Spike Almanac 2024 is here! The annual Blood Bowl release compiling together Spike! Journals 16 (Vampires), 17 (Gnomes) and 18 (Chaos Dwarfs) along with some new Star Players and rules is up for pre order today, and we’ve got the low down on what is inside with our full review!

This one is going to be a little different, as we’ve already previously reviewed Spike 16, 17 and 18 so I’ll be copying over the write up of those in this article, before taking a look at the brand new bits inside the Spike Almanac 2024!

We’ve also been sent a couple of Star Players, so we’ll have a look at the painted models later in the review too!

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us over early review copies to take a look at! If you would like to support the site then why not pick up your Blood Bowl goodies from our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

We’ve also got a full unboxing and review of Rashnak Backstabber and Rowana Forestfoot, which you can see just below or over on YouTube

So without further ado let’s jump into the Blood Bowl Spike Almanac 2024!

Spike Almanac 2024 Review

If you’ve not picked up a Spike! Journal before, then these are essentially the “codex” for each Blood Bowl team – but in truth they are more a fictional fan-zine for the team, containing interviews and sports statistics alongside the rules and tactics.

We open up Spike Almanac 2024 with the contents of Spike 16, which was dedicated to the Vampire team!

The Vampires as you would expect are expensive, but very good with amazing agility and Regeneration and Hypnotic Gaze on all 3 vamps – They do have a bit of a downside however with their Bloodlust – essentially this makes you roll on their stat (2+ on most, 3+ on the Blitzer and Varghiest) with a plus one if you block or blitz, make the roll and everything is ok, but fail and your player has to sink their teeth into a Thrall, causing an injury on them as they suck their blood – fail to do so and you suffer a turnover.

Most of the time this is going to be on a 2+, but Blood Bowl being the fickle game that it is, you’ll want to make sure you have ample Thralls within chomping distance!

Speaking of Thralls, if you manage to kill an opposing player during a game then you get to add them to your roster as a brand new Thrall! But at 40k each, Thralls are also really affordable to add to your team – with the entire box clocking in at just under 1m gold, giving you the numbers if you want them (Though i’d probably save some for free ones from deaths and take a couple of rerolls at 60k each)

Like with previous Spike! Journals we also get a full tactica section that details not only some suggested starting lineups, but also some decent advice on how best to use your Vampire team in games of Blood Bowl. I always find these sections really useful when picking up a new Blood Bowl team, as it goes into quite a lot of detail on how best to set up for offense and defense and how to work around the advantages and limitations your team has.

The vampires also get added to Dungeon Bowl with full rules for the College of Death.

The next part of the book is Spike! 17 and predominately focuses on the lore and background for the Gnomes, star players and famous teams. I really like this approach as it makes it no way a “required” purchase for players, but rather something that enhances and expands the team with some fun information, flavour and comedy.

Along with the narrative stuff, there is gaming content in the book too however, from profiles for the Gnome star players (Rodney, Rowana and Akhorne is included too)

Also included are the rules for the Mystical Forest Blood Bowl Pitch – There’s some fun stuff here such as the fact that playing in a forest with critters scampering around makes it riskier to rush, to Gnomish portals that can teleport players around the pitch, or even send someone back to the dugout!

As ever the Gnome sprue contains some balls, and rules for these are also included in the book, such as the Acorn ball, which attracts woodland creatures that swarm the player and reduce MA by 2 on the roll of a 1, or a Gnomish Idol ball which stops you from being knocked down on a roll of a 6

The best part of the Spike! magazine however is the Pro Playbook – this is essentially a guide on how to play the Gnomes along with all their profiles and costs – this makes a great introduction to playing the Gnomes and using them on the pitch

So how do they play?

Gnome Linemen – So these are dirt cheap at 40k, but fragile with strength 2 and AV 7+, but they can be pretty annoying with Wrestle and jump up. They are getting knocked down, but they can still be a threat while on the ground due to jump up – and with wrestle if they do take someone down with them they can jump up and dash away to safety

Gnome Beastmaster – So this is an ace positional as they have Guard letting them assist even when in a tackle zone, which massively evens up the odds for your weak players – either supporting your ball push, or even when trying to crack open opponent cages, you’ll always want to bring the full allotment of these every time.

Gnome Illusionist – This is a cool model with the “Trickster” trait – this allows the player to move into any square adjacent to the blocking player when they are about to be hit – this can be used to either move them into a more favourable position (Maybe taking advantage of friendly beastmasters for example), to move so that they can hinder the movement of the attacker, or even be used to draw frenzied players to where you want them to be

Woodland Fox – In addition to having the cutest models, these are your dedicated ball carriers and scorers – They are Agility 2+ so are really good at making their way across the pitch, and Dodge and Sidestep really helps with this. They do have a bit of a downside though – the “My Ball” trait means that they cannot pass or hand off to other players (no playing fetch with these guys!) and due to this they can often hog experience from scoring, leading to them advancing a fair bit faster than your gnomes (Who you may want to get some skills on)

Altern Forest Treeman – Finally we have the Treemen, these are your real source of hitting power in the team, though they have the usual downsides like take root and low movement – though their job is to stand and punch things until a fox can sneak through and score. At 120k they are expensive, but your team is cheap enough for you to take 2 of them

We also get the stats for both new Star Players in here

Rodney Roachbait is a fun player who can use his rod to pick up a ball on the ground within 3 squares of him. It only goes off on a 3+ so you can’t count on it, but it is really fun!

The other new player is Rowana Forestfoot – she’s a little stronger than an average Gnome having S3 and AV8+, and also has Guard and Horns making her very good as your blitzer. She also has the Bounding Leap rule which means once per game she has no negative modifier to testing to leap

As the model is up to pre order alongside the Spike Almanac 2024, Games Workshop sent us over Rowana to build up and paint, and I had great fun working on her! She’s smaller than I imagined her to be, fitting on a 32mm base – but she is just filled with charm and personality and goes great with the other Gnome models!

Like with the Vampires, we also get the Gnomes added to Dungeon Bowl with full rules for the College of Shadow

The 3rd of the Spike! Journals collected here is Spike 18, this time dedicated to the Chaos Dwarfs! All of the “in-universe” stuff is great fun as ever. One of my favourite things about these Spike! Journals is that they really capture the essence and “feel” of a team. In the same way a Codex or Battletome gives you the flavour of an army, Spike! Journal does much the same for a Blood Bowl team.

But what about the gaming content? We’ll let’s take a look at what’s included, including the team rules themselves.

The Chaos Dwarfs are unsurprisingly a pretty slow and bashy team. With armour 10 on all your Dwarfs and Thick Skull they will be able to tank some damage. Your Blockers also get an updated Iron hard Skin, which means that armour save rolls cannot be modified, and claws cannot be used. They are going to be really tough to take out. They are however going to be a pretty expensive team too, with a number of positionals clocking in at over 100,000 gold and a fairly small amount of dwarfs available.

However, the Chaos Dwarf team does have access to some cannon fodder in the shape of the Hobgoblin Linemen. These guys are quicker than your plodding dwarfs and can actually pass and catch. Their job is going to be to scarper up the pitch to score a 1 goal win after the rest of your team grinds everything down.

The Chaos Dwarf team gets access to quite a lot of Star Players, with 18 in total on offer. In the book we get rules for 3 of them (2 of which have new models out today)

Zzharg Madeye is a fun Secret Weapon user. Armed with a Blunderbuss he can use once per half, he just picks a standing player within 3 spaces and on a 3+ makes an armour roll! As is the case with Secret Weapons it can often go wrong. A roll of 2 means the opponent gets to pick who is hit (Friend of Foe) and a roll of 1 hits Madeye himself!

H’Thark The Unstoppable is an absolute beast clocking in at 300,000 gold. He has a whole host of skills including Block Break Tackle, Juggernaut, Sprint, Sure Feet and Defensive. But he also gets to re-roll a dice every time he does a Blitz action, making him really reliable with essentially a free reroll every turn.

The final new Star Player in the book is Rashnak Backstabber, who is also finally up for pre order alongside the Spike Almanac 2024. He has a nice rule that gives him a +1 modifier to injury rolls when he breaks armour with his stab rule.

Like with Rowana, Games Workshop sent us over Rashnak, and he was another really fun model to work on! there’s some really nice old school Hobgoblin vibes here, and I’ll take any excuse to crack open armour easier!

In it’s 40 pages, Spike! Journal 18 has quite a few bits of gaming content. Along with the main Chaos Dwarf rules, there’s also a really nice guide on how to play them and tips and tricks you should know when using the team. I really like sections like this in rule books as it lets the designers share the intent for the way teams are meant to be played, and frame what the expected play style is.

This section also has some suggesting starting rosters. This allows you to really quickly pick up a starting lineup and get some games in asap.

Like with the other two Journals in the Almanac, we get another team for Dungeon Bowl, adding the College of Fire which is exclusively made up of Chaos Dwarfs

So if you already have the three previous Spike! Journals is there anything new in here? Well, a lot of people will be interested in the new Star Players – 8 in total!

First up we have Jordell Freshbreeze for the Elven Kingdoms League – He’s an eyewatering 250k gold, but is very good rocking an Agility of 1+ and the Sqift as the Breeze special rule allowing him to make any Dodge, Leap or Rush on a 2+ once per game with zero modifiers

A new Treeman is introduced with Maple Highgrove who can play for Halfling Thumble Cup, Elven Kingdoms or Old World Classic, rocking a suitably sturdy statline – but can also block a player who is 2 turns away once per half, making him very useful and difficult to avoid

We get a new Spite star player (Or the Scary Fairy as she’s known as) Swiftvine Glimmershard who offers Disturbing Presence and Stab to Halfling Thimble Cup and Elven Kingdoms teams, her special rule allows her to teleport up to 3 squares and immediately make a stab action against another player once per half.

Speaking of Stab, Elven Kingdoms also get Jeremiah Kool, a Dark Elf thrower who can Stab a player he is marking before making a move action

If you have an Elven Kingdom team then you get a lot of love in this book with Kiroth Krakeneye joining the lineup too – he’s a runner who can use his Black Ink once per game to make any player he is marking lose their Tackle Zone, potentially opening him up to dash past them with the ball

The hilariously named Anqi Panqi is a Temple Guard who joins the Lustrain Superleage – He’s a decent Blocker who can reroll his block dice once per game.

Joining the “Favoured of” or Underworld Challenge teams is Skitter Stab-stab who is a Skaven Assassin who has the ability to reroll the injury roll when breaking armour after a stab, making him really good at fishing for injuries

Finally we have another player for the Favoured of Nurgle, Guffle Pusmaw, he’s a catcher who gets a free armour roll against a player who catches the ball adjacent to him – if he breaks their armour then he gets to grab the ball for free (though it doesnt cause a turnover)

Finally the Spike Almanac 2024 ends with a new variation Blood Bowl League, the Chaos Cup – this starts with a larger budget of 1,200,000 gold and introduces lots of cool Chaos themed weather, Kick off tables and even ways of buying Marks of Chaos for your team and gaining the blessings of the gods themselves!

Summary

So what do I think of the Spike Almanac 2024? As a big fan of the Spike! Journals, I love that Games Workshop do these complications that collect together all of the teams over the last few years (Last year we didn’t get an Almanac as the only release was the Vampires). While this is a little disappointing perhaps for people who have picked up the individual volumes, I always opt to wait for the nice hardback almanac to gather all these books together in one place – Plus to me they look nicer on the bookcase that way too!

If you’ve not picked up any of the individual Journals then this is a great way to get all the content for 3 really fun teams all in one place, and the new star players and the Chaos Cup League is an added bonus.

If you have already got all the Journals however, then this is a harder sell as all that is new is the star players (who will have rules in their individual blisters) and the Chaos Cup League, which while fun is only a couple of pages at the end of the book.

It’s been a slower few years for Blood Bowl, but it’s good to see that we are still getting releases, and I wonder if 2025 will see a new season released, perhaps with some Khemri action…

The Spike Almanac 2024 is up for pre order today and is released Saturday 18th January

Games Workshop provided Sprues & Brews with free copies for review purposes.

Published by Matt Crowther

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