Blood Bowl: Life in the Leagues

[Dog Pants]

A little while ago I applied to join the Rock Paper Shotgun Divisions of Death, and today I was allocated a position in Division 7. So I'll chronicle my experiences of competitive Blood Bowl here. For background, the Divisions of Death are run as 30-day seasons with each division containing 4 teams, like I believe American Football is configured. There's a Championship at the top, and lettered and numbered divisions below. Needless to say, 7 is the bottom. Which means the whole league has 14 divisions containing 56 teams. Apparently this makes it the biggest organised Blood Bowl league in the world. Races are limited to 4 teams per race, so there's a lot of versatility, but also there's limits to who you can choose to play.

Division 7 consists of myself coaching Anupshi Rises, a Khemri team I chose for the aborted Keys Bowl, convenient because there was only one other Khemri team in the league, a Chaos team called Ulf's Marauders, and two Elf teams, one named Masqued Ballers and the other as yet unnamed. I'm hoping the coaches are relatively inexperienced so I can cut my teeth in comfort with the as yet untested Khemri. I hate playing against Elves though, sometimes you just can't stop the bastards. We'll have to see how that goes anyway. Watch this space.

[Fred Woogle]

Goodluck Mr Pants :D

[buzzmong]

Ooooh, this could be fun, I'll make sure to keep up to date with this.

As for Elves, new teams are fucking fragile as I found out against you guys. Knock out their catchers and you'll nullify any real offense, their linesmen aren't useful until they rank up at least once, getting dodge, if not twice. Throwers can kinda be ignored as they're just feeders for catchers and have no more use than linesmen above that. Blitzers are targets of opportunity but can be replaced by linesmen in the meatshield role. Players are also very expensive so Elven teams find it hard to recover from losses until later on when they've got a cash reserve.

[fabyak]

Woo! Nice one Mr Pants, best of luck!

Maybe we can fire up the league again and you can cut your teeth on us?

[Dog Pants]

My first game proved to be a bit of a shock. From having lost only two games in my entire Blood Bowl career, I get a battering in the bottom league. Okay, so score-wise it was close, and a few lucky rolls (or a few less unlucky ones) might have seen a very different story, but a bad coach blames bad luck. Still, I found out something important today: Fresh Khemri teams can be glass cannons. This leaves a lot of them lying on the ground at any given time. So I shall be replacing as many skeletons as possible, as quickly as possible.

Ulf's Marauders (Chaos, Jlahnum) 1 - 0 Anupshi Rises (Khemri, Dog Pants)

The two fighting teams of Division 7 lined up on a scorching day in anticipation of a violent match. A kick to the Marauders was quickly scooped up and heavily caged along their right field by beastmen, while the greenhorn Chaos Warriors learned their first lesson about Khemri - that Tomb Guardians are freakishly strong. The hefty cage smashed into the skeletal Anupshi linemen like a bowling ball, slowing but not stopping. True to form though, whenever a beastman's horns smashed one of the linemen they simply picked themselves back up and lurched back into the fight. Getting bogged down, the Marauder ball carrier was smashed through the fragile skeleton defences and made a plucky run for the touchline. Despite a surprising rally of bony defenders though, the runner gets through for a mid-half touchdown.
Now receiving, and with half the team on both sides out of the game with heat stroke, Anupshi Rises burst forward through the threadbare Marauder defence in a lightning attack by a blitzer. Supported by a lone skeleton the momentum didn't last long, and there proved to be ample beastmen left on the pitch to flatten the runner. Before the end of the half the fragile Anupshi skeletons had suffered for their blitzer's impetuousness, with the Marauders injuring one and KOing another.

The second half looked tricky for the Khemri team, starting with nine men against a team who had kicked them all around the pitch during the previous half. Nontheless, an ambitious feint left led into a doomed pass toward a small hunting party of players on the right touchline. Relying on slow reactions and overcommitment by the Marauder's beastmen, the would-be receivers were disappointed to find themselves skull-to-skull with the Chaos linemen once more as the defence snapped back into place. Despite punting a defender into the crowd, the Khemri could only manage to fight the ball a few yards further before the action ground to a halt and turned into a game of attrition. With the seconds ticking away, both teams seemed to consolidate their positions by beating up the other with the ball skipping around as only a mild distraction. As the final whistle blew, the commentators were heard to remark on how hard you need to hit a skeleton to leave a blood splat on the pitch.

[Roman Totale]

I get a battering in the bottom

Ouch.

What sort of game style do Khemri favour - are they slow and steady like Dwarves, or just fighters like Chaos?

[Dog Pants]

I had them down as fighters, since the highest AGI on the roster is 2, but their linemen's AV of 7 makes them pretty delicate. They have a good set of specialists in four heavy blockers (Tomb Guardians), two Blitzers, and two throwers, but with nobody to catch those throwers are pretty useless at anything other than picking the ball up. I think I've not got a lot of choice really but to play the caging game, and rely on weight in numbers of skeleton subs to keep me on the pitch. In hindsight a bad decision, I wish I'd have chosen Humans now, but I'll enjoy the challenge of turning them into a decent team. And I've got two Elf teams to hammer for Star Player Points in the meantime.

[Dog Pants]

Oh, I forgot to mention, the little Blood Bowl community revolving around the league is lovely. I had some very good, friendly banter with my opponent last night, and the small investment in your own little league makes it a lot easier to associate with the others than random games against internet denizens.

[Dog Pants]

Well. I sit here stunned after my last game. Playing the Masquerade Ballers, an elf team and fellow previous-match-loser, I was expecting to inflict enough injuries to maybe concede a touchdown and then walk the ball in mostly unopposed. I actually got pounded into the dirt - by elves - without inflicting an injury and going down to 8 men at one point. My mummies bounced off the skinny linemen, rolling skull after skull, the elves dropped the ball onto my touchline after every kick and my thro-ra chased it about several times until the elves picked it up for me and trotted it in. I lost 3-0, and am really regretting picking Khemri.

[Dog Pants]

Another game, another thrashing. 4-0 this time, however I'm resigned to the fact I have a shite team and so I could look at this with objective amusement. Helps that I'd lost the league regardless of the outcome. Lady Luck squats over my chips once more, with one injury and 5 KOs against me in the first 7 turns. It was lucky that I had a touchdown against on turn 3 so that my players weren't all off the pitch at once. Again, my skeletons failed to make much of a mark on the Elves, who skipped through my lines to score, regardless of who was in possession. Conversely my team made 1 of 5 pickups, even with Sure Hands. I put up a good fight at the end of the first half, pushing a cage to the half way line, but with time running out I made a dash and was felled for my trouble. I can take a little consolation in a couple of injuries inflicted, which means a few SPPs, but with my poor team selection leaving me short of my best players, and very little money coming in I'm struggling to catch up.

What's the 5punky opinion: Reboot with a new team but risk looking like I'm pouting, or persevere with this one despite not liking the one-play Khemri much and potentially having another few seasons of beatings ahead until I can afford another Tomb Guardian?

[Anery]

Restart with something you know how to play well, the people you are coming up against aren't 5punkers so they know how to play. If you carry on Khemri you might start to hate the team and the game, and maybe start to sound like Kenneth Williams.
Fuck em, what do you care what they think?

[Dog Pants]

I've been pondering a little more and I sort of like the idea of struggling a bit, now I'm over the shock of losing. Khemri are a tricky team to play and need some development, so if I persevere I might come to love them all the more for the initial adversity (although it would still help if I had created my team correctly). Also, I have accumulated some SPPs as this team which would be lost, and I've been beating hard AI opponents so there's a decent chance I'll win a game or two at some point. Plus, I like their name. I'm still in two minds, but one of them is bloody and wants to hammer on.

[buzzmong]

Well, if as you said earlier, experienced Khemri teams are absolute bastards, then it might be worth persevering.

[Dog Pants]

The season has finished for Div 7, with last night's opponent The Longitudinal Life winning promotion and myself only escaping relegation by virtue of the fact that there's no division below me. The final table looked like this:

Division 7 (W/D/L)
The Longitudinal Life (Elf) - 2/1/0 - 7pts
Masquerade Ballers (Elf) - 2/0/1 - 6pts
Ulf's Marauders (Cha) - 1/1/1 - 4pts
Anupshi Rises (Khe) - 0/0/3 - 0pts

I don't quite understand what happens next. The rules are clear enough about promotion and relegation, but the middle two teams seem to switch diagonally with their sister division (G), which would seem to mean that those teams will end up moving together. Surely it would make more sense for just one to move? Anyway, it looks like next season I'll be playing a Goblin team, so that should be interesting. On a more personal note, despite getting an entirely unfamiliar pasting I've thoroughly enjoyed the experience. All three of my opponents were gracious and friendly, and playing in such a large extended competition is quite interesting. I admit I don't read all the match reports, but everyone on the forum thread seems to get along nicely. A good, sporting atmosphere all round. If anyone else fancies joining me a new season will be starting in a couple of weeks, but there's a little prep work (signing up, getting your team created, etc.). Be warned though, you do need to be able to have a little flexibility in fitting the games in (although you get 10 days to play plus extension if you ask nicely).

[FatherJack]

Stick with the Khemri, it'll be all the more glorious when you do win.

[Dog Pants]

Season 8 begins with an unexpected turn of events. Due to team changes my whole division got promoted and I find myself starting this season with the exact same game - against Jlahnum's Chaos team. I hope he hasn't had much in the way of money or SPPs, because I certainly haven't had any. I've decided to stick with the Khemri. I don't enjoy playing them much, and I gimped the team with poor player selection from day one, but I'm approaching this whole venture with a Dwarf Fortress outlook now that I've taken my hazing. Losing is fun*! In another repeat of history, of sorts, I find myself up against two elven teams. I hope I can actually win a game this season, despite my team having progressed nowhere and facing three teams who probably have. Here's division F at the opening of the season:

jlahnum - Ulf's Marauders (Chaos)
Dog Pants - Anupshi Rises (Khemri)
AgP - Agathis Avengers (Wood Elf)
DeekyFun - Dandy-Lions (High Elf)


*Most fun when playing with a goblin team.

[Joose]

Losing can be fun, as long as you have some idea of how and why you lost, and how you can try and avoid the same happening in the future. I only find losing shitty when I feel powerless against it. Thats part of why I dont play Beef any more, it irritates the piss out of me because I rarely have any idea how I could avoid having died when I died. BB, on the other hand, I can nearly always identify where I have fucked up (even if I have a terrible tendancy to repeat those mistakes over and over ).

Personally, the reason I like games like BB is the working out what im doing wrong and how to improve it, so I would rather lose all the time than win all the time. If I was always winning I imagine I would get bored pretty quick. Losing means there is a challenge there, and it makes the wins mean more.

I may join in with this uber league of yours when my proper internets return. How long do seasons run?

[Dog Pants]

Thirty days, plus a few for admin. You get ten days for each game, so you have plenty of time to get the matches sorted.

[Joose]

Sounds good. Now I just need a good name for an inept Ogre team

[HereComesPete]

You should call one of them Bigzubb Hammerpants. Or Zorgun Bumcrusher. Or Gargelz Ballgorger. Or Rughump the Stompy.

I love coming up will ogre names. Bumgrab the Thobber's Skullcrushers.