[PC Game] Blood Bowl: Now on humble bundle!

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Update, 10/11/2013: For anyone that was curious about Blood Bowl but didn't want to pay $10 for the game while it was on sale, Blood Bowl: Legendary Edition (which is fully compatible with Chaos Edition, and is only missing 3 teams) is a part of the Weekly Humble Bundle, meaning you can get it for as low as $1.

https://www.humblebundle.com/weekly

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Has anyone here ever played Blood Bowl? Either the physical boardgame variety, or any video variation thereof?

It's basically Fantasy Football, only in this case the fantasy is Warhammer Fantasy. Orcs and elves and goblins and undead all seek to murder each other in a game of amped up, turn based strategy based loosely on the concept of football.

You earn winnings each game, and can use those winnings to buy players, upgrades (such as the all-important reroll ability) and apothecaries to help patch up your players. Individual players earn experience for what they do on the field, and can level up and gain new abilities as the season progresses. They can also suffer permanent injuries, or be outright killed, and death is permanent (unless you're lucky enough to have an available apothecary, and even then you might fail the roll).

I've been playing single player against the AI to learn the game, and I've been having my ass handed to me. But it's still a lot of fun, and it would be awesome if some HFers got in on this so we could put together a league.

It'll be up for sale on steam again eventually, I recommend giving it a looksee. In the meantime, here's my player roster for my current team of undead, the Hollywood Hellraisers.

 
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Bubble181

Bubble181

Own and have played the board game many times, I do own the Steam version as well but still haven't installed/played....
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

I've managed to convince Dave to give it a try. If we can get enough, we can put together our own Blood Bowl League.

To give everyone a taste of what it's like, here's a video giving you the basics.

 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Ok, so far we have Dave , Frank, Bubble181 and myself as actually owning the game. I've also talked to AshburnerX and Denbrought who are considering purchasing it. Who else is man enough to step onto the pitch and try for the Halforums Championship? The game rules take a little time to learn, but I'm more than happy to teach anyone that wants to learn, and we'll all make sure to get some good practice in before doing any tournaments.

We can do a round-robin style tournament, and even use the forum's bracket addon for brackets. Smart people should bet all their halbucks on me.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

So, it's the last day of the sale, and it seems Blood Bowl: Chaos Edition is not going back on flash sale. For those interested, though, it is still available at 50% off, making it $15[DOUBLEPOST=1374427101][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, if you absolutely had to save some bucks, you can get Blood Bowl: Legendary Edition for $10. It's compatible with Chaos Edition, you just can't play as the newer races.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Dave said:
So far I'm confused as well. But I'll playing some solo games to try and get better.
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I just gave Terrik a crash course. Hit me up on steam any time and I can do the same. He said it was very enlightening![DOUBLEPOST=1374512583][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, watch this, and learn from it. In fact, just subscribe to this guy's channel, he's really good and is really helpful for beginners.

 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

I also just want to mention a few important skills. Some units come with skills already, like blitzers usually come with block (this will be important in just a moment). As your players earn Star Player Points (also called SPP, which is obtained by completing a pass, scoring a touchdown, or causing a casualty on the enemy team) they will gain the ability to gain new skills. The skills you choose will be very important, and will help define your players into specific roles, or make them multifunctional in a variety of rolls.

If you're playing a team that likes to punch people, and really even if you aren't, the BLOCK skill is important. I'll explain why in a moment, but first lets talk about the block dice.

A block (also called tackle) die is a special D6, and is rolled every time your tackle an opponent. If your players strength is equal to the target you are attacking, you will roll 1 block die. If it is greater, you will roll TWO block dice and pick which you wish to use. If your strength is less, you will roll two AND YOUR OPPONENT GETS TO PICK, and if the strength difference is more than double, three dice will be rolled.

There are five possible outcomes to rolling the block die.

Attacker Down (basically a 1, critical failure) you fail to tackle your opponent, your player falls to the ground, and has to suffer an armor roll to see if they take an injury. All downs cause an immediate turnover, ending your turn.
Both Down : same as above, except both the attack and the defender go down, and they both roll for armor and injuries. This is still an immediate turnover.
Push: There are two of these on each die, giving it a high chance. You push your opponent in your chosen direction away from yourself, and have the option to follow up to stand in the square he was previously in.
Defender Stumbles : The defender is pushed in the direction you chose, and is forced to the ground (unless he has the dodge skill, in which case this is treated as a push). He must roll for armor, and could suffer an injury.
Defender Down: The defender is forced to the ground, this is a successful tackle. He is still pushed in the direction you choose, and you still have the option to follow up to move into his previous space.

So, if you're attempting to block an enemy, and rolling a single die to do so, you have a 1 in 3 chance of suffering a turnover because you rolled Attacker Down or Both Down. These are not good odds. If you're rolling two dice blocks (which you should) you have a 1 in 6 chance of suffering a turnover, which is better odds.

THE BLOCK SKILL means your player is not affected by the both down status (though the target you're blocking will still go down, which is good.) This means that with a single dice block, you only have a 1 in 6 chance of suffering a turnover (only attacker down will do it). If you're rolling two dice blocks (which again, you should) you only have a 1 in 36 chance of suffering a turnover! If you have rerolls available, this becomes a (mathers please check me on this) 1 in 1296 chance! This doesn't mean it won't happen, the dice do and always will hate you, but it's still good odds.


tl;dr

Always roll 2-dice blocks whenever you can instead of 1-dice blocks, and use players with the block skill whenever you can.
 
Azurephoenix

Azurephoenix

Are you playing turn based or real time? I get my butt kicked hard on turn based but smash the AI's face in real time.

I actually own this game as well (not the Chaos expansion though).
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Azurephoenix said:
Are you playing turn based or real time? I get my butt kicked hard on turn based but smash the AI's face in real time.

I actually own this game as well (not the Chaos expansion though).
Click to expand...

Which version do you have? Legendary edition can still play with us, you just can't play as the three new teams (which isn't that big a deal).

Turn based all the way, the real time version is a joke, and so is the AI. Hit me up on steam whenever you want some pointers, I promise I can make you a better player.
 
Azurephoenix

Azurephoenix

Ravenpoe said:
Which version do you have? Legendary edition can still play with us, you just can't play as the three new teams (which isn't that big a deal).

Turn based all the way, the real time version is a joke, and so is the AI. Hit me up on steam whenever you want some pointers, I promise I can make you a better player.
Click to expand...

Looks like mine is the Legendary Edition. Guess I'll have to fire it up and learn to play it the way it was meant to be played lol.
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
so wait this game is good? I heard really mixed things about it when it first came out. Did they clean it up with the expansion?
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Necronic said:
so wait this game is good? I heard really mixed things about it when it first came out. Did they clean it up with the expansion?
Click to expand...

It's been improved quite a bit through the different releases. The core game itself is really good, because it's just a faithful recreation of the awesome board game, and while the original xbox releases of the game were atrocious (no multiplayer!) the pc versions have been pretty good. It's not without it's oddities due to cyanide, the developer, not being the best at what they do, but they're easily remedied or just ignored in favor of playing a really good strategy game.[DOUBLEPOST=1374703694][/DOUBLEPOST]Oh, the 'new features' that cyanide included, like blitz mode and real time, are rubbish. Play classic.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Oh, and if anyone is still training in this game (and I'm still open for practice games!) before we gear up for the inevitable tournament, and you have questions about the game and for some reason don't want to post in my lovely thread, you can always RTFM! The steam overlay will access the manual to for the actual cyanide-made game, but it doesn't have -all- the information in it. If you go to your steam folder, though, and navigate to where the game is installed (It should be something like steam/steamapps/common/blood bowl) there is a pdf file called Blood Bowl Competition Rules. This is about 60 pages long and has ALL of the game rules in it, with a very helpful table of contents to quickly look up your question.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Ok, is anyone still interested in Blood Bowl? We weren't able to get enough players to make our own Halforums League, but if you still want to play, and want an AMAZING group of awesome, friendly people to play with, then I have great news for you.

First, join this steam community: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/cknoorbowl

You might recognize cKnoor as the name of that swedish guy that does all of the youtube videos I've posted. If you're interested in learning more about the game, make sure to watch those videos, and you can also watch his live streamed games during Friday Night Bloodbowl (details in the steam community.) Make sure to join the chat of the steam community, there's always a bunch of people in there to set up games against, or just answer general questions.

Inside the game itself, instead of joining the open public league (which is full of random internet people, aka assholes) you should join the Mister Hadwick Invitational. Just search for it in the league interface and apply your teams to it. Do note that you must have custom player names for your team to be approved, but you should be naming your players anyway, they live longer! If you want to speed the process, you can ask in the steam community chat if anyone is available to approve your team.

And of course, if you want to play against the Poemeister, you can find me in there too. I'm always happy for a game.[DOUBLEPOST=1376967055,1376966788][/DOUBLEPOST]Oh, also, game is currently on sale on steam for $7.50
 
Terrik

Terrik

Ravenpoe said:
Ok, is anyone still interested in Blood Bowl? We weren't able to get enough players to make our own Halforums League, but if you still want to play, and want an AMAZING group of awesome, friendly people to play with, then I have great news for you.

First, join this steam community: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/cknoorbowl

You might recognize cKnoor as the name of that swedish guy that does all of the youtube videos I've posted. If you're interested in learning more about the game, make sure to watch those videos, and you can also watch his live streamed games during Friday Night Bloodbowl (details in the steam community.) Make sure to join the chat of the steam community, there's always a bunch of people in there to set up games against, or just answer general questions.

Inside the game itself, instead of joining the open public league (which is full of random internet people, aka assholes) you should join the Mister Hadwick Invitational. Just search for it in the league interface and apply your teams to it. Do note that you must have custom player names for your team to be approved, but you should be naming your players anyway, they live longer! If you want to speed the process, you can ask in the steam community chat if anyone is available to approve your team.

And of course, if you want to play against the Poemeister, you can find me in there too. I'm always happy for a game.[DOUBLEPOST=1376967055,1376966788][/DOUBLEPOST]Oh, also, game is currently on sale on steam for $7.50
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Can you change player names after you have created the team or do you need to do that during creation?
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Terrik said:
Can you change player names after you have created the team or do you need to do that during creation?
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You can change player names at any time before their first game. After their first game, the names are locked in.

You can always make a new team if you have default names. You're more than likely going to end up playing several teams anyway, just from the nature of the game.
 
Tiger Tsang

Tiger Tsang

I'm game to try this. One thing though, have they finally made a formation/playbook editor that you can use out of game? The last time I tried this, Legendary Edition, it would *NOT* save the proper players in the proper places.
 
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Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Tiger Tsang said:
I'm game to try this. One thing though, have they finally made a formation/playbook editor that you can use out of game? The last time I tried this, Legendary Edition, it would *NOT* save the proper players in the proper places.
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I honestly always place my players manually, just because I keep track of who is where with what skills that way. It does have a formation save feature, but it only saves it for those individual players, I think.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

For everyone that has joined the Mister Hadwick Invitational, I have a brand new team set up that you can practice against.
 
Officer_Charon

Officer_Charon

I need to hurry up and hone my skills with this... I truly do get some shitty dice rolls, though. It's certainly not due to being a total n00b. Nope nope nope...
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Officer_Charon said:
I need to hurry up and hone my skills with this... I truly do get some shitty dice rolls, though. It's certainly not due to being a total n00b. Nope nope nope...
Click to expand...

Any time you want, we can play a game. Bad dice are going to happen, it's just a fact of the game. In fact, it's usually a good strategy to roll as few dice as possible, and force your opponent to roll as many as you can.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

For anyone that still wants to get in on this, Blood Bowl is on sale once again. You can get the newest version with all of the teams, Chaos Edition, for $7.50, or you can buy the previous version Legendary Edition (which is missing 3 out of 20+ teams) for $4.99, and is fully compatible to play with Chaos Edition.
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

Eh, I'm pretty sure anyone who was at all interested has, by now, given in and bought it on one sale or another ;)

Anyway, I always prefer systems with d10 or d20 for that reason. No matter how awesome and super you are, in BB you'll always have at least a 1/6 chance to fumble something, or vice versa, a 1/6 chance of succeeding no matter how incompetent. While I'm in favour of critical hits/failures, those odds are just too harsh.

(It's also one big advantage of the clobberin' teams - blocking can go up to 3 dice, but no matter how great you are, you'll never get more than one reroll on a pass/interception/catch/whatever, effectively leaving you at a max of 2 dice.)
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Bubble181 said:
Eh, I'm pretty sure anyone who was at all interested has, by now, given in and bought it on one sale or another ;)

Anyway, I always prefer systems with d10 or d20 for that reason. No matter how awesome and super you are, in BB you'll always have at least a 1/6 chance to fumble something, or vice versa, a 1/6 chance of succeeding no matter how incompetent. While I'm in favour of critical hits/failures, those odds are just too harsh.

(It's also one big advantage of the clobberin' teams - blocking can go up to 3 dice, but no matter how great you are, you'll never get more than one reroll on a pass/interception/catch/whatever, effectively leaving you at a max of 2 dice.)
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If you're doing things that have a 1/6 chance of failing, you're doing it wrong. If you use your skills correctly, most actions with skilled players should have a 1/36 chance of a critical failure, as skills like dodge, catch, pass, sure hands, etc have an automatic reroll built in, allowing you to roll two dice. So D20 systems actually have a higher critical fail rate.

And clobbering teams are still limited to 1 blitz a turn. Even if you can get enough assists to roll 3 dice (which is rare) against a skilled opponent with block and dodge, it's still a low chance of actually knocking him down. You still have to roll a six to do so.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

I wanted to share this, because it's awesome.

I've been playing as halflings, who are undoubtedly the absolute worst team in the game. They're bad at everything, and so weak and fragile, but they're a lot of fun.

I took on Skaven as my opponent, a much much higher level awesome Skaven team, 700k greater teamvalue, and unlike halflings, Skaven are one of (if not the) best teams in the game.

At half-time, this was my injury box:



No injured halflings, only 1 ejected for fouling.

Here was my opponent:



The skaven, being skaven and able to do amazing plays, was able to tie it up in the end for a 2-2 draw, but nearly all of his team got crippled by my tiny, cruel, jelly-stained fists of fury. Not a single halfling was harmed.
 
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