Berks-PA Gaming Club

AGBBL

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

AGBBL launches season 11

Well, the AGBBL (Adventurer's Guild Blood Bowl League) in Harrisburg, PA has launched season 11. They have a HUGE Blood Bowl crowd up there and this season starts off with 28 individual players of all skill levels.
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I'm giving it a go this season with Orcs. I've played orcs in fun games and online, but never in a full season in a league environment.

I want folks in Berks to follow this, because I want to run a league here once we get enough folks up to speed. We also will be using their same software (hopefully) and rules set.

While I am rather experienced at Blood Bowl, no doubt this game more so than many others relies upon both tactics in moving your men much like chess and also luck of the dice. Not like a game of 40K where you can roll massive amounts of dice, and not like a game of Fantasy where moving or wheeling an infantry unit or a group of fast cavalry can bring you a flank attack.

This is 11 players on the pitch, each with their own stats and as your players gain in skill points, so too do they gain in skills, abilities, statistics and power. Each team can only have 16 players maximum. (probably why GW doesn't support it much).

I suggest anyone interested in learning more to download the rulebook, Living rule book 6.0 and start reading the rules. As we close on May and Berks Spring Assault, I will be starting to focus on Blood Bowl more and more, getting folks trained here so that we can launch a Reading based league in Septemmber 2011.

My update thus far this season has been less than spectacular. I've lost 2 games and tied one. But...I had fun every game!
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Game 1: My Orcs, the Blood Peak Punishers vs. the Scaley Buggers (Lizardmen team).

Lizard men are a tough team to match up for. They first of all they have anywhere from 3-6 Large Saurus blockers. They are fast (moving 6 spaces), strong and have armored hides making them thickly armored. Than you have the skinks. Several of these little guys who can dodge away from your blockers and are some of the fastest creatures to hit the field. Being our first game of the season, my opponent did not have a Kroxigore, which is a giant Lizard man who can cause all kinds of mayhem.

My team consisted of an Orc Passer (QB), 3 Orc Blitzers (skilled blockers), 3 Black Orks (Slow and strong), 2 linemen (base orc players), 1 goblin (small and agile), and 1 Troll (Slow, Strong and dimwitted).
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My unskilled team just had a hard time trying to hang onto the ball and keep it moving. My opponent, Josh, is quite good with his lizards and has peformed very well in leagues and tournaments with them. I ended up losing the game 3 touchdowns to zero for me. However we had fun and the best part of the game was my crazy goblin blitz.

See, when you play Blood Bowl, silly things tend to happen. My Orcs, who are supposedly tougher than Lizards, but I had 3 players sitting in the Knocked-Out bin of the dugout before the first half was over.

Starting the second half down 3 players really put be in a tough spot. But I did the best I could. The infamous goblin bitz was hysterical. A skink picked up the football and was running down the sideline. My troll, Vaprak moved to pick up my goblin "Deez". The troll first had to pass a "stupidity test", and than an "Always Hungry Test". This meant, first of all, he wasn't too stupid to pick up the goblin and wasn't too hungry that he would decide to eat the goblin. (Mind you that really sucks when the goblin holds the football).

The troll threw the goblin, who crash landed after he scattered (roll 3 times). Thankfully the goblin survived the fall, and manged to pick himself up. This allowed me to perform a Blitz Action (Move & Block, you only get 1 Blitz per turn). Deez blitzed the ball carrier and on a 1-die block (both were equal strength (2)), rolled a "Pow" and leveled the skink. Deez managed to break the armor and injure the skink, not only stopping him from scoring, but putting him out of the rest of the game due to his injury.

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It was a crazy game, but due to his actions, I awarded Deez the MVP (this gaining him 5 bonus star player points). Deez did get seriously injured in the game and was forced to miss my game 2. Still, he managed to "skill up" because he also got 2 Star Player Points for his casualty inflicted, for a total of 7 points and your first skill up roll is at 6 spp.

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My team is slowly coming along and I hope that my game 4 will be my first win for the season.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Blood Bowl Demo Games


The Berks Gaming Club will be hosting their first Open House Gaming event on Saturday, October 9th, from 6:00PM to 10:00PM. Everyone is welcome to attend.

They will be discussing the formal organization of the Berks Gaming Club, upcoming activities, and will be GAMING!

Any and all games are encouraged (Warhammer, Warhammer 40K, Blood Bowl, Flames of War, etc.). If time permits, there may even be a Blood Bowl demo for those who are looking into starting that game.

The event will be held at the Muhlenberg Recreation Center, 3025 River Rd., Reading, PA.

We will be looking to host Demo games of Blood Bowl using the new Living Rule Book 6.0 rules.  We will have 2 boards and 4 teams readily available and can run players through a full half of game play to get a feel for what Blood Bowl is really like.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

AGBBL Launches Season 10 !!!


Here it is sports fans!   The Adventuer's Guild Blood Bowl League located in scenic Harrisburg, Pennsylvania is ready to launch the 10th hard-core season of the AGBBL.

A fantastic mix of players ranging in skill from rookie neophytes to tournament champions will take to the pitch, block dice in hand, and miniatures ready for what is perhaps the greatest game ever created by Games Workshop (In my own humble opinion).
Last season was not one of my best, as I took to the pitch with a "vanilla" Human Team:  The Couronne Panthers (from Bretonnia).    This will be my 8th season with the AGBBL (Steel Thunder Mike), as I met up with these fellows in Season 2, started back in 2003, and I took another season off for personal life.   

All I can say is that these folks know Blood Bowl.    The common joke slogan around the Adventurer's Guild is that "Blood Bowl is Life",   Sure it's just a gaming phrase, but these guys really have their act together when it comes to running a football season and tournaments.   Playing on a board is one thing, but to play on completely built stadiums and textured fields, much like one one build for wargaming terrain, makes the game much more enjoyable.

Information can be gleaned upon their website: http://www.agbbl.com/,  and rookie players in the local area looking to set up their teams to play in an "open-style" league plan can simply click on the "Open League" section of the AGBBL home page.

As for the veterans and serious players looking to keep a committment to a scheduled 8-game league, Season 10 is looking to open in the middle of September.   

When the PABBL is ready to start their league and season, we will be using a similar format to the AGBBL.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Welcome to Berks PA Blood Bowl!

Well, this is just the beginnings of what I hope to become an excellent resource.  

We here at the Berks PA Gaming Club are looking to reach out and expand our network and find other gamers in the area, in hopes of uniting us and creating an even larger player base, sharing information, and just having more fun in general.

I am hosting the Blood Bowl portion of our game club, as I have the most experience.   My name is Mike, I go by Steel Thunder in the gaming community.    I've been involved in Blood Bowl for around 8 years now.    I was introduced into the hobby by some local friends after getting my start with Warhammer Fantasy Battles.
Blood Bowl was simply a natural transition.   In my opinion, it is by far the best of the Specialist games ever made by GW.   It combines the elements of football and fantasy wargaming with the silliness of a circus and the hype and entertainment of professional wrestling.

What's really nice about Blood Bowl is that you only need 16 models to fill a complete roster.  So it's not a very expensive hobby to delve into, it's extremely fun and there are several online groups that support the expansion of the game.
I will be posting more information to come, but just wanted to get this site up and running.     Once we start finding out how many local players are interested, I will be scheduling demo games and start introducing folks into one of the most entertaining games one could ever get involved in.

I currently own 5 teams: Human, Dwarf, Orc, Chaos Dwarf, and Chaos Pact (but could be run as Norse as well).   I've played in local leagues and extensively in the AGBBL, the Adventurer's Guild Blood Bowl League based in Harrisburg, PA.   The folks at the AGBBL have been very supportive to us, and run full season Blood Bowl Leagues with 20-32 players a season.  
From Blood Bowl
The folks at the AGBBL also tour the tournament circuit and host many tournaments, with a roving band known as "The Harrisburg Mafia" that tend to win a large portion of awards at most major tournaments they attend.    We are fortunate to have access to the players at the Adventurer's Guild also to help mentor our players and invite us to play in their leagues as well.
Other resources to look into are:
The NAF  (Nuffle Amorical Football), this is the site that supports the hobby world wide.   Annual memebership also includes a set of Block Dice, which are needed to play Blood Bowl.

* Impact Miniatures:  The folks here are an independent company that support table top fantasy football and have a line of minaitures and excellent figure cases to help support the hobby.