Gnomes, the hot new team soon to be gracing the Blood Bowl pitch everywhere.
The Spike! magazine for the Gnomes isn’t out yet but we’ve got (almost) all of the information about the team in Warhammer Community previews already so let’s take a look at the team.
Team Overview
Superficially they Gnome team resembles Halflings – they are a stunty team with two Treeman big guys. However even a quick glance at the stats and skills for the various Gnome positionals will show that they are going to play very very differently from any other stunty team.
Gnome Linemen
These guys have a typical enough stat line for stunty players. MA 5 ST 2 AG 4+ PA 4+ AV 7+ is exactly the same as a halfling lineman although they cost 40K instead of 30K. They have Stunty and Right Stuff as you’d expect for a stunty lineman. What you wouldn’t expect for a stunty lineman is that they haven’t got the Dodge skill. Instead they have Wrestle and Jump Up.
If you like fouling then these guys are going to be great. Wrestle means they will spend a lot of time on the floor but so will their opponents. If your linemen are cheap and your opponent’s good players are spending a lot of time on the ground then it’d be wrong not to put the boot in on them now and again.
Also worth remembering that use of Wrestle isn’t mandatory. If your opponent blocks a gnome using a player without the Block skill and gets a Both Down result then it might be worth not using Wrestle to force a Turnover. Both players then might get hurt, and Gnomes are particularly fragile, but it might be worth the risk to end your opponent’s turn early.
It’s not been announced yet what Primary and Secondary Skill access any of the Gnome players will have, but if like other stunty players they have Primary access to Agility skills then these little guys will be really good when they level up and take the Dodge skill.
Gnome Beastmasters
These guys bring angry geese or badgers onto the pitch with them. From a game play perspective they are just regular Gnomes but 55K each, AV 8+ and they swap Right Stuff for Guard.
Guard is one of the best skills in the game but I can’t imagine these guys living very long – AV 8+ might be an improvement over a Gnome Lineman but it still isn’t very good for a player that is likely to be targeted lots. Sticking them in between two Treemen could help here.
Gnome Illusionist
A 55K PA 3+ Gnome that swaps Right Stuff for the new Trickster trait.
These guys are going to be really good fun. Trickster lets them teleport to any empty square adjacent to a player who is about to block them so it is going to be almost impossible to crowd surf them. Against Frenzy opponents it is going to be great for luring opponents onto the side lines where you can crowd surf them yourself, or into the Tackle Zones of your Treemen so you can hit them back really hard.
Woodland Fox
With stats of MA 7 ST 2 AG 2+ PA – AV 6+, and Stunty, Dodge and Side Step, Foxes are going to doing most of the ball handling for Gnome teams. Just try not to let them get hit, especially by anyone with Tackle. AV 6+ is terrible so they won’t stand up to any punishment.
A very flavourful disadvantage is the My Ball trait which means that they won’t give up the ball once they are in possession of it so you can’t have one Fox pick up the ball deep in your own half and then hand off to the other Fox to move the ball a long way. Stunty teams usually have the Throw Team Mate touchdown attempt as a Plan B but if the ball is in the mouth of a Fox then you have no way to get the ball back into the hands of a Right Stuff player without risking injury to your Fox.
Altern Forest Treeman
120K Hard hitting ST 6 big guy, exactly the same as the Halfling Team’s Treemen.
Lack of manoeuvrability is always the problem with Treemen and these guys are no exception but there’s some synergy as mentioned before with the Illusionists being able to lure opponents closer to the Treemen so they will probably get to do more punching than a Treeman on a typical Halfling team.
Gnome Starting Roster
You can have 0-2 of every player except the linemen which are 0-16. Rerolls are 50K.
This would make an ideal starting roster:
| Player/Item | Cost |
| 2 x Treemen | 120000 |
| 2 x Gnome Illusionists | 100000 |
| 2 x Gnome Beastmasters | 110000 |
| 2 x Woodland Foxes | 100000 |
| 6 x Gnome Linemen | 240000 |
| 4 x Team Rerolls | 200000 |
| 1 x Fan Factor | 10000 |
| Total | 1000000 |
All of the positionals and four Rerolls fits easily into a starting roster. Having 14 players will hopefully let you keep the foxes out of harm’s way on your defensive drives.
The only thing that is missing here is an Apothecary. At the rate stunty players die it is up for debate whether an Apothecary is worth the cash but if you do want one then it’s a straight swap for a Team Reroll, or drop one of the Linemen and the point of Fan Factor.