The *Season #4* thread.

[Teleku]

Yeah, I'm leaving for for France/Germany on the 29th, and getting back May 11th.  So perhaps, if everybody gets a bye like last season, anyway to make it so that I get it first for my group?

[Strazos]

We only had byes due to Nix's unexpected forfeit. I'm actually not a huge fan of byes, as I feel like I could get more SPP from actually playing normally.

[Kalle]

I'd like to sign up my Snooty Royals from the matchmaking league.

[eldaec]

29th works for me as a start date, but can we open signups before the 20th? I'll have no access from the 20th till May.

[Ginaz]

We only had byes due to Nix's unexpected forfeit. I'm actually not a huge fan of byes, as I feel like I could get more SPP from actually playing normally.

Yeah, I think only one division had a bye.  I know the one I was in didn't.

[AndyDavo]

I  would like to  register my interest in joining for season 4. I will be using the Paper Armour Dolls, and retiring the Wildcards.

[Falconeer]

29th works for me as a start date, but can we open signups before the 20th? I'll have no access from the 20th till May.

I'll take care of signups over the weekend, the new League will be created in game on the 19th, so you should be able to join in time. Start date will be, as we agreed, on the 29th.

[Reborne]

Count me in!
I was so close to bottom of the division I could taste it!

Same team (Reborne's Wrestlers)
Who knows I may even get a win this time around :P

[Der Helm]

I'll join you guys as well, this time. Chaos4live. 

[eldaec]

I think we're over 32 now, commence theorycrafting tournament structures acceptable to Cynanide's absurdly restrictive interface.

[Falconeer]

Alright coaches, we have a problem: 34 applications.

What do we do?


- Falconeer
- Carnifex 27
- Paelos
- Modern Angel
- Sky
- Ulysees
- Gruntle
- Ginaz
- Sir T
- Comstar
- Longstrider
- Bann
- HaemishM
- Proudft
- AndyDavo
- Teleku
- Reborn
- Llyse
- Megrim
- Avaia
- IainC
- Celer
- Lamaros
- Drogg
- Eldaec
- Ingmar
- Strazos
- Ruvaldt
- Ezrast
- Ironwood
- Ice Cream Emperor
- Kalle

Waiting list (this doesn't mean you are out. Means we are trying to figure out a way to include you).

- Merusk
- Der Helm

- Kail (this guy offered himself as a filler)

[IainC]

If we have one more filler then we can have four divisions of nine or six groups of six. As things stand we could do it with four divisions of six and two short divisions of five and then run them as two separate leagues with an invitational final league for the winners and runners up of each.

[Falconeer]

Divisions of 9 are not allowed by the system. Artificially creating BYEs is a pain, and messes up money.

[Paelos]

Divisions of 9 are not allowed by the system. Artificially creating BYEs is a pain, and messes up money.

Sort potential players by postcount. 

[Ironwood]

Yeah.

[IainC]

Sort potential players  finalists by postcount. 

[eldaec]

As things stand we could do it with four divisions of six and two short divisions of five and then run them as two separate leagues with an invitational final league for the winners and runners up of each.

This, manage the groups as separate competitions and they can all be any even numbered size you like. Or just create a 6x6 league and apply peer pressure so that the people here who have the game but haven't signed up (we know where you post) grow some balls and fill the league by the 29th.


Also, Falconeer's mathematics is terrible, there are 35 names on that list. Bully Thrawn, Vaiti, Sjofn, Azazel, Tebonas, or Aez into signing up and you have 36 (6 groups of 6, winners and two best runners up qualify for separate end of season knock out tourney) get 5 and you have 40 (5 groups of 8, winners and best 3 runners up qualify). Problem solved. Asking people not to sign up is horrible, because firstly there is going to come a time when we're desperate for numbers to keep this going, and secondly it just sucks.

[Paelos]

Yeah.

See, even Ironwood agrees. This proves it's a great plan because Scotland won't let him post bad things to the forum anymore.

[Ironwood]

Yeah, it's the Scottish Internet V-Chip.

[Sky]

I am teh winnar!

[dusematic]

So I bought this game and started a Chaos team.  It took me almost all day to finish one tournament.  I scored two TD's in 4 games and lost 3/4.  Soooooo....I need tips.

[proudft]

The tips thread: http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=20271.0

Chaos specifically is a little rough to start, but not too bad.  Your worst opponents will be those with lots of Block or Dodge, since you have none (so Dwarves, Amazons, Norse, are pretty rough).

If you have a minotaur, you need to really work around Wild Animal - it fails much less often if he blocks or blitzes, but always consider that is he going to fail and him doing anything is a bonus (I still like him though).

If you're not blowing blitzes on the minotaur, make sure you are blitzing with the beastmen instead of the chaos warriors, since they effectively become chaos warriors when blitzing with the +1 ST bonus from Horns.

Other than that, they are pretty average at everything.  You'll _usually_ pick up the ball and _usually_ succeed at handoffs and _usually_ fail at passing, and dodging is a crapshoot.  So work around those assumptions.

[ezrast]

See the resources/questions thread below if you haven't already. Don't get attached to your teams, especially in your complete-newb phase; I started a bunch of tournaments that I abandoned after one or two games just to get a feel for what the different races do and which ones I had enough of a knack with to try to push it a little further (for me that team was lizards, although even then I don't know if I ever actually finished a tournament with them until f13 Season 3).

I haven't played chaos at all myself, but everyone says they're hard to win with at first. If you do want to stick with them just focus on learning game mechanics and don't worry so much about winning. After you understand why the AI does what it does, you'll be beating it regularly.

[Ginaz]

So I bought this game and started a Chaos team.  It took me almost all day to finish one tournament.  I scored two TD's in 4 games and lost 3/4.  Soooooo....I need tips.

I don't know if I'd start off with Chaos as your first team if just learning to play.  It takes awhile to them skills and they can be frustrating to play in the beginning, though once they do get skills they seem to be one of the better teams.  Try starting with orcs, dwarfs, or undead.  Once you get the hang of things maybe try skaven or wood elfs.

[Modern Angel]

Use this:

http://bbtactics.com/

I will type it again.

USE THIS:

http://bbtactics.com/

[Falconeer]

Dusematic, would you like to sign up for Season #4? Not sure if you said so anywhere...

[Ginaz]

Use this:

http://bbtactics.com/

I will type it again.

USE THIS:

http://bbtactics.com/

Yeah, thats an excellent resource and the guy knows what he's talking about.  I read it all the time.

[dusematic]

Dusematic, would you like to sign up for Season #4? Not sure if you said so anywhere...

I don't think so.  I'm pretty bad.  After doing some reading up I did improve though.  Some subtle concepts really make all the difference.  I played another tournament and won 3 of 4 games.  The problem is, even though I won 75% of my games, I still came in 3rd place in the rankings.  So, clearly wins isn't how they rank the teams.  I guess I pretty much lost interest after I saw that.  I realized I'd literally spent all day playing 8 matches (two tournaments) and only had a couple level 2 guys and 0 prestige.  What an epic grind.  Unless I'm missing something it must take months of man-hours to rise to the top of the ranks.

All in all, worth my 10 bucks I spent, but I don't have time for this game.  Too hardcore. Very interesting though.

[HaemishM]

With Chaos teams, you will learn the meaning of the words "Fucking Beastmen."

I like Chaos, but yeah, they can be really frustrating early on. Also, single-player tournaments are not where Blood Bowl is at. It's all about the multiplayer leagues. That's where the real fun is.

[Sky]

Sucky players can get lucky, even I win once in a while. :)

And I only play the f13 matches, about an hour a week and haven't played since the close of season 3 regular season. It's very casual friendly, as long as you don't expect to make the playoffs. It's fun watching the vets get hot if you can sneak in a win or injure (or kill!) a player or two.

I got frustrated after a couple games, but it was really the interface that bothered me most. Overall, it was a fun experience.

You should try an undead team instead. And to echo Haemmy: single player is just for learning the interface. Jump into Season 4 and learn on the pitch like everyone else.

[Celer]

Some advice from a relative newb... if you're using 4-minute turns, you need to switch to 2-minute turns as soon as it's practicable.  That makes each game take 60-90 minutes (depending on setup time and such) as opposed to 2-3 hours.  At first it might seem like things are moving way too fast, and you don't have time to move all your players, but actually you spend too much time over-thinking with 4-minute turns anyway.

Dodgy teams level up a bit faster than bashy teams, and they play totally different, so definitely try both out.  Even elves don't level up every game, more like every 2-3 games, but SPP from TDs (and passing) come faster than casualties.

This league is just one game a week for 2 months, so it's not a lot of pressure.  It's a simple 3 points per win, 1 point per tie standings system.  Granted, you will get stomped by the one or two high-level teams in your division but there will be some new teams as well.  It is a LOT more fun playing against other people.

[Falconeer]

Ok... 35 players. One day to the deadline to create ingame Leagues and be sure Eldaec can sign in (as promised). What do we do?!?!

I don't have time to pressure any of the indecisive ones to join. We could make it work with 36 or 40, hardly with numbers in between. What do we do? Solutions! Now!

[ezrast]

Sjofn! Duse! You've been bitten by the Blood Bowl bug, and we know you want some more! You've still got two weeks to sharpen your skills before the league starts, and any number of us would be willing to play you in the feeder league and offer tips. You'll be amazed at how much more comfortable you get with the game after just a match or two with a real person. And how much more bloodthirsty.</peptalk>

Failing that, last season there was some discussion of allowing coaches to field multiple teams. Seems like we settled on "avoid if at all possible" - which I agree with - but I don't think there was any reason it would break the game, and with as many teams as we have I don't think having one coach double up would be terribly detrimental.

So I'd just go ahead and create it for 36 players, and let someone double up if we can't find a filler in the next day or two. Have we talked about divisions yet? 4 divisions of 9 would make the season a bit too long in my opinion, but 6 divisions of 6 would make it a bit too short and give us weird numbers for the playoffs. Not sure which I'd prefer.

[IainC]

Failing that, last season there was some discussion of allowing coaches to field multiple teams. Seems like we settled on "avoid if at all possible" - which I agree with - but I don't think there was any reason it would break the game, and with as many teams as we have I don't think having one coach double up would be terribly detrimental.

A single coach can't have more than one team in a given league at the same time. If the season is set up as separate leagues for each division with an invitational final league then that wouldn't be a problem but it's still sub-optimal.

[Sjofn]

God, I really shouldn't. Because I will be terrible. Can I have a week of practice before I decide? :P