Blood Bowl L2 Week 6

[lucius101]

Another week, another defeat, another total lack of SPP across the team

 

[Panda with issues...]

Validated Lucius and Ghostwolf, and Trax and Vela's games.

 

[Velaphor]

2-0 to trax who can not fail his blocks! It was close at some point but the elves can move!
That being said i did kill a linesman Go zombie go!

 

[Traxata]

Damn my lack of players

Vel has a ridiculously high team score which puts almost all of his opponents at a huge advantage before they've even begun ...

I had been dreading this game as I believed I'd be losing it, but it was actually a pretty good game I have much more faith in these elves (AND THOSE GOD DAMNED DICE) now than I did in my game against bob!

 

[Panda with issues...]

Damn my lack of players

Vel has a ridiculously high team score which puts almost all of his opponents at a huge advantage before they've even begun ...

Not really, I mean, it just means his team is a lot better in terms of having more players, skills, ability points etc.

Perhaps he needs to look at his team and trim the fat, as it were. A quick look at vela's roster yesterday showed me that he: A) Had too many players (particularly for an undead-type team where due to regenerate, a lot of them won't actually see the pitch. B) The players he has are not his most effective ones: His team is packed with zombies, which, after a point, are not an effective use of team value compared to a werewolf or flesh golem. - He doesn't have the maximum amount of skill position players on his team. C) His choice of skills has IIRC included extra movement and armour points. These count for more TV (i think) than regular skill choices. D) His team also includes a lot of cheerleaders and assistant coaches, which (I think) also tend to bloat team value.

There is a school of thought that you want to keep your team value to, at max, 1700-1800 in a well-developed team, or you give away too much in the way of inducements. The teams we are using at the moment are not particularly advanced, with regards to skill ups. This also means you probably only want, at most, ~4 rerolls, which also add to your team value. You also need to be careful with player choice. A team like goblins needs all the players it can, and can easily utilise a full roster without giving away too many inducements. A hard team that doesn't sustain many casualties, e.g. Orcs, Dwarves, any of the 3 undead, chaos etc. does not need a deep bench of subs. 1 is probably enough in most cases, unless they are very cheap (I.E. Zombies, where you can get away with 2), since this is TV that is normally wasted sitting on the bench. Sort of in contrast, but sort of similar in a way, elves need subs, since are often injured, but their players are so expensive, that they can't afford to have many players sat on the bench, wasting TV. Instead, they need to score quickly and often, to keep getting rolls to wake their players up from Ko's.

 

[Velaphor]

His team is packed with zombies

Brannigan's Big Book of War dictates that I should send wave after wave of zombies that are at my disposal towards the enemy.

 

[Panda with issues...]

Brannigan's Big Book of War dictates that I should send wave after wave of zombies that are at my disposal towards the enemy.

...until they reach their in built kill limit and shut down.

A dark day for robot kind...but hey. We can always build more killbots...

I'm wearing a futurama suicide booth tshirt at work!

 

[Traxata]

I have a question about BB League 3...

Are we going to have to make new teams again for that? or will be taking the teams in this league and continue playing..? I don't know if we can make a league that allows people to come and go over time, without having all the matches decided at the start of the league? (on a week by week basis)..

 

[Velaphor]

I would be nice if we could have some on going league but if we roll over with these teams than anyone new who wants to join or a player who wants a new race loses out.

We could have a separate league that's a long term league for the more hardcore players and have another league that both new and old can join. I also think that weather should be taken off for next league I've seen what it can do and it just makes the game unfair to the more agile of the races imo.

 

[Ronin Storm]

On BB League 3, unsure as yet. Having TV1000 leagues allows new players to enter without fear of being punished for having an experienced team, and allows old players who've had their teams marmalised to start afresh. That said, we'll have put a lot of effort into developing these teams, so it'd be attractive to bring them over to some new league. All yet to be discussed.

However, it's worth noting that the offline league designer, which gives lots of options of what to include and exclude, has been massively simplified online to the point where you get a couple of major options and then have to lump the rest. It's really fairly poor in terms of customisation.

Most of what it does is keep our fixtures management very clear and controlled and offers a prize to the winner and runner up.

To date, I've not seen a way to make a join-in-play league, though we were luck in that we can swap players, 1 for 1, if someone drops out (assuming we have a replacement player).

 

[Velaphor]

To date, I've not seen a way to make a join-in-play league, though we were luck in that we can swap players, 1 for 1, if someone drops out (assuming we have a replacement player).

I have no idea how the league set up works so what I'm about to say could be invalid (load of poop) but could you not up the amount of players that can join a league that way people can join without other leaving or would that mess up the system?

 

[Panda with issues...]

On BB League 3, unsure as yet. Having TV1000 leagues allows new players to enter without fear of being punished for having an experienced team, and allows old players who've had their teams marmalised to start afresh. That said, we'll have put a lot of effort into developing these teams, so it'd be attractive to bring them over to some new league. All yet to be discussed.

However, it's worth noting that the offline league designer, which gives lots of options of what to include and exclude, has been massively simplified online to the point where you get a couple of major options and then have to lump the rest. It's really fairly poor in terms of customisation.

Most of what it does is keep our fixtures management very clear and controlled and offers a prize to the winner and runner up.

To date, I've not seen a way to make a join-in-play league, though we were luck in that we can swap players, 1 for 1, if someone drops out (assuming we have a replacement player).

Take a look at the Orca Cola cup on cyanide forums (?) - I believe they have this kind of set up. - Maybe it is explained.

I have no idea how the league set up works so what I'm about to say could be invalid (load of poop) but could you not up the amount of players that can join a league that way people can join without other leaving or would that mess up the system?

Cyanide seems to want to have all slots full before playing, so it's not feasible to leave blank slots and sub people in.



As regards the next league: I've given it a little thought, and I think we have a few options.

Option 1: A fresh, new team, TV1000 league in the manner we've run this one. - Benefits: New players not penalised, experienced players can choose new races to muck around with, everyone starts afresh, with no one at an advantage or disadvantage due to poor skill choices, player design etc.

Option 2: We set a nominal cap for a new league with players free to enter teams with TV up to the cap. - New players can level up a team in friendly games/ matchmaker to get near the cap so they won't be destroyed. Benefits: Allows players to use existing levelled teams, brings some more player development decisions, rather than just Block/Wrestle/Dodge/Tackle/Guard etc. Negatives: Could easily put off inexperienced players.

Option 3: A mix: A new friendly league, similar to this one, and a second league, run with players who want to use their more experienced teams. This league could be: A) Run using cyanide, locking in players to matches by certain dates, or B) Run on a flexible 'honour' system where the admins set a schedule (say: Everyone plays one game against everyone else, in no particular order) and players can play their games whenever they want, as friendlys, outside of a league system, allowing for greater flexibility. - The issue with this, is that, if one person gets behind in their games, they will get stomped on by higher ranked teams, which is obviously undesirable.

Option 4: Kind of depends on what we can find out on how the Orca Cola cup runs their perpetual cyanide league - AFAIK they run a series of small divisions (something like 7 divisions of say 6 teams), with new players having a new team starting at the lowest division against other low TV teams, with prospects of promotion and relegation between divisions fairly often due to the small division sizes and few games per 'season', in a manner similar to how we (accidentally) ran the first league. Positives: Seems to offer something for everyone. Negatives: We currently don't know how to do this, we would need a core nucleous of players willing to keep playing for a relatively long series of seasons. - Does THN have the perseverance and interest level for this?

 

[Ronin Storm]

I don't believe so as I don't think we can start the league without a full roster. However, it's worth verifying.

 

[comrade_phil]

Looking for a little guidance on playing my league game this week. Supposed to be playing Gombol, but bloke has said he has been temporarily banned from the forums.

I tried poking him politely on Steam on Sunday and got a two word reply (not profanity) I asked him to message me when he was free to play and that I'm free most evenings to play, but hasn't said anything to me since. Obviously will try poking him again, but is there a limit to how many times I should be trying to get the game played? Seems a little silly to message him every evening...

 

[Panda with issues...]

If you keep trying and have had a reply, but can't arrange a game, I think you'd probably get assigned a 2-0 admined victory.

 

[Ronin Storm]

Yeah, broadly our policy seems to be:

• No show on either account = 0-0
• One side doesn't show, but has a good reason given in advance = 1-0 to person who showed up
• One side doesn't show, and has no good reason = 2-0 to person who showed up

 

[Panda with issues...]

Games still to be played this week at the half way point:

Thatbloke vs Huung - WEdnesday Night
Dragon vs Pandawithissues - Thursday Night
Kasatka (kateryne) vs Waterproofbob - Not happening?
Gombol vs Comrade_phil - ???

Assume Kasatka is still having comp issues?

 

[thatbloke]

Planning on playing Huung tonight, should be an interesting match as it's my first this season against some type of elves...

as a side note, if Gombol is not playing the games anymore then I have a friend who would be willing to join the league in his place (paddyobrien)

 

[Traxata]

Kastka Ordered his replacement parts today, so might be good go in a couple of days.

 

[Traxata]

I wonder what that'd do o_o

Also, Gombol has removed the [THN] tags from his steam and xfire etc, so I wonder if he plans on coming back at all.