Blood Bowl: Star Coach destined for free-to-play digital release

Cyanide has announced a new spin-off to its successful Games Workshop-licensed sports sim, Blood Bowl, this time focusing on the management of your fantasy football squad.

Based on the Warhammer spin-off of the same name, Blood Bowl is four years old and has produced three expansions, but Blood Bowl: Star Coach is a different take on the formula.

Due in the second quarter of 2013 on Mac, PC and tablets, Star Coach is free-to-play, and has wannabe managers putting together teams of dwarfs, elves, humans and less sanitary races. You can cherry pick your ultimate team, and then challenge other coaches to matches for ultimate control of the leaderboard ranking system.

Teams can be developed in various ways, and star players and staff are up for recruitment. Coaches have the freedom to pick the best strategies for the game ahead but matches are resolved by an online server, although Cabalvision allows you to watch games play out in 3D.

This is the second Blood Bowl spin-off from Cyanide; it also produced Dungeonbowl.