizards, then you cannot employ a Wizard or Sorcerer, but you may include up to four Bloodletters anyway, because Khorne particularly favours Blood Bowl teams.

New Skills

These skills are not available for players to learn. If you were playing a really very silly game, you could let people gain Daemon or No Hands as Physical Abilities but... who'd want to?

Daemon: This player is, well, a daemon. They have an unearthly endurance and strength, but suffer from a nasty habit of instability. Daemon players should be treated as normal players in all cases except for the following. When a daemon is injured, instead of rolling on the injury table, roll a D6: on a 1-5 the daemon is stunned, on 6 the daemon is banished (see below). No modifiers apply to this roll for skills like Mighty Blow or any other effects. In addition, at the start of each match, before hiring Freebooters, roll a dice for each of your daemons - on a 5 or 6 they have been banished by the simple wear and tear of living, unless you immediately pay their full hiring cost again.
A daemon who has been banished counts as having been killed with the following exceptions. They cannot be saved from death by any effects (Apothecaries, Special Play cards, the Regeneration skill, etc.). Also, the player can be hired again for the team, and may (must, in fact) keep any accumulated effects such as SPPs but costs the same as if the player was being hired afresh. This does mean that daemons are basically immortal, but keeping your immortal team together can be quite hard. Banishing a daemon counts as a casualty if a player caused it.

Splits: When a Pink Horror is banished, remove it from the game as normal, but replace it with two Blue Horrors. If this happens on the pitch, place one of the Blue Horrors in the Pink Horror’s square, and scatter the other one D6 squares. If there is a player in this square then he or she is knocked over, and the Blue Horror is scattered again, and so on. If the Blue Horror knocks any players over at this point, then wherever it eventually ends up it falls over (but only makes one Armour roll). If this would result in your team having 12 players on the pitch, then roll a dice - on a 1-3 the Referee doesn’t notice that the swirling blue shape is actually two players, but on a 4-6 the Referee sends off one of the Blue Horrors for the rest of the match - dice to see which. At the end of the match, you must record the Blue Horrors on your sheet in place of the banished Pink Horror. They can accumulate their own SPPs individually. Note that you cannot summon (hire) a Pink Horror if you still have any of its Blue Horrors left on your sheet, and also that you cannot summon any Blue Horrors at any time. If you should re-hire a Pink Horror which is later banished again, then its Blue Horrors will continue with any SPPs and other effects they have accumulated. This means that you must separately keep track of each Pink Horror and its pair of Blue Horrors.

Manic: Horrors are some of the most unpredictable daemons that exist. They move like spinning tops of whirling colour, dancing about and never seem to be where you thought they were. To represent this, whenever you finish an action with a Horror (including Blocks) you must scatter the Horror one square. If this would result in the Horror moving into the same square as another player, then they do not move, but if it would throw them off the pitch then they are injured as normal. Note that this makes it very dangerous to leave a Horror next to a sideline. In addition, whenever a Horror is pushed back, instead of the opponent choosing where to push them, scatter them, with the same provisions as above. This means that Horrors will never be pushed into other players.

No Hands: Flamers are agile, accurate and ferocious. Everything you need for a perfect Blood Bowl player, except for one problem: they don’t have any hands. Since they are expressly forbidden from flaming during the match, and they aren’t all that strong, there is only one hope for them - to grasp the ball in their beaks and leap for it.
A Flamer cannot throw, catch or hand-off the ball. They cannot grab the ball if it scatters into their square - their heads are simply not that manoeuvrable. The only times they can take the ball is when it is handed-off to them, or when they pick it up after entering a square containing the ball. The Flamer does this with all normal effects, but in addition suffers a -2 penalty.

Greater Daemons

Greater daemons are subject to all the rules concerning Lesser Daemons with the following exceptions: they are only banished between games on the roll of a 6, and they are Star Players and cannot therefore gain Star Player Points.

In addition, because they are so big, Greater Daemons receive +1 on their Interception rolls and +1 when attempting to pick up the ball.

A Chaos, Chaos Warrior or Daemon team may hire a Greater Daemon Star Player if it is able to hire other daemons. The Greater Daemon counts as one of the four daemons available to them. You may only hire a greater daemon of your patron’s power.

(Khorne=Bloodthirster, Nurgle=Great Unclean One, Slaanesh=Keeper of Secrets, Tzeentch=Lord of Change, though if you didn’t know that you really shouldn’t be playing a Chaos team at all!)

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