I played against a halfling team. Halflings are considered one of the worst teams in the game -- even worse than vampires! -- but the coach had a couple of years of experience over me, so I wasn't expecting any sort of significant advantage.
I scored early, which I feared might be a problem as it would give my opponent plenty of time to score in return, and that did indeed happen although a few of his plays failed to come together because of bad luck, so it could have been worse.
My luck failed in the blocking and tackling. Halflings are weak and soft and I should have smashed lots of them but while I knocked plenty down, I wasn't able to injure any. I think the only proper injury to afflict my opponent's team came about when his own treeman dropped its halfling team-mate on his head, killing him! That's Blood Bowl.
My players are in theory made of much tougher stuff but once again I ended the game short on personnel as all the injury rolls favoured my opponent. The thralls are cheap and are designed to die, but one of my vampires spent about two-thirds of the game unconscious in his coffin, refusing to get back into the game. Flakey Anne Rice bastards.
Two of my thralls will miss the next match, which doesn't give me much wiggle room in terms of numbers. I am saving up for a fourth vampire but I am tempted to get another thrall in the interim, just to give me more people on the pitch.
My number 13, Gary, scored the only touchdown for the People Eaters and was named MVP for the third match running, so is now staggering under the weight of all his experience points; this is good as he now has a fine array of special skills, but it has left the other vampires undeveloped, and makes him a bit of a target. I need to weigh up keeping him in the game, and making use of those skills, against protecting him and allowing the other two vampires to get involved and earn experience. It's a tough balance.
Anyway, I'm happy with how the game went and I feel most of what went wrong was bad luck rather than bad play. I hope.
Final Score: Purple People Eaters 1 - Lamb Shank Redemption 1
I have organised my first inter-conference games, and will be playing them in the next couple of weeks. I was reluctant to do so at first because I'd been drawn against teams with much more experience than my own and I feared the mismatch would be too much, but I have decided to embrace the inevitable.
One of the teams is an Underworld squad, a loose alliance of skaven and goblins, and I am expecting a big loss there as they have a couple of high-level players, including at least one that can score in one turn. The other has a much higher team value than my own, and lots of dangerous-looking players, but has lost nine games out of eleven, so I'm not sure what will happen there.
I have so many questions. So your figures can level up and get better if they make some big plays? So are there upper and lower limits to how many players your team can have on the field at one time? Can you lose automatically if too many of your players get knocked out?
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you're getting a handle on how to play, if the randomness of dice rolls are what hurt you this time.
1) Yes, your players get Star Player Points as they complete passes, score touchdowns, get interceptions, injure opposing players, and get selected as MVP. Once they get a certain number of points they gain a "level", learn new skills, and can sometimes get special skills and attribute boosts. Chaos and skaven players can get mutations!
Delete2) There is a maximum of eleven players per side allowed on the pitch at a time, and you have to have a minimum of three on the line of scrimmage at the start of a half or play.
3) If you don't have the minimum of three, you have to concede the match; it hasn't happened yet but it's got close!
Blood Bowl is very random. Even the best player will fail an action on a roll of a 1. Blocking is a bit more complicated but there are still no ways to guarantee success.
It's not entirely random; there is lots in the way of skill and strategy involved, but a key skill is to choose when to roll and when to take safe actions. There's a lot of risk management in the game.