Star payers. I love them!

I love star players in the game of blood bowl. My gaming club, "The Thursday Night Heroes", love star players. Yeah, I know the stars are not that hip these days, but I think they add another layer of fluff and fun to our game.

When the 2nd edition hit the game stores, our club started to take the league a lot more seriously. By that, I don't mean ‘win at all costs’, or ‘find the best star on the list and get him’, what I mean is, we started to run our league twice a year and it got to be quite the ‘game about town’. At our peak, we had about 30-35 coaches vying for the "old tin jug". 
We had new faces at the start of every season (we always play set format like the NHL/NFL, none of this ‘lets see who turns up’, nonsense), and it got to the point that we were using the town rec hall because the FLGS or our basements were not big enough, no brag, fact. The GW supply guy at our FLGS said we ran the biggest league on the east coast of the US in the years 1995-98.

These days, we have between 15-22 players each season (now in our 36th). We have a bunch of things most leagues don't; between game stuff, star players, trades etc. We have a file index with about 225 star players. These are from many sources: the 'net, official GW sources, home grown stars etc, you get the idea. They are all pointed as per JJ's formula, and they are bought for a team sorta like 3rd edition, you buy the player and he's yours until:

-he gets killed

-he gets an injury and he’s released

-he's traded

-some between game mayhem gets in the way

Once that star is chosen, as he’s unique, he plays for your team until one of the above...

As our league doesn’t play teams past the current season, the stars are put back in the pool before the next season. It’s been working for very nearly 22 years. I see them as a part of the game. The stars don't over balance the game as they can fall victim just like a common lineman. I have found that most coaches are very vocal about NOT using star players. Broken, is the cool way of describing stars. For the life of me, I just don't see how a Star Player bothers Blood Bowl. I  mean to say, you have x amount of gold to buy y (players, rerolls, apoth, cheerleaders, etc). If I ‘waste’ gold on a star player, yeah, he’s got a bunch of "plusses", but he can't advance and he’s a "spp" sink. He’s also just as fragile as any non star player. I’ve had a star player killed on turn 2 of game 1 in one of our seasons.

Anyway, we like them. Now, if I could just get people to help me get a painted figure for each of our stars. Out of about 225, we have, in our club (which means my massive collection, mostly) about 150 already painted. I try to get a few more done every month.

Pitch Perfect

There is a thread running on TFF where people have been asking (and telling) how many pitches do you own. That made be stop and think, having thought about it I figured firstly the answer is probably 'too many' and secondly it might be a good thing to share some pics and general ramblings on the blog, so here goes...

PROFESSIONALLY MADE PITCHES

GW ORIGINAL (current edition)

Classical Good Looks!

Now this being the one that comes in the box set, and has done for years, you might think it was my first pitch.  In fact it is actually a fairly recent acquisition from eBay.  I bought it with the intention of drilling holes at every corner on each square of the pitch so I could use it as a template when making other pitches.

So far though I've been reluctant to deliberately vandalise something so it's still intact even if I have never actually played a game on it to date!  I'm sure you're all familiar with the general make up of a standard pitch but in case there are people reading this blog who are unfamiliar with it; it's made of nice thick cardboard, can withstand spilled beverages and folds down quite small for easy carriage.

ZLURPEE BOWL IV

Playing Bloodbowl is thirsty work

I bought this one from somebody who was trying to raise money for house rennovation by selling off some of his bloodbowl collection.  It has several cool features such as built in scatter templates and a weather chart to save flipping through the rule book when you make that roll, not to mention reminding both players what the current weather is.  That being said it would of been slightly more helpful if the weather effects had also been squeezed on somehow.  This board is of similar quality to the GW Original and folds down in the exact same manner and to the same size.  In my case it has something else in common with the GW Original in that it is one of the two pitches in my collection that I have never used to play Bloodbowl on!  It does however have one more pretty cool trick up it's sleeve (I bet you didn't know Bloodbowl pitches have sleeves!); it's reversible!  On the flip side is a streetbowl pitch.  Pretty cool huh?  Although not cool enough that I've actually played a game on it yet....

Jumpers for Goalposts?

PUGWASH PIRATES - (SANABESO)

Somewhere around here is treasure

People who've been following this blog for a while will already of seen this one, as it was made specifically for my human team the Pugwash Pirates who I themed to within an inch of their scurvy lives.  I put the map together from scratch using photoshop and then sent it to Sanabeso who put the pitch markings on as I requested and then printed it and posted it to me.  He actually did this twice as the German Postal system contrived to lose the first one!  The pitch is made of a durable material that is waterproof.  It rolls up very easily for transport but importantly it also rolls out flat to provide a good playing surface.  Now this one has seen around 40 games and been to both Dungeonbowl IX and the NAFC 2012.  Everbody say Aaaargh!

Rolled and ready to set sail..

STURM DER HIEBE - (FF FIELDS)

A Storm blowing

Again you may be thinking this is familiar as it has already been on the blog.  I won this as a prize when I was lucky enough to win my local tournament last year the Sturm der Hiebe.  It is made of some sort of plasticard I guess and is one of the puzzle pitches made by FF Fields.  It features built in dugouts, scatter templates, kick off table, weather table, turn and reroll tracks and a score counter.  The score counter isn't really sufficient though when playing with or against Skaven or Elves in my experience to date!

The Puzzle Pitch concept works really well and I haven't yet met anyone who isn't satisfied with the end product which is totally customisable in consultation with the company (I think the guy's name is Alex).  I have heard it can take some time to get an answer back from him occasionally but it is worth any wait.  I've used this pitch several times.

GOBSTYKS - (FF FIELDS)

My he's cute, can I stroke him?

 Another puzzle pitch this one made for my old gaming club in Lincoln.  It is still going strong I just live too far away now (600km or so) to attend on a club night!  I swapped an Arminia Bielefeld home shirt for it.  I'll leave you to decide who got the best deal but both parties are happy with the trade.

Like the S d H one above it features built in dugouts, scatter template, kick off table and both turn and reroll tracks.  It doesn't have a weather table though but it is more generous when it comes to the score track!  I'm using this pitch this season as the home turf of the Beastwick Wytches my Pro Elf team. A handy tip for anyone who is either thinking of buying one of these pitches or already has one - plastic album covers are perfectly sized to keep a pitch in, together and protected.  They can also be picked up cheaply either from a record store (if you can still find one!) or from eBay.

HOME MADE PITCHES

OGRE PITCH

Big Guys need a bit of elbow room...

I'm going to show these in the order I built/ made them in.  Actually I made most of these before I ever bought a pitch.  I'm not sure if that is the usual way round but it's the way I did it!  Of course with FF Fields and Sanabeso out there now as well as Impact offering the discerning bloodbowler of today so much more choice than ever before; may be home made pitches are not such an obvious choice for anyone not wanting the GW offering as they used to be.  First up and starting big is my Ogre Pitch with 40mm squares.  It is made out of construction site polystyrene and has the lines engraved in to the surface.  I then flocked it with several different colours of flock using PVA glue and then once it had dried painted on the white lines.  A 40mm pitch has two main issues; firstly it's more difficult to transport that a standard pitch because of sheer size.  Also, even though the polystyrene is fairly sturdy, because I didn't want to risk it snapping it has a wooden backboard which makes it solid but also quite heavy.  Secondly you can't use the standard pass ruler, as you can see I got around this by building a wooden pass ruler to scale.  Nowadays there are easy to find passing charts that you could use instead.  I'used to play on this a lot but nowadays I'd only use it when playing with or against Ogres, or maybe Chaos Pact.  It isn't sophisticated in any way, doesn't have it's own dugouts etc but as a first effort I was pretty pleased with it and it still 'does the job'.

PAINTING CANVAS PITCH

A painting canvas pitch - usual result a draw?

 This one was born out of a desire to have a more portable solution.  We rarely play in the same place all the time; normally either travelling to a club or various friends houses.  Even if we play in the same place most of the time life often gets in the way and means we need to use the table for something else occasionally, meaning the pitch needs to be stored.  This one was made out of two painting canvasses with hinges to keep them held together and clips .  I then fixed sheets of railway modelling grass to the canvas marked out the pitch, with the requisite 29mm squares, and then painstakingly sewed in lots of crosses to make the squares obvious.  Then back to the tried and trusted white painted lines.  I made dugouts out of balsa with holes drilled to make the turn and reroll tracks.  This was then flocked and painted as you can see in the picture.  As markers I used Dwarf referee and elf cheerleader figures fixed to wooden dowels.  The pitch folds up, has room inside for dugouts, pass ruler and templates and has carrying handles.  It's seen a lot of games!

 

POLYSTYRENE TILES PITCH

There's blood on the pitch....

This one was designed with built in dugouts.  It too is meant to be easily transportable so folds in half.  I've again played with photoshop in this case to create advertising hoardings around the pitch edge.  These hoardings are easily removable to facilitate transport on the one hand and in case they bothered my opponent I'd be able to put them to one side.  The textured polystyrene tiles were glued to plywood (the dugouts were cut out first) and the two halfs of the pitch joined underneath with one long hinge.  Turn and reroll tracks are marked out with tile spacers before applying stickers with the numbers on. The pitch area was painted brown and then dry brushed sandy light brown.  Then areas of the pitch were flocked in a random pattern.  Lots of blood has been added to the pitch over the years.  Originally there were only a few but as more and more players bought the big one....Finally as turn and reroll markers I've used blank dice from a hobby shop, painted on the designs (block dice for turn, lucky symbols for reroll) and mounted them to a standard base on a metal rod.  It's a little bit battered now but still perfectly serviceable.

Let's get ready to rumble!

 THE KHEMRI KUP PITCHES

The sands of time

 I made two of these for my 40th birthday which I celebrated with a small tournament called the Khemri Kup.  Four of us took part each with starting teams from the Khemri Roster and no additional skills and everybody playing everybody else once.  Lots of fun but I digress!  More commercial grade polystyrene 'left behind' by builders who did some work on the house.  Pitch area was covered in sand and the squares were marked out this time with nails before, yes you've guessed it, painting the white lines.  The dugouts were printed out and stuck on originally.  The turn markers were made from pillars with egyptian icons.  The reroll counters were then placed over the nuber of the turn that they were used in.  Something I picked up at tournaments which shows when you used your rerolls and stops you 'accidentally' using a second one in the same turn.  A scatter template was also placed in the middle between the turn tracks.  The drawbacks for this pitch are: it doesn't fold so transport is harder and the sand has turned out to be quite abrasive so you need to be careful when placing figures prone.

BLOOD BOWL TO GO

It's a blood bowl pitch!

 These are made to be ultra transportable with everything you need for two pitches (except teams) in one tube,  Made from 'model railway grass paper' I'm sure it has a technical term but I don't know it!  The clips on the end mean it lies nice and flat straight out of the tube.  Similar clips are in the tube for the dugouts which were printed on A3 using colour printer before being cut to size and laminated.  The markings are done with a marker pen apart from the white lines which this time are not painted but use a special paint type pen.  The tube is a section of drainpipe from a DIY store.  One of the ends is fixed the other when removed can be used to throw dice in to.  The tube also contains four dugouts and a tin with a scatter template on top that holds dice and tokens.  The tube is covered in more of my blood bowl adverts.  This concept proved so popular I've since redone it for a friend.  It can be seen in use at Gobstyks, the club I mentioned earlier. 

 And Finally.........Blood Bowl 7's

 Made using the same techniques as the polystyrene tiles pitch.  This was my first attempt to get my son Alexander interested in Blood Bowl but it came a little early in his life and has only been played on once I'm afraid.  It is designed to be used with the rules for Blood Bowl 7's where a game should be possible in a lunch time, ideal for halflings!  Smaller than a normal pitch it is easily transportable, looks good has a scatter template turn track and reroll spaces and is easy on figures.  You know what I might just have to try it out with Alexander again now he is embarking on a Bloodbowl career after all!

Narrenball - It's 'Jester' another Tournament!

Hi fellow Blood Bowlers! I have a couple of things I’d like to share with you on the Blog now I’ve finally taken the plunge and committed to being a (hopefully) regular contributor.  However, as some of them need a bit more work and I’m a little pressed for time at the moment I’m going to start with a tournament report.  So here goes…

These happy chappies are on the 1!

A new tournament on the scene here in Germany, but hosted by an experienced tournament organizer, the first ever Narrenball (translation - Jester Bowl or Fool’s Bowl) took place on the 10^th of February.  Each competitor also received two cool Jester Dice. The idea was to have a tournament that epitomized the Carnival season here in Germany with lots of randomness going on.  Four games in the day on a tight time limit of 2 hrs per game with penalties for slow play.  Team build was from a budget of a million GC a minimum of 11 players although Star Players could be part of the 11.  All skills (cost 20,000) were paid for out of the starting funds, max 1 per player and max 1 ‘double’ (cost 30,000) per team.  The final rule on team make-up was max 1 Reroll and the Leader skill was forbidden with the idea being to increase both speed of play and the chances of a random failure. 

A team to die for!

 In addition each team would be given a Cherry Bomb to use once in the Tournament and before each game would draw a random Special Play Card from the 200,000 deck.  I decided to take Undead as my team as they are solid all rounders and a good tournament team with potential to allocate enough skills to ameliorate the lack of rerolls.  And so Better Dead were born (or raised!) a small gamble on my part as I’d never used Undead before, played against them sure but never with!

Wights - The one with the skill ring had Tackle

So on with the games, first up were Skaven.  I’m thinking if I can keep the game tight I should be able to grind him down but I’m always wary of the danger four Gutter Runners can pose.  The game started with me kicking to him.  He played his card straight away ‘Iron Man’ and I knew my Ghouls would have to contend with his Storm Vermin Blitzer with Tackle for the whole game!  The first thing he did with it was blitz one of my Blodging Ghouls in to the KO Box, oh well not had a turn yet and down to ten players.  He then secured the ball counted carefully to place his Ball Carrier out of range and ran around a lot trying to create scoring threats and generally being Skaven-like.  Then my turn: I had drawn ‘Orcidas Sponsorship’; which I gleefully played on my Wight with Tackle as the plus 1 MA, Sure Feet and Sprint skills that he gained meant I could just reach his ball carrier to blitz him.  First GFI, a one, oh well I have surefeet, second GFI no problem, third GFI another 1!  Well 1^st turn and that was the reroll gone.  Still the blitz was successful; I stunned the Gutter Runner and the ball bounced in to the Endzone.  He was in a fairly desperate position now but with 2 GFI’s he managed to get a Tackle Zone on the Wight and provide an assist for a Gutter Runner with Wrestle for a one die blitz.  This action cost him his reroll too but having rolled the Both Down result and used his skill we both ended up on the floor.  I now just needed a 3+ to dodge out and another to pick up the ball for 1 nil; dodge 6 pickup 2 oh bugger!  There followed lots of to-ing an fro-ing before eventually I was able re-secure the ball and score just before half time.  In the second half attrition on the Skaven gave me control and the game finished with a 3-0 win.

 

Skeletons

Next up were Amazons, coached by a friend of mine who is a very experienced tournament player and also the organizer of Sturm der Hiebe.  He had the usual plethora of Blodgers (7 or 8) a couple with Guard and some other skills with only one of his players not having been given an extra skill!  I’d drawn the ‘Bad Habits’ card meaning he had no rerolls at all for this game, however at the start of each half the kick off result gave him a reroll anyway!  He kicked to me and I set about the standard grind, working my cage relatively quickly in to position before stalling out and trying to remove players from the opposition.  My Tackling Wight was an absolute star in this game, although he seldom needed the skill he seemed to roll a lot of splats working on the theory that a dodge splat or a splat were equally good I guess!  However just as I was readying to score I double skulled with him and left the Ball Carrier vulnerable.  Marian managed to get the ball loose but after a run of dice rolls that weren’t majorly outrageous but left no room for error I wrested it back and went in to half time 1-0 up and 11 against 8 in the second half.  This numerical advantage allowed me to pressure him enough to force a couple more ladies off the pitch and eventually rip the ball free.  Marian had other plans though having drawn the ‘Zap’ card and he turned my Ball Carrier in to a frog!  Thus causing the ball to bounce free and a proper scramble for possession to ensue but he just didn’t have enough players to force his way through for an equalizer.  I also managed to roll a 1 four turns in a row at the end of the game when trying to pick up the ball but, still closed the game out a 1-0 winner and now sat 2^nd in the rankings.

Ghouls - Blue skin with Blodge, Black is Mr (Un)Surehands

Top of the pile was a Dwarf team called Frenzy Fools, my opponent had given both of his Blitzers Frenzy, a tactic I’d never seen before, meaning he had four players with Frenzy so the sidelines were an area of concern. I drew Orcidas Sponsorship again this time giving it to a Blodger Ghoul.  Again I won the kick off roll and chose to receive; my opponent set up with 12 players on the pitch, an interesting move as he didn’t even have 12 on his roster!   Competition rules allowed me to remove two players of my choice from his team, but I chose not to do this and just pointed out the anomaly making him remove the 12^th dwarf.  I did this because even though it is a competition and therefore about winning, I like to enjoy the game and I didn’t want any sort of atmosphere even though it wouldn’t really have been my fault.  My surehands Ghoul tried to pick up the ball rolling a 1 rerolled 1 in the first turn meaning I had now rolled 6 1’s in a row over two games when attempting to pick up the ball!  A first half then took place that was only memorable for me managing to kill a Dwarf Blocker early on; here I redressed the run of 1’s by rolling 12, 12 and then 6 again to turn him in to a Zombie. My opponent thereafter becoming convinced Nuffle was against him. In the second half my defence held strong and I forced a turnover and gained possession then caged up ready to drive down the pitch again.  His special play card came out then, ‘Ballista’ effectively giving him a Lightning Bolt (like a wizard). Although he was able to knock down my Ball Carrier he couldn’t secure the ball himself and I recovered it and progressed down the pitch.  At this point he decided he didn’t have anything to lose and played his Cherry Bomb.  To be honest this turned out to be a bit of a damp squib and the Undead scored again and ran out 2-0 winners.

Mummies dancing on their graves

Norse 'volunteers'

That left the final game and I knew if I won it I’d be Champion and that I had enough of a points advantage that a draw would probably also suffice.  I was also joint leader in the most touchdowns race and just behind but in with a shout of a clean sweep with the Most Casualties tally.  My opponent was using Norse, which as Marian rightly said are a good match up for the Undead.  The odds became even more favourable for me when the first Kick Off Table result lead to Throw a Rock which I won; the Deadly (sic) accurate fans hit one of his players squarely in the eye and killed him!  A Norse Zombie meant without a turn being played I was 12 players to 10 to the good.  He received the ball  but I was soon swarming all over him having played my special play card ‘Ego Trip’ on his Thrower meaning he had to use him first in every turn or not at all.  This worked brilliantly as it meant he couldn’t set things up to his advantage and was forced to take risks which didn’t come off.  He drew ‘Iron Man’ and that meant a Berserker would not be leaving the pitch.  To be honest he never really recovered from the thrown rock and the almost instant turnover due to the pressure I had put on him and the Ego Trip restriction.  In a flash the game was over (16 turns each in under an hour!) and I had won 2-0.  I also ended the game with 2 Norse Zombies which was kind of cool for me but not so great for him I guess.  As a side note we had both saved (or avoided!) using our Cherry Bombs until the final and once again they proved ineffective, although I’d waited until the last possible turn anyway.

All of which left me with a 100 per cent record scoring 8 unanswered Touchdowns which was enough to give me both the Tournament win and Most Touchdowns prize.  I missed out on the Most Casualties prize by 1 casualty, but hey, it would have been greedy to win everything!  To go with the Trophy, which I keep for a year, I also received my third NAF Trophy (I love those things!) and Impact Miniatures had kindly donated vouchers as extra prizes.  My son, Alexander took part in this, his second tournament, too and finished a respectable 11^th out of 18 with his lizardmen ‘Bonehead Wanderers’.  Not bad for a kid playing games 7,8,9 and 10 of his Blood Bowl career!  All in all the tournament rules worked pretty well but maybe if they want to increase the random nature of the game 4 x 50,000 cards would be better than 1 x 200,000 card what do you guys think?

NABBO Tea Cup 2012

As some of you might remember, past 2011 our local Blood Bowl league decided to have a tournament (NABBO Tea Cup) to commemorate its 10^th League (link). Truth is everyone had such a great time, that right there on the spot we decided to do another one the following year (that would be early December 2012, to take 'advantage' of a couple of holidays around that time). But then, "real life" decided to meddle with our BB affairs, and things got a bit less easy...

To keep the boring stuff at bay, I’ll just tell that due to ‘out-of-our-control’ delays (such as ‘customs officials’ strike that lasted for a hand full of months…), everything was forced to be postponed, including our custom Chessex D6 that only arrived mid January. Fittingly enough, the tournament fluff was about the announced “End of the World” (for late December 2012), and so with some tweaks here and there it all fell into place.

 

According to the tournament fluff, Mayan civilization was spot on about a big cataclysm in the end of 2012, which was to engulf the world as we know it. 

What they didn’t knew or forgot to tell us was that this was to be triggered by an massive invocation of Cthulhu demi-gods (hurray for the tentacle dudes!), thought out by a obscure cult that would combine the right alignment of the stars, with a pool of thousands of sacrificial souls gathered in one same spot!

And what better place to gather such amount of souls, than a pitch of Blood Bowl and its spectators?

In the ensuing fight between the cultists and the vigilants (the late trying to keep the aberrations at bay), several “space and time” portals were opened by the cultist faction engulfing everyone within a few miles while the battle raged on, only to release them when it was all over. Despite all the confusion in the survivors minds, it’s now a bit easier to understand why a tournament that begun early December 2012 (or at least that’s what it was supposed to…), only ended in... early February of 2013!!! 

Aside from the regular 1.1k team choice, plus a pack of skills (6 General, 4 General and 1 doubles, or 2 General and 2 doubles), there was one extra thematic fluff thing each coach had to do. After sitting in his gaming table and looking after his opponent for that match, the coach had to choose which side of the “grand scheme” he would be a part of: either helping with the invocations to turn our world upside down, or fighting it!

- The Cult -

If joining “the cult” and helping with the invocations of Cthulhu, he would then needed to “raffle” amongst his players who would be the true vessel of the gods, and that player would be assigned the skill “Tentacles” for the rest of the game.

The Tentacle player presence in the pitch was mandatory, and if something happened to that player that kept him out of the pitch (ko, or injured), then immediately another player had to be gifted to “serve the gods”, and see the Tentacle transferred to him.

 -The Vigilants -

On the other hand, if the coach had no sympathy for entities from other worlds, and felt like kicking some tentacle’ed butts, he could choose to wield the “Burning Nail”, one glamorously weird magical dagger that could be used to cut cheese, carve wood or even pick teeth, without ever loosing edge. Oh, and it could also be used to Stab opponent players, with +1 on the armour against anyone with Tentacles!

Of course with such different takes on the game, we needed to have two different sets of dice for coaches to pick from, according to the factions they choose (either 'flaming orange', or 'tentacle green').

A thematic dugout was obviously mandatory, therefore with all the fluff in mind, one was created. 

It represents a decrepit house (that's where the Reserves stand), a Sub-Cave for the KO’ed (where some of poster signs on the walls show the logos of old NABBO League legendary teams), and a Secret Cave, where evil lurks and the invocations take place (over a scatter template, just to point the way to the aforementioned invocations…), and you can also put Dead & Injured guys in there!

Here's the Dugout and the Dice. Both Poggo Stick and Chainsaw minis are just for scale!

The tournament was pretty much a success, with two more players than the last one, everyone had lots of fun (that kinda was the easy part since we’re all friends and already know each other from the local BB League), and while not a complete surprise, it was quite nice to see it won by the only girl playing in the tournament. A “Two-nil” score against every coach in her path was a sure recipe to victory and one to remain in the history of the competition!

Tournament Pic #1: Up there we have Dark Elves facing Norse (the first 2-0 for the Elves that would keep that same record through the whole competition), and in the lower part of the pic another Norse team faces a Human team (3-1 for the Norse).

Tournament Pic #2: On the white pitch Wood Elves face High Elves (with a 4-2 end result), and in the green turn Humans take a dent at Undead winning by some generous 4-1.

Tournament Pic #3: Later in the competition the Undead strugle to keep another Humans team at bay (up in the pic), while in the bottom of the pic, the High Elves lose 2-1 to the Norse, despite winning the attrition war.

  

Edit: With the tournament over, and despite still having some math to do, we may still have a few Dugouts and Dice as leftovers to sell (as much as we’d like to keep ‘em all for future League gifts and stuff, money is an issue and so we'll probably have to part with them). I'll probably post those later on Talk Fantasy Football, so if someone is interested let me know either here or by pm in TFF.

Have fun!
A.