What’s lurking in the soggy canal-water behind the last Carnevale door?

Let’s find out…

It’s (no huge surprise) Blood on the Water!

We first teased Blood on the Water in 2019’s Advent Calendar. That both seems like a long time ago and also like a few weeks at the same time.

Unfortunately, the Doctors of the Ospedale unleashed a plague on the world, slowing progress on… well on everything really! So while it’s taken longer than anticipated, Blood on the water is just round the corner.

We’ve already seen our first releases for Carnevale in the new year, and we’re happy to say now that Blood on the Water will be coming shortly afterwards!

See? That’s the cover!

What’s in the book?

Well we’re not going into all the details here (we’ve got to save something for closer to the release), but suffice it to say there’s a lot going on in Carnevale’s first campaign book.

• 60-odd pages of new background story. The book is divided up into three main chapters, each dealing with an individual conflict. The story spans the whole year of 1795, picking up right where the main rulebook ended. There are new characters introduced, twists and turns, and some unexpected surprises! Gav Thorpe has returned to write part of the book, so expect some great story!
• Updated rules. Blood on the Water contains the full Carnevale rules, with some tweaks and changes to keep things interesting. Over the last few years we’ve played a lot of games and had a lot of players give us feedback, and we’ve made a few changes to the core rules. Rather than including a page or two of updates in the book, we figured we’d just put the full rules in! Of course, all these updated rules will be available for free in the digital rulebook too.
• Brand new rules. It’s not just updates, there are a bunch of new rules as well. Some core rule additions are included, but there are also advanced rules (which are clearly marked as such) for your games. Reactions add more to do out of your turn so you don’t just have to stand there and get hit three times in a row. Advanced scenery rules include things like ziplines and also boats!
• New gang creation rules. There are brand new additions to gang building to add a little more customisation to your gangs. New equipment and some tweaked rules and prices for existing equipment gives you some options. Artifacts offer valuable one-of-a-kind upgrades for your characters – from Barattieri’s Dice to Nini the cat! Finally, Ill Tides offer a negative equipment option. If you’re a few ducats over your limit, your opponent draws an Ill Tide in secret to play against you at the least opportune time. They’re fun and hilarious!
• New scenarios. Of course we had to include new scenarios! There are 15 brand new scenarios split into 3 campaigns. They’re designed so you can follow along with the story of Blood on the Water, but just like the rulebook scenarios, you can swap out the gangs to give even more replayability.

There’s also loads of incredible new art in the book, showing your favourite characters and also brand new characters all brought to life. It’s possibly the most beautiful book we’ve ever released!

While we’re not spoiling any more of what you can expect in there (we’re still a few months out from the release), we will give you a single brand new rule: Fortune’s Favour.

This new rule sits right underneath the Golden Rule. It’s a core rule and shows just how we expect the game to be played. We like to call it “competitive niceness” in the office, since it encourages players to be as friendly as they possibly can. Feel free to start using it in your games from now if you like!

What About Models?

Of course, Blood on the Water is just the start. The story introduces loads of new people, character types, and subfactions – all of which will be represented in game!

When the book is released, we’ll be releasing new models for every faction as well, and then going forwards we’ve got plenty of new characters to add to your gangs with each new Carnevale release.

Again, we’re not going to spoil everything today, but here’s a taster of some of the new miniatures coming your way next year…

Who are they? What do they do? What are their rules? Well, we’re just going to leave that up to your imagination!

What Else? I Want MORE!

Alright, alright calm down. There’s one other thing.

With Blood on the Water we’ve got plenty of new rules, including some new special rules and changes to the core rules. With all that in mind, we thought it would be a good time to do a full balance pass on all the existing characters.

When the book is released, we’ll also be rolling out those changes. Underperforming characters will get a buff, overperforming characters will get a nerf, and there will be some bigger changes still.

We’ll be looking at rebalancing whole factions, making sure they play in the way we intended. That means each faction will feel more unique, and their play style will be stronger. We’re also re-evaluating all the faction Command Abilities to make sure they’re not only balanced, but some of the most useful skills for your faction.

We’re still playtesting these changes at the moment, but as you can see, there are some exciting things coming!

That’s all we’re teasing for now (there’s a fair amount to go on there though). We’ll likely showcase a little more before the release of the book next year, so keep your eyes peeled! Our good friends at Monsters Behind the Masks have managed to find a spy in our ranks as well, so they might have more information in their coming episodes.

In the meantime, there’s already loads of Carnevale for you on the TTCombat webstore. Head over there to have a look what’s on offer, and we’ll see you in Venice in the new year.

Remember, just one more day for UK shipping before the holidays!