Blood bowl guide for beginners

[Gandalf]

*final version to go here*

[Gandalf]

There was talk in another thread about a primer for prospective new players. Here's what I typed up for red lion three. Would be good to see what temmop was given, and then combine them/take one of them/improve them to give out to prospective players.

Mine's not very "fluffy" and aimed at someone who knows something of the Warhammer world already. Should the guide be aimed at someone from that background, or a complete newbie?

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There are 15-20 races to choose from. They all possess various characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses. Broadly speaking, they are either agile but easily hurt (High Elves), slow but strong (orcs) or somewhere inbetween (humans). Additionally there are some more challenging but humorous sides, such as the ogres (my team for the upcoming season - each ogre has a 1 in 6 chance every turn of ignoring anything you ask them to do!). Most teams have a choice of 2 or more player types to make up their team. For example the orcs can have up to 4 black orcs (they are stronger). It's 11 a side but you can have up to 5 subs.

Players have attributes (movement/agility/strength/armour value) and also skills. For example, the dodge skill lets that player re-roll one failed dodge roll a turn. There are 30+ different skills, and players earn skills over the course of playing lots of matches. So each team can end up being quite individual.

Each team has 8 turns a half (in our league there is a limit of 2 minutes per turn), played on a board that's about 13 squares wide and 28 long. It's rugby-esque in that the aim is to score touchdowns, whoever scores the most wins.

On your turn you can get each of your players to do something - for example move, pick up the ball, pass, hit someone. However almost any action (except moving if not next to an opposition player) involves rolling dice, and most failed dice rolls will end your turn immediately (this is called a turnover). So it's a balancing act, tending to do the least-riskiest thing first, but also trying to make sure you get the chance to do the most important things, and sometimes your plans are wrecked because of some unfortunate event, just like in real sport. You also get a set number of re-rolls you can use per half (but maximum one per turn), when to use these re-rolls is a matter of experience.

The dice roll needed to succeed with various actions depends on your player's stats, and the match situation. For example, to pick the ball up requires 2+ from an elf but 3+ from a human. However many things can make it harder - for each opposion player next to the ball that adds 1 to the required roll, if it is raining that adds another 1. However, a roll of 1 always fails and a roll of 6 always succeeds, which keeps things interesting.

Hitting (or "blocking" to give its official name) is a big part of the game. You can knock opposition players over, sometimes knocking them out or even injuring them. Less players on the pitch means less players who can score / get in the way of you scoring. This is (obviously) more of a tactic for stronger teams rather than weaker ones. An important point is that you can only hit players you are standing next to at the start of the turn, apart from one player a turn, who is allowed to hit someone they aren't standing next to (this is called a "blitz" move).

I think that's it in a nutshell. You can buy it online for £15/£20 - either the legendary edition or chaos edition (only difference is you get the choice of 3 more races in the latter one).

[Raveen]

Not knocking that at all Gandaf, it's a really solid base and tells someone how to play, but for me, the fluff side of things is an important draw. The fact that this is a game that runs mostly on puns and silly jokes is a large part of the appeal.

I think that would be a good base for the Team Specific sheet (it could be tweaked so that the numbers reflect a given team better rather than the general cases you mention here.

Before we go too far forwards, I would like to share any and all material we create with the TFF forum and The NAF, should they want it. If anyone has a problem with their work being shared like that they should say so now

[lawastooshort]

I have collated and edit most of what me and Daigaro sent Temmop, with a final added section by identiy. Given Rav’s comments above though I’m not sure how useful it is right now – it is fluffless.

It’s also 4.5 pages in Word and I’m not sure that there aren’t much better guides about that can be easily found.

[notjarvis]

Spent my lunchtime searching for what guides are alread out there.

This is quite a nice one with a little bit of fluffl, but I really like the clear way it describes shortly the basics of the game.
https://thepaintingmonkey.wordpress.com ... wl-part-1/



I really like the Taoch! of Blood bowl on the Funbll forums
https://fumbbl.com/help:The+Taoch!+of+B ... or+Newbies

[Raveen]

4.5 pages feels like too long, for what I want anyway. It'd be good to see it either way.

If I get a chance I'll post up something along the lines of what I have in mind.

[lawastooshort]

I really like the Taoch! of Blood bowl on the Funbll forums
https://fumbbl.com/help:The+Taoch!+of+B ... or+Newbies

Yes I like that one too.

[Gandalf]

Not knocking that at all Gandaf, it's a really solid base and tells someone how to play, but for me, the fluff side of things is an important draw. The fact that this is a game that runs mostly on puns and silly jokes is a large part of the appeal.

No problems! What I wrote was definitely aimed for a specific audience (sciencey background, knows of warhammer universe). If it's useful for others then great, if it's not then that's fine too.

I'm somewhat in awe of this 4.5 page document, despite not having seen it. That's quite an impressive commitment to getting someone up to speed.

I really like the Taoch! of Blood bowl on the Funbll forum

That's pretty good, as as strategy guide, but not really for someone dipping their toe into it for the very first time. A good second guide, perhaps. Also you don't have to play it with optimal strategy to have fun... (throw snotlings! everywhere! dwarves throwing the ball! etc) though it's still good to know what the optimal thing to do is, so when you try something different and it fails, you aren't too disappointed.

This is quite a nice one with a little bit of fluffl, but I really like the clear way it describes shortly the basics of the game.
https://thepaintingmonkey.wordpress.com ... wl-part-1/

One thing I think mine does but this doesn't, is a) talk about how the various teams are vastly different, and b) how they can develop in different ways. For me that's a key point of interest. It's not like, say, real life football, where it's 11 humans vs. 11 humans, all with vaguely similar characteristics. Variety is the spice of life!

[id3nt1ty]

What style are we after? Gandalf, (and Daigaro, la and myself for Andy) has written "How Blood Bowl is played" and the Taoch is "How to play Blood Bowl." What about "WTF is Blood Bowl?"

[DaigaroOgami]

I reckon the one we did for Andy could be edited more, and have added comedy and 'released' in parts; i.e. BLOCKING.

But it was kinda just summarizing in plain speak what was in LRB6... Which leads me to think that with all this we're just trying to re-invent the wheel.

I'm guessing Rav is thinking along the lines of being a marketing guru, and telling people that their lives won't be complete until they play BB...

Send over/post what we did La. 4 1/2 pages written when we I had more time to do so... and wanted to get Temmop as up to speed as possible; he'd never even heard of the game. Thought it would be a sporting thing to do.

I'm fine with you sharing anything and everything Rav. Freedom o knowledge for the greater good, etc.

And if it means we get a bigger league all the better. Unless they all play dwarves. Or elves.

[Gandalf]

I found a decent explanation of the rules here http://fullglassemptyclip.com/2010/10/c ... -playbook/ does it in a clearer way than the official rules IMO. I don't know how much of it is out of date though (eg purchasing fan factor).

[Raveen]

Sounds like it's LRB5 but the differences are fairly minor (the need to buy fan factor being one of them).