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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 18, 2010 15:22:06 GMT
Especially if you have some sort of allergy to puns. It's his fault, so I may as well steal his lines. Plus he's better than I am, etc. Showing an utter lack of consideration, Hornet has already taken the Chaos team who are the Detroit Lions of the BBL. Well, they're more of the Rams of the BBL, because they have the potential to be good, once they earn some skills. So with the Lions/Rams off the board I had to go in a different direction instead. Previously when I used to play the actual board game in about 1988 I'd play as the Skaven - a collection of scrawny rats who ran about very quickly indeed - the 1988 Houston Oilers, essentially. I didn't want to pick those though, because I will eventually remember how to play them and their power to score a touchdown in two turns (or, with skill increases, sometimes in one turn), is not something the AI would stand up well to. Instead I thought I'd go with a team with which I'm not so comfortable... The Dark Elves. The High Elves or Wood Elves usually seen poncing about in pointy slippers with a bow, possibly in the guise of Orlando Bloom are a fey bunch of posers who, (to switch sports metaphors), like to throw the ball about like the Harlem Globetrotters and even copy the Globetrotters by filling out defence with a giant fooking tree. Really. The Dark Elves on the other hand have been described as "bashy elves" - they not necessarily stronger than their gaylord cousins, but they don't have their physical weakness, but they also lose some of their skills. The idea is a bit laughable - bashy elves is a lot like putting boxing gloves on one of the Chuckle Brothers - but they do have some redeeming features. Somewhere, I'm sure. Firstly - they don't have a Quarterback in their core players, but they do have a guy who looks quite good and will deliberately fumble when tackled. Or to give him his in-game name; Tony Romo. There's a horrible witch who'll follow you around dressed like a whore and ruin your game; Terrell Owens Jessica Simpson and there's a guy who'll hunt you down and ignore the rules to beat the crap out of you with an illegal weapon. Mentioning no Tank Johnson. Yes, I'd like to introduce you to the Callous Drowboys. So we do have a couple of good points.
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Post by hornet on Jan 18, 2010 15:40:11 GMT
That team name is absolutely hilarious to the percentage of the population that like both a) D&D and b) helmetball.
So you, me and Elth, basically. :humb:
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 18, 2010 15:59:29 GMT
Team naming may be the hardest thing about the game. After seeing the Orcland Raiders were already in there I sat with the list of NFL teams and went through it about 98 times, a first pass delivering such gems as New Loriens Saints, New Elfland and other winners.
It took the Cleveland Drowns to put "Drow" into mind that forced inspiration. That and a lot of gin. And the Boys being on the telly.
And more gin.
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Post by Moo on Jan 18, 2010 16:13:57 GMT
Gin! Saviour of mediocre threads since 2001!
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Post by coffers on Jan 18, 2010 16:53:32 GMT
:thumb:
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Post by Sonic on Jan 18, 2010 17:40:08 GMT
Horn, very disappointed in you.
Stu, much better than Horn :thumb:
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 18, 2010 19:38:35 GMT
As mentioned in Horn's superior thread, it's the alleged Clean Cup to start, which means I need to go shopping as I start the game with exactly none players. I snap up three Blitzers with the obligatory BLOCK skill to give the side some spine, a Runner with the DUMP OFF skill - the intentional fumble when tackled, where you try to cough the ball up toward one of your own team - a Witch, who has the DODGE skill and the slightly crazy FRENZY skill, which means if she hoofs someone in the face and they stumble backwards she has to try and hoof them again, even if the second hoofing fails. After that it was all linemen - all boring, all the time. I then bought some pointy-eared cheerleaders and signed up with a beer sponsorship. Our first opposition in the cup would be from among our annoying cousins the "High" Elves who become much more annoying when the recover the opening kick off, make a decent cage to push toward the halfway line and then just when I feel I have everything in order, they run their passer out of the pocket, he throws a mid-range pass to their War Dancer who has sprinted downfield and boom; 1-0 to the stupid Orlando Bloom Elves. Amusingly, the kick off comes with a special event that allows the stupid Elves to get a quick start charging downfield before I even catch the ball - a high kick - and the Blooms take the opportunity to corner my Witch and give her a shoeing. Eventually I do get to have a go, but I'm way too far from the end zone to push for a score before the half, so I just cage up to draw the Blooms in and then make with punching some of their linemen in the face before it's off for the half time slices of orange. We get the ball to open the second half, so it's our turn to set things up now... let's do this thing! Or let's not. We catch the ball, set a cage, set a corner outside the cage requiring both that people attacking the cage have to skirt tackle zones to avoid rolling to get to the cage and that they have to keep people back - ignore the corner to get to the cage and if I can get a pass over top of you then you have no defence between the ball and the paint. It all looks good, right up to the point where the War Dancer, err, dances through two tackle zones on the corner, gets around the back of the cage and flattens my ball carrier - he tries his last-second Fumble of Awesome skill, which flies straight through the target's hands then bounces around on the floor as three more of my players totally fail to pick up the ball. So you're saying I may as well cut your hands off, right? After that it's a bit of a scrum as the stupid Elves rearrange their guys and I fail to break the cage. Then; handoff, sprint, touchdown, 2-0. They kick to us, we work right and then left and suddenly I see an opening; a lineman has the ball - one of the slowest players on the team - but I make a break for it and.... run out of turns. With one turn left he can get near the end zone - if he throws a "Go For It!" die the maximum two times and wins both then he'll end up one square from the end zone. Callous Drowboys 0-2 Northingham ForestUp next are the Skavens I mentioned earlier and the game descends into the sort of fistfight you'd normally only expect to see at a hockey game. We lose the toss, again, have to kick, again and then watch the Skaven do what they do, which is run very quickly through the tiniest hole in your defence and score a touchdown. However, when the Skaven Gutter Runner sprints and dodges his way clear I give up any hope of catching him and instead gather as many players as I can to one side around a loan rat and comprehensively beat the shit out of him. By which I mean the fight started off as five-on-one and finished as five-on-zero as the rat is dead. Really. With a 1-0 lead they kick to us. I throw a rudimentary cage up which is going to act like an anvil to my hammer.... The Rats move in on what seems to be a thin cage, at which point the second half of my team move in on one of the rats they can isolate and smear him into the floor too - though this time it's only a serious injury rather than death. So that's nice. With my team closing in together like a Death Star trash compacter the Skaven suddenly realise they're in a bit of bother - they knock down my runner who has the ball, but thankfully this time the Fumble of Awesome works, the ball reaches a lineman, but I have nowhere near enough time before the half runs out to make it to the end zone, so I just continue what is turning into a huge scrum in the middle of the park, finally cornering the Gutter Runner who had scored and breaking his tiny rat legs. Let's see you run half the field now, you fucker. So they second half starts with a handy 11-on-8 player advantage for me. Which becomes 11-on-7 very rapidly as we field the kick but don't advance it, instead piling onto a rat left alone on the starting line of scrimmage and squashing him like tiny bug. I set a loose cage, thinned out by sending my runner toward the sideline so I only have to protect against attack from one flank and continue to fight where I can and make sure that any rat movement has to go through a tackle zone if I can. The Rats fall back to slow things down, but then I make some sort of mistake, leaving a tiny gap in the cage when I mess up the order in which I move my players, a lineman has to go through a Stormvermin tackle zone and promptly falls on his face. The other Stormvermin immediately widens the gap I've left, allowing a Rat thrower through who flattens my ball carrier... the ball rolls into space and to a rat standing there with the SURE HANDS skill which means he rerolls any failed attempt to pick up the ball. And then fails it again as it turns out. With the ball still loose I corner the runner and shove him off the field, where an energetic collection of travelling fans grab him, drag him to the floor and hit him with beer bottles until he stops squealing. I scoop up the ball, run it toward the end zone again... then realise there's no way I'm going to get into the paint, kick off, get the ball back and score again, so I have my lineman loiter right on the goalline while I send the rest of my team rat hunting and manage to flatten a Stormvermin. With him on the ground we don't pull out of the tackles, instead we put the boot in on the downed rodent, stamping on his prone face and sending him to the hospital too. We get a player sent off for that, but it's totally worth it. Finally, right before the whistle, I get the lineman to stroll over the line into the end zone and then game finished 1-1 on the scoreboard and 6-0 on the health insurance sheets. Callous Drowboys 1-1 Rat au VinLeague Table 1 - Rat au Vin - 4pts 2 - Chaos Engine - 3pts 3 - Northingham Forest - 3pts 4 - Callous Drowboys - 1pt So we just need to win our third and final game then...
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Post by Moo on Jan 19, 2010 9:03:36 GMT
This is brilliant!*
*Fact may or may not be factual.
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Post by hornet on Jan 19, 2010 9:04:22 GMT
Chaos Engine. :humb:
Nice start! The thing with fast, score-y teams is that either you've got to get the ball first (and so draw them into a big fucking fight they're not equipped for) or they've got to make a mistake. Although I imagine playing as Dark Elves gives you a few more relatively-quick-strike options.
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Post by coffers on Jan 19, 2010 13:18:12 GMT
Tense Stuff.
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Post by elth on Jan 23, 2010 2:50:47 GMT
That team name is absolutely hilarious to the percentage of the population that like both a) D&D and b) helmetball. So you, me and Elth, basically. :humb: It's a pun and an in-joke!
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Post by Moo on Jan 25, 2010 9:00:56 GMT
Careful... I'll close the thread for being racist.
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 25, 2010 12:17:31 GMT
The good news is that I'm the home team in the third game which means, apparently, that I get to pick my opposition. I can't pick the rats, having just played them and I'm not going to pick the Chaos team as my players all like their legs, so "pick your opposition" actually translates to "you're playing your nancy cousins the wood elves again."
The good news gets even gooderer shortly after kick off as the giant sodding tree the wood elves wheel onto the field in a pot gets rooted, which means it can't move for the rest of the half. And then we kill one of the Elf players, which I understand means he can't move for the rest of time.
Sadly the other Elves came into the game with 12 players available, so they'll be able to replace the dead fella as soon as someone scores, but in their first attack on our cage their Wardancer stumbles through a pair of tackle zones, falls flat on his face and then dislocates pointy ears and will miss the rest of the game.
So 11-on-10 about a quarter of the way through the game, thank you.
With a player advantage and some toughness advantage I decide to just grind the ball down the field and watch the Elves bounce off our cage. By the time we score there's only just enough time to kick off and the Elves are down to eight players, although some will be able to return after the half.
We start the second half with the kick off and my cunning strategy is to let them catch the ball and move downfield while I just ignore the ball carrier and pick on the corners of their offensive line, trying to send some more pointy-ears to Elf hospital... This doesn't work too well though, because one of the Elves, supposed supreme ball handlers, (sometimes a euphemism), stumbles picking the ball up and scuffs it out of bounds. Whereupon one of the crowd picks up the ball and punts it to the far side of the field.
The Evles have set up all the way to my right and now the ball is on my left. I scoop it up, hold off a series of desperate lunges and canter into the end zone for 2-0.
The rest of the half is more awesome elves punching stupid elves in the face and we grab our first victory!
In the other game, the Chaos Engine snap the rats in half to win the league stage and get first pick of who to snap in half in the playoffs, because it seems all four teams will reach the playoffs, with #1 picking their opposition to play at home and #2 (now our glorious Dark Elves) playing the other team at home.
That other team turned out to be the Rats and turned out to be a game that goes to double overtime...
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Post by coffers on Jan 25, 2010 12:41:55 GMT
So let me get this straight, there are 4 teams inthe league and it doesn't matter where you end up, you get to the play-offs anyway?
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Post by Moo on Jan 25, 2010 12:46:16 GMT
I hope the hospital the Elves go to is private, because if it isn't, then I fear for them visiting a National Elf Service establishment.
AHAH HAh AHAh AHHA hAh HAhahahah HAHA AH H!!!11!!
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 25, 2010 14:28:58 GMT
So let me get this straight, there are 4 teams inthe league and it doesn't matter where you end up, you get to the play-offs anyway? At this point, aye. The game universe is organised around a number of different cups and leagues and you choose which ones you want to enter. The ones which offer more prestige attract bigger teams, so you want to start off with the small fringe cups where the prize is a "FRANKIE SAYS" tshirt and a mug with a picture of Sue Lawley on it. The competitions vary between leagues and cups, with different play off structures, and scheduling - sometimes you'll have to play everyone, sometimes the home teams each week get to pick their opposition and sometimes it's random. Sometimes everyone will play out the league, then everyone will make the playoffs with seeding set by the league and sometimes there'll be a cut line, below which you don't make the post-season. So it's roughly half as complicated as Brazil.
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 25, 2010 14:31:22 GMT
I hope the hospital the Elves go to is private, because if it isn't, then I fear for them visiting a National Elf Service establishment. That's more like it. :thumb:
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Post by Moo on Jan 25, 2010 14:48:36 GMT
I just made your thread better than Hornet's.
You owe me a mug with a picture of Sue Lawley's beaver on it.
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 25, 2010 15:06:43 GMT
So the Rats. In the playoffs.
The Rats in the playoffs was an epic game - a matchup for the ages whose game report would be measureably better if only I knew what any of my players were called. In a move designed to lessen the blow when they get rather finally killed I just used the default names given to them in game of which I have made no note.
Here are some highlights though, with their nicknames.
1. The guy with Block.
Linemen are the cannon fodder of Blood bowl. They make an opponent waste his one move-and-attack of each turn by helpfully putting their face in the way of the other guy's fist. They're the guys in war films who bust out pictures of their families before their final mission. They're the guys in Star Trek films wearing red shirts standing at the back of the transporter behind spock and Kirk about to beam down to an ENTIRELY PEACEFUL PLANET.
Well, one of these chum buckets in a helmet managed to be the first guy on the team to level up. you need six star points to level up and, frustratingly, after the 2-0 win over the stupid elves we had two players with five and then this guy with six.
He got to level up. He got give the block skill. He is the only lineman with said skill. He is now "The guy with Block."
2. The Lass.
The Witch is a player special to the Dark Elves. She's agile, reasonably well-armoured, can move a reasonable distance and isn't as flimsy as most other team's skinny folk. On the skillz side she has Dodge, meaning she can, err, Dodge, Jump Up, meaning she can get to her feet without a penalty if she's knocked down, (provided she doesn't throw a block that turn), and... this one is key... Frenzy.
Frenzy means that after she shoves an opposing player back she must follow them. If she knocks them down, fine, she just follows. If she only pushes them back then she has to follow them and try to punt them in the knackers again, even if the situtation is by then unfavourable.
That right there would be foreshadowing.
3. Brady.
Named for the born-with-a-silver-spoon-in-the-shape-of-a-rabbit's-foot-in-his-mouth Quarterback Brady has one special skill, which is called Dump Off, although when it happens I've been known to shout "FUMMMMMM-BAAALLLL!" loud enough to be told off.
Essentially when he's tackled he fumbles the ball in the direction of one of our other players, provided there are no opposition players between him and his target.
Remember the foreshadowing thing...? Yeah.
4. The Blitzers.
Three guys who are strong and come with the Block skill for free.
5. Everyone Else.
The Linemen who aren't The Guy With Block. The Guy With Block is now elevated above these people and will get some protection. "Everyone Else" will not. The Linemen are deliberately put in harm's way and, if they survive, their reward is to get right back in there.
In FM the worst that can happen to a player is to be marked as "not needed at the club" in BB it's to be part of "Everyone Else" which if you read between the lines essentially means "I wouldn't be too broken up if you got killed."
I would call them my Forlorn Hope, except that they don't get to volunteer for the duty.
On to the playoffs...
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Post by Moo on Jan 25, 2010 16:05:39 GMT
I almost smiled there, well done.
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Post by coffers on Jan 25, 2010 17:09:20 GMT
So it's roughly half as complicated as Brazil. Excellent. :thumb:
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 26, 2010 0:15:58 GMT
So off we go against the Rats and it's possible for things to get off to a worse start, but I'm not sure if I can think of how. I win the toss, which is supposed to be a good thing as it gives the initiative to me, except that a special event on the kickoff called "blitz" allows the defence to get the jump on us and get a free move before we even catch the ball. The Rats use it to gather around one of my "Everyone Else" linemen and smash him into the floor - the end result "bad injury" (boo), "no long term effect" (phew). But he'll be gone for the rest of the game. At this early stage of the career mode I only have 11 players, so I've no replacements to send out in his stead. Having suffered through the face-stomping we gave them a couple of weeks ago the Rats have lashed out on new players, so they actually have four subs, which means this is going to be 11-v-10 in their favour for a while. Fortunately Brady scoops up the ball, before the sprinting Rat Gutter Runners can get to him and we manage to get something of a cage in place, but trying to pull linemen off the line of scrimmage proves to be a bad idea as one falls flat on his face trying to disengage and that's the end of our turn. The Rats move into a nice looking defensive position with their players just off of the cage - it's not an aggressive move, but it does mean I'm going to have to pass some die rolls to move the cage en masse... I fail one and that's all the Rats need. They widen the gap of fail with their Stormvermin, then stick a Gutter Runner through the gap... Brady takes the hit and tries to flip the ball away as he goes to ground, but the ball bounces off the hands of one of the stupid linemen and rolls out of the cage into the open. The Rats set a soft cage - the best they can do half way through their turn - the second Gutter Runner scoops up the ball and they start to use their speed to shuttle around looking for a weakness... The Rats are one of the few teams who can cover the length of the field for a touchdown in two turns, (or one with the right levels), without throwing the ball and the fact that we're one player down means we slowly get overloaded. Eventually the Rats work what looks very much like an end-around from the NUFFLE one Gutter Runner stepping out of the pocket to hand to another who curves around our struggling defence to the corner and one "Go For It!" later he's in the end zone. 1-0 Rats. The Rats kick to me... this time they don't get the jump on me but there's no where near enough time left for me to march down the field, so I shuffle the ball to Brady and play keep away, drawing in his Gutter Runner and then... POW! i move three players in to corner him and another to kick him in the nadgers... the little red cross appears above his head and he'll be gone for the rest of the game at least. To open the second half we have to kick off, which is a problem, as it's conceivable that the Rats could burn a lot of time using their speed to move the ball around from side to side while I chase with a man less, so I squib the kick off along the line and cross my fingers that my front line survive the shoeing they're bound to get in the first turn... The Rats set a Stormvermin cage, send in a Gutter Runner to scoop up the ball and then have him try to flip the ball to a thrower... which is a bit of a daft move this early in the turn, especially as he drops the lateral and blows his turn without so much as saying a bad word towards my linemen. I'm not going to let that opportunity go, so I shuffle some defenders right in a stretched out line quite deep, but don't make a move for the ball, essentially conceding another try to the Rats. This is because I want to line up everyone I can on the Rats offensive line which consists of three linemen. I move people into position for support and then try to work an attack from a certain angle so that if the lineman is pushed back, he's pushed into the tackle zone of someone who's already there. This works beautifully as the first rat we hit goes down holding his rat nuts, leaving me to hammer a second one with three separate tackles and send him to the injury bin too. The next couple of turns are scrappy as the Rats do manage to pick up possession, but we're putting four or even five men on isolated rats and smearing them into the turf.... put our player out of the game on the first play of the game, will you? Have some of this, bitches!With this many rats in the belfry the protection for the ball carrier isn't up to much, so we smash the ball free and roll down the field without many rodents to get in the way. With two turns to go we break into the end zone and it's 1-1. I suspect as this is allegedly a playoff game we're talking about overtime and the game confirms this after we kick off... we have a whopping three players knocked over on the kick off, leaving 7 of us against 9 rats - they sprint right and I don't really bother to chase them too much as there's no way they can score in time. I throw up a cursory defensive line that'll be quite easy to run around, but will take us beyond the end of the game if you do run around it, then I pick a lone rat again and start punching him. And there's the final gun, so now it'll be a new kick off and.... wait... what? Ok then, much like Donovan McNabb I don't know the overtime rules for my sport... there's no coin toss or new kick, there's just more time added to the clock, meaning the rats are no more than a turn from scoring and most of my team are out of position, engaged in useless acts of totally non-random violence. Bugger. Dun dun drama!
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Post by Moo on Jan 26, 2010 8:50:54 GMT
:thumb: to the McNabb reference.
Nice to see a picture of poorly rats, makes a nice change from looking at Keira Knightly's ankles.
KUTGW!
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 26, 2010 15:03:35 GMT
The clock at the top of the screen reads 17/16. It's not broken, we're just into overtime. I had suspected overtime would start with a kick off, rather than just shooting the time keeper, but I was wrong, so now I'm not sure if the game follows pro or college rules for overtime - for all I know the gun goes when a rat reaches the end zone and I'll not get another go.
Looking at the layout of the teams, the rats are deep into my half down my left touchline and I don't have much between them and the paint, as I've been focusing on maiming another of their players off the ball. The Rat cage around the ball carrier is poorly constructed as they just don't have the warm bodies on the field to build a proper one, but with a couple of dodge rolls to get through tackle zones - rolls that'll be pretty easy for something as agile as a Gutter Runner - they'll be in the paint and I'll be in the bin.
I start looking at the players I have around the halfway line and most of them can't really get into a useful position without using "Go For It!" rolls to move extra spaces. Each of these brings a lot of risk as not only will it end your turn if you fail one, but the player will also end up on the floor meaning he can easily be run around.
I use a blitzer to shove a rat out of the way at the half way line, which allows me to move Brady back without having to dodge out of a tackle zone and he manages to get in front of a couple of linemen to form an inverted vee "^" shape defence in the corner - it's not mutually supported but it will require rolls to beat...
I move another lineman back as far as he can go and then inspiration hits... the Gutter Runner with the ball is one space off the sideline - people who get pushed off the field in Blood Bowl are not happy campers - firstly they get set upon by the crowd, even if it's their home crowd, and secondly they fumble the ball, which is then punted back into play by the crowd and it can end up anywhere.
Now any normal team wouldn't be able to push any ball carrier two spaces in one turn, but now I remember my Witch and her frenzy skill...
I find a lineman that I can move into a supporting position for the first tackle to get her a little help and do so, rather than moving him back into a defensive role, then swing my Witch over and slam into the ball carrier from the side. As per for a Rat ball carrier he uses his agility to dodge out of the way, but finds himself now tip-toeing on the sidelines with no way to go back or forward because of his blockers. Now Frenzied the Witch steps into the cage, away from her support and lines up the rat runner again... in the midst of some mutual rodent support all she needs to do is roll like a 19 on one die and... VICTORY! Probably the luckiest roll since that window cleaner ended up with Melinda Messenger and the Witch cleans the rat's clock, sending him spinning off the field, whereupone three local hooligans hold him down and a fourth kicks his stupid rat teeth out.
Another paying member of the local comunity sprints in and absolutely canes the ball back into play, all the way across the field.
All the way across the field where all of my players just came from. Where there are now only rats and no awesome Elves. I had some defence on the left... I have no defence on the right.
The ball falls to a rat thrower who has nothing in front of him save green grass and the smell of victory.
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Post by Sonic on Jan 26, 2010 15:14:11 GMT
Dun dun drama indeed.
Is that the end of the season? How long do you have to wait for the new one to begin?
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