Look at that.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Introducing...
... the all-new all-fantastic Blood SBowl All Time Hall of Fame! Now the league can forever remember the standout performances of the fastest runners, sharpest passers, most brutal murderers, and of course the coaches who drive them to these feats of madness. Don't see your name up there as much as you would like? Well, play better, you baddie. If Aaron can top the leaderboards, anyone can.
Seriously.
Look at that.
Look at that.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Announcing Blood SBowl Season 3!
The ancient fields lay dry and bloodless, the stands creak emptily in the howling winds, and the shadow of an iron-fisted tyrant looms over the kingdom. One among you will drive the villain SB from his throne... but who?
We'll find out soon, because the third season of the Blood SBowl league will begin some time during the evening on TUESDAY, MAY 14TH! As always, the league will have a single-round-robin regular season followed by a cut to a top 4 single-elimination playoff. The expected match frequency is one per week, rolling over early if all games are completed (and, of course, exceptions can be made for extenuating circumstances). Any team will be accepted, so put on your gear, practice your murdering skills on some people that you don't care about, and maybe teach your players how to handle the ball.
We'll see you on the pitch!
We'll find out soon, because the third season of the Blood SBowl league will begin some time during the evening on TUESDAY, MAY 14TH! As always, the league will have a single-round-robin regular season followed by a cut to a top 4 single-elimination playoff. The expected match frequency is one per week, rolling over early if all games are completed (and, of course, exceptions can be made for extenuating circumstances). Any team will be accepted, so put on your gear, practice your murdering skills on some people that you don't care about, and maybe teach your players how to handle the ball.
We'll see you on the pitch!
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Season 2 Final Standings
After a series of playoffs that left every team battered and bruised followed by a savage, bloody final that included a turn 1 death, 5 KOs, an additional 8 casualties, and FOUR failed teammate throws, the Tromaville Terribads have managed to claw through the playoffs to claim victory for Season 2!
Congratulations to all involved, especially newcomer Mojo for posting the best overall record despite having only played like three games of Blood Bowl before starting the league. News on league awards and the beginning of Season 3 soon to come!
Preserved for posterity:
Playoff final standings:
Regular season final standings:
Congratulations to all involved, especially newcomer Mojo for posting the best overall record despite having only played like three games of Blood Bowl before starting the league. News on league awards and the beginning of Season 3 soon to come!
Preserved for posterity:
| Position | Player | Team | TV |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | SB | Tromaville Terribads (Underworld) | 1610 |
| 2nd | Mojo | WYLA (Undead) | 1470 |
| 3rd | Alise | Deez Hawks (Wood Elves) | 770 |
| 3rd | Sean | Krenlash's Team (Vampires) | 1340 |
Regular season final standings:
| Player | Team | TV | W-L-D |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mojo | WYLA (Undead) | 1630 | 6-1-2 |
| Sean | Krenlash's Team (Vampires) | 1510 | 6-2-1 |
| SB | Tromaville Terribads (Underworld) | 1670 | 5-1-3 |
| Alise | Deez Hawks (Wood Elves) | 1000 | 4-4-1 |
| Aaron | Soul Silver (Lizardmen) | 1480 | 4-4-1 |
| Will | The Broman Empire (Norse) | 1290 | 3-3-3 |
| Pi | Drinking & Fighting! (Dwarves) | 1250 | 3-5-1 |
| Brian | Blighttown Bashers (Nurgle) | 1330 | 2-5-2 |
| Austin | Y.o.l.o. (Humans) | 1190 | 2-4-3 |
| Mike | Khorn in my Thong (Khorne) | 1340 | 0-6-3 |
Monday, April 15, 2013
League Update: Season 2 Stats
The in-game Hall of Fame boards are, unfortunately, calculated off of players' lifetime stats rather than their season stats, so they're not good indicators of in-season performance. Fortunately for all of you, though, the league commissioner is a big stats nerd and did proper Hall of Fame boards by hand!
In addition, here's some more notable statistics:
BLOOD SBOWL SEASON 2
HALL OF FAME
HALL OF FAME
| Most Improved | Best Scorer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Best Passer (Yardage) | Best Passer (Completions) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Best Runner | Best Receiver | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Most Violent Player | Best Interceptor | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
In addition, here's some more notable statistics:
Highest Turnover: Team That Lost The Most Players To Deaths And Firings
Deez Hawks (6)
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD: Most Combined Injuries Inflicted And Sustained
Tromaville Terribads and WYLA (33)
Tyin’ Em Up: Player Who Screwed Up The Most Opposing Dodges
Smekhare the First of WYLA (8)
Oh Come On, I Even Took A Skill For It: Player Angriest About Not Winning That Last Award
Julie of the Tromaville Terribads (So Angry)
We’ve Got Spirit, Yes We Do: Largest Cheerleading Squad
Krenlash’s Team and Deez Hawks (1)
The “Remembering That There’s A Ball” Award: Most Yards Gained
Goin Deep of Y.o.l.o. (318)
Quick Hands, Strong Legs: Most Interceptions
Jormungandr’s Revenge of Drinking & Fighting!, only interceptor in league history
Hungry For Victory But Also Other Stuff: Player Who Most Often Tried To Eat Teammates
Toxie of the Tromaville Terribads (It Felt Like A Million)
Toxie of the Tromaville Terribads (It Felt Like A Million)
Season 2 Regular Season Complete!
Here are the regular season standings, preserved for posterity:
Congratulations to WYLA, Krenlash's Team, Tromaville Terribads, and Deez Hawks on their playoff berths!
| Player | Team | TV | W-L-D |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mojo | WYLA (Undead) | 1630 | 6-1-2 |
| Sean | Krenlash's Team (Vampires) | 1510 | 6-2-1 |
| SB | Tromaville Terribads (Underworld) | 1670 | 5-1-3 |
| Alise | Deez Hawks (Wood Elves) | 1000 | 4-4-1 |
| Aaron | Soul Silver (Lizardmen) | 1480 | 4-4-1 |
| Will | The Broman Empire (Norse) | 1290 | 3-3-3 |
| Pi | Drinking & Fighting! (Dwarves) | 1250 | 3-5-1 |
| Brian | Blighttown Bashers (Nurgle) | 1330 | 2-5-2 |
| Austin | Y.o.l.o. (Humans) | 1190 | 2-4-3 |
| Mike | Khorn in my Thong (Khorne) | 1340 | 0-6-3 |
Congratulations to WYLA, Krenlash's Team, Tromaville Terribads, and Deez Hawks on their playoff berths!
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
In Memoriam - Sir Pussy Arm
This season of Blood SBowl has been replete with thrills and chills appropriate for the whole family, provided that nobody in your family gets traumatized easily. We would be remiss, however, if we did not mention with a note of remorse the occasional tragedy, no matter how spectacular it may have been in the moment. It is in this spirit that we take a moment to remember a fallen fixture of the league: Pusstafar Braynard Armondson. Known for his unusually regal diction and effete manner somewhat inappropriate to a Blood Bowler, his teammates took to mockingly calling him "Sir" and "Milord" during basic training. When his accuracy and powerful throwing arm became apparent, however, the mockery turned to admiration (some of it, anyway). From then on his team and supporters referred to him mostly affectionately as "Sir Pussy Arm", we imagine because his full name was so long. Unfortunately, he was torn away from us suddenly during a regular season game against the Tromaville Terribads when the villainous skaven Knuckles pretended to be down and wounded until Pusstafar drew near, at which point he rose up and sunk his claws into the unsuspecting human's face. Of course, this act of treachery will go unpunished because it's wholly within the game rules and honestly it was pretty badass. But that does not mean that we cannot look back fondly upon our fallen friend!
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Advanced Tactics: Injuries
Everybody comes to a game of Blood Bowl looking for some heads to roll. The fans want to see blood spill and, although they may be loathe to admit it, both coaches are aiming to put enemy players in the ground. Conversely, nobody likes to lose players, but if you're looking to run with the same 11 men on the field forever you might want to go play Madden or something. I might write another post in the near future about how best to preserve your squad, but today we're talking all about the opposite.
As you can see, Piling On provides a tremendous improvement over the base casualty rate. What's important to note, though, is that the improvement in the injury rate between the red and blue lines is actually quite small. At AV 6 and 7, using Piling On to reroll failed armor breaks only improves the casualty rate by ~4%, and the effect is reduced significantly as AV climbs (or falls).
Because Piling On leaves your player prone after he has taken his action for the turn, using it significantly reduces that player's usefulness over the next turn. He won't provide any tackle zones during the opponent's upcoming turn and he'll be vulnerable to fouls, and then on your next turn he won't be able to throw another block without using up your blitz (unless he also has Jump Up, which would be unusual but might be something worth thinking about for a player like this). This means you really need to get some value out of knocking him prone, so think carefully about the numbers here before telling him to drop the elbow.
Incidentally, Piling On also interacts pretty favorably with Mighty Blow:
Making A Monster
At this point, the data has made it clear that the most effective killers will have Mighty Blow, Claw, and Piling On, allowing them to cause a casualty on ~20% of their knockdowns. There aren't any positions that start with even two of these skills, however, so you're going to be stuck building your own brutalizer. So in what order do you take the skills to ramp up your killing power as quickly as possible?
The math indicates that Mighty Blow is actually the most important skill. It provides the largest increase in casualty rate on targets with AV 8 or lower and is only slightly less effective than Claw on targets with AV 9. (Claw remains the head-and-shoulders standout against AV 10, but you're not going to run into much of that.) Mighty Blow is so effective, in fact, that it increases casualty rates on blocks even more than improving the block's chances of success; getting an extra successful face--using Block against a player without Block or using Tackle to cancel someone's Dodge--and getting an extra die on the block are both significantly less effective for injuring people than just adding Mighty Blow to your player. Piling On is the runner-up, again increasing casualty rates significantly more than actually improving the quality of your blocks although, like Mighty Blow, it's less effective than Claw against AV 9 and 10 players. (Of course, improving the quality of your blocks knocks opposing players down a lot more, and there's obviously a lot to be said about the value of that even when it doesn't result in a casualty.)
A final note about creating your own killer: Mighty Blow and Piling On are both from the Strength category, and Claw is from the Mutation category. You'll want Strength access on normals on a player that you intend to turn into a casualty machine, and many of these players just won't ever have access to Claw. If you're looking for players that can easily assemble the unholy trinity of smashing skills, the list is fairly short: Chaos Pact Marauders, Khorne Bloodthirsters, Norse Yhetees, Nurgle Warriors and Pestigors, Underworld Blitzers and Trolls, and every player on the Chaos team. Most players on the Underworld and Chaos Pact teams can get there with one double and Skaven Blitzers and Rat Ogres can do the same, while Necromantic Werewolves need two doubles. Be careful about using Piling On on a big guy, though, as their negative traits can make it relatively difficult to get them back up easily and your opponent may be more than happy to gang-foul them while they're down!
The only question left is "Just how much better is one of these teched-out slayers than the average fresh-off-the-assembly-lineman?"
How To Lose Friends And Injure People
I've talked about the math on injuries a bit in previous posts, but here's a refresher. Whenever a player gets fouled or falls down because of a block result (unless Wrestle was used), a failed dodge, or a botched GFI, a 2d6 armor roll is made for that player. If the result of the roll is higher than the player's armor, then a 2d6 injury roll is made for the player, using this result table:
| 2d6 Roll | % of Occurance | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 2-7 | 58 | Stunned |
| 8-9 | 25 | KO |
| 10-12 | 17 | Casualty |
Obviously, you want to get that casualty result as often as possible. It helps with your short-term goal of winning the game by removing an opposing player from the field and it helps with your long-tem goal of team improvement by awarding your player SPP. There are two ways to significantly improve your casualty rate: making better blocks and developing players to cause injuries. (Smart fouling will also help to cause casualties, but there's already a post about that.)
Making better blocks is a little bit complicated. The simplest part is covered here (tl;dr: rolling more dice is good and also Block and Tackle are valuable in the relevant situations), but the more difficult bit--positioning your players and sequencing your actions such that you produce the maximum number of multi-die blocks each turn of the drive--is a bit beyond the scope of this post. Just remember to always have a drive-long strategy in mind when moving and blocking; if you're not thinking about the next turn and the turn after that, you're often going to find yourself losing to an opponent who does. Skill pickups that can help make your blocks better include Guard, Tackle, and Dauntless.
Developing players to cause injuries, on the other hand, is very much within the scope of this post. The most common skill for increasing a player's killing power is Mighty Blow, the influence of which can be seen in this handy visualization:
Making better blocks is a little bit complicated. The simplest part is covered here (tl;dr: rolling more dice is good and also Block and Tackle are valuable in the relevant situations), but the more difficult bit--positioning your players and sequencing your actions such that you produce the maximum number of multi-die blocks each turn of the drive--is a bit beyond the scope of this post. Just remember to always have a drive-long strategy in mind when moving and blocking; if you're not thinking about the next turn and the turn after that, you're often going to find yourself losing to an opponent who does. Skill pickups that can help make your blocks better include Guard, Tackle, and Dauntless.
Developing players to cause injuries, on the other hand, is very much within the scope of this post. The most common skill for increasing a player's killing power is Mighty Blow, the influence of which can be seen in this handy visualization:
Players with the Claw skill treat all enemies as though they are AV 7, which is obviously valuable. It also has a favorable interaction with Mighty Blow, producing the following graph:
The other skill that interacts quite well with Mighty Blow is Piling On, which allows a player to throw himself on top of an enemy that he has just downed in order to reroll either the armor or injury roll for that player. This skill is a little bit less of a no-brainer because it leaves the attacking unit prone, which can range from mildly inconvenient to incredibly dangerous (particularly if the Piling On player is someone valuable that the opponent might like to foul). In order to get the most out of Piling On, you have to know the math (surprise!). In the following chart, the red line represents your percentage chance of causing an injury if you use Piling On any time you fail to injure a downed opponent, while the blue line represents your chance of causing an injury if you use Piling On only to reroll the injury roll after breaking armor:
As you can see, Piling On provides a tremendous improvement over the base casualty rate. What's important to note, though, is that the improvement in the injury rate between the red and blue lines is actually quite small. At AV 6 and 7, using Piling On to reroll failed armor breaks only improves the casualty rate by ~4%, and the effect is reduced significantly as AV climbs (or falls).
Because Piling On leaves your player prone after he has taken his action for the turn, using it significantly reduces that player's usefulness over the next turn. He won't provide any tackle zones during the opponent's upcoming turn and he'll be vulnerable to fouls, and then on your next turn he won't be able to throw another block without using up your blitz (unless he also has Jump Up, which would be unusual but might be something worth thinking about for a player like this). This means you really need to get some value out of knocking him prone, so think carefully about the numbers here before telling him to drop the elbow.
Incidentally, Piling On also interacts pretty favorably with Mighty Blow:
Making A Monster
At this point, the data has made it clear that the most effective killers will have Mighty Blow, Claw, and Piling On, allowing them to cause a casualty on ~20% of their knockdowns. There aren't any positions that start with even two of these skills, however, so you're going to be stuck building your own brutalizer. So in what order do you take the skills to ramp up your killing power as quickly as possible?
The math indicates that Mighty Blow is actually the most important skill. It provides the largest increase in casualty rate on targets with AV 8 or lower and is only slightly less effective than Claw on targets with AV 9. (Claw remains the head-and-shoulders standout against AV 10, but you're not going to run into much of that.) Mighty Blow is so effective, in fact, that it increases casualty rates on blocks even more than improving the block's chances of success; getting an extra successful face--using Block against a player without Block or using Tackle to cancel someone's Dodge--and getting an extra die on the block are both significantly less effective for injuring people than just adding Mighty Blow to your player. Piling On is the runner-up, again increasing casualty rates significantly more than actually improving the quality of your blocks although, like Mighty Blow, it's less effective than Claw against AV 9 and 10 players. (Of course, improving the quality of your blocks knocks opposing players down a lot more, and there's obviously a lot to be said about the value of that even when it doesn't result in a casualty.)
A final note about creating your own killer: Mighty Blow and Piling On are both from the Strength category, and Claw is from the Mutation category. You'll want Strength access on normals on a player that you intend to turn into a casualty machine, and many of these players just won't ever have access to Claw. If you're looking for players that can easily assemble the unholy trinity of smashing skills, the list is fairly short: Chaos Pact Marauders, Khorne Bloodthirsters, Norse Yhetees, Nurgle Warriors and Pestigors, Underworld Blitzers and Trolls, and every player on the Chaos team. Most players on the Underworld and Chaos Pact teams can get there with one double and Skaven Blitzers and Rat Ogres can do the same, while Necromantic Werewolves need two doubles. Be careful about using Piling On on a big guy, though, as their negative traits can make it relatively difficult to get them back up easily and your opponent may be more than happy to gang-foul them while they're down!
The only question left is "Just how much better is one of these teched-out slayers than the average fresh-off-the-assembly-lineman?"
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