Season Rules

The NYCBBL Rules are based on BB2025 (aka Season Three) ruleset and include Spike Journal updates with a few small revisions (see below). The following are the higher level rules/things to know:

• While Carcosa Club and The Spire are the home bases for the league, there is no requirement that games be played within the clubs. 

• Redraft occurs for every team at the end of each season (regular and veteran) and is handled via Tourplay. 

• Entry fee of $10 for Carcosa members and $15 for non-members per season (covers 1 team per season) goes towards Tourplay upkeep costs and then towards supporting our FLGS.

Modifications from the Rulebooks:

• Regular Mercenary usage only

• Inducements

  • Star Players

  • Star Players may not be rostered. They are inducement only.

  • Prayers to Nuffle

    • Due to the extremely reduced cost and outsize impact of Season Three Prayers to Nuffle, we will be enforcing a 0-1 limit per match per coach to start the season until we better understand their impact on gameplay.

• 1 Match limit between each pairing of teams per season during regular season play in a Rookie League.

• Regarding Indicators: As a league we do not require a coach to utilize specific indicators for various player states - but we do ask that coaches ensure that they share with their opponent how they will indicate player states (used, prone, stunned, etc.) in a manner that is consistent and understandable up front/before the match begins.

• Regular weather/ball/stadium rules only.

• MVP is managed based on BB2025 Ruleset

• FFA Matching during the regular season - coaches are expected to setup their own matches/schedule up to their 10 game limit each season (Rookie League Only)

• Painted Team Bonus (Rookie League Only)

  • After the first completed game by a rookie league team - if your team is full painted just post a picture of said team with the team name in the league discord channel and ask for your Painted Team bonus.

  • League commissioner(s) will award a 50k gold prize to said team as a reward for your team showing up in style.

• Concessions: (Rookie League Only)

  • The NYCBBL wants to make it crystal clear that we are not supportive of conceding games. This mechanism, in a league format, deprives opponents of team development and is considered a pretty big bummer in terms of time and effort spent to play the game. If you feel the need to concede a match due to lack of players or due to real life emergency, we ask that you do the following:

    • If an emergency/out of time - Please work to reschedule the match with the other player/commit to a follow up time. If this occurs, leave the match open and contact a league commissioner to let them know of the delay.

    • If due to lack of players/gameplay outcome (And we've all been there and taken serious beatings in our matches), we expect you to let another player finish their game and get what player development they can out of it. We ask that you do a 'Gentleman's Concession' - which consists of simply putting down the dice and auto-passing on your remaining turns. This leaves your opponent to complete their remaining turns/moves to maximize their points. It is entirely in their discretion if they will continue throwing blocks/fouls. This cannot be taken back once you declare it, as opponent decisions will be very much changed by your concession. The expectation of the opponent is to wrap things up in a quick and timely manner, so the game can be reported and the conceding coach can get underway.

  • If a coach is unwilling to reschedule or go through a gentleman's concession (see above) we will enforce the book rules as written concession. League commissioners will reach out to both coaches to determine if follow-up action is required by the league.

• Concessions: (Veteran League Only)

  • Concessions in Veteran League - We want to keep concessions to a minimum, but we realize sometimes real life gets in the way. Going forward, the Commissioners will exercise their discretion to remove team penalties due to concession. This will be based on our belief that the coach made good faith efforts to schedule their match and/or were blocked by events beyond their control. Note that we will not exercise this discretion if the public scheduling channels in Discord have not been utilized to attempt to schedule your match!

• Scheduling: (Veteran League Only)

  • We want to ask Veteran coaches to please do us a favor and utilize Tourplay scheduling as soon as you and your opponent agree to a date and time. None of us want to be spending our time chasing you all down. We also strongly suggest that you utilize the scheduling threads to avoid misunderstandings around potential concessions or disputes.

2026 Rookie Season Format Changes:

In order to assist coaches who are new to Blood Bowl, we are enacting the following changes in 2026:

• Divisions

  • • We will be asking each coach, at the outset of the season, to self-align themselves with a ‘Rookie’ or ‘Veteran’ skill level. Commissioners will then place their team into a division that reflects this for the duration of the league/season.

• Inter-Division Play Expectations

  • • While rookies and veterans are welcome to play each other in games, we want to set some baseline expectations for veteran players entering into these matches.

      1. Do your best to assist your opposing coach if they have questions/are struggling with decision making in a friendly fashion.

      2. Allow rookie coaches to potentially pull back a decision as long as dice haven’t been rolled to help them work through implications/action order.

      3. Avoid, when possible, unnecessary damage (No turn 16 fouls w/o the possibility for SPP, for instance please.) that wouldn’t otherwise impact the game.

• Team Mulligans

  • • Every coach is offered the option to, before playing Game 4 for their team, to ‘mulligan’ their team once a season. This allows them to toss out a team that isn’t working/has been destroyed for an alternative team. It does not need to be the same team type it was before. They must notify the Commissioners of their decision though, so they can track this decision and disable the existing team to save on costs.

Veteran Season Scheduling/Format:

After a rather successful 2025 league run (based on coach feedback) we will be sticking with the changes implemented that season.

• The season will run 12 games long.

• Structure will be division based system with relegation/promotion. All teams that join will be seeded into three divisions (A through C, with A being the top division) based on the quality of their finish in their last full season. How initial seeding will work is given below. Every 4 games, the divisions will be re-seeded based on performance, with the top teams in B and C moving up a division, and the bottom teams in A and B moving down a division. The intent is to ensure teams are appropriately challenged throughout. At the end of the season, the top 8 or 16 (based on team Win/Loss record as a whole and number of teams participating) will be invited to the postseason where they will be seeded based on final positioning.

  • Initial seeding will use the following order of logic to determine the starting positions:

    • Type of league your team last played in (Veteran, Rookie, None)

    • Final standing that season (if not top 3, then based on ranking that regular season)

    • W/L record that season as a %.

  • Every 4 games the teams get re-racked in divisions, with promotions and relegations happening at that time. At that time we will generate the next four matches at random for each team based on the teams in the same division as them.

PostSeason Rule Updates:

• Matching Rules: (Rookie League)

  • All matchmaking for the postseason is decided based on team records from the regular season. In the case of ties, strength of season will be used to determine positioning going into the postseason.

  • If passes need to be given to the initial round due to attending player count, highest ranked teams will be given the passes. 

• Overtime Rules: (Rookie and Veteran League)

  • Begin the following once the end of regulation (turn 16) has occurred and neither team has an advantage in score.

  • 1) Roll any Bribe/Argue the Call's for secret weapons that need to be resolved.

  • 2) Roll KO's.

  • 3) Re-Rolls are NOT replenished, you keep any you had at the end of the second half.

  • 4) Roll off to determine choice for kicking/receiving to start a fresh 8 turn overtime (OT)

  • 5) Winner must choose to kick or receive.

  • 6) No 'Per Half' items are triggered. IE - Master Chef.

  • 7) Setup and play half as per normal.

  • 8) If either team scores during OT - the game is immediately over and they win.

  • 9 If neither team scores by the end of OT, the team that kicked off automatically wins. Roll randomly for players remaining on the field for the kicking team and assign one a TD. This is considered a reward for great defense and resolves the score in Tourplay.

  • NOTE: Continue using the normal kick-off chart during OT.

• Third Place Match:

  • A third place match is mandatory/expected of the two teams that lose in the semi-finals. This is to give us the ability to declare a proper third place team. It also rewards both teams with another game of development and redrafting funds.

Reporting Fouls:

As Tourplay now tracks Fouls and Send-Offs, we want to ensure these are properly submitted!

• Fouls are to be recorded whenever a foul action by a player is attempted.

• Send-offs are to be recorded whenever a send-off event (as per the book) has been triggered. This can happen a number of ways, via kick-off, foul attempt, secret weapon rules, etc.

Glittering Prizes Updates:

At the end of each season (after the postseason is completed) - the following prizes will be given out. For the 'Regular Season' prizes, these will be given to the highest ranking team in that category that was not a first, second, or third place winner of the postseason. This is intended to spread the redrafting love out a bit.

League Champion Prizes:

• League Champion (1st): 100k

• League Runner-Up (2nd): 60k

• League Third Place (3rd): 40k

Regular Season Prizes:

• Most TDs: 10k

• Best Defense: 10k

• Most Completions: 10k

• Most Beast (Casualties): 10k

• Most Fouls: 10k

• Last Place (Wooden Spoon): 40k

Dispute Resolution:

• Each match pairing is responsible for accurately and swiftly reporting their match. Players are expected to work with one another to complete their report and work out any issues together!

• Should players have a dispute over the results of a match or of match entry - they should take these concerns to the season commissioner or admins via the discord channel. In 99% of issues, these can be resolved after the match.

• In the case of any accusation of cheating or 'leaving' of matches intentionally, commissioners will convene to discuss a reasonable penalty to the infraction/gather information on the occurrence.

• All commissioner/deputy commissioner decisions will be final

• While we expect in-game rules clarifications to be easy enough to not need a commissioner ruling, for finals/post-season we will ensure a commissioner/deputy commissioner are available to field questions either in person or over discord (assuming matches are properly scheduled in advance!) depending on the finals format.

NYCBBL Sevens League Rules:

League rules for Infini-Sevens can be found here.

The league for reporting purposes can be found in Tourplay here.

The preferred discord for scheduling/finding matches is the Spire Discord, but you can certainly use the Carcosa Discord as well. 

Commissioner Nicholas Hill will be responsible for maintaining and leading this league.

Persons of Interest:

• Commissioner: Kenny Johnson

• Deputy Commissioner: Andrew Weakland

• Deputy Commissioner: Dan Porsa

• Deputy Commissioner: Nicholas Fitzgerald

• Deputy Commissioner: David E.

• Deputy Commissioner: Dave Coman-Hidy

• Deputy Commissioner: Nicholas Hill