BLOOD BOWL - You should be playing this

[Malakili]

80% off on Steam this weekend sale.  8 dollars for the Legendary Edition. I suspect I will pick it up before the weekend is out.

[luckton]

80% off on Steam this weekend sale.  8 dollars for the Legendary Edition. I suspect I will pick it up before the weekend is out.

I suspect that for eight bucks your post should have said that you already bought it and are in the process of downloading it or already playing ಠ_ಠ

[eldaec]

This doesn't last much longer, you should buy this in the next few hours. Or tomorrow for $40. Whatever.

[Bzalthek]

I picked it up and found out I am horrible.  SO horrible.  I'll work on it, but I'm not holding my breath.

[eldaec]

We have a lot of terrible blood bowl players, you'll fit right in.

(It's me, I'm the terrible blood bowl player)

[IainC]

I picked it up and found out I am horrible.  SO horrible.  I'll work on it, but I'm not holding my breath.

Most of the reasons as to why you are horrible can probably be fixed by playing a soft game versus a real person who explains wtf to you while you play. A lot of the rest can be fixed by reading the stickies in the BloodBowl Bullshit sub forum.

[Kail]

I picked it up and found out I am horrible.  SO horrible.  I'll work on it, but I'm not holding my breath.

Most of the reasons as to why you are horrible can probably be fixed by playing a soft game versus a real person who explains wtf to you while you play. A lot of the rest can be fixed by reading the stickies in the BloodBowl Bullshit sub forum.

This times a thousand.  The rules look SO complicated when you're reading about it (or doing the tutorial), but once you see it in action, it's fairly easy to understand.  We're still in between seasons at the moment, so if you want to play a few games, there's a lot of people who are free for a game or two.

[Nebu]

People on these forums are good at games.  REALLY good.  I came to realize this the first time I played an FPS with schild.  It was humbling.  I can only imagine playing BloodBowl with you lot would be the same, humbling experience. 

Still... at $8 I should probably pick this up. 

[IainC]

Join the F13 Bloodbowlers group on Steam and harrass anyone who's online for a game. There's a helpful ranking in the BB stickies of the regular players and so you can avoid the sharks while you find your feet if you like or, alternatively, you can ask one of the top dogs to show you the ropes.

[Khaldun]

I always feel horrible about starting up something that has a loyal multiplayer following--there's no way not to feel like a complete git, like you're walking out on a tennis court with a squash racquet and wondering what to do next. But I'm kind of intrigued.

[Ruvaldt]

The rules are pretty simple and it really doesn't take long to get up to speed with the game.  Once you understand the rules and feel comfortable it never stops being fun in multiplayer leagues.  Everyone here has a great bunch of folks to draw upon for advice and games to help them get better.  I always volunteer for Feeder League games for new coaches to ease them and that offer still stands.

[Falconeer]

Nebu, honestly I am surprised you haven't joined our lot yet. Not that I know you that well, but I think Blood Bowl is surprisingly underrated to begin with, and so much more between fucks as old as us. You should totally be playing this. The learning curve is steep-ish without a human-guide, but that's easy to fix. As Iain said, join the f13 Steam Group, join the f13 Feeder League and ask for a game. Whoever from f13 will play you will certainly make it into a Blood Bowl free lesson (and given that nuffle is above everyone, you could even win).

Khaldun and Bzalthek, same thing. The game is so good, and it's all about "persistence" and community/smacktalk. Growing your team is just delicious, and sharing that with other f13 fellas is a unique experience not found in any other game.

Finally, as stated before, the f13 Feeder League (as opposed to the f13 Main League, now in Season #5) is not a real League, just an environment that makes it very easy for everyone from f13 to play against each other, test new teams, track progression and eventually promote a team to the Main League for the upcoming open Season #6).

I can't state this enough: the game has terrible UI and does everything to fuck with people (bad clicking, bad luck, takes real geekery to figure your way out of a 1987 boardgame concept), but our f13 paradise is kind and helpful, and by going gentle on your players' bones it helps in getting the best out of this raw gem.

Blood Bowl doesn't really express its potential if you don't join a community. It's along the lines of playing an MMO offline. And don't feel bad for losing, we all do except AndyDavo, and you get progression XP even when you lose.

[luckton]

I agree with everything everyone said here, and can vouch for fun one can have.

As a fellow newb, my advice is the following:

- Play Human.  They're about as middle-of-the-road balanced as you can get, and offer a great way of experimenting with the various aspects of the game (blocking/tackleing, passing/running the ball, etc.)  Beyond humans, you start hitting the see-saw of pros and cons of throwing game vs. running game, bashy teams vs. dodgy teams and risk vs. reward.

- Read the first 15 pages of the rulebook.  That will get you acclimated with the basics of the game.  Then go play story mode for a bit.

- After you've tried a game or two to get a feel for it, go read the advice stickied thread in the BB sub forum.  Lots more stuff that's easy to wrap your head around.

[Hayduke]

Tried a few games in single player.  I think I understand the blocking aspect mostly but I'm still getting destroyed on easy difficulty.  Where in single player should I be starting?  Campaign, competition, story mode or something else?  Don't really want to hit multiplayer for awhile.  Guess it's time to read the stickies.

Also how many maps are there?  I only saw two of them.  A very dull grass map and a subterranean one I think which was prettier.  I was kind of hoping they'd show more of the fans and cheerleaders, and I'm already annoyed by the announcers.

[eldaec]

Turn the announcers volume to zero in options.

Story mode, campaign mode, it doesn't really matter.

Play orc, human, norse, or maybe unread while working out wtf.

Make sure you understand the rules on blocking and dodging. The computer shouldn't beat you on easy if you understand those rules.

The 'maps' are just backgrounds, there are maybe halt a dozen. All functionally identical.

[Ruvaldt]

A pdf stickied in the Blood bowl resources/questions thread named "The Art of Blocking" is excellent and should set you up to beat the hell out of the ai teams.  It's also good to check out the Blood Bowl Tactics website when building your team because they have some excellent articles on TV1000 team-building.

[Kail]

Tried a few games in single player.  I think I understand the blocking aspect mostly but I'm still getting destroyed on easy difficulty.  Where in single player should I be starting?  Campaign, competition, story mode or something else?  Don't really want to hit multiplayer for awhile.  Guess it's time to read the stickies.

Also how many maps are there?  I only saw two of them.  A very dull grass map and a subterranean one I think which was prettier.  I was kind of hoping they'd show more of the fans and cheerleaders, and I'm already annoyed by the announcers.

There are nine maps in Legendary Edition (versus six in the original release).

If you're looking for somewhere to get the hang of things before jumping into multiplayer, you might want to look at campaign mode.  A lot of the game is about leveling up players and managing funds and so on, which you don't generally have to do in story or competition modes if I remember correctly.

What kinds of problems are you having vs. the AI?  If you can give us a few examples of key mistakes/bad rolls, maybe we can give you some advice about what you're doing wrong (the game is not awfully good at making this obvious).

[ezrast]

Since this tends to come up, I'll add that you need no familiarity with actual football to be able to enjoy this (else I wouldn't be playing). It's closer to a competitive tactical RPG than to a sports game.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, the game is obviously a ruleset made by people who were dimly aware American football exists, and there are things called "touchdowns." And that's it.

[Ingmar]

Since this tends to come up, I'll add that you need no familiarity with actual football to be able to enjoy this (else I wouldn't be playing). It's closer to a competitive tactical RPG than to a sports game.

Yeah, the most relevant gaming experience I have to Blood Bowl is D&D Miniatures.

[Nebu]

Since this tends to come up, I'll add that you need no familiarity with actual football to be able to enjoy this (else I wouldn't be playing). It's closer to a competitive tactical RPG than to a sports game.

Bah.  You had me... then you lost me.

[Bzalthek]

I made my first touchdown today!  Yay me!

[rk47]

Game boils down to: how much risk vs reward you want to take? There's a lot of fun to be had when you play high risk team in multiplayer.
And there's the mind numbing dwarves.. Use your creativity.

[Paelos]

It is football, really, but in a turn based format. And you can murder your opponents.

[Sky]

Bah.  You had me... then you lost me.

Elves if you want a passy team (which is referred to as elfy bullshit). Orcs for bashy starter team. I played my Orcs as a passy team...worked great one season, not so much the second.

You should definitely give it a whirl. I hate it but love it. Nuffle will kick you over and over but then you'll pull off something crazy that makes you love it all over again. And then you roll doubles on your Black Orc level-up for +1 STR.

[Hayduke]

Tried a few games in single player.  I think I understand the blocking aspect mostly but I'm still getting destroyed on easy difficulty.  Where in single player should I be starting?  Campaign, competition, story mode or something else?  Don't really want to hit multiplayer for awhile.  Guess it's time to read the stickies.

Also how many maps are there?  I only saw two of them.  A very dull grass map and a subterranean one I think which was prettier.  I was kind of hoping they'd show more of the fans and cheerleaders, and I'm already annoyed by the announcers.

There are nine maps in Legendary Edition (versus six in the original release).

If you're looking for somewhere to get the hang of things before jumping into multiplayer, you might want to look at campaign mode.  A lot of the game is about leveling up players and managing funds and so on, which you don't generally have to do in story or competition modes if I remember correctly.

What kinds of problems are you having vs. the AI?  If you can give us a few examples of key mistakes/bad rolls, maybe we can give you some advice about what you're doing wrong (the game is not awfully good at making this obvious).

I've gotten more of the hang of it in single player though I'm still not doing well.  I can score and win, but I think the problems I mostly have are with dodgy teams (those damn wood elves).  They just run circles around me, ignore my tackle zones, and score at will.  I don't know if there's some way to stop them, or if I should just let them score asap to get a possession change.  Then at least maybe I could hold onto the ball and beat the ever living snot out of them and hope for some casualties.

[Megrim]

Well, you are quite ahead of the learning curve as far as dealing with Elves goes. Most people take a while longer to work it out.

[Ruvaldt]

Yeah, breaking their legs is your first, and best, option.  I actually like kicking to Elves and letting them receive at the beginning of the game.  They will generally score quickly, leaving me plenty of time for a long, plodding drive for a TD in which I smash them and take a few out.  If you start the second half with more players on the pitch and are receiving the ball it's very difficult for them to do much on defense if you're careful.

Also, force them to dodge into tackle zones.  It doesn't state it very clearly in any tutorial, but dodging into tackle zones, unless the player has Stunty, is more difficult than dodging into an open square.  As a long-term solution, build a few players who have tackle; it's an amazingly useful skill if you put it on the right players and remember to set them up to use it.

But yeah, it's tough to stop Elves from scoring.  That's just the way they're built and it's the only thing that keeps them as competitive as they are.

[luckton]

If you really want a sobering experience, play as Halflings vs. Dwarfs. 

I don't know whose idea it was to give an entire team Block and Tackle right out of the box, but if I ever meet them, it'll be a swift crane kick to the teeth followed by a punch to the throat.

[eldaec]

New people : remember if you want to start getting some games against actual people, put a team in the feeder league and post here...

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=20399.0

... people will start harassing you for some blood bowl over steam.

[Yegolev]

Well... I don't care for harassment.

[eldaec]

Then stop wearing such a short skirt.

[Sir T]

If you really want a sobering experience, play as Halflings vs. Dwarfs. 

I don't know whose idea it was to give an entire team Block and Tackle right out of the box, but if I ever meet them, it'll be a swift crane kick to the teeth followed by a punch to the throat.

Well that's not strictly true, but the only ones without block are the runners (of which you only get 2) who will level up very quickly anyway, and if you have any sense block is the first skill they get. Tackle is a bit rarer, but I can't remember offhand which players get it.

[IainC]

Blockers start with Tackle.

[Sky]

And oddly, Black Orc Blockers do not start with block.  GW