Blood Bowl!

[GJK]

Let me know about BB as well. I have the original set from '88 or so but haven't broken it out in a long long time. Don't know if that's all I need to play through VASSAL, though. (Admittedly I know little of VASSAL.)

The last rulebook (Competition Rules) are freely available online if you google it.  That would be all that you need because the vassal module will have all the rest.

A league would be awesome!  We could set up schedules and then people could play either live or via email and the results posted.  I'm sure that my brother would be in for it as well.

[GJK]

I've got a good jump on the VASSAL module.  All of the graphics are done, I pretty much just need to add the teams and markers and whatever VASSAL "automation" that I think might be helpful.  Early screenshot (no teams present yet).

[BanzaiCat]

Nice work, GJK!

[undercovergeek]

that looks awesome

[bob48]

i feel a league coming on - i know bob would be in it

Ya bugger - I re-installed it months ago, just to play you, and how many times have we played?

[undercovergeek]

lol, tis for t'boardgame tho

[bob48]

Meh!

[JasonPratt]

Well like American Football it has set play. One that comes to mind is Blitz..no idea when you'd use it though. So to a novice it does look like American football to any other sport and I'm sure knowing American footballs general game elements would help even if it isn't that obvious.

WIll have a read of the rule book again. Everytime I've tried to play my players have difficulty picking up the ball or catching it let alone doing anything else:)

That's very normal; the rules are set up to make the ball hard to work with -- represented by the spikes on it. In Cyanide's original rip-off game long-ago back on DOS, they gave the ball chicken feet to represent it running around and doing crazy things. Then Games Workshop (very reasonably) sued them. The GW gave them a job. And now we have BB:Chaos Edition. :) And BB2 on the way.

If you're playing with a team that has poor agility, there are only two ways to deal with ball control.

1.) Surround the ball with players before you try to pick it up. The ball will squirt free and wander around but every time it intersects one of your players you'll get another chance.

2.) Let the other team be the one to try to pick up the ball; concentrate on smashing them instead. :) Low-agility teams tend to be smashy teams by design.

Otherwise, only send your thrower or your catcher in to try to pick up the ball; ideally a thrower.

Or, play a high agility team like one of the elven factions.

(This advice is regardless of whether you're playing live or Chaos Edition. No reason to own the Legendary Edition anymore; CE fixes practically all the bugs, and I've never seen a single bit of evidence of it cheating the dice during my campaign so far.)


Re: blitzing. This is simpler than it seems. All it means is that once per turn, a coach can choose one player to be able to hit another player after running. After which, if the player still has moves, he (usually he) can keep on running -- but not attack again. Aside from a blitz, players can only hit at other players in an adjacent square at the start of the turn for that side. If your player starts your turn next to someone else, you can try to attack. Otherwise, forget it -- you can move up next to another player but cannot attack this turn.

A major tactical implication to this is that (aside from the blitz possibility each turn) the team without the initiative (the team who doesn't currently have the turn) will have more chances, on average, to hit the team whose turn it is, and not even be hit back! -- because the team currently moving will sometimes be trying to move out of a tackle zone, giving the other player at least one free attack without riposte. (There may be a couple of special rules allowing riposte by a few players for breaking the tackle; I can't remember any offhand, but Blood Bowl always has a couple of special rules. ;) )

But, yeah, blitzing: a lot simpler than many other things in BB, don't worry. :) Nice thing about the computer game, it keeps track of all the rules, and implements them religiously.

[BanzaiCat]

I'd been watching some videos on YouTube from a guy playing a Halfling team in multiplayer matches, and he did quite well with them. I never in a billion years would have considered a Halfling team, but his videos proved they're viable. If you know what you're doing, of course, and I'm not sure I fall into that particular category.

[GJK]

FWIW, I finished the first beta of the vassal BB module this weekend and am going to be playtesting it with my brother starting tonight.  If there's an interest, perhaps we could get a small league going?

[BanzaiCat]

I'm still interested, depending on what we need.

What will we need to play, exactly? I remember downloading VASSAL a long time ago but I never did much with it, so I'm a noob when it comes to that stuff.

What kind of teams will we be able to field? I'm thinking Halflings or Goblins, because I don't want to get too attached to the little buggers.

[GJK]

You will just need to install the latest version of vassal (vassalengine.org) and then grab my BB vassal module once it's tested and ready.  You'll want to have a copy of the LRB6 (Blood Bowl Living Rulebook v6...the last rulebook written for the game).  That is easily downloaded if you google it or I can provide a copy of that as well.

I've included all 24 of the standard teams for BB, so we'll have the full mix of available teams there.

Before actually starting a league, we may want to just get some people paired up to play either live or via email (both using vassal) just to get comfortable with it.  I'd be happy to get a Skype conference going too once we have some people with vassal module in hand and we can go over using the module online w/voice.  What I have is a "no-frills" module; highly functional but you do all of the drag and dropping and moving, etc.

[undercovergeek]

Sounds awesome

[JasonPratt]

Being nearly completely ignorant of how Vassal works -- how would die rolls be tracked between players? Is there a log for accountability?

[Barthheart]

Being nearly completely ignorant of how Vassal works -- how would die rolls be tracked between players? Is there a log for accountability?

Yes VASSAL logs it's internal die roller results. Or you can use external die rollers that email both players the results.