Nufflenomics: The Weather Mage

I have taken the Weather Mage once before in a league game where my goblins were taking on a norse team. I managed to turn the weather from raining to nice, making it more likely I could do a pickup, hand-off and throw teammate with my to win the game. What happened is I that failed anyway, and it left my opponent a chance to more easily dance in and pick up the ball which they did, allowing them to turn a draw into a victory.

It struck me then as a pretty rubbish inducement, so I thought I’d investigate the numbers.

What does it do?

A weather mage will allow you to re-roll the weather which will last for all your team turn and your opponents (or until the end of the drive, whichever happens soonest) following turn before reverting to the previous weather. On top of this you can apply a -1, -2, +1 or +2 modifier as you desire to attempt to affect the weather.

A weather mage is picked during the inducement phase of a league match, or at roster creating in a tournament, such as Eurobowl which is allowing this inducement this year. Rolling the weather is stage 2 of the pre-match sequence, and inducements is stage 4. You will know the initial weather before making the decision about whether to induce a weather mage if playing a league game.

What are the numbers?

Below is a table that shows what the likelihood of each weather type is regularly and then how often it is selectable with the weather mage.

Roll	Weather type	Regular	With Mage
2	Sweltering Heat	3%	17%
3	Very Sunny	6%	28%
4-10	Perfect BB Weather	83%	100%
11	Pouring Rain	6%	28%
12	Blizzard	3%	17%

What you will see is that perfect BloodBowl weather will happen 83% of the time normally. With the weather mage and the potential to modify the dice roll by -2 or +2, you can guarantee perfect weather if you choose. The chance of choosing one of the other weather types means you will need to roll somewhere between 2 and 5, or 9 and 12 (ie avoiding 6, 7 and 8 – the most common results). There is a 55% chance that you will hit one of these.

Note: the totals with the mage add up to more than 100% as these are showing the percentage of times you will be able to choose each one of the non-standard types of weather.

Why would you use a weather mage?

There are two reasons you might want to use a weather mage:

1. To make the weather better for you

In league play, you will know if the weather is disadvantageous to your team. There is a 17% chance that it will be something other than perfect BloodBowl weather. Each of the different types of non-standard weather is probably bad for certain teams in certain match ups.

A team that struggles to pick up the ball will not like pouring rain, a team with slow movement will be hampered by a blizzard, a team that plays a long passing game will be hampered by the sun and a team that relies on outnumbering their opponents and still needs large numbers of their own players on the pitch (e.g., dwarfs in a match v elves) will struggle with the heat.

If you know the weather is unfavourable to you, then you may want to take a weather mage to be able to guarantee that you can make the weather nice for a key turn because with a mage it is impossible to not have the option of perfect weather.

For three of the conditions, there is an obvious in game change that can benefit your team. If you remove the sun, your passing will improve. If you remove the rain, pickups or catches will be easier. If you remove the blizzard, you will be able rush more easily and pass the ball the whole length of the range ruler.

If there’s a specific weather rolled that you want to avoid, then for 30,000 it could potentially be a game winning decision, especially if the weather will revert to something unfavourable for your opponent afterwards. Using it on turn 8 of a half when your opponent doesn't have a turn afterwards, or on the turn you intend to score is porbably the best use of this to ideally prevent your opponent also receiving the benefit of the weather being removed.

I would strongly recommend assessing the situation in full first and ensuring that you feel it is the right decision in the circumstances. Think about how the weather will affect your team, your opponents team and the matchup as a whole. 

Remember when you make the decision whether or not to take the mage, that at each kick-off, there is a 14% chance of the weather changing. With an 83% chance of the new result being nice, there is a 12% chance that it will revert to perfect weather at each kick off. Depending on how high scoring you expect the match up to be, there is a potentially high chance of the weather changing anyway.

For example, there will always be at least a 12% chance that the weather will be nice later in the game, as there is guaranteed to be at least 1 more kick-off. If you assume that each team will score on their drive that becomes 3 kick-offs which means there is around a 1 in 3 chance of the weather becoming nice by itself during the game. Based on this, you may feel there are better uses for the cash you have available.

If the weather rolled at the beginning of the game is perfect, then it will likely not be worth taking a weather mage as there is only a 2% chance that the weather will change to something unfavourable on each kick off. Even if you assume four touchdowns are scored, you’re still only at around a 1 in 10 chance of the weather becoming unfavourable. Unless you’re literally drowning in inducement gold, I would suggest there is likely better value elsewhere.

The one weather condition that doesn’t affect play on the pitch is sweltering heat. This will mean that at the end of the drive D3 players from each team who are on the pitch when the drive ends will miss the next drive. However, this is currently no clarification from Games Workshop about whether the weather mage effect ends before or after this. The wording for both is:

Sweltering Heat: “D3 randomly selected players from each team that are on the pitch when a drive ends are placed in the Reserves box.” (page 37)

Weather Mage: “At the end of opposition’s next team turn or the end of the drive (whichever comes first), the replaced weather conditions will return.” (page 90)

The End of Drive Sequence on page 66 doesn’t give any clarification as the three stages are 1. Deal with Secret Weapons, 2. Recover Knocked-Out Players, 3. The Drive ends.

This suggests that the effect of sweltering heat and weather mage occur at the same time, although no indication of whether you would use the new or reverted weather during the end of drive sequence.

If there is a future ruling at all (either from GW or your commissioner/TO) that the sweltering heat is not used at the end of the drive, then this gives you the option of changing the weather before you score, ensuring that you are not down players for the next drive. Whilst your opponent will also not be down players, this could be favourable based on the match up.

I have sent a query to GW about this so we might see something in the May 2024 FAQ.

2. To make the weather worse for your opponent

If you’re the sort of person who wants to make the game a bit more difficult for your opponent, then changing their weather for their next turn could be for you!

What you need to remember is that if you change the weather to spite your opponent, you first have to play through a turn with this altered weather before they will even begin to suffer any ill effects. Therefore, you will want to ensure that whatever you change the weather to won’t cause you any problems before your opponents suffer the ill effects.

You will only roll a non-standard weather 55% of the time, meaning that this strategy will only work roughly every other game.

You then need to think about what whether you will get the weather you want to hit that will make it more difficult for your opponent.

You have got a 28% chance of being able to select each of very sunny and pouring rain.

Very sunny will allow you to apply a -1 modifier to a pass roll that your opponent will be making in their next turn. I would see this as a last-ditch attempt to stop a touchdown, and you would need to be sure that your opponent is looking to pass during their next turn before selecting this.

Pouring rain will apply a -1 modifier to rolls where a player attempts to either pickup or catch the ball. I would think it is more likely that you will know that an opponent needs to do either one or both of these things prior to their turn.

If you know that your opponent will be wanting to make a pass in their turn, then both of these options will have an impact on the roll needed, and collectively you have a 56% chance of being able to select one of these choices.

The other two options – sweltering heat and blizzard – will each be selectable on 17% of the rolls on the weather table.

Depending on the ruling, changing the weather to sweltering heat might be pointless if the weather reverts before the end of drive sequence begins.

For a blizzard, the effect is to apply -1 to rushes and to prevent passes longer than a short pass range. This could be a game winning roll if done before the appropriate turn, but with only a 17% change of hitting it, you’re only going to achieve it roughly 1 in 5 times you attempt it.

Keeping the weather mage as a backup to attempt to stifle a key turn for your opponent is not very reliable, however for a potentially game winning weather change I’m sure some people will think there is value in it.

It may well be that having it available might scare your opponent just enough to make them take suboptimal decisions – e.g., not stalling because the weather could turn and the score could potentially be prevented – although this is also relying on them remembering you have it, so you might want to subtly drop it into conversation every so often.

Conclusion

Whilst the cheap price might seem that the mage is good value, I feel that the usage is very situational and unreliable if your strategy is to upset your opponent's game. 

I would be more likely to take the weather mage in a league match after the weather had been rolled and seen to be something deeply unfavourable for my team. I think in most other circumstances, it would be something that I would avoid unless I’d already spent my money on literally every other inducement that I might want.

I would avoid it completely in a tournament. With the cash being able to afford a combination of three coaches and cheerleaders, I would opt for those before a weather mage. Ideally though, the cash would be used to upgrade to a positional where it is feasible to do so in the roster I have picked.