(Turn) Limit Break

Stuart and I played another game of Stargrave Notromunda this week at the Dice Saloon; our rival crews entered an abandoned high-tech factory -- loot rolls after the skirmish indicated that the place only produced pistols, much to our disappointment -- and things got very ugly indeed!

Stuart's crew escaped with two bits of loot -- pistols, obviously -- while Fateweaver Duu'ey and his inscrutable space elves only managed to get one crate... of pistols. On the other hand, the aliens only took two casualties while Stuart's band of pirates and mutants lost seven (!) members. Duu'ey himself was reduced to only two hit points and was lucky to survive, not least because the factory's half-functional security robot was stomping around nearby, making an I-have-a-machine-gun-ho-ho-ho nuisance of itself.

We are both very much enjoying Stargrave Notromunda but we have yet to complete a full game, always with at least two turns to go when a member of the Dice Saloon team politely suggests we stop so they can close up and go home. I'm not sure what's taking us so long as it's a simple enough game, and crews are limited to about ten models, but we are only managing about three or four turns in three hours and we haven't achieved either of the game end conditions -- all loot recovered, or only one crew left on the table -- so far. I don't remember us having this problem in Mordheim Frostgrave.

I assume we're doing something wrong, because the game's author Joseph A. McCullough hasn't included any way of resolving a "time out" situation, which suggests it never occurred during playtesting.

Here's one potential resolution. I'll put it to Stuart next time we play:

If a game runs out of time, then a crew scores any loot that was extracted, as normal, plus any loot that is held or controlled by a crew member that is not in combat. Any loot that is "loose" or contested by a rival within 1", or is held by a crew member in combat, is lost. Any loot that has not been unlocked is also lost.

This is more or less what we decided after the game anyway, but I feel better having it written down. Er, typed out.

Is anyone else out there playing Stargrave Notromunda? Have you had the same problem? How have you solved it?

Star Gravin' Across the Universe

Those readers with long memories will remember that, before the Plague Years, Stuart and I attempted a a Mordheim Frostgrave campaign. Since then, Mordheim Frostgrave has spawned a second edition, as well as a science fiction spinoff that I would love to call Notromunda because it keeps the joke going, but is in fact entitled Stargrave. Stuart and I decided to give the latter a try.

I don't have nearly as many painted scifi miniatures as I do fantasy models, but Stuart and I are in theory building up forces to fight a series of battles running through each edition of Warhammer 40,000 so I do have some Eldar ready to go, and so it was that the followers of Fateweaver Duu'ey ventured out into wild space to teach the Mon'keigh a lesson!

We have played a couple of games so far; you can read Stuart's summary of the first battle here. Notrumunda is an interesting change from Mordheim Frostgrave; although a great deal of the text is lifted from the second edition of the fantasy game -- to the extent that I do have some reservations over whether there were better ways to package and sell the two -- there are some key differences in play. Notrumunda captains are less powerful and flashy than Mordheim Frostgrave wizards, and almost everyone gets a ranged weapon in the dark future in which there is only war (probably) so the balance of play is quite different. There are two different types of treasure in space, and while one is easier to steal transport both need to be unlocked before they can be claimed, which also forces some interesting decision-making.

All of which meant that my usual Mordheim Frostgrave tactic of sitting back and shooting Stuart's people wouldn't work this time. I needed to be more clever, which can be a bit of a struggle for me.

I think it's fair to say that we have come out of the two games so far at a roughly equal footing. The skirmishes have been brutal, with lots of casualties, more so than I remember from Mordheim Frostgrave, but this adds to the fun. In the first battle, one of my robots made a daring building to building leap, then kicked Stuart's first mate off a high edge, but alas not to his death.

The second battle saw my robots destroying Stuart's crew for most of the skirmish, until his space rat -- one of the cheapest, weakest troop types in the game -- somehow developed a raging bloodlust and chewed through my space elves like they were space cheese.

Meanwhile, I have discovered the joy -- although I'm not sure Stuart would call it that -- of grenade launchers.

We have been playing at our local Dice Saloon, which has an excellent terrain library, as you can see from the photographs. Stuart has been providing the miniatures for the random encounters, which means that we've sort of accidentally created an ongoing side narrative with a pair of familiar-looking bounty hunters shadowing both crews for some mysterious reason...

Notrumunda has been great fun so far and I'm keen to play some more as soon as Stuart's schedule aligns with mine. More soon, I hope!

It's Not Quite a Jaguar

A couple of weeks ago, Stuart and I ventured into the Outside World to play a round of Battlecars, a game from the early days of Games Workshop, designed by Gary Chalk and (Sir) Ian Livingstone. Stuart had long wanted to play it, and I had a copy knocking around from a few years ago when a generous blog reader decide to give his game collection to me.

Alas, that battered old copy was lacking instructions, but I pieced together a playable set of rules from the Battlebikes expansion, a rules summary that I thought I'd got from Board Game Geek but seems to be absent now, and a remake called Cars That Do Battle. As it turned out, all that wasn't quite enough and we had some minor issues during play, but nothing that caused too much trouble.

I also decided to draw my own board. The original game uses boards upon which flat card terrain pieces are placed, and I could see the whole thing going flying if nudged during the game. The previous owner had used blu tack to attach the terrain to the board, but that seemed an unsatisfying solution and I was worried about damage to the components. Plus, I could draw the board at a slightly larger size so that neither of us would have to do as much squinting.

I didn't have a chance to come up with a similar fix for the car templates, but there was a certain tactile fun in applying the little red damage counters and removing components and weapons as they were damaged and used.

The game was good fun. Playing a new game for the first time always takes a bit longer but we managed it in just over two hours and once we got used to things it rattled along; I was worried that it would be slow and fiddly and wouldn't capture the feel of Mad Max style combat at all, but it did feel fast and, um, furious, which was quite a surprise from such an old design. By the end of the game both cars were burning wrecks, but I made an error of judgement and had my driver leave his vehicle when staying put would have been more sensible, and Stuart punished my poor decision making with a burst of machine gun fire. Ratatatat!

Poor Terry Hawk, gunned down in his post-apocalyptic prime!

Both Stuart and I are keen to play again. I have now found a copy of the actual rules, and we have decided to make use of a variant initiative system as the original game's approach is a bit inadequate and unfair. I have access to a couple of scenarios with different win conditions, so we may also give those a try.

Day, made.

You can read Stuart's thoughts on the game here. We are thinking of giving the more complex Car Wars a try soon, and perhaps even Dark Future, as I've long wanted to play it.

Terminus Est

Okay then.

As expected, the match against the Norse team, my final game of the season, resulted in a loss. It did not go as badly as I expected, so that's something.

The Purple People Eaters were going into the match with a number of players missing, including vampire star player Gary, and no substitutes. The opposing team was of a much higher team value -- Blood Bowl's rough metric of team quality -- so I was able to recruit a star player -- Wilhelm Chaney, again -- and a wizard.

I used the wizard early, which was probably a mistake as he failed to achieve much and was probably better as a deterrent. Chaney was better; I relied on him less as a playmaker this time and instead used him as a general distraction and nuisance. My opponent deployed resources to keep the werewolf caged, which gave the rest of my team some wiggle room.

Overall the match was much less one-sided than I expected. I lost, of course, but I got a lot of possession, and did pull off a late and risky passing play that led to a touchdown -- and star player points for my vampires! -- so at least it wasn't a total rout.

Final Score: North Laine Nihilists 2 - Purple People Eaters 1

So that's the end of my first ever season of competitive Blood Bowl! I did not achieve my goal of at least one win but I did manage three draws, which isn't too bad. Despite the overall results, I feel that I'm okay at defensive play -- although there's obvious room for improvement -- but I need to get much better at attacking.

My main issue, I think, is my general cautiousness. Blood Bowl is probably about 50% field position and 50% risk management, and I find myself reluctant to push forward and tend more towards avoiding risk entirely. This is a problem and does not lead to successful play. I found that in this last game, when I had little to lose, I was more confident -- or reckless -- in getting my players up the pitch and my game went better as a result.

This is obvious to any coach with half a brain cell but it took me ten games to realise. Sitting behind the halfway line and turtling is a good way to defend -- until the opponent breaks your line -- but going forward and putting multiple players in your opponent's half is what forces them to make decisions, commit their own players, potentially change their plans, and perhaps make mistakes. It's also much more fun.

In terms of the risk management, I think vampires tend towards the unpredictable and unreliable as it is so I probably should lean into that rather than try to avoid it. They are going to cock up anyway so I may as well embrace that rather than letting it stifle me.

Going into Game 10 I wasn't sure if I was going to take the Purple People Eaters into the next season or if I would drop them for another team. I think I will stick with the vampires, because I would still like to get one win with them, and I think I'm getting closer to working out how to do that. Vampires are also great fun to play; I wanted an unpredictable team because I wanted to be surprised as I played, and the bloodsuckers have lived -- ho ho -- up to that expectation.

I have ended the season with a coffer full of gold coins and a changing room full of broken and injured players, so I have some staffing decisions to make, but bring on Season VI!

Caught Short

"I have two games left to play and I hope I can still get one win before the season ends. Let's see."

That's what I said after my last game. Oh dear.

My next match was against an experienced dwarf team. The other coach was lovely and we got on well as we played.

In many ways, the game was a pleasure to play.

The first half was something of a disaster, with so many injuries that I had no one left to stop the dwarfs jogging in for a more-or-less unopposed touchdown. Even my opponent felt sorry for me at that point, which sort of helped.

The second half went better. I was able to push back and put some dwarfs down, managed to hold on to the ball for most of the half, and when I did lose possession, I regained it soon after. Alas, I was not able to convert any of that into an equaliser, and a winning score was well beyond me. Still, my opponent was an excellent player -- 9th overall in the league in comparison to me at 31st! -- so keeping him to one touchdown isn't too bad. Or so I tell myself, anyway.

Final Score: Purple People Eaters 0 - Fun Vacuums 1

One of my vampires will miss the next game because of injury, and I have four thralls out with serious injuries, forcing me to bring in journeymen to make up the numbers for my last game of the season.

Regarding that final game...

I was set to play a human team that was not doing so well so I thought I had a chance at a win, although I was well aware that I had thought something similar before. As it turned out, that coach has now withdrawn from the league so I've been drawn against a good Norse team with considerably better league statistics than my own.

I am not expecting things to go well.

Double Dark

Out of my ten scheduled Blood Bowl matches this season, four have been against elves, three of those against dark elves. Back when I started playing the game in 1994ish I did quite well with my own dark elf team, and although Blood Bowl has changed quite a bit since then, I knew that the pointy eared braggarts would be difficult to beat.

So it proved in my first and second games, so I wasn't expecting too much...

First up were the Vaggaroth Villains, a somewhat experienced team currently sitting in the top half of the overall rankings. My vampires got smashed in the first half by the dominant elves, suffering a bunch of casualties and conceding an early touchdown.

"There's still the second half," I thought to myself, "So there's plenty of time to turn this around." I am nothing if not optimistic.

As the ball was kicked off for the second half there was a pitch invasion, and rampaging Villains fans knocked down and stunned all but three of my players.

Oh. Good start.

Even so, I somehow managed to prevent another elvish touchdown and almost scored an equaliser, but ran out of turns.

Final Score: Purple People Eaters 0 - Vaggaroth Villains 1

Match eight was versus The Tigers, a rookie dark elf team. Going into the match I was emboldened by the Tigers' lack of reserves and a complete dearth of rerolls, but I knew how good dark elves could be and as my opponent had little in the way of previous form, I had no idea what his play style was like.

Things looked iffy from the start as I lost a vampire at the end of an assassin's blade, and although I tend to take the swinginess of Blood Bowl to be part of the fun -- otherwise I wouldn't have picked a team as unreliable as vampires! -- I must admit that I thought this calamity would set the tone for the whole match.

One good thing about vampires is that they tend to recover from their injuries, even death, so Chris was back in action almost straight away.

I scored an early touchdown and although the dark elves equalised just before half time, I was feeling content, if not confident.

One of my players caught the ball from the second half kick off, the vampires formed a loose cage, and began to rumble down the pitch. While vampires have the agility of elves, they are not as fast and I didn't want my ball carrier to be exposed, so I felt the cage was the best strategy. The dark elves threw everything into defence and forced me to change direction a couple of times but the cage held, I managed to maintain forward momentum, and in my last turn, my ball carrier made a break for the line.

In Blood Bowl, players have a standard move allowance, but can Go For It to gain a couple of extra squares, although they have to roll 1d6 for each square and on a 1 they trip and fall. My player had six squares of movement and the end zone was seven squares away. Can you guess what happened?

If you said "You rolled a 1" you would be half correct because I did indeed roll a 1, but I had a reroll!

Which also came up a 1.

Oh well.

Final Score: Purple People Eaters 1 - The Tigers 1

I am disappointed that I missed out on winning the match, but I know it was down to bad luck rather than poor play, so I'm happy(ish) with the result. I picked up a fair few star player points as a result of some lucky casualties so the team as a whole is looking stronger, and I do feel like I'm getting the hang of the vampire style of play now.

I have two games left to play and I hope I can still get one win before the season ends. Let's see.

Wilhelm Chaney Is A Liability

I lost, of course, but let's talk about Wilhelm Chaney, so-called "star player".

I was 2-1 down to the Black Mountain Mad Dogs, an experienced orc team, albeit one rather down on its luck, coming off a nine game losing streak. With three turns left in the game I had punched a hole in the left flank and Chaney was through to a scoring position, out of range of any of the orcish defence, with a gaggle of vampires in support

One of my vampires throws the ball. It's good! All Chaney has to do is roll a 3 or more on a d6, and he has the Catch skill to try again if he misses.

He rolls a 2.

Then another 2.

That's not good, but it's okay. Two turns left, the ball is loose in the end zone, and the orcs are miles away.

Next turn, Chaney steps into the end zone and goes to pick up the ball. It's a 3+ again.

He fluffs it.

Right then.

There's no need to worry. The orcs are getting closer but there's still a turn left and the ball is just sitting there. All Chaney needs to do is pick it up, he scores and I tie the game. On a 3 or more. That's all I need.

Gah.

The werewolf fumbles the ball into the crowd, which lobs it back into the arms of an orc who then hoofs it up the field and that's the game.

In all fairness, my opponent did score two touchdowns, both of which were somewhat soft, so I can only blame my poor defensive tactics for letting those happen. Failing to score an equalising touchdown after three very easy attempts? That's all down to the dice failing me.

But that's Blood Bowl for you.

Elsewhere it was quite a balanced game. My opponent suffered some poor luck of his own with two of his players -- including his troll! -- injuring themselves -- one fatally! -- when attempting to tackle mine. After a cagey, defensive start from both teams, the game opened up, there was quite a bit of movement  up and down the pitch, and it made for a fun and exciting game. A long one too, after three riots delayed the game to the extent that we ended up playing turn seven three times in the first half.

But that's Blood Bowl for you.

Final Score: Purple People Eaters 1 - Black Mountain Mad Dogs 2

I have four games left in the regular season. My hope is to still walk away with at least one win, but I am running out of time.

Oh, What's the Bloody (Bowl) Point?

I played two league games of Blood Bowl last week, and alas, I lost both.

First up was the Chaotic Warps, a mixed team of goblins and skaven. It was a brutal match with plenty of casualties on both sides, but the only touchdowns were scored by the Warps, and it's touchdowns that count.

(Well, until you get to end-of-season tiebreaks, then casualties count, but I doubt that will be relevant for me.)

I'm not sure where I went wrong with this one. Perhaps it was getting drawn into a brawl rather than trying to score, but then again I'm not certain I had many opportunities to score.

I do know that once again I had a vampire taken off and refusing to come back on -- and I think it was again my number 11, Bella, who doesn't seem committed to the cause -- so I resolved to hire a fourth vampire for my next match to give me some more options.

One of my thralls somehow avoided being killed and picked up enough experience points to develop a new skill, so I gave him Kick, which again should give me some options in future matches.

All in all, it wasn't a win, but the match did generate plenty of experience points to help develop my team so it could have been worse, I suppose.

Final Score: Purple People Eaters 0 - Chaotic Warps 2
(Casualties 2 - 2!)

The very next day I played the Vanaheim Valkyries, an experienced amazon team that as of writing sits at third overall in the league, separated only from second place by touchdown difference. The Valkyries are in their third season, have lots of skills and special abilities, and an excellent win/draw/loss record. I wasn't expecting to get even close to a win.

The vast difference in team value -- Blood Bowl's rough indicator of team quality -- between the Valkyries and the vampires allowed me to pick up some special benefits to -- in theory -- balance things a bit. The difference was so vast that I was able to hire the most expensive star player, Morg'n'Thorg in the game, and I couldn't turn that opportunity down.

The Valkyries, despite the strength of the individual players, was short on numbers, so my plan was to strike at the relatively weak linewomen, take them out of the game, and then exploit the numeric advantage to maybe, just maybe, scrape a draw. Morg, or in this case his sister, Marge, was key in that strategy.

As you can probably imagine, it was not to be.

Aside from the match against the Chaotic Warps, I seem to have had awful luck in taking out opposing players, while at the same time mine crumple like paper. Even the soft halflings seemed to bounce when they should break. Marge'n'Thorg was of little help and despite smashing amazons all over the pitch, couldn't put one down for longer than a turn. One of the Valkyrie linewomen was killed but it was as the result of an opportunistic foul, so the player didn't even pick up experience for it.

Meanwhile the skilled Valkyries players carved my defensive lines to pieces. They seemed to be everywhere at once and I had no response. My vampires managed to get the ball a couple of times but were unable to get it further forward than the halfway line.

My attempt to outnumber the amazons failed, and I had no further strategy beyond that, so I can't blame anyone but myself for the loss. Yes, my luck is sometimes terrible and yes, the opposing coach is very good at the game, but the truth is I had no idea what to do and it showed.

Final Score: Purple People Eaters 0 - Vanaheim Valkyries 3

Worry not! Despite the title of the post, I haven't lost my enthusiasm for Blood Bowl. It's one of my favourite games and I enjoy playing even when I'm losing, which is good, as I lose most of the time. I have five more games to play this season and I hope I can get some better results; I will be happy if I can win at least one game.

Next up is an orc team that is again much more experienced than mine, but has lost their last nine games. They look to be a tough, bashy team, so my plan is to make use of the vampires' greater agility and try to out-manoeuvre the orcs and maybe score a touchdown. Stranger things have happened. Apparently.

Chubby Little Maniacs

Earlier this week I played the third game of the local Blood Bowl season and I managed to scrape another draw, but this time I also managed to score a touchdown, so I'm considering that to be an improvement.

I played against a halfling team. Halflings are considered one of the worst teams in the game -- even worse than vampires! -- but the coach had a couple of years of experience over me, so I wasn't expecting any sort of significant advantage.

I scored early, which I feared might be a problem as it would give my opponent plenty of time to score in return, and that did indeed happen although a few of his plays failed to come together because of bad luck, so it could have been worse.

My luck failed in the blocking and tackling. Halflings are weak and soft and I should have smashed lots of them but while I knocked plenty down, I wasn't able to injure any. I think the only proper injury to afflict my opponent's team came about when his own treeman dropped its halfling team-mate on his head, killing him! That's Blood Bowl.

My players are in theory made of much tougher stuff but once again I ended the game short on personnel as all the injury rolls favoured my opponent. The thralls are cheap and are designed to die, but one of my vampires spent about two-thirds of the game unconscious in his coffin, refusing to get back into the game. Flakey Anne Rice bastards.

Two of my thralls will miss the next match, which doesn't give me much wiggle room in terms of numbers. I am saving up for a fourth vampire but I am tempted to get another thrall in the interim, just to give me more people on the pitch.

My number 13, Gary, scored the only touchdown for the People Eaters and was named MVP for the third match running, so is now staggering under the weight of all his experience points; this is good as he now has a fine array of special skills, but it has left the other vampires undeveloped, and makes him a bit of a target. I need to weigh up keeping him in the game, and making use of those skills, against protecting him and allowing the other two vampires to get involved and earn experience. It's a tough balance.

Anyway, I'm happy with how the game went and I feel most of what went wrong was bad luck rather than bad play. I hope.

Final Score: Purple People Eaters 1 - Lamb Shank Redemption 1

I have organised my first inter-conference games, and will be playing them in the next couple of weeks. I was reluctant to do so at first because I'd been drawn against teams with much more experience than my own and I feared the mismatch would be too much, but I have decided to embrace the inevitable.

One of the teams is an Underworld squad, a loose alliance of skaven and goblins, and I am expecting a big loss there as they have a couple of high-level players, including at least one that can score in one turn. The other has a much higher team value than my own, and lots of dangerous-looking players, but has lost nine games out of eleven, so I'm not sure what will happen there.

Back From the Drawing Board

I spent some time over the last week thinking about defensive tactics in Blood Bowl and I think it paid off as I managed to scrape a draw in this week's league game!

It wasn't the prettiest or most flamboyant game. Kick-off aside, I don't think I got the ball into my opponent's half of the pitch at any point. Instead it was a bit of a scrum along the centre line, with lots of pushing and shoving and plenty of lateral movement, but only the briefest attempts at breaking out of the central mêlée.

I think my opponent was too focussed on harming my thralls, either to pick up casualty points or to leave my vampires without backup, but that left him with no time to score. By the end of the match I had only four players left on the pitch -- through a combination of blocks, hungry vampires, and being sent off -- and he was a turn away from getting a touchdown, but he had run out of time.

I suppose that in a sense his approach helped me, but I do think my defensive play worked to a certain extent. On the other hand, I didn't have much of a plan for scoring beyond some half-hearted positioning for a pass, so that's what I need to work out for my next game.

Final Score: Purple People Eaters 0 - Tiranoc Titans 0

Kick Off

I started playing in the local Blood Bowl league last week. I hadn't played the tabletop version in fourteen months, I'd never played in a proper league setting before, and I'd picked one of the more difficult teams -- vampires -- to master, so what could go wrong?

I didn't get any more pictures after setup as I was too busy being thrashed 3-0.

To be honest, given my lack of recent experience I was expecting such a result and I found out later that day that my opponent was last season's champion, so I think 3-0 is probably quite good.

I have nine more games to play, assuming I don't get into the playoffs, and I think that's a safe assumption. I'll be happy with at least one win but I won't be too concerned if I don't even get that; most of the people I'll be playing are very experienced Blood Bowl coaches and I have to play at least three more elf teams, which tend to be the best in the game.

(Alas I won't be playing Stuart, as he's in a different division and we weren't matched in the inter-division draw.)

I will post as I play, and I hope I can bring you some good news in a future match report.

(I doubt it!)

Final Score: Purple People Eaters 0 - It's Always Sunny 3