Jan 13, 2014 2:51 pm
I am looking to start up a league using Cyanide Studio's video game adaptation of Blood Bowl. The league will be divided up into divisions and will run similarly to the NFL hopefully culminating in a championship matchup between two well developed teams. I am hoping to get a number of players from Gamer's Plane and the league will be called the Gamer's Plane Official Blood Bowl League, or some such nonsense. I currently have three teams in my league but I would like at least 8. Below are the answers to some question you might have.
1. What is Blood Bowl?
A: Blood Bowl is a tactical (and complicated) miniatures game depicting a fantasy sport (combining concepts from American Football and Rugby) that is played by the races of Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy Universe. The game is fun and very engaging once you learn its rules, it does have a steep learning curve. The game is over 20 years old, has been through several editions and is fairly well developed. Blood Bowl in its true form is hard to find and is fairly expensive but it was made into a video game in 2009.
2. What is the video game like?
A: Blood Bowl: Chaos Edition (the version I am using) is a faithful recreation of the board game. The video game plays exactly like a board game dice rolls and all. The key difference here is we can run this tournament over long distances and without spending $100+ each. The game is fairly affordable at about 30 bucks on steam. It frequently goes on sale. The game has online leagues and full support for tracking team (and player) stats, dividing leagues into divisions, scheduling matches, and setting up tournament brackets. One of the best aspects of the game is that you manage your team both on and off the field. You hire players, improve the skills of experienced players, replace injured players, and buy coaching staff. Of course this is all done in the brutal warhammer fantasy universe so you might hire a wizard or a necromancer to help you cheat your way to victory.
3. What should I not compare this game to?
A: Madden Franchise - Blood Bowl is not a realistic or real time football simulator
NFL Blitz Games - Blood Bowl is not an over the top real time football game
Mutant League Football - Blood Bowl is not real football in real time with Monsters and Death.
To Reiterate it is a turn based board game, just visualized with animated graphics.
4. Why Blood Bowl?
A: I want to do something where we can let out our competitive sides while still doing a little thinking. I ran a Warhammer 40k Campaign online using Vassal 40k and had a lot of interest but it sadly never happened as my first child was just born and it was too much to track. This game will allow us to have a thinking man's competition by playing a fun strategy sports game where we can track stats, team development, and have as much or as little fun with this on the forum as we like with all the tracking done by software. Besides I always liked the idea of sports just never could get into real stats, I can enjoy rooting for my favorite team (probably my own) as I watch it climb to the top of the rankings here on Gamer's Plane.
5. How are we expected to have a fair competition when you already know how to play?
A: I setup an open no structure league called the Gamer's Plane Preseason Training Camp. All games played in that league are unranked and do not affect the stats or development of the team you will be playing in the actual league. You can also have as many teams as you like in the Training Camp so you can try out different races and different builds while challenging any of the other players in the training camp to learn the game and try out different things. The training camp will stay up the whole time the real league is going on so you can continue to test theories and practice or just for the sake of playing even when your team does not have a match scheduled. There will also be 4 preseason games in the official league that are unranked and do not affect your position in your division, they do however count as practice for you and your team. You will be using your actual team during the preseason and therefore players will gain experience and skills before the season starts. The flip side of course is that players can be injured or killed before the season starts too. After the last preseason game all games will be scheduled and ranked.
6. This game sounds likes its more about luck than skill, what did you say about dice?
A: While it is true that even the best laid play can come crashing down thanks to lady luck, how does the saying go? No plan ever survives contact with the enemy. The dice have ruined games for me and this game is notoriously frustrating when an otherwise perfect plan fails but at its core Blood Bowl is a game all about risk assessment and mitigation. You take safe actions first and risky once last. You position players to perform assists to improve die roll odds. You set up in such a way that the opponent has to roll as much as possible. Luck is only part of the game, luck represents player skill. Even in real sporting events a coach can lay out a perfect play only for a player to drop the ball, it happens and the game represents that with dice rolls. Besides look at the Gamer's Plane logo, dice are we do.
7: Alright cool, we make the team, we hire the players, what are the races you keep talking about?
A: Blood Bowl: Chaos Edition has 23 different races too choose from. This is not the same as 23 different teams as two Orc teams can play very differently. Granted each race has a preferred play style but that can be defied and you assign the skills to each player. You also get to pick how many of each position are on your team, within the limits of your races options, so two teams can be the same race and could play differently. It is important to note that some races are not very good at Blood Bowl, or just aren't well suited to it and therefore are harder to play. The teams are intentionally unbalanced as a way of handicapping experienced players when they are playing against beginners. This works as follows and is often a subject of debate:
Tier 1 teams (The Races Good at Blood Bowl) - These teams are well balanced to each other and Tier 2. Beginner Teams Mostly.
Humans
Elves
High Elves
Wood Elves
Orcs
Norse
Amazon
Undead
Dwarves
Tier 2 teams (Races Average at Blood Bowl) - These teams often lack starting skills or options but can become very strong.
Chaos Dwarves
Chaos
Dark Elves
Nurgle
Khorne
Khemri
Lizardmen
Necromantic
Skaven
Tier 3 Teams (Races that Suck) - These teams lack starting skills, options, have weaknesses and unique mechanics. Experts Only
Goblins
Halflings
Ogres
Underworld
Vampires
Anyone who is interested in joining please post your interest here. It will cost you up to $30 to be involved if you do not already own the game. You can purchase either the legendary or chaos edition on steam for 20 or 30 dollars respectively. Those two editions are compatible on multiplayer but get all the races if you buy chaos edition.
1. What is Blood Bowl?
A: Blood Bowl is a tactical (and complicated) miniatures game depicting a fantasy sport (combining concepts from American Football and Rugby) that is played by the races of Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy Universe. The game is fun and very engaging once you learn its rules, it does have a steep learning curve. The game is over 20 years old, has been through several editions and is fairly well developed. Blood Bowl in its true form is hard to find and is fairly expensive but it was made into a video game in 2009.
2. What is the video game like?
A: Blood Bowl: Chaos Edition (the version I am using) is a faithful recreation of the board game. The video game plays exactly like a board game dice rolls and all. The key difference here is we can run this tournament over long distances and without spending $100+ each. The game is fairly affordable at about 30 bucks on steam. It frequently goes on sale. The game has online leagues and full support for tracking team (and player) stats, dividing leagues into divisions, scheduling matches, and setting up tournament brackets. One of the best aspects of the game is that you manage your team both on and off the field. You hire players, improve the skills of experienced players, replace injured players, and buy coaching staff. Of course this is all done in the brutal warhammer fantasy universe so you might hire a wizard or a necromancer to help you cheat your way to victory.
3. What should I not compare this game to?
A: Madden Franchise - Blood Bowl is not a realistic or real time football simulator
NFL Blitz Games - Blood Bowl is not an over the top real time football game
Mutant League Football - Blood Bowl is not real football in real time with Monsters and Death.
To Reiterate it is a turn based board game, just visualized with animated graphics.
4. Why Blood Bowl?
A: I want to do something where we can let out our competitive sides while still doing a little thinking. I ran a Warhammer 40k Campaign online using Vassal 40k and had a lot of interest but it sadly never happened as my first child was just born and it was too much to track. This game will allow us to have a thinking man's competition by playing a fun strategy sports game where we can track stats, team development, and have as much or as little fun with this on the forum as we like with all the tracking done by software. Besides I always liked the idea of sports just never could get into real stats, I can enjoy rooting for my favorite team (probably my own) as I watch it climb to the top of the rankings here on Gamer's Plane.
5. How are we expected to have a fair competition when you already know how to play?
A: I setup an open no structure league called the Gamer's Plane Preseason Training Camp. All games played in that league are unranked and do not affect the stats or development of the team you will be playing in the actual league. You can also have as many teams as you like in the Training Camp so you can try out different races and different builds while challenging any of the other players in the training camp to learn the game and try out different things. The training camp will stay up the whole time the real league is going on so you can continue to test theories and practice or just for the sake of playing even when your team does not have a match scheduled. There will also be 4 preseason games in the official league that are unranked and do not affect your position in your division, they do however count as practice for you and your team. You will be using your actual team during the preseason and therefore players will gain experience and skills before the season starts. The flip side of course is that players can be injured or killed before the season starts too. After the last preseason game all games will be scheduled and ranked.
6. This game sounds likes its more about luck than skill, what did you say about dice?
A: While it is true that even the best laid play can come crashing down thanks to lady luck, how does the saying go? No plan ever survives contact with the enemy. The dice have ruined games for me and this game is notoriously frustrating when an otherwise perfect plan fails but at its core Blood Bowl is a game all about risk assessment and mitigation. You take safe actions first and risky once last. You position players to perform assists to improve die roll odds. You set up in such a way that the opponent has to roll as much as possible. Luck is only part of the game, luck represents player skill. Even in real sporting events a coach can lay out a perfect play only for a player to drop the ball, it happens and the game represents that with dice rolls. Besides look at the Gamer's Plane logo, dice are we do.
7: Alright cool, we make the team, we hire the players, what are the races you keep talking about?
A: Blood Bowl: Chaos Edition has 23 different races too choose from. This is not the same as 23 different teams as two Orc teams can play very differently. Granted each race has a preferred play style but that can be defied and you assign the skills to each player. You also get to pick how many of each position are on your team, within the limits of your races options, so two teams can be the same race and could play differently. It is important to note that some races are not very good at Blood Bowl, or just aren't well suited to it and therefore are harder to play. The teams are intentionally unbalanced as a way of handicapping experienced players when they are playing against beginners. This works as follows and is often a subject of debate:
Tier 1 teams (The Races Good at Blood Bowl) - These teams are well balanced to each other and Tier 2. Beginner Teams Mostly.
Humans
Elves
High Elves
Wood Elves
Orcs
Norse
Amazon
Undead
Dwarves
Tier 2 teams (Races Average at Blood Bowl) - These teams often lack starting skills or options but can become very strong.
Chaos Dwarves
Chaos
Dark Elves
Nurgle
Khorne
Khemri
Lizardmen
Necromantic
Skaven
Tier 3 Teams (Races that Suck) - These teams lack starting skills, options, have weaknesses and unique mechanics. Experts Only
Goblins
Halflings
Ogres
Underworld
Vampires
Anyone who is interested in joining please post your interest here. It will cost you up to $30 to be involved if you do not already own the game. You can purchase either the legendary or chaos edition on steam for 20 or 30 dollars respectively. Those two editions are compatible on multiplayer but get all the races if you buy chaos edition.
