Blood Bowl!

[sunnyside]

With another kid on the way and moving my schedule is getting more hectic so both the regular RPG I run on another board and my weekly trip to the local gaming store for a bit of wargaming are out for a while.

The solution. Blood Bowl by forum!

For those of you who have never heard of it, Blood Bowl takes the races from Warhammer Fantasy and puts them into a sport somewhere between American football, Rugby, and a cage fight.

Something like this:



Aside from just being fun and a littly punny, bloodbowl is very well suited for play by e-mail or forum, because most of the time decisions are only being made by the player whose turn it is. Therefore a whole turn can be completed in a single post or e-mail. Allowing the game to be completed in a reasonable amount of time.

Another advantage is that unlike most GW games they make the current rulebook, with all the teams included, availible online along with some other resources:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/conte ... Id=4800003

The rules are simple (compared to Fantasy and 40K!) and so you might well be able to play just having read the book.

If any of you think you can play just off of reading the book or already know how to play, than I'd be up for a straight up game with you, likely using powerpoint as the graphical medium, turning the end of a turn into a pic to post in the forum, and a verifiable online dice roller to determine results.

Another option however would be for two of you who don't know how to play having a go at each other with me GMing things to the best of my ability, doing the actual rolls and handling details myself, which could be good practice for me. You'd take the role of coaches screaming orders at your team from the sidelines, cheering them on and/or calling your player's mothers whores if they aren't doing well, depending on your style and the selected race.

In any case others are encouraged to post in the thread as fans, sports commentators, armchair quarterbacks, or hecklers in the peanut gallary.

While all the teams are in the rulebook, I'll list them here quickly in case any strike your fancy. Each team can also add things like cheerleaders or a Bloodweiser kegger to help out.

The easy to start with teams: Humans and Orcs. These teams generally feature skills that allow for well rounded play and reliability. These teams can save their re-rolls for big plays, while fancy pants teams will find themselves rolling a one now and then and tripping themselves up running along or something. Humans wear armor to counter the Orcs natural brute force, but are still generally faster and better at the passing game. Orcs are a bit slower and better at the smashing of faces.

The pointy eared teams:
All Elvish teams feature highly agile and generally elite players. However their cost means they typically have a shallow bench and are prone to being a few men short come the second half.
High Elves- Rich nobles with good kit and a solid passing game.
Wood Elves - Debatably also "high" elves. These elves are still quite tough, and have support from Treemen for holding up the line of scrimmage
"Punk" Elves - Left out to dry after an upheval in the tournament structure, these elves are pro but without the resources of their brethering, however beyond the mohawks they have impressive skills and their recievers are the best at coming up with the ball.


Amazons - human warrior women, who are able to dodge and avoid the attacks of others, making their drives hard to stop.
Dwarves- They get knocked down, but they get up again, nobodies gonna keep 'em down! Dwarves are slow but tough, favoring a game of attrition. Very dangerous over short distances.
Chaos Dwarves- These Dwarves got a little too close to the chaos rift in the norse and are mad as hatters. There aren't many of them, but they have slaves to fill out teams and love Bloodbowl!
Khemi (Egyptian like) - These mummies and ancient warriors rose from their tombs to protect their homeland, but they head out to play their ancient sport as well. The years have not been kind to their agility or speed but they're tough and dangerous.
Lizardmen - These cold blooded warriors provide a solid balance between the nimble and clever skinks, tank like Saurus, and masssive Kroxigors
Necromantic teams- Why be damned if you can't have some fun! Werewolves, ghouls and other creatures prowl the field for a potent running game
Undead teams - Sort of a cross between the Necromanitc and Khemi teams Lacking some of the skills of Khemi and speed of the necromancers living creatures they feature hard to take out and strong undead.
Norse - These tough vikings are great at putting the other team on the ground, however their lack of armor makes them all to vulnerable taking a hit themselves.
Skaven (ratmen) - Man-things slow slow; Skaven fast fast!

There are also Chaos, Dark Elf, Goblin, Halfling, Nurgle, Ogre and Vampire teams. But the designers come right out and say they're tricky to play, and some not so likely to win, so we might want to avoid them. Except Goblins, those cheating little sociopaths are fun.

Anyway if you're interested lemmi know. And if you can't be arsed to actually read the book I could try explaining the rules of the game.

[sunnyside]

Well I found out that there are some communities of blood bowl players online and there a programs just to facilitate playing blood bowl by e-mail.

However I guess there is also a real video game that's come out that actually uses the rules of the tabletop game in one mode. So I figured I'd give it a shout out. I think it's out now. I don't know how good the video game is, but the tabletop game is fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=765u2-tnyZ8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKWErN2b ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRCpPM4Zwts&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI4aPRFXTH0&NR=1

Now we just have to wait for them to invent holodecks...

[Mikey]

I know sweet FA about the game, but I'd give it a shot in a modded game.

[sunnyside]

I know sweet FA about the game, but I'd give it a shot in a modded game.

I'm getting my fix since I found an online play by e-mail league, but it'd be cool doing a game for people here. And if you ever felt like doing more with it the full rules are online and you could even join my league.

Now we just need someone else willing to face coach Mikey on the field.

Well, and you need to pick a race. Picking what sounds fun is probably best. Otherwise you could indicate what sort of playestle you might like and I'll pick one. (i.e. passing, bashing, fast/dodgy running, sneaky tricks, durability, reliability or combinations of the above).

[Mikey]

Judging from a 30-second glance at the rules, I think I want Orks. They seem to have the flexibility to play like I call when I'm screaming at the television on Sundays. Physical, but they have some smaller/faster types available for split ends/flankers... and "troll fullback" sounds just too good to pass up.

[Sionnach Glic]

I'm game for a match. I've not played in years, so we should be evenly matched.

I've not checked yet, but are the rules for a Lustrian team up? They were always my preffered team.

[Mikey]

Woo-hoo! The game is afoot!

Oh, I guess I have to actually read the rules now.

[Sionnach Glic]

Same here.

[sunnyside]

Alright lets try this for sample teams (brief rules primer to follow):

Mikey's team: (1,000,000 gold value Orcs)
Note that, as in 40K and Fantasy, the average Orc player isn't stronger than Elves or Humans. What they are is tougher, able to take a beating and get right back in the opponents face, although some Orcs are bigger and stronger as well. Generally they are also a little slower than most races.

1 Troll dangerous and tough, but really really stupid, if another player on your team isn't next to him yelling at him what he needs to do he's all too prone to standing around confused.


1 Goblin You have enough players he could stay on the bench as a cheap substitute in the relatively unlikely event a tough Orc player gets taken out. On the field he's small and weak, but sneaky and dodgy, able to zip past defenders. He's also light enough to be thrown be the troll, this is rather inaccurate, but can get him into a good position, take out an opposing player if the goblin hits him, or at least should amuse the Orcs and fans if he lands on his face.


1 Thrower Not as tough as the other Orcs, Throwers have more coordiantion and are better at scooping up the ball and throwing it.


2 Black Orc Blockers. Big Orcs. Slow and not agile, but their higher strength can make them a problem for other teams that can't field as much muscle.


3 Blitzers They aren't as strong as the Black Orcs, but they're faster than the other Orcs, making them great at running the ball and taking out the other teams ball carrier. Most importantly they're skilled at putting opposing players on their behinds, so long as they have an assist from another Orc.


4 Lineorcs While they lack special skills. Their toughness still makes them stand out among other teams linemen, and they actually have the agility to get ahold of and move the ball in a pinch.


3 re-rolls. A number of types of failed rolls result in the player in question taking a dive into the turf or dropping the ball. As if that wasn't bad enough when those things happen it throws the team off and the active players turn ends immediately! So while these can be used to help take down the other teams players, usually they're held to prevent screw ups.

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SG's team: (1,000,000 gold value Lizardmen (note that there are pending rules for Slann as well))

1 Kroxigor: A big, bad, but stupid Lizardman. Matches up fairly closely with the troll but isn't as dumb, is a bit faster moving, but can't throw players and doesn't regenerate if something does happen to them (like a bunch of players teaming up to foul him).


4 Saurus: Strong like Black Orc Blockers they provide a solid base to the team. They are reasonably quick but their agility is almost non-existant and they essentially can't pick up the ball with their clawed hands.


7 Skinks: While the rest of the team does the brute work the skinks are very fast, dodgy, little ball carriers, slipping past defenders to score. However they are weak and don't hold up so well to being stomped on... However you have an extra one as only 11 players can be on the field.


2 Re-rolls

Lemmi know if you guys want some changes or if those are OK for giving this a whirl. Note that since neither of you are experts this should be taken a little lightly.

Though one sort of change would be dropping your twelfth players to improve the 11 on the field with the risk that if any of those get injured, knocked out, or sent off by the ref, than you'll be playing with 10 players on the field. Or you could drop a re-roll to do the same, however with fewer re-rolls the chances of a spectacular error increase.

For Mikey dropping a goblin would allow one lineorc to be upgraded to a blitzer or blocker. Dropping a lineorc would allow upgrading one lineorc to a blitzer or blocker and still have enough points to upgrade a scond lineorc to a thrower. Dropping a re-roll would allow two lineorcs to be upgraded to a blocker or blitzer
However both blitzers and blockers are limited to a maximum of four.

SG could drop a skink or re-roll to upgrade two other skinks to Saurus (putting him at the maximum of 6), and would still have some points for fan factor/cheerleaders. Actually he could also trade the extra skink for a third re-roll.

[sunnyside]

Ok, a quick bit on the rules. Note that for now orders can be pretty vague. Since this is an introductory game you could just yell at your players like you're an angry drunk of a coach without a clear idea of what's going on and they and I will do our best to make it happen. So we can just get to playing if you'd like and you'll learn as you go.. Also you can get by with football terminology (though rugby terminology is often used as well. So you can use that. For example the most popular defensive formations in my limited experience seem to resemble a 3-1-7 quarter to defend against passing or fast dodgy runners, a 3-4 to come at the offensive line with a mobile counter strike after the recieving teams initial move, or a goal line like defense stretching across the field if the defense feels the offense might not be able to punch through their line.



Still, generally things are pretty intuitive. I.e. ganging up on someone is more effective, passing or catching is harder when some is next to you trying to swat the ball, longer passes are harder to throw acurately than short ones, and turning your back on an adjacent opponent is risky as they try and hit you from behind.

Play is actually fairly straightforward in that play only stops at the half and when one team or the other scores. If the ball goes out of bounds it gets thrown back in and if a pass is incomplete that ball is still in play. Play always starts from a kick off. The only foul is hitting someone while they're down. And since play is on a chessboard like grid it's easy to tell who can reach where.

However it is, at its heart, not trying to be a football simulation, but rather it's a strategy game that's meant to be fun and tactically/strategically challenging.

One thing that may not be intuitive is the turnover rule. When your team fails to scoop up the ball, fails a pass, or messes something up such that a player on the active team falls down it immediately becomes the other teams turn. Even if indavidual players on the active team haven't taken their actions yet. The fluff says this is because the unexpected failure throws the active team into confusion for a moment. But the reason is to keep things tense, keep play faster, increase the strategic element of the order of actions, and to give the other team a chance at picking up a fumble or missed pass.

The other thing that may not be fully intitive is that you only get to make one "blitz" a turn. That is when you move before or after throwing a "block". Otherwise if you want to crush your opponent's players you have to start your turn with your player adjacent to theirs. Though moving away from or trying to run past an opponent that is adjacent is risky business so usually you can move your playerr next to an opposing player you want to hit, and if they can't knock you over they'll still be there on your next turn, or at least you force them to make a roll to get away.

Also you can only make one pass, one handoff, and one foul(hitting someone while they're down) per turn, and each must be done by a different player, although anyone can throw, recieve, foul or blitz i.e. there isn't anything like inelligeble recievers in blood bowl. Also a player can move before making a handoff or pass, and a player catching a handoff or pass can move afterwards if they haven't taken their action yet. So a standard play is to move, throw/handoff the ball, and than have the player that got the ball run into the endzone. Of course most things aside from simply moving involve risk and even a handoff can be botched, especially if trying to handoff to a low agility player (Saurus for example).

[sunnyside]

Alright probably the best way to get a feel for things is to see an example, and I wanna see what screenshots of the tool look like here. See if this makes any sense.

Note that this is a couple turns all at once. Normally I'd probably have more detail, and you'd have a better feeling of what's going on. Especially since after a short while you'll "see" the players instead of just seen a bunch of numbers.

Alright so I made up two demo teams using the examples above (not that you have to stick with them).

You can tell what players are by Jersey number, with the tens didgit inidicating position and the second specifying a specific player. (This isn't standardized, I made it up to make play here simpler)

So
01-09 Low strength players or cheaper linemen (The goblin and the skinks)
10-19 Linemen types, which are readily availible but short on special skills players for a team (The Orc linemen)
20-29 Catchers (Not applicable here, but other teams have players dedicated to catching the ball)
30-39 Throwers i.e. players dedicated to throwing the ball. (The Orc Thrower)
40-49 Runners, players with skills desigmed to let them run the ball. (Not applicable to this game)
50-59 Blitzers. Fast, skilled blockers, but regular strength players (Orc blitzers)
60-69 Special Attack players *not applicable)
70-79 Strength 4 players (Black Orc Blockers and Saurus) The tool shades these players darker as well to make them easy to spot.
80-89 Strength 5 and strength 6 players (Troll and Kroxigor) The tool shades these even darker)

Note that Skinks move an impressive 8 spaces, Orc Blitzers and the other Lustarians move 6, Orc linemen and the thrower move 5, and the slow blockers and troll move 4. However any player can take a small risk at tripping and move up to two extra spaces.

Also note that the game slightly changes the color of the player with the ball, knocked down players go white, while stunned players go dark.

The game starts, and lets say that SG wins the toss and elects to recieve first.

The defense has to set up first. Lets say the Orcs go with a 3-4 type defense, giving them a counterstrike ability to the Lustarian line. As it is a skink can't get past the Orc line without being adjacent to an orc player, which would force them to make a dodge roll.


Next The offense sets up. Putting their high strength players next to the Orc ones, with skinks assisting to give them an advantage. Two Saurus set up on the sides so they could blitz to open up a hole for the skinks, and two skinks hang back to get the kickoff wherever it lands.

Note that a bunch of weird stuff can happen on a kickoff, but this time a little wind just blows the ball a bit. Also note that unless you give a player the kick skill you don't have much say in where it comes down. In this case it actually lands on #75, a Saurus, but they bumble the catch and it lands next to them.




The offense automatically gets to go first (Getting to throw blocks first at the three defensive players required to be on the line of scrimmage and getting to make that blitz gives the offense some momentum. However since the ball carrier needs protection and usually isn't in the thick of things themselves if they want to hang onto the ball, the advantage usually tilts to the defense given enough time for roughly equally bashy teams.)

#75 uses the blitz for the turn to hit the Orc lineman #14, knocking them over and pushing them to the sideline.
The Saurus on the line and the Kroxigor throw blocks at the adjacent Orcs, with Blocker #72 and the Troll getting knocked down, but Orc blocker #78 keeps their feet and is only pushed back. The Lustarians could have chosen to stay where they were, which would put space between them and the Orcs, but they'd rather take the hits than let the Orcs easily close that gap so they follow up.

Skink #1 than picks up the ball, the other skinks run around behind him in order to protect him. Skinks have a high move, but to get in position one has to roll not to trip, and fails, but is fine after the Lustarian team uses a re-roll. Similarly Saurus #77 takes a chance to move up next to Orc Blitzer #54 to make it harder for the Orcs to cave in that side of the offensive line.





Now it's the defenses turn. The Orc players, who weren't hurt when they got knocked down due to their high toughness (armor value), all stand up, though they can't both stand up and throw a block without using a blitz, so that's all they do. The thrower #36 moves up to get in a couple skinks faces and to prevent skink #7 for making it harder for blitzer #56 to hit skink #5 (using the blitz for the turn). However only a pushback is rolled on the dodgy skink. Same with blitzer #54 against skink #3. But at least they get to be next to the ball carrier. Bliter #50 knocks over Saurus #71 and that part of the line moves in towards the Kroxigor. The Saurus that moved over keeps that side of the line from going down easily. Though the orcs could have taken a riskier chance to take down the lustrians there as well this turn instead of waiting for next turn.




However the Lustrians don't want to let that happen. Saurus #75 knocks lineorc #14 into the crowd. That can be a dangerous thing, but the tough orc manages to fight his way back to his dugout safely (he's out for this drive, but will be back for the next). Saurus #77 manages to knock over Orc blitzer #54. Sneaky skinks #4 and #3 Zip around to assist a block by skink #7 against the Orc throw (#36) (A weaker skink still has the advantage against an Orc if they have two assists). Next Skink #5 knocks over Orc Blitzer #56 with assists from #7 and #1 (players give assists just standing there, it isn't an action, so they still give assists before and after they go).

This leaves no Orcs adjacent to the Skink with the ball, nor skink #6. So Skink #1 runs the ball over to skink #6 and hands it off. However skink #6 botches getting the ball, however again a re-roll prevents that. Skink #6 than moves right into the endzone. TOUCHDOWN!



This play features some good luck for the Lustarian team with the Skinks managing to avoid the Orcs blows. However none of the Orcs are injured, they have all their re-rolls while the Lustarians are all out, and if this were a full game it'd be the Orcs turn to recieve with plenty of time in the half.

Still, maybe the Orcs would do better with a quarter defense against those speedy Skinks.

Also if you want to refer to specific points on the field the columns are labeled A to Z going left to right, and the rows are 1 to 15 going top to bottom. So the upper left corner is A1 and the lower right corner is Z15. So in that last pic skink #5 is at K4. You don't have to give orders that specifically if you don't want to though.

Actually in most cases you won't be able to give orders that specifically since you should describe what you want to do for the turn at once. Though things can't be too far off since if anything went really wrong with the plan it'd be a turnover anyway.