Blood Bowl Chaos Edition

[Tasroth]

Week 8

Destroyers of Worlds (Gnoman) vs. The Dwarf Breads!! (shadow_archmagi)
The Murderhobos (SaruSama) vs. Ogrimmar Lawnmovers (Dada)
Isengard Marrowhawks (Sir Mopalot) vs. Gold-Blooded Gangsters (Octopus Jack)
'Eadstomperz (Driderman) vs. Tasroth's Dark Stars (Tasroth)
Blood Bowl Club Mirka (Brother Oni) vs. The Ruinous Rampagers (LCP)
The Ironbeards (Wraith) vs. Greenwood Eagles (Qwaz)
Ekrund Infiltrators (Science Officer) vs. The Rage Cage (banthesun)
Dokkalfar Daggers (Luzahn) vs. The Big Friendly Giants (Winters Heart)
The Fudge Bay Packers (Choyrt) vs. Bashmeisters (Clarkson)
Eldspytustokkrheim Holggs (MLai) vs. Poets Society (Shishnarfne)
Royalty in Yellow (Continued Life) vs. The Ruddigore Gallery (Thufir)

[LCP]

Steam request sent to Brother Oni. Let me know when's good to play!

[Brother Oni]

Steam request sent to Brother Oni. Let me know when's good to play!

Duplicating message from Steam: tomorrow (14th July) at 6pm UK time?

[Wraith]

My first game against someone who wasn't 800+ points higher up the rankings than me, and I really enjoyed it!

The first half seemed to go really badly for the Ironbeards. They won the toss and chose to receive the ball, then picked it up and immediately caged on the right side of the pitch, at the halfway line.
And then the Elves shoved three of my guys into the stands in 2 turns, leaving me with a huge player deficit!

Unsurprisingly my ball carrier was tackled shortly thereafter, and I spent the rest of the half chump-blocking Wardancers and chasing after Throwers while desperately trying to run down the clock before Qwaz got a Touchdown.

The second half opened with me in a much better place.
After injuries and my Deathroller being ejected from the game (editor's note: I've never had one of those guys stay on the pitch for an entire half before ) I was left with 9 guys against the Eagles' 10, one of which included a Treeman.... Who, for the first Block of the half, missed my Trollslayer entirely, punched himself in the face and fell over. Without their Big Guy as the fulcrum holding them in place, the Eagles' front line was immediately taken to pieces (5 Downs and 1 Casualty in 6 Blocks, if I recall correctly) and the Dwarf Runner managed to claim the ball, deep in the Eagles' half of the pitch.

Despite a valiant fightback - the Runner was immediately tackled by a Wardancer who appeared out of nowhere, and another Elf managed to bring the ball back to the Touchline and begin the formation of a cage - the Elves struggled to recover from there being so many of their guys on the floor.
An unfortunate Turn Over in turn 11 gave the Dwarves another opportunity to put a bunch more Elves Down and collect the ball, the Treeman refused to do anything but roll Skulls/Both Down (3 turns in a row) and/or get beaten up by the single most Dauntless Trollslayer in the world, and all of a sudden the injuries started coming out of the woodwork as 'Old' Jarraz Drongi (#2, Ironbeards' Blitzer) walked the entire width and three-quarters the length of the pitch with the ball to score in the last turn of the game.

The Ironbeards: 1 - 0 :Greenwood Eagles

I want to thank Qwaz again for a very enjoyable game - from the middle of the first half, I honestly thought that I was going to have to ignore the ball carrier and just maul as many Elves as I could, to try and come back from 0-1 down, and then again early in the second half when my Runner was tackled, but I've never seen such bad luck come all at once.

For example; at the start of the Second half, the Ironbeards had suffered 1 Injury and 1 KO, and the Eagles had none. By turn 15, the Dwarves had 2 Injuries and 1 KO, and the Elves had 4 Injuries and 2 more Fatalities, and then suffered at least 3 Turnovers, 3 turns in a row.

Ouch.

[Qwaz]

Yeah it was a great game and a blast. While some bad luck second half was a part of it, I could have played differently.

(the odds of the treeman rolling a turnover were 1/9...he did it twice & each time he burned a failed re-roll to loner, that REALLY hurt me later when i could have used re-rolls!)

Had I not been so greedy as to try and hit his whole front line the initial tree-fail would have hurt much less as my entire team wouldnt be in tackle zones, i just wanted to try and consolidate this numbers advantage. Should have played more elfy...note to self.

2 dead elves is a little tough to swallow after only just getting back to 11 players but that's how it goes. At least they were line elves.

I had hoped for a better result but Wraith played well and the dice fell as they did. Bring on season 4!

[Luzahn]

Yeah, wood elves especially tend to have some nasty turnover rates. The tradeoff is still being able to score with three guys on the pitch.

Dark Elves though? We're just the worst.

[LCP]

Just played my game against Brother Oni. Ruinous Rampagers 1, Team Mirka 0.

A very close-fought game. Brother Oni made a few unfortunate mistakes and I made some pretty good armour rolls, which led to me breaking through the Kislevite lines in turn 14. So in a way, my chaos team one-upped Archaon

[Brother Oni]

Just played my game against Brother Oni. Ruinous Rampagers 1, Team Mirka 0.

A very close-fought game. Brother Oni made a few unfortunate mistakes and I made some pretty good armour rolls, which led to me breaking through the Kislevite lines in turn 14. So in a way, my chaos team one-upped Archaon

Yah, I is blind.

Two highlights of this - my blizter made a mad dash through the chaos lines, dodging tackles, 1 GFI and succeeded on a Defender Down on a 1 die block... only get the beastman who caught the ball the previous turn and not the current ball carrier.
I also apparently missed an opportunity to score during the first drive around turn 3 or 4, but I don't remember seeing it...

Turn 13 is also when it all went pearshaped - I managed to strip the ball off the beastman, breaking through a cage consisting of half the Chaos team, only to end up with my entire team in a box surrounded by Chaos. LCP aptly tells the story of where it all went wrong for me from there.

[shadow_archmagi]

I'd like to officially withdraw. My class/work schedule is too rigorous to make scheduling particularly viable, and to be completely honest, when I only have a couple hours free time a day, there are other things that take priority. (Like Xenonauts!)

[Ionbound]

Hmm...I think I'd like to try Blood Bowl. Are there any openings?

[Dada]

We're currently in the middle of a fairly long-duration league, which you can't join AFAIK. You can, however, join the GITP Blood Bowl Open League group on Steam. You should be able to find someone to show you the ropes there.

[Luzahn]

Hell, if you'd like we can always start up a second league. It would give me the chance to play another team in an organized environment, and prevent the roster from becoming too unwieldy.

[LCP]

Time to advance the round?

We really need an automatic cutoff point at this stage.

[Tasroth]

I was thinking it might be. In terms of games we have left:

Destroyers of Worlds (Gnoman) vs. The Dwarf Breads!! (shadow_archmagi) - shadow_archmagi has withdrawn from the league, so the win should go to Gnoman

Isengard Marrowhawks (Sir Mopalot) vs. Gold-Blooded Gangsters (Octopus Jack) - Sir Mopalot hasn't been seen since the start of the season, whereas Octopus Jack did play his last game, so the win should probably be awarded to the Gold-Blooded Gangsters

'Eadstomperz (Driderman) vs. Tasroth's Dark Stars (Tasroth) - Driderman has withdrawn from the league, so the win should go to me

Dokkalfar Daggers (Luzahn) vs. The Big Friendly Giants (Winters Heart) - Winters Heart has withdrawn from the league, so the win should go to Luzahn

The Fudge Bay Packers (Choyrt) vs. Bashmeisters (Clarkson) - Clarkson has missed quite a few matches, so the win should go to Choyrt

Eldspytustokkrheim Holggs (MLai) vs. Poets Society (Shishnarfne) - not sure here. This is the one game that might actually get played, but it has been over 3 weeks by my count.

Royalty in Yellow (Continued Life) vs. The Ruddigore Gallery (Thufir) - Continued Life has missed most of his games, so the win should go to Thufir


I'm assuming assigned wins based on the assigned results from Week 7.

Also I'm going to be away from Tuesday until next Saturday, so if the week advances I won't be able to play my game until next Sunday at the earliest. I doubt it will be a problem however.

[Science Officer]

Hell, if you'd like we can always start up a second league. It would give me the chance to play another team in an organized environment, and prevent the roster from becoming too unwieldy.

There is already the Open League, don't you know?

[Luzahn]

Oh yes, I'm aware. I'm also of the opinion that tournaments are far more engaging/entertaining that an open format.

I'm not too concerned though, we don't seem to have any other interest in another one.

[Gnoman]

I'm seriously considering ending this and restarting. It seems like half the league isn't even in anymore.

[LCP]

If we could keep our teams I'd be up for that. The Rampagers are just getting going!

[Tasroth]

I think it should be possible to transfer our current teams, though if anyone wanted to start a new team it would obviously make a great opportunity. Though that leaves me in two minds about what I would do. On the one hand, the Dark Stars are the highest value team atm, and that's a terrifying thing for anyone with a starting team (plus I have a couple of other teams I'd like to try out). On the other hand, I really wanted to build them even further.

I think abandoning the current season might be a reasonable idea. If it happens though there are a few things I'd like to see:

1. A limit of 2 weeks to play matches. Obviously it could be extended by a couple of days if people request it in advance, but it would require something to be said in-thread and should always be for a good reason.

2. A clearly specified effect of not playing matches. My suggestion would be assigning a 2-0 win to whichever coach was available to play (matching what happens if you forfeit in-game), or a 0-0 draw if neither coach was available.

3. That nothing is finalised until Sunday at the earliest. As I mentioned, I'm going to be away and I don't want to miss the opportunity to participate.

[Wraith]

Works for me - I'm honestly pretty ambivalent about keeping or losing the Ironbeards - since I've only played 4 out of my 7 or 8 games, I'm well below average on money and SPPs.

The only thing I'd ask is that if some people want new teams, then we all get them - it wasn't a tremendous amount of fun playing against people with 800+ rating more than me, three games in a row, and it'll be even less fun if only one person keeps their Monster Team in order to beat on the newbies.

[Brother Oni]

I'm inclined to agree with Wraith, on the proviso that the majority vote should be taken on whether we all get new teams or none of us do, with the option for people to drop out on the resolution of the vote. That way people don't get stuck with playing something they're obviously not going to enjoy - we've lost at least one coach that way.

[Tasroth]

I wouldn't necessarily say an all or none thing. Teams that joined this season (the Ironbeards, the Rampagers, Blood Bowl Club Mirka, the Eagles, etc) are still low enough in value that they would fit in with starting teams. On the other hand, team like the Daggers, the Ruddgigore Gallery, the Lawnmovers, and my Dark Stars are high enough to be a problem (in my case, more than twice the value of a starting team).

One possible solution (although I know this sort of thing hasn't excatly gotten off the ground in the past) would be two leagues. One where we all join with low value teams (with some kind of maximum value), and a smaller one for those of us who want to keep going with our high value teams (if we feel we can manage playing in 2 leagues).

[LCP]

Another possible solution would be for teams with astronomical TV to drop players (and hire newbies in their place) until their TV fell under some agreed cap. That way you could still keep your favourite players while levelling the playing field.

[Luzahn]

I would be against having coaches kick players until they reach a certain threshold. Teams with one or two highly effective players and a bunch of rookies can be much more dangerous than other teams at the same TV.

My preferred solution would be to set up two leagues, one of fresh teams and the other more veteran ones, but if we don't have enough interest in that, I would prefer we start over with all new teams.

[Gnoman]

New teams would probably be for the best. I don't think a hard time limit would be necessary, as things were quite brisk in the first season without many teams. What's holding things up now is the many no-shows and dropouts.

[LCP]

I'd be pretty disappointed if I had to start from scratch with a new team. The Rampagers were a new team this season and they fought hard to keep a good record against the established teams. Chaos teams take a long time to skill up, starting with literally no skills at all (unless you count Horns on the beastmen) - going back to a blank slate would be very frustrating.

[Wraith]

I wouldn't necessarily say an all or none thing. Teams that joined this season (the Ironbeards, the Rampagers, Blood Bowl Club Mirka, the Eagles, etc) are still low enough in value that they would fit in with starting teams.

I'd be more than happy to settle for that. I'd probably restart as Dwarfs anyway, if we did, so it suits me to keep the faith.

One possible solution (although I know this sort of thing hasn't excatly gotten off the ground in the past) would be two leagues. One where we all join with low value teams (with some kind of maximum value), and a smaller one for those of us who want to keep going with our high value teams (if we feel we can manage playing in 2 leagues).

No comment. I guess that is up to the guys who have expensive teams to lose.

=======================

Unrelated topic: Blood Bowl - Dungeonbowl is currently on sale on Steam until the weekend. I've never played Dungeonbowl on the table top, though I know the rules and such behind it. Would anyone recommend it for less than $10?

[Dada]

If we do go for a league reset, the Lawnmovers and their coach will be taking a hiatus. Life is hectic and I am having some issues finding room in the schedule for Blood Bowl, even with our current activity level. I might drop by during a later season or in the open league though.

[SaruSama]

I'd be up for a reset. Would we be able to play in both the new and old team leagues? with an obvious caviat being that if there's too many people in the league people in both drop first.

[Silfir]

For what it's worth, I just bought the Chaos Edition on the Steam sale, and if there were a league reset I would be all over this so hard.

No one I know plays Blood Bowl. I've played the AI far more than any human being should.