GW bringing back Specialist Games?!?

[Fassbinder75]

It’s a lot easier to get games played in FUMBBL than tabletop, so surely a good coach with a good team will win out over the course of a ‘season’. While some kick-off table results are very swingy, over a big enough sample size (of matches) they’re unlikely to be of much impact. Dampening the table just dampens the drama, and that’s not Blood Bowl.

[Shteve0]

I think (though I'm clearly no judge myself) that it means that in order to make good decisions in the four minutes or whatever you're alloted to play your turn, a large part of the game is driven by a gained understanding of the relativity of the two teams' positions, honed with practice.

Say your Orc opponent has formed a cage, with a couple of players spare over on one side and a tail on the other. Pattern recognition will come in to working out what they're trying to do, and whether they've made mistakes; and it'll inform your assumptions about what will happen next if you attack the cage or stall it, and therefore which side you should stall on/attack.

I assume, at least.

[koadah]

This derailment is a nice illustration of why people fear a rule change.

For all the complaints about the current ruleset people fear that a new one could well be worse.

In my opinion the most spectacular matches are those played by 2 coaches with high win rate, while watching 2 clueless noobs playing a game (or even a very good coach playing vs a noob coach) is not as interesting.

Hmm. I think I would change "coaches with high win rate" to "very good coaches". Not the same thing when a game is not "balanced".

I don't get how somebody can tolerate to play a game seeing flaws without thinking about ways to fix them.
Maybe because you play for fun, so you are not very interested in a more balanced game.

I don't see the "bolt from the blue" events as flaws. As for "balance" each coach could be hit by these during a game.

No need to be a grand master to know that Chess is a deterministic game and that you have to memorize patterns of moves to play it.

Top players say being good at BB is about memorising patterns.
And they still win even with all the randomness in the game.

Maybe you're just not as good as you think you are?

That's the first time I've even heard someone say BB is about memorising patterns, so I'm clearly not a top player!

On a slightly more serious note, do you know what is meant by that Darkson? I've heard a number of top players state that being good at BB is about minimising risk and the reducing the number of times you need to roll dice.

That makes sense to me, since the more dice you roll, the more likely you are to fail an action and end your turn. However, I'm not sure what's meant by memorising patterns.

If you really know the patterns and what do about them you will make fewer errors and put your opponent under more pressure. Your turns will also be quicker which seems to be very important to some people.

I don't understand why my personal coach skill should be relevant for a well known thing, i.e. that BB is a mix of positioning, tactic, moves AND a random element

My thinking is that if BB is not challenging enough for you to try something that requires a bit more brain power.

I notice that there are no tournament wins on your Fumbbl profile. If you are not playing tournaments why is this an issue? Or is it an issue that you play and keep losing to casual, lightweights.

[rolo]

Can we stop it with the personal attacks on Matt's record? He's an experienced coach and knows what he's doing, and even if he'd never won a game in his life, he'd still be entitled to an opinion.

Blood Bowl is supposed to be fun. I guess there are people who just play to roll dice and run their players around at random; good for them. Some of us enjoy trying our best to win games, which is also legitimate.
All I (and I think Matt) have been saying is that there are some rules which can ruin a match. I've been using the word "game-breaking" to describe these in the sense that they break a single game. Would you prefer that I say "match-breaking"?
Anyway, when a single random bolt of randomness (such as a ridiculous one-sided pitch invasion) breaks a match like that, it's not fun for anyone.

To turn this into a ridiculous analogy, imagine that in 1% of games, at a random turn, someone runs up to where the game is being played, flips over the table, spills both coaches drinks, flips them both the bird, and declares a 1-1 draw.
Now imagine if this happened to you, and you complained about it, and people were responding with things like, "Well, it almost never happens, so what are you complaining about?" and "Sometimes it happens in a game that you're losing, you should be happy about it!" and "This never happens in chess, maybe you should play that instead?" and "You're taking this too seriously, think about how much FUN it was to see your figures flying in the air!"

Nobody's attacking Blood Bowl as a whole here. All we're saying is that sometimes, a badly thought out rule comes into effect and can ruin a match. And that it would be better if this happened less, or not at all. Heck, I'm not even asking for that rule to be *changed* - who would I ask? GW will do what they want with no input from me. I'm not even saying "this sucks because it sometimes costs me a win, and I care about winning more than anything!". I'm saying this sucks because it sometimes turns a competitive game into a snoozer.

[Darkson]

On a slightly more serious note, do you know what is meant by that Darkson?

What Shteveo said (and I struggle, as I'm not a good, let alone great, player). If you can work out what you're doing with say 2/3rds of your players within seconds, because you've seen (and more importantly, recognised and remembered) the layout before AND you know what does and doesn't work, it means you've got more time to mentally work out what you're doing with the remaining players.
I've watched coaches like Lycos, and they're moving their 4th or 5th model before I've even worked out what I'd be doing with my first.
Or course, risk management is a big part of it, but if you can narrow down your plan from say 5 ways to 2 ways because you know x,y and z don't work you have an advantage.

[Darkson]

Anyway, when a single random bolt of randomness (such as a ridiculous one-sided pitch invasion) breaks a match like that, it's not fun for anyone.

There you go again, talking for everyone (which is what Matt's been doing to).
Are you saying that all the people that have disagreed with you aren't having fun? Because I'd be really annoyed if they removed the KO table, or even watered it down more, and would add it straight back in if it was removed.

[frogboy]

I wonder if they will bring back Inquisitor? I never got to play that and Gorka Morka was another game I missed.

BFG was good, only them Eldar Holo fields where broken as hell, unless you was packing a Nova Cannon.

I think I'd be most interested in Mordhien though, after BloodBowl. Didn't play much of that futuristic gang banger game or Warhammer Quest (both were good) and didn't really get into Epic, them stupid little Space Marine bases looked ridiculous!

They have so many great games though, I wonder what will be first and what order will follow?

[Valen]

I've been using the word "game-breaking" to describe these in the sense that they break a single game. Would you prefer that I say "match-breaking"?

I think this is a VERY key difference. "game-breaking" is essentially attacking the game, saying the rules make the game unplayable as it is broken. "match-breaking" is VERY different, this is something that could change the course of one game to the determent of balance.

I have been reading most of this and pretty much disagreed with everyone lol. However if I re read yours and possibly some of Matt's and replace that terminology I could not agree more.

Whether the fact it is a match breaking rule means it MUST be changed I am not sure, maybe a toned down version like suggested may be a slight improvement while still having the fun factor.

[rolo]

There you go again, talking for everyone (which is what Matt's been doing to).

Fair enough. In my experience, I've seen stuff like one-sided pitch invasions affect games from time to time, usually stuff like turning an unlikely 2-turn attempt at the end of the game into a more or less guaranteed touchdown. And I've never heard anyone talk about how fun that was. Every time it's "Bullshit ending to an otherwise fun game".

This happened:


I'm red in that picture. It didn't affect the game, it was my opponent's turn 16, he ended up taking a 1d Ogre-on-Ogre block and the game ended on both-down.

But imagine if that had happened, on, say, turn 12 of a competitive game? That's a free, completely unearned, defensive touchdown for me. And while you're right, I shouldn't speak for my opponent, I seriously doubt that his reaction would be, "what a completely fair and well-thought-out rule!".

[Loki]

You're making part of the argument here for the defence of "potentially 'match-breaking'" events. You've said it has to happen earlier in the game but as this happened at a time where it didn't effect the outcome.

There are too many 'ifs' and 'buts' around both 'game' and 'match' breaker discussions. I personally am happy with the level of skill vs. luck and enjoy the challenge of sucking up the bad games. I play to win every time but know that some days the match just will not be mine.

Somewhere earlier "1hr" was mentioned as the 'cost' when this ruins the end of a game, this is only for online. I play mostly TT rather than FUMBBL/Cyanide, the cost for me is 2-3hrs+ and £5-6 (club/train costs) for a possibly BS ending, and you know what, I still don't care that sometime there are uncontrollable events because Blood Bowl is what it is. Maintaining composure and some degree of mental balance and concentration when things descend into farce is an positive outcome in itself.

I for one hope that GW do not cause wholesale chaos in the community. Some clarification in areas would be good, some very minor tinkering could be acceptable (but even that is subjective) but the suggestion of adding or removing items just makes me concerned rather than excited.

[JaM]

I wonder if they will bring back Inquisitor? I never got to play that and Gorka Morka was another game I missed.

BFG was good, only them Eldar Holo fields where broken as hell, unless you was packing a Nova Cannon.

I think I'd be most interested in Mordhien though, after BloodBowl. Didn't play much of that futuristic gang banger game or Warhammer Quest (both were good) and didn't really get into Epic, them stupid little Space Marine bases looked ridiculous!

They have so many great games though, I wonder what will be first and what order will follow?

Mordheim always seemed like fun to me, just like Necromunda. Never got around to play it though. Can see myslef making a gang or 2 (for both systems), but, just like 40K, will proabbly never use them. I'd rather play BBowl.

I'd pick up a 'new' version of WHQ in a heartbeat. As long as I think the rules are still easy enough to allow me to play it with the kids...
Yeah, I'd love that.

[koadah]

There you go again, talking for everyone (which is what Matt's been doing to).

Fair enough. In my experience, I've seen stuff like one-sided pitch invasions affect games from time to time, usually stuff like turning an unlikely 2-turn attempt at the end of the game into a more or less guaranteed touchdown. And I've never heard anyone talk about how fun that was. Every time it's "Bullshit ending to an otherwise fun game".

I suppose that is where the "why don't you go play chess" comments come from. If we thought that was a problem that is what we would do. Or maybe even poker.
The random elements appear to me to have been reduced a fair bit. I would now consider them about right.

To you ' Every time it's "Bullshit ending to an otherwise fun game"'. I am fine with it. If it happened three times in the same match to same coach I could understand if they got a bit irritated.. But Nuffle works in mysterious ways.

As Dode said earlier on it is a matter of preference. And yes, a lot of people do consider the "bolt from the blue" to be a fun part of the game.

[lunchmoney]

BFG was good, only them Eldar Holo fields where broken as hell, unless you was packing a Nova Cannon.

Holofields gave a 2+ save vs Novacannon. It was cleared up in an FAQ. Holofields (and Dark Eldar Shadowfields) gave a 2+ save vs any attack that didnt use the gunnery/barrage table (this included teleport boarding attacks). The way to beat Eldar (either of them) was massive barrages of gunfire. Here's hoping they give a retreatment to BFG as well


And Epic. I love Epic.

[rolo]

Hey, remember Warmaster? That game was awesome, I hope they bring it back!

I really, really wanted to like Warmaster. Bought some figures when it came out, by the time one unit was painted, the game was cancelled and I never got a chance to play it.

[MattDakka]

I notice that there are no tournament wins on your Fumbbl profile. If you are not playing tournaments why is this an issue? Or is it an issue that you play and keep losing to casual, lightweights.

I played the current FUMBBL Cup with my High Elves.
No Pitch Invasion but in a match a rock hit the Catcher who might have scored 1TTD.
By the way, my team didn't have enough money, it's hard to hoard gold with agile teams if you play in Box.
21 CAS in 5 matches, and I could have probably won the game I lost with a GFI of my S4 Catcher.
I don't keep on losing, but this doesn't change my opinion on some events of the Kick Off table.