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Post by Plum on May 26, 2020 11:32:02 GMT 1
So a few of us have been talking Blood Bowl a lot recently! To save spamming up the shoutbox, here's a handy thread I'm delighted to have just finished a season with Vamps, not only surviving (a few dead thralls but who cares about those...) but finishing third, behind Orcs and Necromantic - and the latter on a tie-break too! Super happy with that performance Vamps are so weird. I'm not really sure that I learnt anything useful about playing as other teams, the vampires are so unique in their play style. I did learn a few things that will come in handy next time I play against vamps though We're going to split into two leagues now, Vets and Rookies, but vets can play in the rookie league as long as they use the trash teams. I might run Khorne in the vet league and Ogres (never played them before!) in the rookie league. Although we'll see what I get offered - the vets are being offered a selection of teams hand-picked for them, based on how good they are. We've all known each other for a while so we have a good idea of where each coach places in terms of overall skill. I'm looking forward to it
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Post by Zejety on May 26, 2020 12:40:53 GMT 1
I'll drop my current team in here for easy reference. fumbbl.com/p/yearbook?team_id=957490Just a summary from weeks of shoutboxing: The DRB discord is arunning a league and it's my first real time playing. i've played one demo game more than a decade ago (and bought a team I never used afterwards) but that hardly counts. The game doesn't exactly play to my strengths but it's starting to become really fun now that I roughly know what I'm doing. I've been lucky so far: Despite losing the majority of my games, my Skaven suffered no permanent injuries. I actually don't know what to do with my treasure right now. Maybe buy another reserve player. I was defaulting to a Lino, but Bomber suggested a second thrower. Anyway, I had fun skill rolls and ended up with a varied set of Gutter Runners: One with Block, Wrestly, +AG, and +MA respectively My Thrower also rolled doubles and got Strong Arm! I'm also starting to pay attention to other teams to figure out what I would play in a hypothetical second season, after picking Skaven out of loyalty more than for mechanics for this one.
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Post by Plum on May 26, 2020 16:21:54 GMT 1
That is a solid looking team! It looks like your runners are hogging most of the SPP though, your poor linerats need some love <3 I think two bench rats should be plenty, though of course it depends on the rest of the league. I'm not sure I'd bother with a spare thrower - if something happens to your first, your runners can pick up on a 2+ and the +AG guy can throw six squares on a 2+ or 10 squares on a 3+. Yes it's nice to have the RR skills baked in, but I'm not sure it's worth an extra 20k for a backup plan. Of course you could always take the second thrower, give him Leader and drop a RR, effectively saving 20k ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Post by Zejety on May 26, 2020 16:40:26 GMT 1
Yeah, Leader would be the major motivation, since my current guy immediately roleld doubles and begs to be a specialist passer now. One of my rats will be missing the next game, so I currently only have 1 spare for that one. Could hire one and retire him later if noone gets hurt.
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Post by Bomber678 on May 27, 2020 12:30:22 GMT 1
In the third season of the BRD league (still ongoing, we're moving into playoffs) I've been playing skaven.
I'm very much in favour of keeping a large bench as skaven, because it's so easy for your guys to just start dying, and if you can't field at least eight players, you're just asking for trouble. Skaven only have six important players, but you have to protect them at all costs. You need lots of linerats to put in the way to let them do their job.
Having a second thrower means never having to apothecary the first thrower, since you only want to apo gutters and blitzers. Using four gutter runners and a thrower gives you lots of options for how to move the ball, which forces the opponent to split their team, which is exactly what you want.
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Post by Plum on May 27, 2020 17:05:24 GMT 1
I can see all of those points. I don't think I'd apo a thrower even with only one on the team though - there's nothing that he does that a runner couldn't do better anyway, except in the exceptional circumstance of a leaping-wrestle-strip ball threat on the opposing side. But I concede the argument that you'd prefer to have your runners actively engaged as scoring threats and keeping one of them back to move the ball is a waste of his talents. That said, I'm not opposed to running a second for the leader skill.
Of course all my opinions are coloured by my preferred playstyle being run and gun. I don't play long balls so my throwers are usually little more than linerats with sure hands built in. I guess if you wanted to build the team around throwing plays then it would be useful to have a backup to your key piece.
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Post by Bomber678 on May 28, 2020 12:23:23 GMT 1
Yes, I think you've understood my point well. Being able to use four runners for actual running by having a thrower safe in your half is valuable, and having two throwers just makes it much more likely that you'll be able to do that.
I don't even do big passing plays, but I can have my thrower way way back super safe, and then have him move up my side and hand it to a runner, who can then pass to any of my three runners in their backfield. So I'm very very safe until I choose to engage the play.
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Post by Zejety on May 31, 2020 0:23:58 GMT 1
Game against frogs didn't go well. Game ended 1-3. I'll post some bad excuses! Got intercepted by a Pass Blocker I forgot about (I even put TZs on him!!! T-T), A line rat failed to catch an accurate pass after I had to use a reroll earlier that turn, and a Pitch Invasion ruined my OTTD Got my first permanent injuries, but I think that happening this late to a Skaven player speaks more about my past luck My new thrower got a +AG. Strongly inclined to fire the old one in favor of an unskilled one. With doubles, he's an expensive backup now,
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Post by Plum on May 31, 2020 23:24:39 GMT 1
Ohhhhh +AG on a thrower is super sweet! And yeah, sometimes you can play a perfect game and the dice just decide you're not winning today. I tend to think of it like poker - sometimes you get a bum deal, sometimes you get pocket rockets. You just have to play the best you can with what you're given and always have a contingency.
Looks like I'll be taking Pro Elves / Elven Union into the rookie league. They're actually a middle tier team but I pretty much exclusively play brawling or hybrid teams and the league organiser wanted to see how well I could handle a finesse team. I tried a couple of test games on BB2 and got pitch cleared. Yikes. Seems I really do need the practice with finesse teams. I've played plenty of AV7 before, but they've always been scrappy AV7s (Norse, Amazons, DElves, Underworld...) - the Pro Elves just feel so delicate!
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Post by Plum on Jun 4, 2020 10:04:51 GMT 1
Yay my Greebo order turned up so I now have three more teams of minis to paint up - Norse bears, Vampire bats and Chaos Pact kitties
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Post by Zejety on Jun 4, 2020 13:39:10 GMT 1
Hearing about physical stuff, I've started wondering: In your experience, how demanding are physical leagues in terms of modding and representing skills on the minis? I'm mostly thinking about mutations here. I'm throwing glances at the Underworld team.
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Post by Plum on Jun 5, 2020 0:13:01 GMT 1
I've seen some amazing mods done and especially if you get resin minis it shouldn't be too hard (you can clip metal too of course, but it's less forgiving). There are plenty of sites that sell sprues full of assorted body parts. The reason I've never gone for it is that I don't like to tie individual models to individual players. Going through all the effort to make a two-headed, four-armed goblin (common for Underworld), only for them to die next game and get replaced by a regular gob seems like too much work. Having said that, I've seen people go deep and create magnetic attachments that they can easily swap out. I guess it all comes down to how much you love modding things and whether you consider it a chore or a fun part of the hobby
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Post by Plum on Jun 5, 2020 0:21:31 GMT 1
Aaaand I've just reread your comment and realise you're asking if leagues require it, not whether to do it No, I've never seen a league demand accurately modded mutations. Every league I've taken place in has been fine with just the detailed team sheet, though most players use loom bands as skill markers (which is also what I do). There is a bit of dispute about using obvious teams and positionals vs using 'cool' proxy teams. For example, a friend of mine has a team of minis which are the various aliens from the Aliens franchise, which he used as a Slann team. While our local friendly league was fine with it, he wouldn't try them at an official NAF tournament because if a coach complained that they couldn't easily tell what team/players the figures represented, then the tournament organisers would probably rule against him. But it's really subjective and depends entirely what figures you're using - his Aliens minis are all really similar in style (and all painted alien black) so it's genuinely hard to tell the linemen apart from the throwers for example.
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Post by Zejety on Jun 15, 2020 11:36:21 GMT 1
Since the Shoutbox will eventually get drowned out, let me share the drawing of my team here once more =)
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Post by Plum on Jun 15, 2020 20:33:56 GMT 1
That's so cool! I like to think that's literally how they behave on the pitch as well, either posing or running in all directions at random
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Post by Plum on Jun 24, 2020 22:52:01 GMT 1
Yussss! I've won my opening games in both leagues The pro-elves I was expecting to win with as it was against Nurgle, though I got away with no injuries so I'm pretty delighted with that result. I was expecting to lose my opening Orc game against Skaven though - he's played Skaven plenty before and I know there's no stopping gutter runners when they want to get through. I managed to least force a turn five TD (and almost stopped him altogether with four dice on his ball carrier but alas no perfect pow). Four turns is enough for orcs to counter-score, though it was hairy for a while as he managed to land a 1db and pow my ball carrier before catching it himself! Fortunately he was out of movement and this time I was able to drop his blodge-runner, before scooping the ball up for a short pass and easy run in. SAC tells me the odds of success were 33% but since his odds of dropping my ball carrier in the first place were 33% that seems fair (by the way, if you've never heard of Samba Action Calculator before, I highly recommend checking it out. It lets you calculate odds on complicated sequences so you know just how hard you got f*cked over). The second half was about what you'd expect - attrition gave me the numbers and I just ground slowly up the pitch, with him trying to roll back in a column defence. It slowed me down but given that the rats can easily score in 2 turns, I was in no hurry anyway. Plus I now had spare numbers to base his line without risk of my cage being broken. There was a risk of him dodging through it and going for an uphill block, but his wrestle rat was out and my cage had guard, so the odds were massively against him. I had enough room (and time and rerolls) for a couple of cheeky passes to pad my SPP before a last turn walk in.
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Post by Plum on Jul 7, 2020 13:34:13 GMT 1
Round two complete for both of my teams - a win for my Pro Elves vs Undead in what turned into a very lopsided game. My opponent was pretty new to the game and burned all of his rerolls early on relatively inconsequential actions, then got punished for it later in the halves when he really needed them. On top of that, he had bad luck with his armour breaks, failing to remove any of my squishy elves despite him packing plenty of mighty blow.
My Orc team had a much tougher fight against Chaos, losing their troll in the opening turn and a blitzer on the second, leaving me two key players down for most of the game. I managed to pressuring him into scoring early (and needing a straight 3+ roll to do so, which he sadly aced) but despite having four turns to counter-score, I just didn't have enough strength on the pitch to punch through (nor the speed to break around). The second half was looking very similar, outnumbered and outgunned and desperately defending instead of pushing forward, before my luck turned. Two removed beastmen in a single turn evened up the numbers and with one of his warriors held up by a lineorc on the other side of the pitch, I had a tiny advantage in strength. That proved to be just enough to slowly grind forward before the dam finally broke on my final turn, letting me through to draw the game with a huge sigh of relief.
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Post by Plum on Jul 13, 2020 13:58:50 GMT 1
Has anyone been following the news about the mixed rosters (in the new Spike edition)? Underworld has traded a blitzer for a gutter runner, which is very interesting. The blitzers were absolutely the best player on the team, but runners are amazing in their own right. Trouble is, Skaven have access to four of them which means you're always going to have one or two available. Underworld only get ONE which automatically paints a huge target on its back, in addition to only now having one blitzer. Losing either of those players will be more impactful that losing one of a blitzer-pair I think.
And there's a brand new team, the Old World Alliance - a good guy mirror of Chaos Pact. Except that it's not quite a mirror as there are four different dwarf positionals available (lineman x2, thrower, blitzer, trollslayer) and all have loner, as do the halfling linemen x2. The rest of the team is similar to humans (catcher x1, thrower x1, blitzer x1, ogre x1 and 0-12 linemen) who all have animosity and it's... weird. The dwarven linemen will do well on the LOS, even with loner, but having loner on your blitzer or, even worse, your trollslayer seems kinda awful. A character with frenzy and dauntless will often be making difficult blocks and having loner block a reroll will lead to turnovers far more often than with the linedwarves. Then you've got halflings who are literally only on the team to be thrown, another high risk play where loner immediately cuts the odds of success again. Oof. Probably not a team that I'll be playing any time soon.
Two more league games ticked off! Pro Elves vs Wood Elves was a 2-1 win but hurt so much - I lost three players, two of whom were skilled, and have two MNGs so I'll be limping into my next game. Still, journey elves are actually pretty good, doing most of the things that they need to on a 2+, so it's not a disaster yet. My Orcs had an easy time taking a 2-nil win against Humans. His opening formation was a mistake as he locked up most of his team base-to-base with my much stronger and hardier greenskins, letting me pressure his ball carrier and eventually stealing the ball and breaking serve.
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Post by Zejety on Jul 20, 2020 13:51:20 GMT 1
Bomber678 and I faced off and there were no winners in that game. First half had him repeatedly fumble to pick up the ball, and my Gutters fail to dodge after stealing it. Eventually managed to snatch it on the final turn but failed to connect the pass. I scored about halfway into the second half and then secured the win when Bomber's guys messed up again on offense. So *technically* I won that match. But two of my guys died. The first was a Thrower - my apothecary gave me the choice between death and death. The second one was my star GR that had a real-mone bounty on his head. Bomber fouled him after I've wasted my only apothecary. On top of that, a Linerat got a -St injury! So I've got some replacements to make now. At least another Gutter rolled +Ag to replace his rival.
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Post by Plum on Jul 23, 2020 12:04:14 GMT 1
Next two games lined up. My elves vs ogres tonight *should* be heavily favoured for me, but I'll be stumbling into the match with five journeymen and no reserves, so it could very quickly turn sour. My orcs are facing an undefeated and well levelled skaven team (including a one-turn runner and a block-MB-claw rat ogre). It's a game I'm expecting to lose, but it's not impossible with a little luck
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Post by Plum on Jul 27, 2020 22:15:43 GMT 1
Yesssss two more wins and in two games that I was worried about. Elven Union vs Ogres went pretty much as expected, a 3-0 win and while the ogres did manage to deal a whole bunch of damage, it was to journey elves that no-one cares about I was really worried that sour dice would see the ogres totally destroy the core of my team but happily the dice were kind. I was very much expecting to lose the game vs Skaven with my Orcs but I was pretty lucky. I received first and by the end of the half had removed four of his rats (three KOs and a cas). A 1TTD was possible but fortunately bright sun ruined his pass and ended that before it even began. In the second half his claw MB rat ogre finally started dealing damage, removing two orcs (one permanently, though fortunately it was an unskilled rookie) but it was too little too late. He still could have equalised but failed the hand-off to his backfield runner (3+ due to a marker but still good odds). A little scuffle over the ball saw him snag it again only to fail the 2+ dodge this time - very unlucky. I didn't give him a third chance and ran it up to end the game 2-0, but it really should have been a 1-1 draw (though I did have an emergency goblin on stand-by for my own 1TTD attempt!) Even better, a max money roll let me immediately replace the lost blitzer so on the whole I was very happy with the result
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Post by Plum on Dec 1, 2020 12:41:24 GMT 1
Anybody picked up the new BB 2020 box set and rules? Sadly my bf has brought it me for Christmas so I'm not allowed to touch it until then Still, I know most of the rule changes thanks to various spoilers over the last few months. What do people think? Lots of interesting skill changes that alone would have been enough to totally shake up the game, but the two headliners have to be the passing stat and the SPP system. Suddenly dedicated throwers are a lot more important, while at the same time the throwing game has been weakened (and in some cases killed off entirely - looking at you Dark Elves). The new skill up system looks more positive though - banking up points and then spending them whenever you want means you can guarantee a former double skill if you can wait for it, while stat boosts will be a lot rarer (even if you save up enough SPPs for a stat boost, the actual stat is still random). I'm genuinely excited to see how this works out in practice! I'm also a fan of the new kick-off chart - reducing the impact of the worst kick-off results will hopefully mean that fewer games are simply blown out of the water by a random event. Having played and loved BB for years now, I am genuinely excited to play the 2020 edition! (edit: Oh! And in the two leagues I was in, I finished top in both Although that was quite a lot more luck than judgement as key rivals took each other out. I really enjoyed playing both Elven Union and Orcs - the latter surprisingly so. I always figured Orcs would be very bland to play, being a starter team, but they actually required a lot of difficult positioning decisions due to their low speed)
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Post by Bomber678 on Dec 6, 2020 14:18:44 GMT 1
It's got some interesting changes for sure. I'm kind of undecided on whether I'll like it more than the current version or not, but it has a lot of things I like. Seeing less stat ups is going to be kind of sad, but it is in the cause of reducing variance, so it's... fine? I will miss stat monsters though.
I am sad about some of the team changes, since Games Workshop still believes that some teams should be bad, just because, instead of trying to balance them properly. However, allowing players to be priced at 5k intervals will certainly aid balancing for the teams they actually want to balance (and if they actually try to balance them).
All in all, it's mostly positive, but games workshop please balance your game properly, thanks
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Post by Plum on Jan 8, 2021 13:18:26 GMT 1
Now that I've actually got the set and have been able to read the new rulebook properly... I'm confused. They went to all the trouble of adding a passing stat, but seem to be actively making passing harder and less useful? I don't know of anyone who considered the elf teams overpowered (Wood Elves perhaps, but that's more because of their excellent positionals), but damn if this doesn't hit them harder than other teams. Mix that in with the new Defensive skill (cancels out guard on your turn), nerf to accurate, leap and shadowing getting worse, and fouling becoming more common and it all adds up to a bad day for the elves.
On the flip side, MB and claw no longer stacking seems like a boon to brawl teams (excepting Chaos kill teams, but every other high AV team will breathe a sigh of relief), their big guys are now safer with brawler and only having one dedicated thrower to deal with will make their lives a lot easier. The high AV teams are also less susceptible to being fouled, so can ride out that storm better.
Unfortunately with tabletop play still on hold because of Covid, it'll be a while before I can actually see how things shake out in practice. Maybe I'm missing some key piece of the puzzle that will tie it all together
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Post by Bomber678 on Jan 9, 2021 10:59:32 GMT 1
I think you're right, passing definitely seems a lot weaker. My play group is thinking that Humans are probably a top 3 team in the new rules.
Wood Elves are probably still good though, because, you know. Elves. Skaven have gone up in value too, even though they've lost the ability for 1 turn scorers.
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Post by Plum on Jan 9, 2021 18:07:45 GMT 1
They've lost natural one-turners, but they can still easily make it happen with only a single push (+sprint). I think they'll still be able to make that happen pretty regularly.
New Underworld look interesting though
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Post by Plum on Jun 9, 2021 15:47:44 GMT 1
Is anyone else in the Bloodbowl 3 closed beta? I got a free key with my 2020 boxed set so have given it a try. My impressions have been... mixed. It took me maybe four or five games to get used to the interface, and even now some of the decisions are mind-boggling. Still, it's early days so hopefully they'll tighten that up before release. It does actually feel like Bloodbowl, and the AI is 'better' (not good by any means, but better than BB2). It gives me some hope at least
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Post by Bomber678 on Jun 10, 2021 12:22:47 GMT 1
I wasn't even aware there was a beta. Does that mean all the new rosters are there? What can you share?
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Post by Plum on Jun 10, 2021 19:34:47 GMT 1
At the moment only three teams are available - Black Orcs, Elven Union, and Nobility. It feels similar to an early access product at the moment, lots of bugs, functionality missing, but the core of the game is there. I had one fun game where we played three halves. Turn 14 ended and half-time was triggered again, followed by a new turn 9 One thing I do have hope for is the AI seems marginally better. Like, on defence the elves will pull back into the classic column formation, and they'll try to move into scoring range as the clock winds down. On the other hand, they will still stand players up on the edge of the pitch, right next to your players, ready to shove right out. Still plenty of room for improvement - even in the games where I'm just experimenting, I've never even come close to losing.
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