Cumulative Upgrade Cards

By VictorTugglebend, in Blood Bowl: Team Manager

Hi guys,

Do the effects of repeated staff upgrade cards stack? The reason I ask is in last night's game our Skaven Coach managed to draw both the Staffing Officer upgrade cards, thus giving him +2 fans per staff upgrade card at the end of the game. He spent the rest of the game collecting staff upgrades and finished with a whopping +12 fans at the end because of this.

That's more fans than winning the Blood Bowl :(

We couldn't find anything in the rule book about stacking abilities from two of the same card, any thoughts?

as far as I'm aware they can stack, i played skaven first game and very quickly realised staff upgrades = win!

So far in the games i've played the player who hordes staff upgrades wins in the end of game phase by scoring tonnes of easy fans!

It gets stronger. I had two of the card that gave me two fans for each freebooter, then one of the staff +1's. I started the last week with under 20 and then after bonus points, I had 62. I wouldn't argue if they said that staff cards couldn't be doubled, as long as there was a way to redraw if you already had a copy.

The first games we focused on Star Players and Fans (you play your game). Then, we focused on Team and Staff Upgrades in order to avoid one player would stack these end-game effects (you counter the other managers game). BBTM is very tactical because you know all the other managers upgrades during the Revealing step and must adapt your strategy during the following weeks.

Do you guys realize that if you win more than one of the same item at a matchup you only keep on of them per match up?

You can't have that many team upgrades in a game it's not possible. Say you won the chaos cup and got the 4 staff upgrades you draw 4 cards and keep one discarding the rest. But if you had won other staff upgrades from previous matches you could get more than one.

Not exactly. If you collect several payouts from a same matchup, you may keep several cards of the same type (page 13 the rules stipulates the different zone payouts are collected separatly). By exemple you may collect 1 Staff Upgrade between 2 cards for your team zone AND 1 Staff Upgrade between 1 card from the central payout if you have won the match-up. There are several Highlights cards which have this particularity and the other players must very careful.

@LordZon

Yeah, the Coach I was refering to in my example won the Staffing Office in his first two weeks in a row, then went after every highlight with a possible Staff Upgrade payout every week after that. He managed to win two in one week about half way through the game as we had the Chaos Cup and aother highlight with a staff upgrade payout in the same week, giving him a total of six staff cards at the end of the game and according to the print on the Staffing Office each of those cards was worth +2 Fans.

I understand that it's a credible tactic towards winning the game but seems to go against the overall mood of Blood Bowl, something that up to that point the game had really captured well. Anyone if an FAQ or such is planned? Otherwise we might house-rule it that they don't stack, even the coach in question was a bit disappionted to win like that.

Why is it against the mood of Blood Bowl ? You incarnate a manager whose main objectiv is to gain the maximum fans, not to win highlights and tournaments (but this help, unless you are Skaven !). If the other players not contain your game by playing Staff Upgrades because they want direct Fan points, this is their problem. I think this is interesting because a manager must choose between the highlight he want to win and the highlights which are beneficial for the other managers. Else BBTM will loose an interesting game dimension (you are the Manager, not the Coach directly involved on the pitch !).

I meant the mood of Blood Bowl the imaginary sport, not the mood of the Card Game. In the various bits of colour text and 'Did you knows?' from the game manuals down the years the success of a team, or lack thereof, was often attributed to the team itself. Its players, its tactics, its secret weapons and bribes etc. Not how many staff it had manning sidelines.

I'm not saying the card is wrong, or that Managers shouldn't look at using two Staffing Office cards as a viable tactic for winning the game, just that it didn't 'feel like Blood Bowl' to me. Probably just my interpretation of the board game and its surrounding setting.

Like I said, I'm a big fan of the Card Game and will continue to play it and everythig else about it really did 'feel like Blood Bowl' just this one thing seems weird to me and I'm hoping it'll be FAQ'd or some such. gran_risa.gif