* f13 MatchMaking Feeder League *

[IainC]

Had a very Pyrrhic victory against IainC in the feeder league just now - my thrower took a -1 agi, a lineman died, and my super wardancer is now 6 AV. 

Going to take some real doing to get this team to a 1300-playable-in-main-league state now.

I can't complain about the injury dice, there were pleasingly few elves polluting the pitch by the end but I definitely would have liked a bit more averageness in my pick-up rolls though. The last few turns of each half were a comedy of errors as Skinks kept failing to get the ball over and over again.

[Llyse]

Had two great AND HILARIOUS games against Megrim's fresh Necromantic team.

Vampires and Ogres surprisingly the Ogres drew and the Vampires won!

Sadly I should be busy with Asian interpretations of Halloween parties this weekend but message Catfud for more Blood bowl in the future!

Tale of the tape:

[Llyse]

Continued my Blood Bowl addiction and had another friendly with Megrim, playing his Necromantic with my undead.

Overall an uneventful game where I was outplayed for a 2-0 loss but I did kill his newly levelled Block Wolf 

His 2nd new Wolf however rolled doubles and now as Might Blow to dish out the pain 

[lamaros]

If anyone wants a game say hi on steam.

[Ulysees]

If anyone is looking for some feeder league action today just hit me up on steam.

[luckton]

Just had a fun match with Llyse's Vampires vs my off-season 'flings.  She scored twice, but I managed to finally get a TD in thanks to the roll of the dice.  My previous MVP Treeman won again, and is already halfway to his next level.

Can I swap out teams in the season? 

[Ingmar]

Random thought about the qualification rule for feeder league teams, please feel free to shoot as many holes in this as I haven't really thought it through very far:

What if we made the rule 1300 TV not counting fan factor? That would make the contortions you have to deal with in order to develop your team to 1300 to get it ready a lot less annoying, without having much if any impact on the team's actual effectiveness. Are there any big downsides I'm missing?

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Yeah: how pissed I will be that the rule wasn't in effect before I brought in my wood elves to get their asses crippled!

[proudft]

I thought Fan Factor affected how much monies you get at the end of a match in some way?  That would be some benefit from it, however small.

[Ulysees]

Whilst I believe you are correct it doesn't directly influence the skills of the players you bring into the league and I think that is the main point of the proposal. Personally i don't mind since I will be sticking with the lizards for a while I think, too much effort to build them up, though if either of the norse teams or that damn goblin chainsaw dude manage to kill my mighty blow saurus I might feel differently!

[Ingmar]

It affects the FAME calculation:

Each team rolls 2d6 and adds their fan factor at the start of the game to determine how many fans you have at the game. If you have more fans than your opponent, you get +1 FAME, if you have twice as many you get +2 FAME. That gets added to your rolls for some opposed things on kickoffs (cheering fans, brilliant coaching, thrown rock targeting, and pitch invasion success chances). You also determine your money at the end by adding 10,000 extra per +1 fame you had, so a winning team with +2 FAME gets d6+3x10,000 gold.

So, yeah, it has an effect on the game, fairly minor and random unless you're talking about extreme differences in FF between teams.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Yeah I did the math at some point and you need a hell of a lot of Fan Factor to make any sort of monetary difference. Its greatest potential impact is in kick-off results, but it's going to take some serious effort to get a 1300 TV team with any sort of FF advantage on existing league teams.

[Ingmar]

And given that it starts a feeder league team early on the path to TV bloat, I'm not sure it's not just a wash anyway. I was just brainstorming for ideas to help feeder league teams be able to play a couple more games to replace players who get hurt along the way without risking stuff like fan factor increasing their TV past the point where they could actually join the league legally before they get the cash needed or whatever.

[Llyse]

I think it's nice to not include but it slightly complicates it for Falc when adding new teams.

And it does slightly affect gameplay so my initial vote is no ignoring FF.

Also it means theoretically you can recycle your team infinitely ignoring FF values until you've rolled all the +1 strength and doubles you need. (an unlikely scenario I know) but still  

[Ingmar]

Well, you could also do that by just deleting and remaking teams until you get one you're happy with. Up to Falconeer which one of those options is more annoying really. 

But yeah I can see the simplicity argument.

[Megrim]

I thought that it was a means of compensating for the ability to develop a team prior to League entry.

You are able to come in with a more developed team -> you are more likely to win matches -> you are more likely to make the money back.

Of course, most vanilla teams going into the League have zero cash after spending it all on team creation; but that just leads into the fact that the game favours high-armour pieces in skill retention, and that high-armour teams tend to stockpile money regardless of opening strategy. Bonus FF feeds free cash into that cycle.

The way we have it now, at least there is the possible flexibility of playing a vanilla team and having cash left over in the kitty/buying FF early and not taking subs for cheap low-armour teams.

[luckton]

In other news...

I think I'm about 'flinged out with Halflings for the moment.  It's a beautiful team when it works, and I've learned a lot from sacrificing many of them.  That said, I've submitted a fresh Orc team to the Feed for random play and perhaps future season participation. 

[lamaros]

I have also submitted a new side.

Msg me on Steam if you would like to play a game!

[Falconeer]

Sorry for not accepting new teams. I am gonna do it now. Also, I am going to promote Lamaros to Nerd Extraordinaire, which means he'll be able to accept teams too. Why Lamaros? Why not!?

[lamaros]

To celebrate this historic milestone I have added a new Vampire team to the league. May they live long in our lives and our hearts.

[Falconeer]

Anyone up for a game? Right noww.

[luckton]

Anyone up for a game? Right noww.

I'm down!

[lamaros]

I know most of you are asleep now, but game anyone?

[luckton]

I know most of you are asleep now, but game anyone?

Shoulda' pinged me an hour ago, I usually wake up around 0400 EST and get in a little game time before work.  Would love to get my new Orc team some game-time. 

[lamaros]

In the end I played Llyse a bit. My Vamps v Skaven. Won the first game 4-2! Except that was because he crashed. Lost the second 4-1, but could have made it 3-2 if I had been more lucky with some throws and/or pickups.

Vampires is hard, and I don't think starting with four and three rerolls is the best way to go. So in the Finger Painters were short lived. Long live their replacements, RED RED RED.

[luckton]

In the end I played Llyse a bit. My Vamps v Skaven. Won the first game 4-2! Except that was because he crashed. Lost the second 4-1, but could have made it 3-2 if I had been more lucky with some throws and/or pickups.

Vampires is hard, and I don't think starting with four and three rerolls is the best way to go. So in the Finger Painters were short lived. Long live their replacements, RED RED RED.

In all of the research I've done, I've yet to see a Vamp team with no less than 5 RRs going into a match.  I suppose it also depends on the number of Vamps you actually employ as well...mo' blood sucky, mo' problems, right?

[lamaros]

Megrim only has 4. He is a much better player than me though, and experienced with Vamps.

[luckton]

Megrim only has 4. He is a much better player than me though, and experienced with Vamps.

Indeed...I robbed him of two RRs per half when we played our S5 match and he still schooled me 

[luckton]

Progress continues with my Orc team.  Played Ruvault in a couple matches last night, one against his fresh Dark Elf team, and the other his Gobbos.

The dice were in no way kind to me for at least 75% of the Dark Elf match.  Rarely did I receive a Defender Down or Stumble, and I threw a good chunk of two-die blocks too.  Ruv on the other hand lucked out to giving the Orcs dirt naps for most of the time, and schooled me proper in fine Elfish Bullshit arts, to include taking my new Troll out of the match and missing his next game.  AGI 4 Elfs made my Orcs look like they all standing still Bone-headed, and all avoided any Badly Hurt or worse injury rolls at all for the couple that I manged to take down. 

For the Goblins, I still had a somewhat rough start on dice rolls, but things turned around in the end.  Managed to keep the Gobbos from scoring on their fully-loaded Secret Weapon first-half drive, blocked the Looney's Chainsaw back into his face, and managed to not have the goblin trolls beat me up too badly.  Ruv's Fanatic manged to perma-bench a couple of my Orcs before I could get away from his wild flailing about.  For the second half, Ruv kicked the ball all the way to my endzone, giving me a tough time just trying to move the ball past the line of scrimmage with his Troll road-blocks.  It seemed though that Nuffle decided that he was done tormenting me, and the dice blocks started commin' up Defender Downs and the goblins fell one turn after the next.  The trolls moved in to put the pressure on my Thrower, but in the end, a couple of bad dodges by the gobbos opened up a hole that allowed me to pass the ball to the safe hands of a Blitzer, and spend the last couple turns just free running to the end-zone, waving buh-bye at the gobbo Fanatic flailing around wantonly on defense. 

A Blitzer leveled up and now brings the team their first Tackle player, and a Black Orc learned how to Guard, allowing him to lend his STR 4 to others in future matches.  Miraculously, my Troll got MVP in the Elf match, and is a good Casualty hit away from leveling up himself.

[Ingmar]

My orcs are now sitting at 1300 and ready for possible promotion next season. 

[proudft]

On the bones of my human team.   My humans are now 0-3, but I'm not sick/annoyed/quitting them yet!  RIP Starbuck and Pip, you will be buried at sea.

[Ingmar]

Hey I only killed one of those guys!

[eldaec]

Available for feeder league action around about now. Someone ping me on steam.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

My orcs are now sitting at 1300 and ready for possible promotion next season. 

From one boring, conservative AV9 team to another. Break out of the box, man! Step into the light!

[Ingmar]

I was going to play wood elves, but my feeder elves are in the spiral of need-cash-to-replace-people-but-playing-more-makes-my-TV-go-up-so-I-need-cash-to-replace-people etc.