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