Match Recap: Tree Hugging Fairies (Wood Elf) vs. Lokapojat (Necro)

New Blood Bowl league season has been opened!
First three games of the regular season were fought simultaneously, but the focus on this recap is on the Necro vs. Wood Elf match. The two other games were Chaos vs. Orcs, and Dark Elfs vs. Chaos Pact. Here seen on the background: on the unforgiving Stone Pitch Greenskin Lovers (Orcs) meets BMC Body Hammers (Chaos). On the foreground is the foam-core pitch with team Necro on the right and Wood Elf on the left represented with unpainted red plastics from the second edition of Blood Bowl.



Team Necro miniatures are still work in progress: one Werewolf figure is a vintage Citadel animal handler (blue base with "2") with greenish skin tone to cheaply imitate his Necromantic quality... Still a long way to go with this posse. Wight figures with Block skill are old Lotr Uruk-hai ("5") and 3rd edition Human blitzer. Zombies and the Ghoul runner holding the ball are closer to the final look of the team. In this match the higher team value of Wood Elf team gave Necro newbies a star player Inducement: J Earlice is chosen for the task. This fast (8 MA) piece with ball handling skills and Dodge is good addition to match the elven speed.

Game starts with the first Kick-Off: Perfect Defense gives the Elf team time to reorganize their players before the undead start to move forward. This does not help the Elfs a lot: Wood Elf defence is not the easiest to thing to manage in Blood Bowl. First turns are really fast and the 4 min time limit is not enforced: Necro fails to pick up the ball, and on their first turn Elf coach rolls "1 re-roll 1" in an attempt to Dodge... Elf Catcher falls down and the fragile armor brakes: Badly Hurt guy with pointed ears is carried of the pitch when game had barely started. With the undermanned defense line the game is relatively fast 1-0 for the Necros. Wight number 6 scores the first touchdown on the 6th turn of the first period.

With only two turns left in the period Elfs try to make it to the end zone fast - no such luck: Werewolf pushes the Catcher out of the Pitch and angry undead fans beat the poor Elf to a pulp. Another Badly Hurt Elf and even less players to put in to the play on the second period.



Second period and third drive of the game starts when Necros kick the ball very close to the Line of Scrimmage.

In this new league we are still using the good old House Rule of two free Special Play Cards (50k decks, drawn randomly) for both teams. First card to see the action is "That Babe's Got Talent" played by the Elven team. "Ball Clone" by the Necros makes the Elven attack disorganized: they have to divide their forces to catch both of the balls. This proves to be ill-advised tactic, soon both balls have changed hands and its team Necro with two balls and Elfs are left with desperate defense.



Now there are only five Elven players left on the pitch: they call on the services of "Rogue Wizard". Fireball finds its target with deadly accuracy: J Earlice carrying the ball is hit! And soon the fire spreads and all supporting Necro players in the loose cage formation are hit to the ground also. Werewolf had already took the false Clone Ball to the Elven Endzone and this thing that J Earlice was holding is the real thing. Elfs have their small window of opportunity, but alas - "1 re-roll 1" again! The Elf coach rolled four of these killer "1 re-roll 1" things in the duration of the game... so with better luck they might have capitalized on this Fireball attack but now it only slowed down the Necro attack.



On the 16th and last turn of the game Werewolfs celebrate the second touchdown: J Earlice seems pretty happy too.

Post match procedures see the touchdown making Werewolf leveling up too: now both Wolfs have the Block skill.

Team standings on the regular season ("Runkosarja" in Finnish) after the first three games. Chaos team BMC Body Hammers managed to pull 2-0 victory on the Orcs, so they are sharing the first place with team Necro. Half of the 12 teams are still without any games, so its too early to say anything about the league in general. But good start for the new Necro team: two games done with 5 touchdowns made, looking forward to more challenges.



The other teams have developed too, there is now AG 4 Line Orc in the Greenskin Lovers team and Chaos Beastman with Side Step. To wrap up this recap - here's a list of the latest skill upgrade picks for the teams in the league.

Dungeon Bowl match report - random fun for three teams

After a long break with Dungeon Bowl we made a variation of the tried and true set up: big central chamber with symmetric starting positions. With three players the positions are randomized - there is some advantage to start with empty endzone opposite to you. As usual we used dungeon floor plan bits from the Descent board game by Fantasy Flight.



The teams were Skaven, Goblin and a new Chaos Pact team roster. With these teams - there were a lot of big guys: Skaven Rat Ogre, Goblins had three Trolls and Pact was fielding both a Minotaur and a Troll. But what is a dungeon without monsters?!

The game started with Chaos Pact and they made "blind blitz" thru the teleports: Minotaur crashed the Skaven party!



Within the first three turns there were two deaths: Skaven started to flee their Minotaur ridden starting location thru teleports... And unlucky Gutter Runner teleported right to the loving arms of Team Goblins Troll. Once again dungeons proved to be a pretty dangerous place. Blood was everywhere and team Skaven suffered four (4!) casualtys altogether: two deaths, Rat Ogre with Fractured Leg (missing next game) and one badly hurt Linerat. When two rats were lost in the limbo of the dysfunctional teleports only three rats were in the play when the match ended.

Oh, but there was a ball in the play too... That was found from the first treasure chest by the lucky Chaos Pact team. And what kind of a ball: house rule of Scarab ball. Here are our house rules to open a chest. This table is used until the ball is found. After that the changes to get money bags is increased, and there are Summon Runes that can bring new npc monsters to the board, etc.



This idea of a moving ball serves a twofold purpose: first, it rises the interest of coaches not currently moving miniatures - even if your turn is jet to come the ball might come crawling your way. Secondly it can help to break a gridlock where many players are next to the ball and their zones make picking up the ball very hard. This time the game was so brutal in removing players that the number of zones was not a problem.

Chaos Pact had the ball first in their hands, but it was knocked to the floor by the Skaven. As mentioned above, the skaven lines were thin by this late in the game and were desperately trying to reach the Endzone before the players vanished altogether. Here seen are two rats planing a dash thru the Goblin defenses - two Trolls stand in their path. Hired gun Ripper closer to the ball and and another Troll in the background.



They used their cunning ways to slip past the big guys - Linerat (#10) had a Magic Item card of Beguiling Bracers found in treasure chest, waving these in front of the Ripper made him dazzled by their beauty (lost zones). Gutter Runner slipped thru and saved the day for the badly beaten team Skaven.

Post-match sequence gave a consolation prize for the Chaos Pact team: +1 AG for the Dark Elf - so that is going to be someone to watch for in the future games.

Blood Bowl Cup Semifinals Overtime House Rules

During the regular season games can be finished with tied result, but now that Semifinals are (finally) played out we needed some rules about the Overtime. So, here follows our House Rules for Overtime play:


OVERTIME HOUSE RULES

If score is even after regular 16 turns of game, Overtime is played. If the game is still tied after the 8 turns of overtime, Sudden Death overtime starts with Golden Goal rule.

OVERTIME
Overtime is extra 8 turns of game, with regular setup, kick-off and scoring in place. In other words, it is like setting up for third period of game with following exceptions:

1. No re-roll regeneration
If teams have any re-rolls unused from the regular game they do carry to the overtime. Note: players with Leader skill do not generate re-rolls for the overtime.
Kick-off table results may increase the re-roll count as usual.
(Fluff: it is assumed that the break before the overtime is somewhat shorter than regular interval between periods. Gameplay function: More fails means faster turnovers.)

2. New Coin flip is made to see witch team kicks the ball
(It does not mater who made the last kick-off or touchdown on regular game time, new coin flip is made to determine who setups for defense.)

3. No new cards for the third period
Note to the House rule where it has been customary to draw one 50k Special Play Card for each period: no new cards for the overtime. If there are any Special Play Cards left from the regular game time (still unplayed in hand or played cards that have a effect for the whole game) they carry to the overtime.

SUDDEN DEATH
If the score is still even after the overtime period, Sudden Death overtime starts. This means that a new setup is done, and new Coin-flip to determine the kicking team. All exceptions for the first overtime period apply here too. Sudden Death period is played till either team scores, thus winning the game and ending the overtime.

Dungeonbowl - Sudden Death update

Three player Dungeonbowl match: starting from lower left corner - Red Anvils (Chaos Dwarf), upper left - Turska Pojkar (Norse) and from top right - FC Vislanders XII (Lizardmen). Norse team has the highest rating 1.830.000 gp - giving reroll inducement for Dwarfs and two star players for Lizards: Morg'n'Thorg and Hemlock. And rarely it is seen that Side Step skill can be used to cause this much Turn Overs and even Casualtys...

Layout had 8 teleports, half of them in the central cave. Here situation seen mid game where Norse Yhetee is camping on Teleport 4, looking for new victims after killing one of the Saurus Lizards. Game spilled some Hobgoblin blood too, when the misdirected revenge of the Vislanders fell hard on the greenskins. Apothecary saved the life of Hobbo nro 10 with Dodge skill - nice move since the same Goblin got MVP and second skill upgrade.

This from the first Lizard rush to the Endzone - Alien figure representing Hemlock, and red Descent beastmen as Saurus figure stand-ins.

All three hobbos ended in the Injured box, and Frenzy Chaos Dwarf Blocker was lost in the void when Teleport misfired the poor bastard out of the game. Almost half of the team gone and Minotaur being the useless Wild Animal as usual rolling on the dungeon floor, Red Anvils Bull Centaurs had the all the responsibility of scoring. They failed miserably.
Every team had a chance to score, here Norse offense runs into trouble when Morg'n'Thorg and Hemlock attack from the behind and Minotaur blocks the way ahead. Finally on the turn 21 (!) Hemlock makes the touchdown and makes the new Lizard teams first win a reality.

Epilogue - Lessons learned
The game went on and on - the Sudden Death rules were in action but they failed in the regard that the Spiked Ball was hard to the touch - leaving the ball usually on the floor and not in possession of any team. It was agreed that new addition to the rules should read: "From the start of the 16. turn for the remainder of the game - Touchdown can be scored on any Endzone on the board, not just the oposite Enzone from the teams starting location." And in addition the rules should be rewritten so that they have some effect even when the ball is not carried by a player.

Few things to bear in mind when deciding where to put those teleport pads. Connectivity : Putting teleports to those hard to reach dungeon dead ends is a good idea: now those parts of the cave design got more traffic and action.
Opportunity attack : Placing Teleport next to walls is usually a good idea - this makes camping at them not so tempting.

Dungeonbowl revisited

Had few more Dungeonbowl games. One with three players (image of dungeon setup above) went quickly and nicely: ball was in the second treasure chest and High Elfs were fast enough to score after the humans fumbled with the ball... The layout had two alternate routes to each Endzone and 8 Teleports instead on the usual 6.

After this we tried the game with five coaches going at it in the same dungeon, this made the game slow and too random. Plus we played for 16 turns without a touchdown. So, to counter this started to think about some new House rules, namely Sudden Death Table.
More rules and modifications on the works. Mainly to provide more variation and balance to the game when played with regular Blood Bowl team rosters, instead the Colleges of Magic team lists within the original rules.