RPS Blood Bowl League - The many, many Divisions of Death!

[groovychainsaw]

I have a spreadsheet in GDocs for every race, natch, so i can play with numbers. Haven't used it for a while, mind :-)

In other news, I've adminned all the games I can tonight, I'll be tidying up later in the week so if everyone can be all sorted by this THURSDAY NIGHT I'll get everything set for the live draw over the weekend for the next season!

[NieA7]

I tend to start from how many re-rolls I want as a minimum (usually 3, 4 for stunty-esque teams, 2 for teams that start with high Ag or lots of block, dodge and sure hands) and which positionals I think are really key. With that in place I work out how I can spend the leftovers, assuming there are any. For Necro I earmarked 3 re-rolls, 2 golems and 2 wights as being the core of the team. That's 210 for the re-rolls and 400 for the positionals, giving me 390 spare and 7 players still to go. 7 zombies would set me back 280, leaving 110 for upgrades at a cost of 80 per wolf and 30 per ghoul - a neat 1 of each.

Some races don't work this way as they're just too expensive (Nurgle for one, starting with the beast and 4 warriors as I'd prefer rules out 3 rerolls), at which point I'll turn it around and work it out from 11 linemen up, but the reason I try to avoid that is I'm terrible at resisting the temptation to go for players instead of re-rolls.

[20phoenix]

Alas, no. I realized too late that no backup had been taken and did something to try restoring it which didn't work out for some reason. I think I've realized better how to use the actual stored revisions in google docs now though, and narrowed it down to one of the last Sep 17 versions being what we want. I think we can get it back again from there, but it's probably best if no one touches the spreadsheet while that's happening. I'm busy for most evenings this week, but could try doing it at some point if no one else gets to it first.

With all the discussion of new teams, I've been wondering how people usually go about building a fresh team? Myself, I tend to count out the cost of 11 linemen and write down the price for each potential 'upgrade' from there in units of 10k before picking something together. For instance here are the notes for my current Nurgle team:

Nurgle - 56

4 - reserve
7 - reroll

4 - Pestigor  4 16
7 - Warrior   4 28
10- Beast     1 10

alt: 4 rerolls, 2 warriors, 2 left

Ie. You have 56(0k) to spend after getting 11 rotters. A reserve costs 4, a reroll 7, upgrading a rotter to a pestigor is 4, to a warrior is 7 and to a beast is 10. To the right is the build I went with (4 Pestigors for 16, 4 Warriors for 28, 1 Beast for 10). And below is the reroll heavy extreme that I was also considering. How are the rest of you doing it?

I take the positionals I feel are essential (players with block/dodge tend to be on this list) pad out the team with fodder then figure out from there the combination of rerolls/luxury positionals/apo I want to go with.

[potatoedoughnut]

Advice time!

My MVP hog zombie has just hit level 4. He already has block and guard and if it wasn't for the guard I would fire him, but I currently don't want to lose the guard and I only have 1 other skilled zombie at the moment so the block is valuable as well.

So I need to pick a skill. I'm thinking fend, or possibly dauntless or pro. Tackle is a possibility too I guess.

Anyone have advice on what to pick?

[mrpier]

Got a gutter runner with +1 AG, Wrestle, Strip Ball and now Leap as well. He will get tackle or maybe dauntless next. Also gave my Accurate, +1AG thrower block for some protection and utility.

[NieA7]

Sounds like I'd not have enough time to fit my last match in before I'm off, how should I indicate a temporary withdrawal on the spreadsheet?

Advice time!Anyone have advice on what to pick?

I've not got any guard on my zombies, but I have found the block/fend zombie surprisingly useful - coupled with stand firm/sidestep on the positionals it can really mess up the other side's blocking. I like the idea of dauntless but skills that encourage more dice rolling can be bad news, and given this is the guard zombie it'd arguably be more useful on every other zombie IYSWIM.

[Heliocentric]

Tackle is a passive skill which suits well. Pro suits there status as "the last player you move", essentially a budget sure feet for marking, or converting push, push into something deadlier. Frenzy is more for golem.

Pro also gives jump up a shot in the arm as a possible future double.

[LowKey]

Lowkey is sheepel and does what coach tells him

[Screwie]

Anyone have advice on what to pick?

I think with the zombie's lack of speed and agility, I would go Fend. It will keep him alive longer and allow you to move the Guard piece around without first having to dodge away.

[ChainsawHands]

Lowkey is sheepel and does what coach tells him

That's basically my plan, he's probably already worked out a bunch of starting rosters for you, so you can pick one of those without having to bother will all those tedious numbers. ;-)

[President Weasel]

Here are the outstanding matches by Division - now updated with updates

Div Champs: Laneford vs Chainsawhands - looks like this will be impossible to play by Thursday, so it will need to be set to a draw. Shame.

Div 2: Somanyrobots vs Grinn: did you guys manage to arrange a match, or do we set this to a draw?

Div E: Dentharial vs Karandaz: Looks like they're hoping for an extension til Thursday. I shall refer this one to the Admin Committee - update: I haven't seen any flaming torches or acid-soaked bricks, or flaming acid-soaked bricks, so it looks like Thursday is cool.

Div H: Graever vs Lowkey: - did you guys manage to arrange a match for today? Otherwise Lowkey gets the win due to Graever "pulling a Dave".

Div K: mrJoose vs ntw: Looks like an admin draw unless ntw gets back in time to get the game in before Thurs.

Div L: dissident vs Drawlien: haven't seen owt from Dissident so looks like Drawlien gets a win tomorrow.



All other matches are either played or already admin-resulted. So we have one match scheduled for Thursday, a couple of possibles, a couple where I am leaving it to the last minute in the hope that ntw gets back in time or Laneford gets the patch somehow, and one that hasn't been adminned yet in case Dissident suddenly appears.

[LowKey]

Hopefully playing tonight after Chaos edition wouldn't connect last night

[LowKey]

Righto, we disconnected early in the second half which is a shame as it had been a good game up till then, I'll be playing board rather than computerised games tomorrow night so I think we can call this one an admin draw, sorry for holding everything up

[President Weasel]

Admin draw, you say? Admin draw it is then...

/wrestles with cyanide
/wins!

[somanyrobots]

Div 2: Somanyrobots vs Grinn: did you guys manage to arrange a match, or do we set this to a draw?

Haven't seen Grinn; I believe he's been busy, and I've been busier than expected this week myself. Go ahead and admin it.

[President Weasel]

cheers 'robots, done.

[President Weasel]

Here are the outstanding matches by Division - now updated with updates to the previous updates

Div Champs: Laneford vs Chainsawhands - setting this to an admin draw

Div 2: Somanyrobots vs Grinn: set to a draw this morning

Div E: Dentharial vs Karandaz: playing this evening, I believe

Div H: Graever vs Lowkey: - disconnected, set to a draw

Div K: mrJoose vs ntw: setting this to a draw

Div L: dissident vs Drawlien: Disappearing Dissident defaults to Drawlien

All matches bar Dentharial v Karandaz now have results, and it only remains to wait for the end of their match and then go through and hit end season (which I am NOT going to do, since I am not entirely sure what that button does).

[Dentharial]

I'll make this quick since I'm sure the admins are waiting to pounce.

Aggressive Negotiation (Karandraz, Liz) VS Da Blu Moonz (Dentharial, Orcs)

Serious thanks to everyone for waiting for us, because this was one of the most fun matches I've had in a long, long time.

In the first 7 block dice I rolled, 5 of them were skulls. Notably the opening pair were double-skulls, with the reroll lonered by the troll. Despite all that, I still managed to KO a full 3 saurus and the krox off the pitch before the end of the first half, but didn't manage to make enough ground to score.

All of them then recovered for the second half.

There was a bit of a scrabble around the ball at the start, but Karandraz was eventually able to grab it and run it off to the far side of the pitch with a skink, and my orcsies were all too marked up to get a blitz on.

The final few turns saw my orcs push up the sideline, and get ever so close to scoring a drawing touchtown, but I was down in numbers (with my 0spp black orc dying, a blitzer badly injured, and another KO on someone or another), and hemmed in on all sides.

The final action of the game was a desperate 1-die block on my part to try and make room to run my ball carrier up and over the touchline.

It was a skull.

Final Score: Aggressive Negotiation 1 - 0 Da Blu Moonz

The game was messy, aggressive, and oh-so-fun. As Karandraz said afterwards, it was brutal, and full of turnovers.

I believe that score puts iNinja, Karandraz and I into a 3-way tie for relegation. I have no idea who's going to lose that one.

Roll on, next season!

[20phoenix]

Advice time!

My MVP hog zombie has just hit level 4. He already has block and guard and if it wasn't for the guard I would fire him, but I currently don't want to lose the guard and I only have 1 other skilled zombie at the moment so the block is valuable as well.

So I need to pick a skill. I'm thinking fend, or possibly dauntless or pro. Tackle is a possibility too I guess.

Anyone have advice on what to pick?

Fend fend fend

As dodge is a double the extra protection from fend is vital for a guard piece

[Everblue]

Div L: dissident vs Drawlien: Disappearing Dissident defaults to Drawlien

I contacted Dissident, and he is withdrawing from the league.