f13.net

You have until November 18th to play your games for day one of the tournament.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v180/devofreak/Dayone.jpg)

League Rules:

Please read the rules regarding skill progression for your beastmen and if you have any questions about the rules ask them; I am very accessible.  Failure to comply with the rules can result in the loss of the offending beastman.

On to Bleat Bowl II!

Lamaros, check your pms before you play your match.

Ulysees, prepare to be destroyed!!  Also, it looks like the occupiers will have their grudge match early.

So yeah, Ruv gave me the idea of a Deep Space Nine team.  :Love_Letters:

Make your time, Haemish!  Sisko's gonna wail on your arse!  :drill:

I'll check on Steam tonight around 7:30 pm CST. If we miss it tonight, tomorrow night's out (football game on TV) so we'll try for the weekend.

How about Friday?

Probably better for me, around 8 pm CST Friday night.

Done. 

Goat Variations 1 - 0 The Horns of Wrath

The inaugural match has been played and the Tom Waits themed goats came out as the victors today, largely due to a wizard that couldn't hit the broad side of a barn and a well-paced scoring drive in the second half. 

The first half saw Ulysees picking up the ball with ease, caging and then dashing forward, and generally doing well on blocks in spite of me having a block advantage.  Ulysees left himself open to a blitz though on his third round and after that we had a big scrum, which I slowly gained the upper hand on due to a slight numbers advantage.  I eventually surrounded the ball and Ulysees used his wizard to nuke my goats, but the fireball came up a bust and I was able to pick up the ball and run it into his side of the pitch.  I was a hand-off and two gfis from scoring on my eighth turn but failed on the hand off and failed on the reroll so we went into the second half 0 - 0.

I took my time pounding up the field in the second half, and though I had a dicey moment in the third turn after a couple of red skulls, I got Chocolate Jesus close to the end zone and waited two turns.  I finally scored, giving Ulysees two turns to score, but he proved unable to pick up the ball after setting his players up for a hail mary pass.

Overall, a good game.  I got pretty lucky on my kickoffs by putting both of them in his endzone.  Ulysees has to get used to his goats a little, but he did great considering his team was skill-less and he walks away from this match without any serious injuries and enough money to pick up another goat.

Goat Variations 1 - The Horns of Wrath 0

The Horns are blunted on their debut in the Bleat Bowl. I was really not sure how to play this team and struggled to make an opening on my drive losing the ball early and spending the half desperately trying to regain possesion, largely in vain. My wizard crapped out on me when presented with a lovely tight bunch of beastmen marking a grounded ball and that proved to be the deciding factor on my drive for having a chance to score though I did limit Ruvaldts progress enough that he had to try a hand off and then if that worked make a 2 square GFI to score in the first half which, fortunately for me, failed to work for him.

The second half I was one goat down and Ruvaldt took advantage of that to press down the weakened flank, I mounted the best defence I could and even had an opportunity to blitz the ball carrier at one point but it didn't come off and eventually Ruvaldt beat up my goats enough to work his ball carrier free and run into an opposite corner for a turn 14 score. Ruvaldt's kick off was good again landing right on the goal line and, unlike the first half, where I made a 5+ pass and managed to catch the ball although I managed to pick the ball up I did fluff the pass, though not before I had worked an opening to move some of my goats into scoring positions. If only Nuffle could smile on me in my last turn, which of course he couldn't since I fluffed the pick up thus ending another epic attempt at scoring a tie.

Was a good match. I think I am going to need a bit more practice to get the hang of an all goat team but more bloodbowl can't be a bad thing.

Oh wow, that was stupid of me. What a waste of a level three player too.

I have sent her to the knackery. Her remains are being reforged in to a semblance of the original.

Heya Bann. Dunno when I'm going ot be avaliable as I'm heading away over the weekend (24 hours from now). I'm going to be pretty busy until the 16th my time, so maybe we can play on the 17th or 18th? If you're around in the next 4 hours we might be able to squeeze the game in now.

Could happen to anyone.  In any other situation that would've been a good way to develop him.  At least you have Bann's team to beat up play against in the first match and make up for the loss.

I still can't work out why I gave her guard. She was my top scorer, and I'd just gotten a pass player. She was destined to have extra arms for sure.

What's the league name in BB Manger? I only saw Horns and Hooves - not this season. I submitted it under that.

Green Bray Alpacas | 1 - 2 | My Little Beasties

Well, Chaos vs Chaos sure is Grim and Dark isn't it. 3 Badly Injured on my side, 2 MNG, with on 1 ST on the other side. The passing game does NOT work for either side, though my 2nd touchdown was because of one...only after 4 failed passes for both teams before hand! Though with the amount of dodging going on, both sides could be mistaken for Amazons. Ugly Amazons. First time I have ever got an injury from fouling.

Having 5 rerolls helped, though I ended the first half with 4 left over. The score would have been 3-1 if a last turn interception hadn't occurred. Despite losing 2 players next match, three of his players levelled up. so I expect he will be causing a lot of pain for the reason of the season.

You're right, I need to create a new league through BBManager.  I'll do that right now with the same password as entry into the league and validate your match.

Comstar and I played our match which was characterised my Beastmen trying to play like Elves from both sides.

First the Beasties try a pass which fails and leaves the ball open in the middle of the pitch. The Alpacas grab it, pass it successfully and run it out of reach of the Beasties before scoring on their next turn. The Beasties then decide to stop messing around, cage up and bash their way down the pitch like proper Beastmen. This results in an equaliser on their 7th turn. I have a chance to score in my last turn of the half with a 4+ pass but fail the pickup.

For the second half, I have 10 players vs the Beasties 9. I push through the shallow defence and form a cage but have to burn a reroll on a dodge because I moved the players into it in the wrong order. I try and throw the ball to the centre of the cage but it's fumbled and I've already used a reroll this turn. There's then some bullshit dodging and so forth from the Beasties and they get the ball. I manage to blitz down the ball carrier again and get the ball back, I set up a throw to a receiver but he fluffs the catch. At least now the ball is deep in the Beasties' half and I have a lot of players around it. Despite that however the Beasties grab the ball again but fumble the pass trying to get it to safety. After a bit of a skirmish, the Beasties make a dodge, a pickup and another dodge then a successful long pass and catch followed by a GFI to run in a second TD. The next drive sees a blitz on the kickoff and the Beasties manage to get a man under the ball. I knock him down but fail to pick it up and it bounces into the hands of another Beastie. There's a massive scrum for the next few turns, I set myself up for a late equaliser, but I fail to pick up the ball every turn. Eventually the Beasties get their hands on the ball and pass it off for a third TD however the same Alpacas who couldn't manage to pick up a stationary ball prove to be adept at tracking a mobile one and I intercept the pass to end the game 2-1 to the Beasties.

Game is uploaded to BBManager and I created the season 2 league in there as it didn't exist yet.

Fucking Claw/MB.

I think Lamaros led the league in casualties inflicted last season.  We feel for you, Bann.  At least you'll get a ton of inducements in your second match!

Submitted my match with Ulysees as well.  Does anyone have a problem with requiring bbmanager replay submissions?  It would be nice to have a proper Hall of Fame, just as the primary league has.

I felt so bad I didn't foul. I got him down to three on the pitch still. 2-1 in the end.

We now have a level 4 beast(wo)man in the league. No prizes for guessing which one it is. Linda crushes skulls!

Lucky dice with the armor for me. Bann managed two blitzes at the kickoff events, but it wasn't anywhere near enough to deal with the damage as it was 5 v 10 at the second half kickoff.

Bann did find a Beastman with a bit of Elf in him though, managing to dodge like a crazy person on a number of occasions to get in some blitzes on the carrier. One to watch for the future.

Got 5 on the board already, so I will be hard to stop. Linda is getting block to go with mb/claw!

I was going to write "someone kill it before it gets to me" but then I checked the calendar and you're my next opponent.   :cry:

Match validated.

In that case maybe I'll got for Piling On instead of block... Bleh. She rolled doubles. What a waste!

+1, bring back The Bull!

Message me on steam when ever your available to play Falc.  I'll be free this weekend as far as I know.

Here Canklebiter Canklebiter Canklebiter....

Teleku, Saturday and Sunday are good days to me. What's your timezone again? I am on UTC+1 (Greenwich +1)

Gruntle we meet again!

I'm GMT +9 but should be free MY Saturday night and sometime Sunday (with advance planning)

Let me know!

Heh,  I'm GMT+1 I'm usually on steam for most of the normal day but I'm at work so I'm not able to play.  If you see me on after 18:00 my time then I'm down for a game.

Mammals tie Baa Ram U 1-1.   Lots of injuries.  :why_so_serious:

BORAK THE CHAOS WARRIOR decided to meander onto the field to help out the sheeps, but he pretty much seemed to hang out in the middle of the field and flail uselessly at Mammals.  A Star Player with Dirty Player, that was sort of funny.

The League thingie seems broken for now but it was something like 1 death and 7 injuries split between the two teams.  Will try to upload later.

Edit: ah, it is up, and submitted:

Triptkyon 2 - Deep Space Goat 1

A good even match between two goatly goatfuckers. I would do a writeup, but I can't remember how the hell I scored the first time. It was early on after Luckton received the kickoff. He scored to equalize right before halftime. The last drive of the first half caused a rain storm to appear that wouldn't quit the rest of the game, but amazingly enough, didn't really have much effect. I got the kickoff in the second half and busted through the back with some decent luck, a few squares from the endzone with only one beastman able to catch me but unable to upend me. I blitzed him the next turn to fend him off, then scored quickly in case my luck ran out. From then on, it was a  matter of delaying the advance of his cage long enough for the clock to run out. His final turn he was one turn too far away to score, so the game ended with a few paltry blocks.

Luckton had great armor break/injury rolls, inflicting badly hurt on three of my games but luckily not permanently scarring any of them.

Aye, it seems that Nuffle blessed me greatly for my inaugural first match with the DSG team.  Haem actually has it in reverse for the first half; I elected to receive from the start in hopes of getting some lucky injury hits in before his seasoned mutants had a chance to pound me.  Managed to keep a cage up and protected all the way up the middle till my runner could make the play.  I could have easily made this a tie game instead, but I fumbled my order of plays to execute, attempting to gain an advantage on his runner by blocking someone that was marked, but even with a 2 die roll, an Attacker Down and Both Down came up, and me without nary a reroll left.

Still, it wasn't until the 13th turn or so that blocks started to land consistently from Haem, and another turn still that the KOs and one Badly Hurt finally started to take my players off the field.  Even at a number disadvantage for most of the match, Haem's coaching, strategic placement of his Guarding Goatman and skilled players overcame the odds and the weather to score a victory.

I'm Pacific coast time.  As I recall, thats GMT-8, I think.  But I'll be fucking around all Saturday and Sunday trying to see how quickly I can actually learn to program an iPhone/iPad, so feel free to message any time (I will probably be on the mac during all this while I learn, so might take me a bit to respond).

Validated all of the matches.  Quite a few level ups, even for the new teams.

Huh, I just had one guy level. It was my extra arms guy, who now has +1 MV. That's a valid combo isn't it? Just means his next level he has to buy a skillup if I'm reading the rules correctly.

Yep, unless you get doubles again, in which case you could take an AGI/Passing skill instead.  In fact, if you got doubles next, I would take one of those skills.

+MV with extra arms is extremely valid, especially considering the fact that the rest of your opposition is going to be one MV less than you unless they also got that result (like Ingmar's claw guy, I think) because everyone is a slow beastman.  Getting one step ahead of your competition every turn is a huge advantage.

Yeah, that was my thought as well. I've been using him and the +1 AGI guy as my ball catchers/carriers so giving him one more MV as opposed to giving him an AV of 9 (that was the other choice I had) seemed like a good idea.

Yeah this is not the league for +AV.

Four days to go and three matches left!

Will try to track Avaia down soon now that Star Wars Woo weekend is over.

Haven't heard from Falc yet.  Didn't see him on when I checked on steam this weekend (but I wasn't really looking that often).  Hopefully we can hash it out soon.

Lining Gruntle up for tonight or tomorrow afternoon

Sorry Teleku, I was around on Sunday but not on Saturday and when I was you weren't. Unfortunate.

Can we try again wednesday? Or Saturday again?

I'm only available week days after 5:30 PM PST (GMT-8 ?).  So, if your available after that point, I'll be down the play.  Just message me, got nothing going on currently.

Saturday morning my time might work as well.  Though I should mention, I'm leaving for Boston Saturday evening, and will be gone from Nov 20th thru the 28th.  So, will probably not be able to play any BB in that time (heads up for the feeder league).  If things get tight though, I might be able to load on a friends PC.

Los Stupicabras met Llyse's Breaking Wind in a 1-0 victory.

Unfortunately pressed for time, this was perhaps uglier bloodbowl than last season's co-champion normally plays -- he chose to kick off and basically ground my drive to a halt in the first half, though he drove my team back and managed to grab the ball in my side of the field, he wasn't able to make the break and score before half-time. On the other hand, armor breaks went my way and with some additional lucky turn 8 KOs and the accumulated two injuries (which his two apothecaries did not manage to remove) my deeper bench meant that the second half the Breaking Wind fielded only six players against my full 11. Even Llyse's excellent play could not overcome those odds, and after parking the ball on the 1-yard line the Stupicabras finally put the first and only score on the 16th turn.


(It looks like someone needs to verify the games now)

Verified!

Gruntle's already given a great match report but just wanted to say Gruntle is a legend since I slept in and ended up being 2 hours late for the game.

He also deserved that win alone for having 2 Goats with Foul appearance and 1 with Disturbing appearance.  :drill:

I'm kind of surprised to read about all these people taking claw, given that everyone is AV8. Not that it's useless, but I don't know that it would be a priority for me.

Of course Foul Appearance doesn't seem to have worked at all in that match (and there's actually 3 goats with Foul Appearance -- you KO'd one in the first half which was why he didn't make an impression later).

But everyone has Llyse to thank for my leveling Scabb (didn't notice he was at 3 spp til Llyse pointed out he should be the one to score for me) -- now I have my 2nd +ST goat!

FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU  :why_so_serious:

You have to take alternate mutations and you already have horns, so what else do you take on the basher with MB? Most of the other mutations are for different types of players.

I'm only going for two Claw players, but considering my MB/Claw player is the only level 4 in the league atm and and gets more than one injury and one KO a game at the moment it's quite the advantage. 9 injuries so far, next player has 4.

EDIT: Also, two +STR goats is BS!

I am really sorry for delaying my game with Teleku so much. I will do all I can to play it this saturday, if he's up for that.

Without sounding too dorky/huffy about this, you do realize there is fairly straightforward math you could do to discover what the actual increase in rate-of-casualties-caused is, for claw v. non-claw? And that even without doing any of said math it is pretty obvious that the increase is not over 200%, so perhaps your anecdotal evidence is not really the most super-relevant?

But yes, as you point out, might as well get it on one or two guys, for variety's sake. It's just not nearly as obvious a choice as it would be on a regular Chaos team, where you want to strike fear into the hearts of orcs & dwarves (& other chaos warriors) everywhere.

It's the best mutation available for blitzer/killer types, so given the leveling rules everyone should pretty much have at least 2 guys with it eventually. Effectively it is +1 on injury rolls, that's still a better buy than anything else for those types of players.

All games should be played by the 18th, but I will extend the deadline by one day if it looks like this is will happen.  Avaia/Ingmar also needs to happen.

Matches that aren't played will be counted as losses for both teams unless someone concedes or showed no interest in playing their match.  I don't want to give 1 point for a tie if the game didn't occur because there are teams out there that did play, and lost, but got 0 points.  It just wouldn't be fair to them.

It's not +1 on injury rolls, it's +1 on armour break rolls. Which matters only when you roll an 8 (or a 7, if you have MB). It's significantly less awesome than a +1 an injury roll, though it's still of course better than nothing. Basically, Claw increases your odds of getting someone off the pitch by the odds of rolling an 8 multiplied by the odds of causing a KO or casualty. Which works out to like a 7-9% increase. Nothing to sneeze at, for sure, but also not the difference between 4 casualties and 9.

Remember, you work out increased chance compared to the old chance, not 100% success.

IIRC it's ~10% v ~14% chance of injury. So a 40% increase.
It's ~4.5% v ~14% for unskilled v claw/mb though, which is over 200%.

Only three goats have claw in the whole league. Only three have MB. I'm not sure how recently those guys got those (one hasn't played a game with his claw and of the level three guys I'm not sure what skill came first) Either way I have the only one with both, which is a huge advantage over nearly every other player.

Also remember: It's not a one off thing. Getting MB then claw increases your casualties skill points, which increases your levelling speed, which gives you other skills. These other skills (such as block and PO) then help you get more casualties, increasing you again. (Note: I am not sure if it is better to go block/claw/mb or mb/claw/block in terms of speed, someone would have to make a more complicated model than I am willing to do for that. I suspect it is the former, though. Especially when most other players don't have block)

So I wouldn't under-sell the value of claw. My 9 injuries are emphasised by me using her to blitz and block, but getting MB and claw early has given her a injuries causing advantage of significance.

I don't know about that -- if it was a 2% increase on a 1% base, is it more productive to understand the flat rate of increase or the percentage rate? 'Three times as often!' sounds great until you realize that it's still only 2% more of the time. I find it easier to think in terms of flat numbers when figuring the overall value of the choice along with a whole bunch of other factors.

But generally, as your numbers suggest, it's the MB doing the heavy lifting, especially when it comes to causing injuries vs. stuns.

It depends what you're using the numbers for. If you're using them to talk about my player's casualties compared to another you have to use the relative % chance, otherwise it's silly. My mb/claw player will injure someone from a successful block three times more often than an unskilled beast (or one w/o mb/claw or po, at least), so you would expect to see values of 3 casualties to 9. She will injure someone 40% more often than someone who just has MB (only one other player in the league has MB outside my side - IIRC), so you would expect to see values of 5 to 7.

You are right in saying that MB has a more significant impact - it works on injury rolls too - but that doesn't mean claw is negligible.

Another way of looking at it:

If Linda knocks a player down every other turn she will take a player off the pitch (ko and injure) ~2.5 times a game. The MB player will do it ~1.75 times a game. The unskilled player will do it ~0.93 times. (One with just claw will do it ~1.35 times.)

Therefore the advantage in taking off a player is +0.82 when you get MB, and then another +0.75 when you add claw. Making claw nearly as useful an addition as MB in that context.

Right, armor roll, I misspoke.

In any case one thing you're failing to account for is the fact that you get a *significant* increase in the number of stuns once claw is in the mix (5 rolls out of 36 turn from downs to stuns+); those stuns in turn make it much easier for you to get 2 die blocks with your other players (in a way that regular downs don't, since the stunned player is out of the mix for an extra turn). Not quite as good as guard, but when you combine it with the fact that you're also just causing more injuries with the claw player itself, it should result in a lot of injuries, and here's the really important part: because of our leveling rules you can take it a full level earlier than you can take guard or mighty blow, assuming you go with block first (and you should).

Guard for lyfe!  :awesome_for_real:

You have perhaps convinced me.

But I still feel that the team of 100% foul appearances will triumph in the end!

Yeah, having one or two killers with mb and claw, given our rules on skills, makes sense.  Any more than that would be redundant though, I think, because you're usually going to be blitzing with those two killers and having more would give diminishing returns considering you can only blitz once per turn.  I do, however, question giving him piling on before block.  Block is such a powerful skill in a league like this and you'll likely never be able to give him jump up because your next skill is a mutation/double.  Unless I get doubles or +MV my beastmen get block, first thing, and then specialize after that.  I can see MB being a good first skill too though, along with sure hands, because it leads to a greater rate of SPP growth.

Foul appearance is still a great choice too.  Once I pick a ball carrier I plan to put it on him, along with my guardsmen.

Block is pretty much the first choice because unlike the others it also works defensively.

Mind you, though, on the jump up question, that one is an agility skill so you can grab it whenever you get doubles without worrying about other skills. I still am not a tremendous fan of piling on unless you already *have* jump up though.

I love piling on, even without jump up. I just never use it unless I get a concussion though, and/or if I can protect the player.

I really don't like deliberately putting my guys on the ground unless it will cause a turnover (diving tackle).

In other news, I managed to escape a pummeling by avaia's goats with a 1-1 tie.

Waitsing 1 - Sheep 1

Both sides nearly pulled off elf bullshit at the end for a win, but it was not to be.

Not shown in the stats there is Rick James dying on a failed dodge.

Well, that shows my ignorance regarding jump up, I thought it was a general skill.  I guess it's obvious that I never put it on anyone.  My point is still valid though, especially in these beastman games in which player positioning is so crucial.  I just feel like using piling on and limiting your blitzes/coverage doesn't add much to that player because you probably do want to blitz with him every turn due to his skills and you'll be less able to do that if you have to stand him up all the time and sacrifice valuable movement.

Piling on is about getting a numbers advantage or taking out a key player. If it means you start the second half with a player advantage I'll do it every time. I'll take it on my goatkillers if there isn't much dodge going around (which there probably wont be).

It is more useful on a side that can bash and has cheap foulers and a bench (goblin, norse, human, skaven, etc), as a player advantage there can quickly snowball and clear the field, but it's still handy.

Well, I'll be free from Friday evening, and all Saturday.  So hopefully we can play somewhere in there. 

And yes, piling on is a great skill, with or without jump up; you guys make it sound like having one player on the ground for a turn is some sort of major tactical obstacle, instead of something that happens all the time. And it's even under your control.

It is a major tactical obstacle. If it wasn't we wouldn't spend all sorts of effort on making sure players don't hit the ground. Losing tackle zones, losing range, and giving up the option to block the next round is a high cost.

I will do everything in my power to play with Teleku tomorrow. I'll be on Steam for most of the day, as long as I am available to play. In fact Teleku, if you have a favourite time just let me know.

Any time should be fine, I don't think I have to do anything all day long (my flight for boston leaves at 10:45 PM.  Hurray Red Eyes!).

I'll try not to sleep in to long tomorrow morning, heh.  However, the internet tells me its 3:30 AM your time.  If your actually up within another 6 hours, we can play before I start heading towards bed.

Falc and I just played.  4-0 Me.  That might look impressive but Falc got totally dice fucked, and I got lots of great rolls.  I'd elabroate more, but I'm dead tired as its 2:30 AM.  So, we're done.  Do we need to upload replays?   I'm not seeing that required anywhere, but just want to make sure...

Uploading replays aren't required, just encouraged.

Game is validated.  I've advanced the day and will make a new post fo Day 2 soon.

Yeah, I certainly didn't play a good game. Four to zero is four to zero. But Teleku got 2 "Blitz" event in the same game, dammit, not ever giving me a fair chance to equalise a game where he had the first possession. Also, at the beginning of a drive where I had number superiority (didn't last long, as I ended with 1 CAS inflicted against 4 endured) I got double "both down" (it would have been a turnover) rerolled in "double skulls" as the very first action of my turn. One of those games where my cat would have probably got a better result just by pressing random keys pouncing the keyboard.

So, whine!