f13.net

Consolidated here because there is too much important shit being repeated across the league thread.


The Fucking Manual

It's included in game or you can download it from steam or something. Also here (http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m780049a_Blood_Bowl_Competition_Rules.pdf). You really need to read and understand the sections on blocking and dodging - the rest you can play by ear.

Almost the only reason people lose regularly in single player is that they don't understand blocking and dodging correctly.


Blood Bowl Playbook
http://bbtactics.com/

There are a tonne of blood bowl sites out there, but this is the only site that manages to be pretty much complete, up to date, and not full of stupid shit.

In particular, if you are building a new TV1000 team, I'd lift your starting roster straight from here unless you are completely sure you know why Coach is wrong (he isn't) http://bbtactics.com/strategy/rosters/ . The pages on each individual player type are also great for picking your skill gains.

Cyanide Forums
http://www.cyanide-studio.com/forumBB/index.php

These are the forums for the PC game. Because legendary edition is new, these forums are very active at the moment - more so than most table top blood bowl forums.

That Post Someone Copied from Something Awful

 


BB Manager

http://94.23.239.117/BloodBowlManager.ClickOnce/publish.htm

This is the program we (Falconeer) uses to sperg out about match stats after a game, the league replays also get loaded here, so you can watch your next opponents prior matches before a game.


Port Forwarding

If you don't do this shit sometimes nothing works. Rumour has it at least one of the two teams has to have done this:


Community Content Pack

The Community Content Pack (http://forum.bloodbowl-game.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=169[/url), you should install this. It increases the resolution of textures and increases the amount of different skins available for many of the teams. Also spruces up the stadium billboards and cheerleaders.


I'll add some more stuff later.

Awesome post, Eldaec. this should be sticky in the Blood Bowl subforum. Oh, wait...

Living Rulebook
http://www.bloodbowlonline.com/LivingRulebook5.pdf

It's for the minis, but I've been reading through it and it goes into different aspects of the game better than the straight competition rules pdf.

The Art of Blocking
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1310006_BB_Art_of_Blocking.pdf

Nice primer on blocking.

I'm just a newb, so I'm not sure how good those are, how up-to-date or relevant to the LE edition of the pc game, but I wanted to post them just in case and whatnot for reals.

The Art of Blocking is excellent.  I think that if you read anything to prepare for the Blood Bowl season it should be that.

Be careful with that living rulebook though, it's lrb5, we're on lrb6. Not that the differences are very big.

LRB5->6 changes

That Blood Bowl tactics roster strategy page is invaluable. I already see some things I did wrong with the Human teams I've played.

One thing to keep in mind at some point if you have the basics down is skill points and skill access, as these dictate a lot of what you can turn your team in to, rather than what it begins as. Access to doubles is far far lower than normal skills. Only 6/36 rolls, with one of those 6 being a strength roll you will find hard to pass up (and another being a MV/AV roll you might also like to use).

+STR is 1/36 (1 double)
+AG is 2/36
+MV/AV is 3/36 (1 double)
Doubles access is 6/36
Normal access is 36/36

So normal access to a skill branch makes a big difference, especially for units you can only get one or two of. This means that you can't really expect to turn units in to something they're not through doubles access. Keep an eye on what your units have access to, and how many of them do so, and you will get a better idea of what your team can become. Chaos for example has strength access on all of its players, even though most of their units start without any strength skills. Elves on the other hand have no normal strength access outside the treeman, even on their blitzers.

Other useful info

2D6 Probabilities

Blocking stats
http://bbtactics.com/blocking-statistics-odds-tables/

(Do note the comment there on how to read tackle on the tables)

The more I play the more I find myself being able to keep the odds of 1D6 and 2D6 dice rolls in my head a bit better. It helps to think this way a bit more as you can then apply it to the action in question based of the rolls, rather than having to look up one of these tables, though they are pretty useful 'till then. The general odds of use in this sense are:

1/6 = 16.67 (6+)
2/6 = 33.33 (5+)
3/6 = 50 (4+)
4/6 = 66.67 (3+)
5/6 = 83.33 (2+)

1/6^2 = 2.78 (6+ & 6+) or (failure of 2+ w/ reroll)
2/6^2 = 11.1 (5+ & 5+) (3+ w/ reroll)
3/6^2 = 25 (4+ & 4+) (4+ w/ reroll)
4/6^2 = 44.44 (3+ & 3+) (5+ w/ reroll)
5/6^2 = 69.44 (2+ & 2+) (6+ w/ reroll)

Eg. If I am doing a double block with three chances to knock down (could be block, could be wrestle, could be block+tackle against dodge, etc) then I know the chance of failure is 25%, so I have a 75% chance of success, and the chance of a turnover is 2.78%. Or if I am throwing at 4+ and catching at 4+ I know there is 75% chance of a turnover.

Becomes complicated with all the different re-rolls you have, for example 4+ to 4+ with pass and catch becomes a 56% chance of success, but you can approximate these things if you know the general numbers. 75% in to 90% (4+ w/ reroll in to 3+ w/ reroll) is 67.5%, 97% in to 97% (2+ to 2+ w/ rerolls) is 94% etc...

Turnover Odds

People like you are why I'll suck at this game.

Ah c'mon, what's remembering a few numbers? You don't have to calculate them on the fly. After a little while it'll be second nature.

First things first all you have to remember is:

Do I have the block skill? Yes, so there's a 17% chance of a turnover on a once dice block. Do I also have a re-roll to use, or is it a two dice block? Then it's only a 2.78% chance.

The other stuff, like pushbacks and knockovers and so forth is less important to remember at the start.

Its probably best to think of anything above 4 as a Hail Mary pass and 4 is a coin toss. Under that you can have a go. (Wargamer genes popping up again)

Anyway a couple of questions:

I'm running he story mode at the moment and I'm playing Dark Elves, and its asking me to do a couple of 'dump offs' and I don't understand the skill description. does it mean that if I'll hit and I will get knocked over that I will pass the ball to a guy beside me before I hit the deck? Which means I have to wander over to the meanest looking guy with the ball and pray he will hit me? If so, ouch.

What exactly does an assist do? I know it helps but I'm not exactly sure what the real effect is of having more than one guy help out then throwing a block, other than its good.

Whats the point of fouling? I've regularly fouled and seen the guy generally get up again next turn, so I'm not sure what the point is. I was having 3 halflings repeatedly fouling an ogre with no effect.

1. Yes. 2. An assist adds one strength to the blocker. So 3 str v 3 str will become 4v3 and a two dice block with one assist. See 'the art of blocking' above for more detail. 3. Fouling is rolling to break armor followed by rolling to injure. It's used to get opposing players off the ground. You get sent off if you get caught (by rolling doubles on the armor roll).

Hope that makes sense.

You can foul 1 player a turn, and you need to announce you're doing it before doing anything else- ie- you can't make a dodge BEFORE you try the foul action. You can do a foul IF you do it all as one move (so you can't click for a dodge first to 1 square, wait to see if it works, then continue with the foul). If you use a Blitz to hit someone, you cannot foul with the same player.

For every untackled friendly player, you get +1 on the armour roll. So if there's 3 halflings around your elf who have no tackle zones on them, that's +3 to break the armour roll. 8 guys around someone gives +8. If you break the armour, you make a unmodified injury roll. If the fouler has Dirty Player, he gets +1 to the armour roll OR +1 to the injury roll if he didn't need the +1 to break the armour (I could be wrong on that, but thats how the rules used to work).

If you roll doubles, the ref kicks the fouler off the field for the rest of the game, unless you have a bribe handy, in which case you can re-roll and get away with it on a 2+.


So, when that enemy star player goes on the ground by himself, and you have spare guys around, surround him outside tackle-zones, get a lineman or someone disposable, and put the boot it. Having one line lineman with Dirty Player and no other skills is a good option.

You can change your chat box to show the dice rolls (upper left corner of the chat box I believe), this will help you be sure you know how the rules work. That should illustrate tackle zone rules and blocking rules very quickly.

And don't forget G to see grid and tackle zones, and N to see player roles (or names).

Upon patching to 2.0.1.0, Blood Bowl won't launch; Windows gives me a generic crash message as soon as I run BB_LE.exe - no splash screen or anything. Reinstalling the whole program and deleting the stuff from My Documents doesn't help, nor does compatibility mode/run as admin, although if I run the 2.0.0.6 patcher and revert back to that it seems to work again. Can't play online without 2.0.1.0 though. Anybody encountered anything like this? I'm at a loss.

(http://imgs.cloudandtree.com/bberror.png)

Thanks all.

And boo hiss to the idiots that programmed a game that now requires me to do 2 drops offs in the game to progress, but left open that I now have nobody on my team that has the drop off skill. Kudos to you, asswipes.  :mob:

Yey to having to restart the whole thing. MMMmmm hobbits.

This is seriously puzzling. Never seen or heard this message before. Please post it on the official boards as soon as possible, they are very helpful and that's your best bet. We don't want to lose you for technical issues.

Ez, did you clean the registry and search the hdd for any file droppings?

What programs would you suggest I use for that?

Crtl-f

 :awesome_for_real:

Well, "file droppings" is an ambiguous term.  :oh_i_see:

I had a question about Pro and Wid Animal and Loner. Does it work like this:

I want to move with a Mino.

Failure is 50%
Success if 50%

If I have pro it is:

50% (success) + 50% (Pro) * 50% (Loner) * 50% (Wild Animal) * 50% (Success)

Because that's just 50% w/o Pro and 56.25% Which is really not worth it...

A google search indicates that your problem might be the "nVidia Forceware driver". I dunno what that means, but maybe it's useful?

Went from the thread on the forums to this "http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproperf/thread/6dc192ef-44f9-469e-a961-32674f7aa58f/" via a search about the dll file. Hope this gets you on the right track.

Pro is not affected by Loner -- Loner only affects team rerolls. Pro gives you a 50% chance of a reroll, which itself has a 50% of succeeding. My completely naive intuition concerning probability suggests that this should give you a 62.5% of success with Pro and no attempt at a reroll.

These odds are identical to trying to use a team reroll without Pro (Loner = Pro in terms of chance to use the reroll), but you use a team reroll either way. Pro does not consume a team reroll.

Basically, getting Pro on a Loner/Wild Animal/Stupid player is advantageous primarily for situations where the consequences of failure just aren't quite worth gambling a team reroll. Failed moves or end-of-turn blocks where the consequences of a failed Loner roll are worse than the advantage of a possible success.

If it is a crucial action then, yes, Pro will only have a small additional benefit -- assuming you can try the Pro reroll then, if that fails, attempt to use a team reroll, which I am not sure about -- but on the other hand those are precisely the high-stakes situations where even an extra 5% chance of success is going to be extremely valuable.

Ah, knew I must have been missing something. Thanks.

Also, you can't re-roll a Pro roll that fails, but you can re-roll a successful Pro roll with a team re-roll (ie. in the case of blocks) if I am reading things correctly.

So Wild Animal Blocks (and Bonehead, and Really stupid w/ Teammate) go from 83% to 90% and moves (and Really stupid w/o team-mate) from 50% to 62.5%

Also I did some quick comparisons for Block vs Pro:

W/ Block      W/ Pro

Blocking      83%      90%
Turnover      3%      5.5%

Dunno if anyone else cares, but they might!

Added BB Manager to the OP.

Kicking Off

So, here's some info and stats about the kick off in the game. This is a part of the game that is probably more important that you first think and hopefully the following will help.

Firstly the default kick off. In this situation the ball can move up to seven squares in any direction from the point you mark as the one to kick to. It is thus important to place the ball in the centre of the pitch so as to avoid a touchback. Here are some stats.

Chance of not moving: 2%
Chance of moving 1 squares or less: 12.5%
Chance of moving 2 squares or less: 29%
Chance of moving 3 squares or less: 46%
Chance of moving 4 squares or less: 62.5%
Chance of moving 5 squares or less: 79%
Chance of moving 6 squares or less: 92%
Chance of moving 7 squares of less: 100%

So, generally speaking, you are going to want to place it in the middle. (You can try to be a bit more tricky and place it 5 squares from two edges with a 87% chance, but is it worth it?)

What makes a difference is the Kick skill! With this the kick only deviates up to 3 squares in the air before it bounces. It changes the stats to:

Chance of not moving: 4%
Chance of moving 1 square or less: 42%
Chance of moving 2 squares or less: 71%
Chance of moving 3 squares or less: 92%
Chance of moving 4 squares or less: 100%

So you can move it much closer to the sidelines. You can also place it 3 squares from the two back edges with a 95% chance, and 2 squares with an 83% chance, letting you play the ball much deeper if you so desire. This is of particular importance if you have more movement than the other side, or if they play with a cage, as it can slow them down and give you a chance to put pressure on them in the backfield.

Anyhow. Just wondered a bit on the odds on this one and decided to share.

This is a very useful one, lamaros. I always wondered those odds myself.

I should probably note that I calculated these stats myself and that it's 1:30am and I've had a bit of wine. But I think they're correct. Take with salt if putting your life on it.

I broadly use the rule that without 'kick' I go central unless it's turn 15 and I need to recapture the ball in a single turn or something.

With 'kick' I assume I can pick which quarter of the pitch it will land in and go three squares diagonally from a corner. This  means a short kick as often as a long one, because many teams can't really handle the ball being on the front line on turn one. 

Anyone have a link to the whole Port Forwarding Thing handy? After 45s of trying to connect to a random Auld League game I figure I should look into these things.

As it turns out!  :awesome_for_real:

http://www.cyanide-studio.com/forumBB/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=15763

http://forums.pcwintech.com/index.php/topic,1543.msg8299.html#msg8299

The latter was my specific interaction with the designer of the little simple port forwarding thingy.

Added some port forwarding mumbo jumbo to the OP

Does catch work with diving catch attempts?

Holy shit.

 Keyboard Shortcuts!

http://imgur.com/kzLMu.png

You can also do that blitz shortcut thing by clicking on the little lightning bolt icon over on the right side (the same way you'd use your wizard for example.)

Actually I had no idea how to use my wizard the last game. Still don't   :oh_i_see:

Ah. Well, down the right side of the screen are a bunch of little tiny pictures with number next to them, representing things like how many cheerleaders you have, your apothecary, etc. One of them is the wizard - to use it you click on that one, it then pops up the choice between fireball or lightning bolt, and you go from there.

You'd think they'd have a manual for that, instead of the steam version just pointing to competition rules.

Yeah, the UI for Blood Bowl is pretty craptacular, especially if you've never played the board game. The fact there isn't a manual for the actual video game makes it even worse.

Cyanide are the only developers in the world who are worse than CCP at UI design.

So my ogre gained a level, and he rolled double sixes. after doing a small amount of digging, I decided to go with a STR increase. Im still not sure if that was a good idea or not - the doubles would have also given me access to block. I've never quite got a feel on how valuable Stat increases are. I'm wondering how valuable other players rate stat increase in general, and specifically, if its worth it to take a big guy to STR 6.

In another league I have a Witch Elf with Block, Tackle and +1 Str. She is a murder machine. The value of stat increases is very much dependent on the player, for an Ogre there isn't the same value in going to S6 as there is for a S3 blitzer to go to S4. For the Ogre I'd probably have taken the skill because Block will help him in more situations than another point of Str.

It depends a whole lot on the player. I have a goblin in one of my sides with +STR, but I don't know if it's the right thing. It means he can block a whole lot more, but it also moves his cost from 40k to 90k, which is massive.

In general I'd never get +AGI on low AGI players, and I'd never go past 5 AGI. +MV is only really taken if you play with a throwing team or a running team like Skaven, I'd never get it if you cage on anything other than a blitzing player. +AV I rarely rarely suggest taking.

Strength I'd only take if you think you need it. With a big guy it is often better to get Block, as that will make a bigger difference to your knockdown odds more of the time and doubles are reasonably rare. On other units it's normally a pretty safe choice to make if they are in any way offensive players or ball carriers. Keep in mind the TV cost though. Strength is expensive and if you're not getting value from it your just giving away inducement money.

+MV depends on the player and team IMO. I'd take it on any player on a Dwarf team except possibly the death roller because it covers the only real weakness the dwarves have.

If a bashy player has a MV of 4 or lower then he can make good use of a MV increase, though I'd give them Block first. Same goes for players with a MV of 8 or 9 who get to enhance their edge in the running game, and sometimes you want it on MV7 players as well.

Yeah, when I leveled Nealtor to 3, I actually got the MV/AV upgrade option.  However, he can already run pretty far, and I use him to throw a ton, so Accurate was just something I felt would have a bigger impact (though MV would be nice if he had accurate already.  He does run a lot).  Though with how you guys keep talking, maybe I should have gotten him the AV.   :oh_i_see:

+STR is pretty much an instant take on any elf.  I don't think its actually possible for anybody to go above 5 AGI Lamaros...

6 agi gutter runners aren't that uncommon...

But I feel the same Tel. I could have taken AV for poor Hobbes but went for the movement.

I looked at Ing's armour roll and it was 11 anyway so no difference.

AV/MV increases really seem to divide coaching opinions which is quite cool.  :oh_i_see:

In a Blaze of Glory I say!  :awesome_for_real:

My first player to level is a Tomb Guardian, and I rolled a 10, and couldn't turn down +MV.  From Move 4 to Move 5!  Fastest mummy in the west!  

If it was double 5s instead of a 6 & 4 I probably would have taken Block, though.  

I would have totally taken the Str 6 on an Ogre instead of Block.  Come on.  Str 6 will be a rampaging machine that takes a whole herd of people to take down.  When he isn't being a dumb ogre and losing his turn, anyway.   He can take Block when he rolls double 2s or something. 

Yeah, block is more consistent. 6 str is just hilarity and pure manliness.  :drill:

Besides big guys, always take str up (cept maybe snots)

Napkin math here:

As I understand the rules, against an STR3 opponent, you'll be moving from 2 block dice to 3 block dice.  Without block, you'll go down 1/3 of the time (once on both down, and once on attacker down, out of six possible outcomes) on one die.  Chances of rolling a bad result on all three die are therefore (1/3^3) one in twenty-seven.

With block instead, you're looking at a fall 1/6 of the time (on attacker down only) but only two dice on a block.  So your chance of rolling double skulls is something like (1/6^2) one in thirty-six.  So block comes out on top.

On the other hand, a player with a str of 6 requires something like five str 3 players to get two dice against him, and if you're going up against ball carriers with a lot of block and dodge, three dice are going to roll more tackes than two with block.

Or, if you want to chance a single-die block...a single player with Dauntless who makes the roll (which usually happens).

Minor nitpick. You need to have more than double an opponents strength to get three block dice, just double strength isn't enough. So you need ST7 to get three dice against ST3. Or ST6 and one assist, which shouldn't be very hard to come by.

I think taking the +1STR was the right decision, if only for the opportunity to take Break Tackle later and become an unstoppable clobbering machine.

For big guys other than Human Ogres you also have to factor in STR's usefulness for tentacles, etc.  A STR 6 Beast of Nurgle or STR 6 Chaos Minotaur with tentacles could be pretty devastating.  My GRs would have to roll a 10 or higher on a 2D6 to get away from something like that, and if they failed they'd be toast.

It is definitely a situational decision though.

+1ST is the right call, he can now block ST5 with 2 dice one on one, sure that might not be often but it will feeeeeeel good. Now if he just doesn't die before he can get block you are golden.

Are the teams made in single player usable in multiplayer?

No, you make a team on the multi player server, and then have it join the various public/private leagues to play.

So your teams in multiplayer are based on what server you join?

There's only one multiplayer environment, no different servers to join.

What you'll want to do is create a private league and have your other friends join it.

Yeah, should have phrased that better.  What Ingmar said.

The alternative to that is signing your team up to the Auld league. If you want to do a private league you can always unregister your team with Auld and then sign them up for the private one.

So, teams are stored on some central game maker managed server somewhere. Odd as all the Multiplayer windows I have seen are direct IP. Thought I did skip the league button.

But you guys answered my main question.

You might be able to play directly one on one with someone by IP, I've never tried that. If you want to do the league thing with prizes, fixed rules, etc., I am pretty sure you have to go through their server.

Some people don't like to lose at this game. He then proceeded to DC, then reconnect every 4 mins. Think I should bother reporting him?

Might as well report himl, you have a nice shiny screenshot after all.

Falc totally tried this with me today, too.   :pedobear:

Report him.  Some people just can't have nice things.

How does firing players work?  Both my (Pro Elf) catchers are permanently maimed, and I'm wondering how to handle that.  When I let a player go, does it give me any of their cost back, or do they just get deleted from my roster?  And when I do have enough to replace them, should I fire the cripples to keep my TV down (am I right in suspecting that crippled players have just as high TV as regular players?) or should I keep them to give myself a bit of a bench?

You get no money back if you fire players past the initial team-building period. As far as keeping/firing is concerned, that tends to be situational. what kind of injury it is, on what kind of player, how much money you have, what teams you are likely to be facing - all of these things will dictate your approach. Typically, if it's a injury that is directly detrimental to the player (-1ag on an elf, -1st on an orc), that guy usually gets chopped and replaced asap. If it's something like -av on a dorf lino, then it's fairly meh. The average advice is to stick them on the line of scrimmage every game and let the problem solve itself. Similarly, losing a point of st on a pro-elf catcher is something you'll want to cut & replace eventually, doesn't take away from their function (of providing mobile assists and screens, scoring the occasional touchdown and padding the bench) entirely, and is rarely a high-priority replacement.

And yes, their tv stays the same regardless of injury.

If you make your Dauntless roll a single assist will let you roll two dice for the block and since your objective is to knock down that big guy you're hitting you shouldn't try to do it unassisted. I usually try to set up Dauntless blitzes with enough assists that even if I fail the roll I'll get a one-die regular block. So two assists on ST3 vs ST5 which is the usual scenario.

I've got to make the call on the stupid -1 str blitzer. I only had enough dough to pick up a lineorc, so I'll definitely miss his blocking. On the one hand, I'd like to dump his marginal TV, on the other, having a player I really don't give a shit about, with block, on the los is an attractive alternative. I'll just hope his block and av9 keep him from being too much of an easy font of spp for you guys  :grin:

I would just drop him and use a merc lineorc.

Save your kitty for a new blitzer.

Putting him on the line gives the opposing side 2 die blocks, a merc line orc does the save job of being a warm body.

Yeah I know that, but was just trying to illustrate how it can be done fairly easily. Using the assist to get 2 dice was implied.

Depends on who you are playing, if they don't have block on their line I'd for sure keep the Blitzer on the line unless I knew the change in TV was the difference in having 100k inducements and having 80k which gets me nothing or something like that.  Everyone sets up their line so they get 2 die blocks anyway so having ST2 with block is probably better especially against a team that doesn't put guys with block on the line than having a ST3 no block.

If you have a player with claw/frenzy/piling on (fun combo on a mino btw), can you prevent him from using the piling on skill after a block ?

Yes. Just put it to ask in the settings.

Folks should perhaps have Piling On, Juggernaut, Diving Tackle, Fend...possibly even Wrestle on "Ask."

Absolutly wrestle.

Ah. Now I understand what those settings are for.  :ye_gods:

This game has a worse UI than Eve (almost the same learning curve, though  :awesome_for_real: )

So, assistant coaches and cheerleaders. The former gets you extra rerolls and the latter lets you not be molested by the fans, correct? Do they influence anything outside of kickoff events? Is there a clear superior choice?

They are completely identical in terms of their potential effects. A 6 on the kick-off table gives you a roll-off between the coaches that is modified by Cheerleaders. (It's 1d3 + # of cheerleaders + FAME) An 8 on the kick-off table gives you an identical roll-off in which you swap out Assistant Coaches for Cheerleaders.

Which one you want to have really just depends on the other coach -- but given the formula it seems like having 2+ more than your opponent gives you a much higher chance of getting the reroll, since the variance in the rest of the formula is so low. (1d3+1 vs. 1d3 gives a maximum gap of 3.) Of course one could conceivably get into a sort of Cheerleader arms race with other coaches, making the whole enterprise increasingly expensive.

--

And in case anyone is wondering wtf FAME is (and since I just spent time looking it up in the rules), it's a modifier that results from the number of fans each team has in attendance. Both teams roll 2d6 and add their Fan Factor, and whoever rolls higher gets a +1 FAME modifier. If you roll twice as high as your opponent you get a +2 modifier.

FAME affects both the cheerleader and assistant coach events as described above. It also affects the Throw A Rock and Pitch Invasion events -- in the case of a Pitch Invasion this can be a huge deal, since it increases the chance of a stun for each player, and a lopsided Pitch Invasion can easily decide the outcome of a game.

Yes. The clear superior choice is to save your gold and TV for something useful instead.

They both only increase the chance of getting a reroll on 5/36 kick-offs, usually by about a third. So maybe 2/36 kickoffs are giving you a reroll when they otherwise wouldn't.

Just save up for the right number of rerolls in the first place and stop messing about.

Yep - and the real reason the coaches/cheerleaders/FAME are kinda sucky is that they add directly to your TV, so they count as WOO USEFUL STUFF for inducement figuring instead of the sort of mediocre slight bonus that they are.

Note that FAME also increases your winnings at the end of the match, which I am not yet decided about.  That MIGHT be useful, but if you had to pay for it?  Math time, I suppose.

Second note - I am breaking my own guidelines on this for my halfling team (in a private league), so if you spy on my teams and wonder why I have cheerleaders, coaches, and FAME on the halflings, that's why. They're HALFLINGS.  Also, I haven't played them yet, so it may be a horrible mistake.  It's a theory I'm trying out.

Theory with Halflings is to keep your TV low so you can get Deeproot and a Chef every game. Plus more if possible.

Also, I can't seem to get cash to transfer from my stack to inducements. Is there a trick I'm missing?

Edit again. http://www.cyanide-studio.com/forumBB/viewtopic.php?p=260555#p260555 explains it. Seems the general thing is you don't put money in if you're the lower TV player unless you put in enough to go over the TV difference. Which would be not very smart normally.

Ah ha! That explains why I couldn't get a Wizard in my last game - any money you move to petty cash INCREASES your TV by the same amount, so it's useless to try and add it to the inducement bonus, as that will then DECREASE by the same amount.

So in other words, any cash moved from the treasury to pertty cash, will not be added to your inducements, only replaced what you could have got in the first place. Petty cash ONLY helps if you spend the money to buy inducements INSTEAD of using the inducement money.

Yes, and keep in mind, if you add another 100k from petty cash, your opponent will also gain 100k more inducements.

Fame/Fan Factor isn't worth spending money on because the maths behind earning increases/decreases mean it will quickly normalise to a level determined by your win rate, no matter how much money you waste on the initial setting.

Petty Cash isn't worth spending money on because it is all bugged to fuck. If it worked, you'd use it occasionally to get that extra 10k you need to afford the star player or reroll you want.

I'm actually pretty happy about my initial fan factor investment, but it wasn't that large of an investment either.  FF used to be really useful to invest in because it heavily influenced your winnings at the end of a game, but is chiefly used for determining FAME now.  This goes on to help your kick-off event rolls, most of which I have won.  Honestly, if you've got a 970 team at team creation, investing 30 into FF and getting a better chance at kick-off events can give a nice edge at the beginning of a season with TV1000 teams that have very little FF and won't be getting inducements off of your 30 or 40 point investment anyway.

Cheerleaders and assistant coaches are pretty crap though.  I'd never bother with either.

But as Ruvaldt points out, a relatively minor initial investment could pay off early on, which can obviously have a significant snowball effect. Winning games usually means more money, and more money could mean a key positional player a game earlier. That said, so could saving the money you spent on Fan Factor.

Personally I'd rather save for an Apothecary with any leftover cash, but some teams have no use for such things.

I thought about that as well, but I made the bet that after the first game I would have enough to buy an apothecary regardless of whether I had to dip into cash from team creation or not.  Afterall, they're relatively cheap, and with some FF (and especially a win), you're likely to have at least 50k to buy it after that first game unless you get unlucky.

I've noticed that opening programs pretty much crashed BB when I'm in games. BBManager will crash it if opened when in a game, as will uTorrent and some others.

I don't know if this happens for others, but maybe if you make sure nothing is doing anything else in the background at all when you play you might not crash.

I burned around 90k in coaches and cheerleaders, you foos! You should have written this stuff months ago! I am gonna fire them all, but you neckbeards owe me 90k!

Just on this specific point, remember FAME is almost always 0 or +1, very occaisonally +2. Fan factor (the thing you can buy, and which normalises according to win rate), only contributes to deciding whether fame is +1 or 0.

Yay, logic puzzles.

Right, winning the FAME roll means an extra 10k or sometimes 20k of winnings. So if you spend 30k on 3 Fan Factor to start, this needs to win you more than three FAME rolls to break even (well, not exactly, see the table below.) A +3 on a 2d6 roll is pretty significant -- I don't know the math but looking at a table of probabilities I'm arbitrarily guessing it increases your chances of winning +1 FAME by something like 25% (from 50 -> 75%). In case this is too generous we will ignore the increased probability of getting +2 FAME.

This advantage will perpetuate up until the point where FAME normalization kicks in.

So in a scenario where you win all your games, it goes something like:

Game 1: +2.5k winnings, FAME advantage is maintained 99.5% of the time (just don't roll a 3.)
Game 2: +2.5k winnings, FAME advantage is maintained 98% of the time (4+)
Game 3: +2.5k winnings, FAME advantage is maintained 95% of the time (5+)
Game 4: +2.5k winnings, FAME advantage is maintained 90% of the time.
Game 5: +2.5k winnings, FAME advantage is under threat 83% of the time.

So at this point you're starting to get a significant chance of losing ground in the Fan Factor race, and you have only recouped half of your initial investment. Even if my assumption above is poor and a +3 on a 2d6 actually guarantees a victory 100% of the time, it takes 6 games to pay itself back, by which point even a losing team has already earned an average of 210k in non-FAME-based winnings.

I am guessing that in most scenarios -- sure you aren't likely to win all the time, but other teams lose too and if their Fan Factor doesn't go up then your gap with them remains just as significant -- an intiial investment of 30k in Fan Factor probably does pay itself off over, say, a 10-game season. But unless it actually helps you win those games you're probably way better off saving that 30k to get an apothecary one game earlier.

In other words, don't spend money on fan factor unless you plan to play your league in 2005.

So, I've been futzing around with playing a Dark Elf team, and was wondering what those of you who have one, and know what the hell you're doing would suggest for a starting line-up?  I started a single player game, and ended up with a Runner, 4x Blitzers, and 6 Linemen so I could afford a re-roll, and an apothecary.  Would I be better served with picking up an assassin(s)/witch elves, and wait on the re-roll, or the apothecary, depending on inducements to fill those holes?

I'd go with that lineup but no apoth and two rerolls.

Or go 2 WE, 4 Blitzers, 1 Assassin, 1 Runner and 3 Linemen and 0 rerolls... It's fun!

I usually start with 2 rerolls, a WE, three blitzers, and the rest linemen. They do get pretty cheap rerolls, so it's not as important to start with 3+. Only 1 reroll feels really thin to me, though, since you aren't going to want to spend the money on more until you fill out your lineup a bit.

The default start is six Lineelfs, four Blitzers, one Runner and 2xrr with the first 50k winnings going to an apoc. Then you can branch out into either a third rr, another Runner or the positionals of your choice (typically Witches). If you go the 2x Witch route, this gets you six players with Blodge (Block + Dodge), minimizes your av7 (at three players on the pitch at any one time) and nets you a bench of two Lineelfs (provided no-one died and/or got cut). This start will incline you strongly towards playing a running game - arguably something the DE excel at, while allowing you to focus on developing your key players (Blitzers and Witches) into what is thought to be the best defensive and counter-attacking team in the game.

Assassins are a luxury you simply can't afford at 1000TV.

Also one reroll is not enough rerolls, zero rerolls is insane. Not least because they cost double on an experienced team.

6 Line
1 Runner
4 Blitz
2rr

...is probably the best starting lineup as Megrim suggests.

7 line
1 witch
3 Blitzers or 2 and a runner
2 rr

...might work if you really really want a witch elf, but I'd never start without rerolls.

Play without rerolls! It will make you learn good habits.

Like the habit of never starting a team without rerolls!

This.  :awesome_for_real:

Playing 0 rerolls won't let you beat me Lamaros  :drill:

My Rat Ogre eating your ghouls and werewolves might, though.  :drill:

Just came across this post (http://bbtactics.com/forums/blood-bowl-101-sceadeaus-risk-management-strategy-scrims-t636/) over at the BBTactics forums. Simple stuff but presented very clearly.

The author has impressed me with his cold-blooded/analytical Khemri team reports, and the basic rules laid out in the post are a useful primer/reminder for anyone trying to figure out what keeps going wrong.

I am bumping this ancient thread just to say I finally played Blood Bowl. It's a headachey game, but I may wind up liking it. I won my first game versus the medium difficulty computer, but I am a LONG way from being able to deal with 2 minute turns, given I almost ran out of time a couple of times with the four minute turns.  :drillf:

I JUST WANTED TO SHARE GUYS OKAY

How do people play without block? I am pretty sure I would not be able to do it without wanting to weep.

They either run away from everything, have ST4, or learn to deal with falling down a lot. Usually a combination.

What race did you win with? I'm curious what sort of teams the new players are gravitating towards.

I did Norse first. I am considering trying Amazons next (they were the team I played against!). I'm trying not to pick dwarves because Ingmar basically called dibbs.  :why_so_serious:

Just pretend you have a shitty healer/dps and you need to be cautious with your pulls.

My orcs are pretty resistant to damage when they're knocked down, but a good team rolls over them. I did get block on a single Black Orc (my ST4 guys on the line) and the orc Blitzers all start with block.

A bigger problem tends to be not having tackle or guard, at least for the orcs. Once I can get block and guard on my Black Orcs, I'll at least be able to mount a wee bit of resistance. Elves and those goddamned Amazons just dance away from my markers.

It's okay if you run out of time on 2-minute turns, really.  It's a lot better than the games taking over 2 hours.

And yeah, if you don't have Block, you just need to get used to pushing a lot more than knocking over, and having to consider burning a reroll on the few times per game that you roll double skulls (sometimes it's better to just take the turnover, assuming you're saving those moves for last).  A corollary is that you almost never 1d block without Block, because 1/3 of the time you end up on your back.

But it depends on the team.  Elves, well they don't block much anyway, so you just keep them out of hitting range.  Bashy teams, you load up on Guard to be able to provide more assists (and the higher STR guys don't get hit much anyway).

When you try Amazons, you will start to wonder how anyone can play without Dodge!  :grin:

[face_heart]


NO IT'S NOT OKAY


And yeah, Sky, I noticed Amazons like to just skip their way through people, it was pretty annoying. But then I punched them in all their faces. ALL OF THEM. Then I felt better.

My chaos team takes elf-punching to new and glorious levels.

Ask Haemmy about that  :drill:

Everybody likes elf-punching. Even other elves.

Suck it up until your players gain a level. That, and be more careful about making blocks. It's extra important to have a spare team reroll for the important blocks in your turn.

I'm unsure that taking Leader with my thrower was the best choice, but damn if it isn't nice having the extra reroll.

I think rerolls for orcs are 60k of TV, and leader on a guy with P access is only 50k20k TV, so for you it is a slightly cheaper way to get a reroll. The main question is, would it have been better to take some other ability on the orc that would be more personally useful for him and just spend cash on the reroll. The answer to that is probably "usually" but it wasn't a horrid mistake or anything certainly.

Wait, what ?

If he takes leader on his orc passer, his team value goes up by 20k, if he buys a reroll (for 120k of cash) his team value goes up by 60k. Either way gets him a reroll, so at first you might think 'leader is the better choice hands down,' because minimizing your team value where you can is good, it means less inducements for your opponent (or more inducements for you.)

The problem, though, is that picking leader on the passer carries an opportunity cost of not getting some other more useful skill that will make him more effective. If the thrower levels up early before you've bought all the players you want, leader is more attractive because it lets you save money for a troll instead of a reroll, or whatever. It is basically a judgement call, and kinda depends what team you're playing as rerolls cost different amounts for different teams.

(There's also the detail that if the orc gets hurt in the first half, you won't have his reroll for the 2nd half.)

Well, I was/am a newb and someone suggested it for my first level-up. Like I said, it's nice to have, but now that I've got a couple guys leveled up and can think about how I want to play, I wish the thrower were a slightly stronger ball carrier. Ah, well.

In your specific case I would avoid amazon, as they are dwarfs best match up (tackle beats dodge) . Trying to work out what beats dwarf at low to medium tv, hmm, Khemri I guess (but they lose to almost everything else), Orc maybe, Lizardmen? High Elf? Necromantic?

I have no idea really.

Nerf dwarfs tbh.

I wouldn't be so mean as to play dwarves against her in a practice match.

I love Norse, but I'm starting to see how they play better at lower TV than higher.  :oh_i_see:

But yeah, if you don't have block, you have to be much more discerning in your block choices. Sometimes, just leaving a guy marked is ok. Or, you could just dodge away.

Personally, I prefer face-punching. Every time.

Aw, I just meant dwarves, in my mind, are Ingmar's thing and I didn't want to be a copycat. I have no idea what he'll play when I finally decide I have enough of a clue about the game for it to be helpful to have him kick my ass in some practice matches.  :why_so_serious:

Wait, there are BB guys without block?

I thought that only happened to the other team?


I like how you limit this to practice matches, and attempt to nonetheless put it forward as some kind of concesssion.

Just putting it out here, the most successful teams against Dwarfs (according to BBManager) are Necromantic, High Elf, and Khemri.

Holy shit, didn't even know there was a hosted server online component to this game.  Tight!  What league should I join? I tried Albion but it's been 5 minutes and no matches.

I think Auld World and Naggaroth are the only public leagues anyone bothers with. Auld World lets you arrange games so everyone there inflates their TV artificially; Naggaroth only allows matchmaking so you can't guarantee getting to play with your friends, but only half the people inflate their TV artificially. Or something. That's how it was some months back, at least.

Now I played a Norse vs Nurgle game (this is all versus the stupid computer, mind you) and I should've won but I was an idiot that forgot it was the last turn, so I didn't GFI into the end zone.  :uhrr:

I did not like playing Nurgle. They are gross.

And the moral of the story is;  your star skaven thrower should run away.

Nurgle is a HUGE pain in the ass to play against.

Note to self: I am terrible at elves.

Orc's eat dwarves at low TV, infact they should eat them at all TVs.

I played 3 games tonight, 2 in the Auld league the other in Naggaroth, 3 different teams with stuntys, Ogre, Lizardmen and Goblins.  All were new, low TV teams.  I have to say I'm growing partial to stuntys.  The Ogre game was against a Chaos team and it was tied 1-1 when lag and continuing disconnects made me abandon the game at turn 10, where we were stuck at for over 30 mins.  Its too bad too since I was most likely going to score to pull ahead 2-1 and one of my snotlings actually managed to kill one of his beastmen with a foul.  Despite my ogres doing nothing most of the time, it was fun up until the technical issues became too much.  My lizardman game was against a vampire team and I pretty much crushed him, winning 2-0.  Having played vampire teams a few times, I have no idea why anyone would want to play one.  The goblin match was the most fun and comical and it was against the same vampire team.  I had no idea what each player did but still managed to use my bomb guy to get the ball out of his hands and into my pogoers's.  I still somehow managed to kick the crap out of his team and send 5 or 6 off badly hurt and injured.  I won that one 2-1.  Might have been a shutout or I could have scored one more if not for the trolls standing around with their thumb up their asses at key times.  Tried to throw one of my goblins down the field but it didn't work.  Overall, I like the play style of the stunty teams but you're often at the mercy of your big guys and whether or not they do what you want them to do.  I'm curious to see what other people think of the stunty teams and how best to play them.

You could technically play Orcs as a stunty team, too. What's the gobbo limit?

Can anyone advise what happens if I take Morgnthorg with a full compelement team of lizardmen - IE I have 6 Sauras's, a Krox and 4 Skinks - does he replace the Krox or one of the Saurus's? Thinking I might need him against Team Snoosoo but don't really want to lose my Krox since I need to try and get some SSP on him ASAP.

Six Saurii, a Krox and four Skinks only makes 11 players. If you take Morg you just get to pick a player to put onto the sidelines during each drive. So effectively you gain a player in reserve.

Yeah. To be extra clear: Star Players never count against team limits for positional players. The only limits that apply to hiring Star Players are that they can't give you more than 16 players total, and you can only hire two of them at once.

By contrast, if you use inducements to hire a mercenary (Loner) version of a regular player, you need to have 'room' for them in your roster. So for example, a Chaos team with 4 healthy Chaos Warriors could not also hire a Chaos Warrior mercenary. Players that are out due to injury don't count towards the limit.

Morg would be a good idea. Playing Snooze will be like playing me, except without my mistakes and all the players are skilled.  :ye_gods:

Thanks for the advice all, cleared that up nicely. Sky I don't think you made many mistakes in our game tbh (from my limited online play, you were only the second online opponent I had ever played) just a shame you couldn't take advantage when I only had that thin Skink line for cover or you would have at least got the draw.

Does Hail Mary Pass (the Skill) cause a turnover ?

Not if someone on your team catches it. If you throw between two receivers with diving catch it can be a viable desperation play.

What are the skills to set to "Ask"?

I'm just curious as to a full list to set up now before I get something and forget to change the setting before it screws me over :) Right now I only have Wrestle set to ask because I think it's the only relavent skill I have.

Is BBmanager broken for anyone else? First 2 matches I submitted I could pull up the stats for but the last 3 have all been submitted (at least i assume so since Falc has accepted the results) but there doesn't seem to be any info loaded about the teams in the league or even my own matches. BBmanager patched when I loaded it today but it still doesn't seem to be working for me.

Wrestle, Piling On, Juggernaut, Multiple Block... surely some others I'm not remembering.

Yeah, I fucked myself with multiblock on my Treeman until I remembered to set it to ask.

I saw no problem with that.

(It's actually what prompted the question)

(Secondary parenthetical aside, you didn't do a postmortem, boo)

Hail Mary Pass is a definite ask.  I think it defaults to on, and then you end up using it on short passes ><

Fend and Diving Tackle are two others I would set to ask. There are probably others.

Maybe Mighty Blow - Frankly, I'm not sure how the UI uses it in the calculations - I'm going to guess the worst and say that it's ALWAYS used on the armor roll, when sometimes you don't need it and could save it for use on the injury roll.

I believe it is actually always used on the injury roll in Cyanide BB.

That's...actually the worse-case scenario.

I thought it was used intelligently - armor if needed, injury otherwise.

You don't get to add it after you see the roll result, though, you have to decide at roll time AFAIK. In any case I've only ever seen the little "mighty blow" text pop up over a player's head when the injury roll happens, for what that's worth.

I'll have to check before I play Sky, but I believe I recently set a whole swath of additional skills to 'Ask' before use. Hopefully the seconds lost to deciding on their use doesn't eat up too much time.


That sucks, if true. Diving Tackle allows you to see the roll before activating the skill, so I would think MB should work likewise.

Wait, what? How?!?

'Tis true - it's why I didn't bother activating Diving Tackle against Haemish in our Snotling League - his initial dodge rolls were all too high to bother using the skill.

Oh, that is very interesting. Perhaps I will turn ask on for MB before my game against Llyse and see what happens.

Haven't found anything on MB showing the roll, but my searches of the BB forum seem to indicate that it will be used intelligently (as in, if you don't need the MB to break armor, it will apply towards injury roll instead).

Thing is I thought I had been watching my rolls at one point to see what happened and I don't recall ever seeing a +1 applied to non-breaks. I guess it would only bother if it failed by one though...

Pretty sure it is used like dirty player. Added to the armor roll if needed to make it break, otherwise added to the injury roll.

Would be nice if true.

EDIT: Just opened the log of my previous game, when I still had MB on auto-use, and can confirm that MB seems to be used intelligently: First armor roll failed, used Pile On to succeed with just dice, and MB was used on the injury roll for the KO. Had an earlier instance where MB put the armor roll over the top to succeed for a CAS.

Thats not true, this is something thats actually coded correctly. If it needed to use MB to take your from a AV failure TO a cas roll it will use MB (so if you rolled the same as the oppo's AV not higher), if not it will always carry over. What you are seeing are rolls when MB will make zero effect, it does not display the +1. For example, you punch and knock over a black orc, roll a 12 on the armour but then roll a 6 on the cas dice. It will only show a 6 since a 7 is still also a stun so no point adding +1. It would be nice if it always displayed it, but it doesnt.

This thread, on a side note, is something that i can help with, since I have played the game a lot i know its querks well. A useful ringer? surely not....

Assuming somebody else doesn't get to it 20 hours before you. :why_so_serious:

I didn't see anyone mention stand firm yet.  I set it to ask in case I need to ignore it for a chain push.  Especially if I can set it up so my stand firm guy is the one that ends up on the edge of the pitch after pushing someone out.

Stand Firm is a definite 'Ask' -- though you cannot actually use that to counter the whole 'Stand Firm cancels chain pushes' effect, that happens no matter what. The main reasons to choose not to Stand Firm are a) Frenzy and b) to limit the possibility/effectiveness of a gang foul afterwards.

So I found this in one of my other leagues regarding the fucked up winnings calculations.

"Some players are experiencing problems when they reroll their winnings and they log back on after validation and their winnigs are not correct. There is NO fix for this. It is a current bug that has not been fixed. The only way to solve the problem as I was told is NOT to log off until the game is validated. That will give you the proper winnings. So There are 4 ppl who can now validate, me, Voltron, Maniehl and Nimrokon. Check for them to validate after you play. They are not suppose to validate until the game is uploaded. The major problem is when there is a tie sometimes no arrangements are made. I would ask the veterans take charge and upload them. I have noticed that there have been duplicates but I can handle that on BBM with no problems."

 :facepalm:

Fucking wow. Cyanide really are shit, aren't they?

That means the system is gameable, then - stay logged in if you get a good roll, log off for a free reroll if you don't. Great.

I really wish a competent dev team was running this show. I've lost count of how many times I've said that. Hell, the whole BBManager thing should be part of the game.

Nope, not really. If you log off then that's just the roll that stands. You can't get a reroll after the game is played without playing the entire game over again. You *could* game it, I guess, if the league commish was in cahoots but it strikes me as completely fucking INSANE to replay games over 30k or so in winnings.

No, if you stand pat and log off, your money value will still change when your match is validated.

Doesn't the bug make it so that this isn't the case? My understanding is that it reassigns winnings randomly, unless (according to your quote) you stay logged in during the validation. So you can choose whether to have the bug affect you, in effect giving you a free extra reroll.

fake edit: yeah, what Ingmar said.

I'm not following you for some reason.

1) I win
2) I use my reroll to get 50k winnings
3a) I log off before validation. I do not know what my winnings will be
3b) I stay on while the game is validated. I keep 50k.

I'm not sure how you can game it. Once you log off, it's set to that random number, no matter when it's validated. If it's validated, you get what you see. I fully grant that I may be dumb and/or feverish (DAUGHTER GAVE ME THE CRUD, THANKS FOR THAT HONEY) here.

Anyway, it does make an argument for having sub-commissioners who can do nothing but validate.

1) You lose
2) You get 20k winnings
3) You log off before the match can be validated and get a free reroll of your losing total

Well, the 'solution' of making people stick around until a sub-commissioner validates the match (regardless of how many there are) sounds like a complete pain in the ass.

No, no. You're misunderstanding the bug. The bug is only if you win and reroll. The rerolled winnings are wrong. The losing winnings don't change. And if I'm the understanding of the bug is correct, if you win a game and opt not to reroll then the winnings are okay.

I've had losing winnings change on me as well. Maybe they only change if the winner rerolls or something though?

And I can guarantee that you still don't get the right amount even without rerolling, after playing Falc I was supposed to get something quite a bit more than the 30k it gave me (I chose not to reroll.) Hell I think he validated it while we were both still online, so maybe the bug as described isn't even the entire picture.

Yeah, it's entirely likely that this is a misunderstanding of the bug. I just figured I'd post it because it's the only thing I've seen which tries to figure out exactly what causes it. If the winnings are fucked no matter what and for everyone, then it's not a valid theory.

Yeah, the money is screwy. After my recent draw game, my bank account actually went down, even though I spent nothing.  :oh_i_see:

It's supposed to if you're over 1750 though.

Yeah that sounds like spiraling expenses.

The simple solution is just to ignore your in-game winnings result completely and just cope with whatever you get. If you adjust your expectations and just shrug about it, then there you go -- you don't win 'less' money than you 'should' have, or 'more' either, you just don't actually find out how much you win until later.

I would agree, but that would defeat the purpose of the rule that the winner earns the ability to reroll their winnings.

That rule is functionally absent from the game, is all I'm saying, so it's better to just pretend it was never a rule to begin with than to get upset about how it is not implemented.

Is there anywhere that explains in depth how assists work? I know that standing guys next to each other provides assist but there are other odd situations where I see myself getting assists and I don't really know why.

EG

           A C
           B X

A B C are my guys, X is the opponent. I know that if B is blocking then he gets an assist of A but he also gets an assist off C, however this is not always the case, or maybe I am just not noticing it.

Also in a setup like this


            ABXC

B gets an assist of C but not off A when I would have thought the logical assumption would have been the other way round. I have read the article on blocking and checked BB tactics but there doesn't seem to be anywhere that gives an in depth guide to how assists work.

When throwing a block you get an assist for each of your guys that is next to the *target*. Those assists are canceled out if there is another opponent standing next to them, unless they have guard.

Thus, assuming all strength 3 guys:

AX -> A throws a 1d block against X.

AXB -> A throws a 2d block against X as B gives him an assist.

AXBY -> A throws a 1d block against X, because Y is canceling out B's assist.

ZAXBY -> A throws a negative red 2 die block against X, because Z is assisting X.

AXGY -> A throws a 2d block against X, because his ally G has guard which lets him assist no matter what.

Cheers Ingmar that makes sense, silly how easy it is to understand when someone explains it simply.

Anyone have a good resource to help calculate what someone can buy with a given amount of inducements?

This is probably a very well known fact in the Blood Bowl universe, but I seriously think that Amazons are kind of a crpapy team, meaning they lose their only advantage (the blodginess) pretty soon since most teams catch up with that and some others start getting tackle here and there, and that leaves them as a terribly generic team with very low AV. I think it's not an accident that both me and Comstar (the two Amazons team in the League) played our worst season ever this time around, after 3 Seasons.

Thoughts?

I would definitely agree that Amazons are one of the weaker squads once the TVs start to get up high. Most of the "everyone has skills" starting teams (amazons, norse, dwarves) are strong at low TV and start to get weaker when the 'raw stats' teams start to level up.

I dunno, I think Amazons can be pretty damn good. If I played them...I'd probably play them similarly to how I play Norse, but with more throwing and dodging. Seems easier to take a universal-dodge team and give them block, than to take Norse and try to get them all dodge (ie - not happening).

Technically, this has been my worst season so far as well, though I easily could have had 2 more wins if not for some heroic late-game dodgy antics from my opponents to preserve draws. And I could have played my season opener better as well.

I would try to look at your replays to see if there's anything I could add, but last time I tried to give friendly advice it...didn't work.

Here's the thing - when everyone gets their first skill, things are still good for the amazons. They all add block, while everyone on the chaos team adds block. Great, they still have the edge. The problem starts to come with the 2nd and 3rd skils - the amazons add guard on 4 players, and the chaos team adds it on all 11 - and now their strength and armor advantage really starts to come into play.

This happens to all the 'starts with skills' teams to a certain extent - they pay for their starting skill advantage with lukewarm stats and sometimes in poor skill access. The bottom line is that not every skill is equally useful so players with limited skill access really start to look bad once the 3rd and 4th skills start getting added, comparatively speaking. Amazons have it a little worse than Norse or Dwarves on this front imo because they don't have the widespread S access of the dwarf team or the special players of the Norse.

If I were running things one of the roster changes I'd make is giving Amazons some kind of Big Gal to stabilize their line and give them a 5th piece with strength access - an ogress, or something. There's a star player that fits that role (Bertha Bigfist) but she's not available in the computer version.

(The other thing that comes to mind is I would give humans the option to take a couple halflings, much like Orcs have the option to take a couple goblins. That would give them a chance for a one-turner, make the ogre a little sexier, and give the team a cheap fouler without overpowering them in the slightest.)

I disagree with you Ingmar. Humans with a halfling just seems to make them more of a bad Orc copy. Catchers can take The Right Stuff if you want some Ogre QB action.

Amazons might need an ogress but they have 4 blodgers with Strength access.

I'm not sure an Ogress fits the RP side Zons' so I'll let Falc and Com reply

Apparently there is some old role playing lore than says Female Ogres and Trolls like to hang out with the Amazon's, and it would give them a big guy and someone to hold the line, and make the Amazon's more interesting at higher levels. I would make them expensive, MV 5 ST 5, AG 2, AR 8 Boneheaded, throw teammate.

I never thought of giving a Human Catcher the Right Stuff, but it actually makes throwing them pretty good. Don't you also need stunty though?

If we're going by roleplaying lore then No-one should know that Skaven even exist, and het they are playing games of Bloodbowl every week?

"Oi, 're those Skaven?"

"Haw, they're just really 'hary 'alflings. That are really 'ast and loike cheese"

Nope just need right stuff

I think a "Big Sister" character would be awesome. Amazon, just BIG.

Right Stuff is extraordinary.

Yeah you can't take The Right Stuff, either you start with it or you're out of luck.

So, I've never really understood dodging through multiple tacklezones. Playing humans, its never really been an issue, as I've tried to avoid moving through red whenever possible. However I just took break tackle on my 6str ogre, and now find myself wondering how exactly the mechanics work for something like that. If anyone would like to spread some knowledge, what kind of rolls would a 6str ogre need to make going through 2, 3, or 4 tackle zones?

Its not based on strength, its based on agility. I dont know the actual formula (soneone else will have to help with that) but basicly every tackle zone thats on that square adds one to the difficulty of dodging into it. And yes. its retarded that you can't actually see the number you need to roll on the UI

From the tooltip break tackle takes your strength score rather than agility when rolling for dodge rolls, so with str 6 a straight dodge is 2+ to make since my understanding is a 1 is always a critical fail and a 6 is always a critical success.

Each tackle zone you dodge into is -1 so 1 tackle zone = 3+
2 tackle zones = 4+
3 tackles zone = 5+
4+ tackle zones = 6

Yes, each TZ covering a square is -1.  But while a natural 1 always fails, I believe a modified 1 can still succeed for an AG 6+ guy!  Technically AG 6 requires a 1+ roll, with a +1 for the dodge.  So to dodge into 3 TZs, that's a 1+ roll, modified with +1 dodge and -3 TZs, to give you a 3+ roll.  That means dodging into 0, 1, or 2 TZs all only fail with a critical 1.  Someone check my maths!

Also note that if you ever roll doubles and don't want to take block, having the Dodge gives you a reroll on break-tackle too. A Blodge break-tackle Ogre is pretty much unstoppable.

Sorry to drag the discussion back to this - I think it has a lot to do with the way they are played. Not to point accusatory fingers, but I suspect you guys haven't quite gotten the most out of your teams, at least from what I've seen. At least, some of the things you should be able to pull of with the skill access you have is very powerful regardless of Tackle.

But that's not saying much, given that I've never played an Amazon team. From what I've seen though, it seems to be very common that people vastly over-rate Amazon teams "in theory", while under-justify them in performance.

One of the more important things to remember about break tackle is that it only works once a turn.  Every dodge after the first in a move with that ogre will go back to being based off of agility and will fail damn near every time.

I think I'm playing you next. What skills should have been taken? (Note, 7 out of my 13 players have a stat increase which may colour it a bit).

He took break tackle, so his first dodge every turn will be based on str. Agreed on the UI not advertising the roll.

Celer has the odds right, also.

By far my biggest gripe about the game.

Yeah, the important thing to remember is that any Dodge gets a +1 -- there are actually very few things in the game that use an unmodified agility roll (Leap being the most notable, and dangerous, example), which is part of what makes the UI fail so aggravating.

Because of the +1 to all dodges, even an Agility 4 (or Strength 4 with break tackle) dodge into an open space already has the maximum possible chance of success -- which is to say you only fail on a 1.

So your Ogre can actually Dodge through two tackle zones as trivially as he can dodge into an open space, which makes him an absolute terror to a thinly-screened cage. (A dodge into a cage is into 3 tackle zones, so if you have a reroll that's almost a 90% chance of success.)

The +1 also means that even an agility 2 player has a 50% chance of succeeding at a dodge, or a 75% chance with a reroll -- so the part about how your Ogre will totally fail any second dodge in the turn, while probably a good way to think about it most of the time, is not strictly true if the situation becomes desperate enough. Just make sure the first dodge of the turn is the really hard one, if you're going to dodge more than once.

Just wanted to point out that loner makes it 62.5% with reroll.  That said if you're desperate enough and all of your other moves are finished, you've only got about an 11% chance of suffering a casualty if you fail.

The stat boosts certainly do affect it, and the other skillpicks are going to depend heavily on the league meta as well as a player's individual style. For example however, I remember looking through your own and Falconeer's teams, and not seeing even a single Dirty Player. Given how cost-efficient Amazon lineplayers are (up there along with the Norse) , it's very surprising to me that neither of you have sought to even out some of the av7 attrition rates through judicious use of fouling. Another thing was the lack of any real slayer pieces (MB, Piling On, Jump-up on doubles, etc...), although you do have that wonderful st-boosted Blitzer. Very little Fend, and not much Wrestle either, both of which I think benefit av7 teams a heck of a lot more than they do others.

Things like that; it is obviously going to be somewhat situational based on the players involved - but this was the impression which I had.

I was going to say, is that figuring into it the fact that he is a Loner, so the rr is going to be a coinflip to just work in the first place.

I didn't figure in the Loner, no, but even a 50% chance is a lot better than 'totally going to fail no matter what', which is I think how a lot of people tend to think of agi 2 dodges. I have dodged zombies into crucial positions before -- and yes, absolutely as the last play or as a last-ditch effort, but it does actually work half the time, even without a reroll.

I don't know personally.  It's kind of like fouling for me, with a zombie sure, but your 200k+ ogre?  I'd have to be pretty desperate.  That being said, I've dodged my Krox into open spaces to mark up ballcarriers, but I always hold my breath when I do it  :awesome_for_real:

I very rarely foul - I nearly always need that spare lineswomen tagging someone or acting as a blocker and giving out tacklezones on a close or loose cage (or putting pressure on the ball carrier). Also most of my lineswomen got lucky on their initial roles - two of them have guard, and 3 of them have a stat increase. I was going to give one of my 2 benchwarming lineswomen Dirty player...and she just rolled +1ST on her first skill. My TV is so high already that having a 3rd benchwarmer is pushing it, and I like having 4 rerolls plus a leader reroll.

I do need more girls with Wrestle though.

It's going to be weird playing my game vs your High Elves- I have the ST advantage for once! In my game vs the Wood Elves I got lucky - the Treeman moved ONE square in the entire game and I think threw a total of 2 blocks.


Also, why would you choose +1 armour over +1 Movement when you already have armour 8?

Well, to make things easier for you, I don't even have a Treeman =p

Wow. Just got to manage my High Elf team at lunch, had 3 level ups from my failoff game against SirT. One of them was Lhynn Swann, a level 1 catcher. Lo and behold, he levels and gets a double - and I just had to give him the +1 STR he got from the roll. Seriously, a 4 STR elven catcher with 8 MA? Just when I think I am going to retire this team for the next f13 season, something like that happens that makes me want to play it again.

I too rarely foul, as I feel like I have a pretty high chance of being sent off, and often times I would rather have my person stay in the game. I also don't use wrestle, as I have universal block. I see how it could be nice, even with block...but there just always seem to be more-important skills to take.

I'm just sort of excited about the next game, as I might even have the chance to play with all of my rerolls if I want. :oh_i_see:

I rarely foul because I can hardly afford to get a dude sent off when half of them have probably gone off due to injury already.

Although I could look at it more like "WHAT'S ONE MORE REALLY IN THE GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS?"  :why_so_serious:

Fouling is something you do with a cheap piece vs. an expensive piece, and usually only if you have a numbers advantage or something too good to pass up. (IMO - there are other philosophies out there towards fouling.) I almost never foul with dwarves, because there are no cheap dwarves. Exception: towards the end of one of those big 8 turn drives, fouling with the deathroller isn't awful, as it has dirty player and is about to get sent off anyway.

Not only that, but you got it as his first level up so you can use that to build your entire set of skills.  A 4STR catcher with 8 MA is begging to be made into a sacker/ball remover ala a blitzing gutter runner.  High Elf teams usually need to develop one anyway, but yours would be killer.

I very much miss fouling, High Elves don't really have the luxury.  Give me a cheap line-skeleton though, and I will make sure his boots are always dirty!

You obviously(?) have a 1/6 chance of rolling doubles on the armor roll.  If you break armor, you have an injury roll that is another 1/6 chance of rolling doubles.  There are various threads on the Cyanide forums that break out the statistics around fouling, but the gist is that you want to get the target down to AV 6 or so (each assist dropping the target AV by 1) before you're more likely to injure the target than to be sent off yourself.  The fact that the injury will most likely be a stun or KO (which may or may not wake up later), whereas the ejection will always last the whole game, means that it's less "risky" to foul in the second half (when there will be fewer chances for that KO to wake up).

I sitll wouldn't do it with anyone other than a lineman, and preferably on a higher-value target, but if you have some cheap linemen available, you really should be getting your boots dirty on occasion!

Ideally, I would look to foul with a Deathroller at the end of Turn 6 on a drive where I have uncontested possession and don't NEED the deathroller to finish it. - Foul turn 6, don't get sent off, foul turn 7, score turn 8.

For my lvl 4 Thrower with block and leader for previous skillups: Accurate or Nerves of Steel?

I can see Accurate being more helpful overall, but since orcs tend to be up-close and personal, I could see Nerves of Steel being reallly useful when I need it. And most of my passing problems stem more from the catching than the throwing, so I'm leaning toward Nerves.

I'd say accurate, but since I started playing Pro Elves, Nerves of Steel is hilarious. Surrounded on all sides? No problem, pass it to someone else!

Nerves of steal is great, but its much more useful on your catchers.  Its actually pretty rare when I find my thrower marked on all sides so I cant just make an easy dodge away and then pass (and I've already fucked up very badly somehow if it actually gets to that point).  Having said that, its a good idea for a passing team to develop a normal QB and an offensive QB.  The offensive QB being somebody who charges in when kicking off to the opponent, skilled so he can pick up the ball out of a crowd and pass it away if somebody manages to knock it loose.  That's the one you want Nerves of Steal for.

Sorry, I hadn't seen that you'd edited your post to include that question.

Reason being that the lineman in question had Guard already, so I would like for him him to stay on the pitch and alive for as long as possible. On the other hand, mv6 -> mv7 isn't that big a deal on a HE team, at least not when compared to av8 -> av9 on a key player.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/193068/Photos/choice.jpg)

Claws or +1mv? A 9 MV blitzer is pretty tempting, but so is MB and piling on with claws...

Without claws the stats are 15 games, 2 killed, 15 injured, 5 KOs... with claws the sky might be the limit.

I'd go claws.  No question.

Especially given that he has Piling On. Jump Up is another option as well, for that matter.

Exactly.  You have a player tailor made for creating casualties.  Giving him claw accentuates those skills that he already has.  Giving him another point of movement over claws doesn't make much sense because you already have gutter runners for that stuff.  Unless your GRs suck, and I don't think that they do or else you probably wouldn't have a fifth level stormvermin to begin with.

Yeah I went with the claw after I posted. 9 mv would have been funny though, fastest team on earth!

Have a +str GR and Thrower... Wish my f13 team was as lucky with the rolls. Been out injuring so many teams with this guys and my foulers, including chaos and orc.

With both MB and PO on that rat, Claw is a no-brainer. If you had Guard on him, I would have taken +AV, then Stand Firm for a really fast proto-Orc.

I kind of lean towards jump up myself, but claw is obviously a fine pick.

The second lonk on setting up a port forwarding article on the OP no longer works

Pile On. Does it default to "always jump on a dude" when you make a new league? Or do you not have a choice and will always Pile On if you have Frenzy as well?

You have to toggle the skill in your settings to have have it automatically work. I believe it's client-specific, as opposed to tied to a particular league.

With my 2 zerkers, I'm definitely a fan of the skill.  :grin:

One of the most fun skills going around. My Skaven guy with MB, Claw, Piling On, Tackle was running at two plus casualties per game. Then he died. Rerolled to died. I was unhappy.

Yeah, I never messed with it but I have a Skaven team and put it on my Rat Ogre. He's, uh.... yeah. Wow. It's just that it's always on by default so it's not always smart.

It is well worth going through the skills and setting a bunch of them to prompt you. Off the top of my head, other than piling on you probably also want to do that with at least multiple block and wrestle.

Multiple Block, Wrestle, Piling On, Diving Tackle, Dump Off, Shadowing. Basically anything that puts you prone, makes you move or let go of the ball automatically.

Piling on is a lot of fun but I don't recommend putting it on big guys as the Wild Animal/Bonehead/Take Root + loner will bite you in the ass. Piling on + Jump Up is a particularly good combo on a blitzer.

I swear this was a topic before, but Hail Mary Pass needs to be set to ASK as well.

I can't see myself taking Piling On in most cases unless I already have Jump Up on the piece. At least not on a slow team like dwarves. I need my tackle zones more than I need an armor reroll. It would be another thing if I was specifically setting out to build a killer claw/MB/PO beastman or something.

Norse Beserkers.  :drill:

Millard Fillmore is counting the days.  Beardstorm here we come!

Bianca has dirty player just for situations such as these.

Does anyone have any advice on how to use the goblin Bombardier?  The last three games, I think, he's taken out more allies than enemies. 

Ideally, you'd want him in the back because you don't want him marked or fighting, but he can't throw very far so you'll want him up front.  He can't throw and move on the same turn, so you need to position him near where the enemy will move to next turn, but they're not going to run up to him without someone marking the bombardier, and if you dodge away from being marked, you can't throw that turn.  You want allies around so you can protect him from being marked, but if he fails his throw (and he always does) he kills all the allies around him.  I have NO CLUE how to use this guy effectively.

Forgive my newbness if it's apparent, but I'll take "Hail Mary" for $200, Alex.

It seems like Bombadiers could be pretty effective against clusters of defenders on the line of scrimmage when you're receiving a kick-off.  You can put them one or steps back from the line of scrimmage so they'll be close enough to use their bomb more effectively but won't be in immediate danger that round.  Just be sure to place your other scrimmage pieces clear of where you intend to throw the bomb.  That's the only thing that springs to mind; it does seem like a difficult piece to use.  I've been tempted to simply not use one in my feeder league goblin team.

No, you want him.  He is the one thing that makes goblin teams not 100% terrible.  Well, based on my 2-2-8 goblin team, it makes them only 80% terrible.  :oh_i_see:

Seriously though, he's another wacko piece for the other side to worry about, and goblins have a hard enough time keeping secret weapons on the field, so you may as well have as many as you can.  He's not expensive, either.  Just don't throw bombs when any important friendlies are next to him, in case of accidental drops.  Unless, of course, he is also next to enemies, then who gives a crap if he drops it?   Sometimes he can even create a big dead zone of paranoia on the field where no one wants to get close to the crazy bastard.

In my 10 games he was notably useful in maybe 2, but in those two he was REALLY useful.   Totally worth having him around.

Unless it has hail Mary or +agi it's a liability. Very useless. I wouldn't use one unless you were lucky to get good skill rolls in the feeder league.

I'd only use him on receiving drives.

I was pretty thankful when he blew up your chainsaw guy, before I moved in and took him off the field myself. :grin:

The first time that happened, I was like "oh, well, that's goblins!"  But our game was the second time that the bombardier has nuked himself and the chainsawer out of the game.  In four games.  He's thrown one good bomb, delaying Ginaz' touchdown by a turn, and otherwise has been responsible for more injuries to my own team than any of the opponents I've fought against.  I'm just not sure if I'm using him wrong or he's always this shitty.

Does anyone have a current link to the BBManager installer? I had an unexpected system crash and have had to reinstall Windows, and it appears that the Cyanide forum link (from above, and elsewhere) is now broken. Google has not been much help, at least so far.

Here you go (http://94.23.239.117/BloodBowlManager.ClickOnce/publish.htm).

So i just started playing this, having a lot of fun playing skaven against the computer.  I want something bashy now though, what's the best team for hurting/killing the opposition?

Orc's a pretty good opener. Dwarves as well.

Chaos are the ultimate killers but require long term development. A good candidate for single player since you have easy kills against the opponent :)

Chaos is awesome for bashing.   :grin:

Nurgle also make very good bashy teams, but are a bit more advanced  If you're playing the ai though that shouldn't matter a whole lot; the ai is pretty crap.

 If you plan on making a Chaos team to compete in the f13 league definitely put them through the rigors of the Feeder League.

Get ready to lose a lot as well.

Dwarves are IMO the best starting roster for smushing people through about level 3ish, after that the developed chaos/orc/nurgle teams start to eat your lunch a bit.

Norse are a fun bashing team too. Just be prepared to get beaten up a lot as well.

Ok i did not like chaos or orcs, i think i'll stick to skaven.  I assume i won't be averaging four tds a game against real competition.  Also, whats a feeder league?

Since teams gain experience and level up, new teams are at kind of a disadvantage.  At the same time, you don't want to allow absolutely ANYONE in or else new teams can be absurdly overpowered (e.g. you can play against friends who throw the game repeatedly and keep rerolling teams until you get the exact level ups that you want).

So, for the F13 league, the only teams which are allowed to enter are new teams, teams from the previous seasons, or teams from the F13 feeder league.  The feeder league is basically a sub league which you use to level your guys a little bit without having to be in the full tournament.  There is a team value cap which you can't go over without being ineligible for the league, but if you pass it, you can delete players until you're back under.  It's also somewhere to play without being part of the tournament, where you can just go "who wants a game" without having to schedule it or anything.

Skaven actually can put up four or five points in real competition.  It depends upon the opponent and the side they're playing though, of course.

Kail beat me to it, but I'll add...

The Feeder League is an open league for f13 Blood Bowl players to build teams and have some casual play with other f13 members.  One can also import Feeder League teams into the regular season as long as the team's TV is 1300 or lower and the team has no money.  It's a good way to get your feet wet in multiplayer since we're all pretty friendly and can give good advice, and it can also soften the blow of entering the regular season with a newer team.

1300? oh well that shouldn't take very long, rats level like crazy.

They also die like ... well, like rats. Expect a higher rate of turnover in a multiplayer game than vs the AI.

Yeah, and even if they don't die the unjury table seems to punish them harder than most teams. 

I have more skaven on my team with broken necks and backs and bad limps than I do whole rats.

That's part of the fun tho.

Apothecaries are absolutely mandatory with Skaven teams. They will die HORRIBLY.

unjury ?  Cool Word Ironwood.

Unjury is what you need the apothecaries for.  :why_so_serious:

Ok so how do i join this feeder league?

It's all here in the first post (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=20399.0).

Hey, question -- Chaos Edition and Legendary Edition? Chaos is the newer one, right? I'd just need it? (There's a Steam Sale for the next 40 hours or so and wsa considering it).

Only buy the Chaos edition.  That's all you need and it is the most recent.

And don't just consider it.  Get it.  Blood Bowl is seriously good and f13 Season 6 is about to end so we'll be gearing up for Season 7 soon.  I've gotten hundreds of hours of entertainment from it and would consider it a value at full price.

Thanks!

When you buy it, join the f13 Bloodbowlers steam group.  I'll be looking for some games over the next few weeks in our Feeder league in the event that I need a new team for Season 7.  I'll be more than happy to show you the ropes and give you tons of tips.

Bought it, running the tutorial then probably play single-player a few games. :) Then hit the feeder league.

Hmm. Can't seem to create a team. Do I have to start a campaign first or something? I can log on to multiplay, find the F13 league (although can't see how to join it) and all -- but don't have any teams. The "create team" is greyed out under customize, if that's where you do it. So instead, single player campaign. :)

No, you don't create a team from there, you start a team in the multiplayer client.
Login to Cyanide network - and create a team.
Then hire your roster, then you're ready to play in multiplayer!

Also, from the repeated ass-kicking I'm suffering, let me assure you the "blocking" thing is very, very important and I suck so much with it. Fun though. :)

Check your dice blocks before confirming it. Low STR / High STR will affect this, as well as assists they're getting.
1 die is bad, 2 is good.

Supportive skills also affect the outcome of blocks.
Block, Dodge, Wrestle will help you understand why it's better to blitz with a blitzer and not with the catcher.

Should I be learning Blitz or Classic?

Classic

Classic.  Blitz is an abomination.

There is a great how-to for blocking at the top of this thread, I think.  It is only 3 or 4 pages long, but will explain how blocking works.  Blocking is pretty simple, but mastering it can take a while.  I have over 200 games under my belt and still learn new tricks.  If you want some scrimmage games against me let me know.  I've helped a few new players.

Blitz is almost identical to classic, except for some team management based details and some flukey extra inducements.  The thing you really want to stay away from is real-time mode.

I thought blitz was the real time mode.

No, real-time mode is an option under the Blitz type.  You can also play it in turn-based mode, where it's basically like classical in terms of how the actual game is played, there's just some weirdness with the teams (like you have to pick a sponsor now, who gives you a slightly higher starting bank depending on your objectives) and inducements (which are mostly weird, percentage based things, like you can play this derpy timing based minigame to give a player a chance to gain a point in an attribute for a game, but if you lose it they sit the game out, or you can spend money on potions of strength/agility/etc. which have a chance of giving the player a one game boost in that attribute, but might do nothing, that kind of thing).  You can also buy your players armor and stuff for extra bonuses, though it's expensive.  Generally, I like blitz mode for single player stuff, even though the CPU cheats relentlessly at it, because there's more options and stuff, but it doesn't really revolutionize the game.

I'm playing undead in campaign mode (medium difficulty) and my most successful game has been a 1-0 loss. I have yet to score. I was close, once, but time ran out.

Part of it's dumb mistakes -- clicking right instead of left and running a guy into an Attack of Oppurtunity. (It's not what's it's called, but it's what it is!). Last game there was a fun like...5 turns as both sides were unable to pick up a freakin' ball.

learn to cage.
like ... carrier in the middle... all tuff guys on the outer 8 tiles covered.

Yeah, I'm working that out. Also, when you create a new team -- is there a way to add/buy skills for them? Or does that just happen through play?

I haven't seen an option to change their skills or anything. They just come with what they come with.

 bro u cant buy skills, it's like rpg. get out there n earn the SPP
if u can buy skills - then everyone would fucking hate Chaos low tier team so much  :grin:

Skills are added as they level up.  Different pieces have different selections of skills as well, but that can be altered by your level-up dice.  You'll see that when you get there.  Block is rarely a bad first skill for any piece.

Don't be frustrated either.  You're going to lose a lot at first.

So, in short -- just make a basic team for the league and if the team score rises over 1400, I have to replace some players to keep it under for the feeder league?

That's pretty much what I thought. Undead is pretty fun to play, but my first few attempts -- I didn't buy enough rerolls. Those are important. I should have some. :)

There was a certain deep satisifaction in outright killine a few people when I was getting stomped into the ground. I may have lost, but they lost their ugly Cthulu-like center. Stone cold dead, not injured. :)

I'm wonderign what the odds are on stomping downed foes -- getting called by the refs, I mean.

The Feeder League has no limit on TV.  Just join with any team that hasn't played a game yet and you're set.  Right now, to move a team from the Feeder League to the regular season there is a TV limit, but we've actually been discussing increasing it or doing away with the limit altogether.  Just go for it, put several teams in the Feeder League so you can get a feel for different play styles.

Fouling is a fine strategy; you get caught when you roll doubles on the armor break or the injury roll, but the injury roll only occurs if the armor breaks.  The DQ odds depend upon the AV of the target because the odds of armor breaks change depending upon that value, but you have a 16.5% chance of being thrown out just on the armor break roll.  Generally you want to do it at the end of a turn because it can cause a turnover, and you should foul against a high value player using a player with a low value so if they do get DQ'd it isn't a huge loss.  Also, if you're going to foul, surround the potential foul with as many of your players as possible to assist.  If I have a player advantage, meaning, if I have more players on the field, I generally won't foul.  I tend to foul star players and one-turn scorers.  Fouling also doesn't give any spp and fouling on the last turn against a fellow human is generally considered bad form.

Seeing that red cross or skull appear when you wound/kill a player is a feeling like no other.  It's addictive, too.  Then you just have to start a Chaos team...

Also, name your players during hiring.  Having a naming scheme is a key to victory and makes playing the game a lot more fun.

On single player, doing the campaign -- am I supposed to be recieving such a thorough ass-beating? I'm getting creamed here (I once tied a game!) by teams with ratings like 300 points higher and full of people who can catch and dodge and crap.

Also, fuck dodge. Fuck those little weasel guys who dodge, every time, like five players. And also complete passes, and catch balls. My guys are doing good to pick it up off the ground.

You'll get better.  Seriously, play a live opponent who can give you come advice.  Dodge is less of an issue once you learn how to make your opponent dodge through unfavorable tackle zones.

I finally won one. I'm gonna go reread the blocking stuff now that I have a better feel for the game. There's times that I set up a block thinking I'd have a three-dice advantage and only have one, so I'm missing something.

Also, I totally did not know that the big guys could throw those tiny little suckers. Game was 2-1 (I won! HAHA!) because they tossed a little guy -- the one with the ball -- downfield and I had nobody back to hit him. OTOH, those guys drop the ball easily.

But god, it sucks to see fumble-fumble-fumble, or my personal favorite -- go that extra zone to get the TD and fail that step for a turnover. (it was go for it or get hammered next round, so..not much choice).

Currently just waiting for my league invite to go through.

We shd play tonite ... i'm elf so i dont' bash.

If I get approved by then. :)