Talk Fantasy Football

Seeing as how giants are referenced in the background of Blood Bowl, I am sure I am not the only player who has long had a fascination with house rules for fielding them. I actually played in a league once that had rules for such, which inspired me to sculpt not one, but two giant models for my teams. As great as this was, there is one thing that sometimes niggles me, and that is that for all his size, the giant still only took up one square on the pitch like any other big guy. While this is the simple solution, it doesn't really capture the feel of a truly giant creature that would never fit on a 40mm base.

As such, I have been toying with the idea of writing some house rules that lets a giant player take up more space on the field. Not 4 squares like big guys used to in 2nd ed, but 9 squares. To me, that would seem to fit a model like the plastic warhammer giant, who clearly towers over any and all else anywhere near the pitch. A 40k dreadnought base might be a good base size,, the trygon base is a tad too big .

My purpose with this thread is to ask for opinions on this idea, mainly in three forms.
1. Has anyone here ever tried playing with house ruled players taking up more than one square in 3rd ed?
2. Are there any issues with 3rd ed rules that make this impractical, skill interactions etc. I haven't thought of?
3. Would this be in any way fun or cool, or just a massive annoying headache? Does the idea strike anyone as worth pursuing?

Stat-wise I was imagining something like Strength 8 with inbuilt Stand Firm and Multiple Block as a starting point. Probably also immunity from a bunch of skills. Although I doubt I would build it (unless I could find a bunch of giant models super cheap), I really like the idea of a giant team consisting of three giants and nothing else. If I could write some rules that would actually make a game against such a team fun, and not torture for either coach, I would be very happy. Any ideas appreciated.

You know how it is, once you get an idea you can't stop thinking about it. After a bit of mulling over, this would be the first draft of my collosal giant rules. Please tear them apart as voraciously and technically as possible, so that they may be as workable and fun as possible before I try them out. The idea is to use him as a big guy ally at first, with a view to trying out the giant team concept.


Storm Giant

M 5 S 8 AG 2 AV 9

Cost: 260k (?)
Skills and Traits: Mighty Blow, Multiple Block, Stand Firm, Sure Hands, Thick Skull
Racial Characteristics: Always Hungry, Head in the Clouds, Humongous, Throw Team-mate

Humongous (Racial Characteristic)
A Humongous player takes up nine squares on the pitch instead of one. Simply treat the player as if he was one big group of nine players moving in unison, and roll a D16* whenever the ball needs to scatter from one of the squares he occupies. This unusual size carries with it several additional special rules.
1. The player is not affected by any skills or effects that modify AV or injury rolls, such as Mighty Blow or Dirty Player, including Secret Weapons like Chainsaws. He is also not affected by the skills Juggernaut or Wrestle, and ignores the Stand Firm skill of opposing players when blocking.
2. The player gains +3 on all Interception rolls (which becomes a +1 when the normal -2 modifier is taken into account).
3. The player cannot be easily stopped by smaller players when moving. To represent this, the player never needs to make Dodge rolls. Additionally, the player may move in such a fashion that when a single player (standing or prone) with a Strength of 4 or less occupies one of the corner squares of the area that the Humongous player wishes to move into, that player may be pushed out of the way (either to the left or right of the direction of movement) to make room. This does not require a roll, but players with a Strength of 5 or more or with Stand Firm cannot be moved in this fashion, nor is it possible if there are no available squares to push the displaced player into. Pushing players aside may be done any number of times per action, but only to one player per square of movement. After pushing a player aside, roll a D6. On a roll of 1 the Humongous player trips and falls over, in the same way as when making a Go For It roll.
4. Instead of blocking a Humongous player, opposing players may try to distract him instead. Distracting is done exactly like blocking, except that you roll 1D6 and add +1 per player both distracting and assisting (so if you tried a distract with two assists, you would roll 1D6+3). If the roll equals or beats the Strength of the Humongous player, he must successfully make an AG roll or be distracted. A distracted player receives a -1 penalty to his next Head in the Clouds roll, and automatically drops the ball if he is carrying it. Once a player has been distracted, he cannot be distracted again in the same turn.

Head in the Clouds (Racial Characteristic)
A player with this characteristic may never move after standing up from being prone. Also, he must roll a D6 before taking any action. On a roll of 1-3, his action is lost and he has no tackle zone until the beginning of your next turn, and if the player is carrying the ball, he drops it. If there is more than one player with Head in the Clouds on the field, the player receives +2 to this roll.


* Ie. flip a coin and then roll a D8, the coin flip determining if the roll counts as 1-8 or 9-16.

One more small thing: For them to work as their own team, they would need at least two special rules, for obvious reasons: One to let them ignore number requirements for starting teams, and another to ignore the rule saying that they have to set up a minimum number of players on the line of scrimmage (or at least no more than one player).