The biggest complaint I've had, and have heard repeated Ad Nauseum (and I think that's a new Space Marine Chapter book for just $39.99) is that the next expansion for a game is always overpowered and is expensive, but if you don't get it you can't compete. I get it. They want to make more money. They know their core demo is hooked on completism and prone to collecting every scrap of something they can get their hands on.
The cool part is that this also leads to things like Blood Bowl. Blood Bowl has nothing to do with Warhammer Fantasy or Warhammer 40,000 beyond the flavor of the thing. It'd be a great game if it was just based on NFL greats throughout history. But then you overlay Warhammer on top of a great game like that and you have pure magic.
Now take away all the annoyance of having to socialized face-to-face while wearing clothing, having to paint miniatures that actually have to represent what they are, having to burn precious calories that weren't hurting anyone sitting on your waistline moving pieces around the board and looking up rules and you have Blood Bowl Legendary Edition for PC. Just about the best French-made PC game in the world.
Somehow the English Games Workshop allowed a French company, Cyanide Studio, to make this game. Now, I have to state up front that the only reason I have a problem with Cyanide is because I so very much enjoy this game and am familiar with the intricacies of the rules. My expectation is that Cyanide Studio would understand they were licensing a game that has a cult-like following (most GW games do) that would be sticklers for everything being implemented correctly.
That being said, Cyanide failed. Don't get me completely wrong here, they made a game that is a lot of fun to play, but it isn't EXACTLY Blood Bowl. They didn't implement some things correctly, they couldn't roll out the Chaos Dwarves for example as their graphics couldn't handle four-legged models (although there are rumors they intend to fix this), some of the in-game skills don't work quite correctly, some of the league-level financial elements don't operate correctly or as intended...
In addition they've allowed some glaringly bad bugs to inhabit the game (they are well documented on their Forums) but they've cut their support down to a single person as there are no plans for them to make additional money off of this project and they wanted to get their best people working on their Game of Thrones game (which has had seriously mixed reviews).
All these horrible things are mitigated by the fact that everyone you meet to play Blood Bowl Legendary Edition for PC will feel the same way you do about Cyanide, and most of them will have a much more deeply held feeling that is invariably expressed in a comical way that allows for both of you simultaneously to feel superior to a group of people that spent a small amount of time in the greater scheme of things productively (unlike you) and were hugely compensated for it (unlike you) and also happen to be French (unlike you). And what's better than feeling smugly better than a group of well paid, productive, foreign people whilst wasting your time playing a computer game that doesn't even work quite right? Not much I'll tell you.
So, anyway, the key to making all of this work is to find a league to play in with someone you can talk to about it endlessly. You can't really care about a bunch of stupid Norsemen (or whatever YOU want to play; write your own Blog post) unless you can blather on about them to other people. I cannot stress this enough because the AI is absolutely HORRIBLE. You will not be challenged by it at all once you have the basics of Blood Bowl down. Also playing random people in the open leagues is like taking a crap, sometimes it goes smoothly and feels good, sometimes it is painful and feels like nothing you do will work to move things forward, and every single time at the end of it all you have is a bowl of water with poo in it.
League play is a lot of fun. I say that having been in a grand total of two leagues, one of which was run by someone who was generally absentee and the whole thing actually wasn't terribly fun, though going through the adversity with others who share your pain does form a bond! But the SECOND league, GOBBLN, is run by a fellow that calls himself Neverworking, and that league is freaking awesome. His nickname is a total misnomer, because he has worked incredibly hard to make this league a tremendous success.
Ok, onto the actual game... stream of consciousness mix.
Your team starts with 1,000,000 in cash. You have a 16 person max roster. Generally speaking unless you are a stunty race you are going to start with 11 players (the minimum amount). You pick a race. You buy your players, you decide if you want to buy an apothecary (where available) how many re-rolls you want to start with (the key here being that re-rolls cost double after your initial start). If you want to hire assistant coaches, cheer leaders, or fan factor (once the team starts you can no longer purchase fan factor, you have to earn it).
I could go on and on about the various differences among the races, their strengths and benefits, and perhaps, one day, I will, but not today. Suffice to say that good starting races for beginners are Dwarf and Orc. Play those first. Once you get the hang of it, consider branching out to Amazon or Wood Elf. After that you can get really creative and try something like Goblin, Halfling, Khemri or Vampire for a genuine challenge.
The object is to score more than your opponent. Pretty straightforward, ya? Well, when you factor in that your players can be permanently injured even killed, sometimes even when you win the battle you've lost the war.
Players gain Star Player Points which accumulate and once they break certain thresholds allow you to make your players better. You are able to select skills that give them new abilities or allow them to influence the game in some fashion. They gain the points by throwing a successful pass, scoring a TD, intercepting the ball, or injuring another player.
This is why getting into a league that has some long term playability is so key. You want to develop your squad over time, and see if you can build a dynastic team that grows around the results produced by the game all while everyone else in the league is trying to stop you and generally wishing ill will to befall you (thereby showing how much they care about what you are doing!) You level your players up in an effort to maximize your ability to win and your opponents try to beat you and/or kill your players to prevent you from building that championship caliber team.
There is a tremendous amount of luck in Blood Bowl. A lot of people don't like that about it, because you can flat out lose a game solely because you never get a lucky break, or because your opponent has everything they try go correctly despite massive odds against it. I relish this. It is part of what I find so enchanting about Blood Bowl. No matter how big the challenge you can get lucky enough (and your opponent unlucky enough) that you can overcome it. It's got that "any given Sunday" feel to it.
At the same time there is a considerable amount of skill involved. You have to be able to analyze the play on your turn and make choices that work to your best advantage. You have to be able to recognize and assign priorities to every chance you are going to take. This makes me feel like I impact the outcome in a big way, even though I'm sure it mostly boils down to the luck part, and I like to feel good about choices I make, so this is tremendously rewarding for me!
The game starts with a coin toss. Someone wins the toss and decides if they want to kick or receive first.
Every kick there is a random event generated, these events are influenced by FAME (generally how much more popular you are than the other team), Assistant Coaches, and Cheerleaders. Most of the events are low impact, however some of them are virtual game changers. This is part of the luck of Blood Bowl. Hone your skills to minimize the pain!
The game is turn based, so the team receiving the ball (barring a blitz on the kick off) will move first. When your players are adjacent to opposing players they are within their tackle zone, meaning they cannot move freely without first dodging away from them. Any player not adjacent to an opposing player may move freely unless and until they move into adjacency with an opposing player.
Any player that starts his turn adjacent to an opposing player may throw a block at that player. Once per turn a player may move and then throw a block at an opposing player, this is called the Blitz. When a block takes place the block dice are rolled. There are three total block dice. If you have the same strength value as another player you roll one block die. If you have more strength than the other player you roll two block dice. If you have double+1 strength of the opposing player you roll three block dice. This procession works in reverse as well, the difference being that when you have the higher strength you pick the die with the result you want, and if you have the lower strength your opponent picks the die they want.
The dice have five different results on them, Skull (this means you fall down, it is bad), Both Down (this means both players fall down unless they have skills that prevent it, if you cannot prevent it this is bad), Push x2 (this means you can push the opposing player one square unless he has a skill that prevents it), Defender Stumbles (this means you knock the defender down unless he can prevent it), Defender Down (this is good, they fall down and go boom!)
Knocking down opposition players has many, many advantages not least of which is that on the initial hit they have to make an armor roll for this player. If the result rolled is higher than their armor value they have to make an injury roll. Injuries range from being stunned (losing one turn for that player) to being dead (losing all remaining turns for that player) with being knocked out (out until there is a score or halftime, and then only 50/50 to recover) or badly hurt (out for the rest of this game) in the middle with some twists like Missing Next Game or a permanent injury impacting the players statistics thrown in for good measure.
You may also move the ball, this is good for scoring. First, assuming you didn't catch it, you will have to pick it up. This requires yet another roll! Whenever you fail a roll your turn will end, so it is very important to do anything that does not require a roll prior to doing anything that does require a roll. If you manage to get the ball into the hands of one of your players that player may advance the ball as much as his movement will allow, he may also hand the ball off to an adjacent team mate, or he may attempt to pass the ball to a team mate. You may hand off the ball and pass the ball once each on each turn if you wish.
Rather than comparing strengths as blocking does the ball handling skills use agility instead of strength. The higher your agility the more likely you are to succeed, however unlike with the strength skills you do not have an opportunity to roll additional dice. This is generally where re-rolls come in. If you fail a roll (dodging away from an opposing player, block, pass, pick up, hand off, etc) you may choose to re-roll it if you have re-rolls remaining. You may use one re-roll per turn, so make it count, and don't need another one!
Generally people have two objectives, winning on the scoreboard or winning on the body count. Many players try to do both. I prefer bashy teams, they suit my style, and I've found I'm not particularly good with teams that require finesse. Your mileage may vary.
I give Blood Bowl Legendary Edition for PC a 7 out of 10 for implementation as a stand-alone game by Cyanide Studio, but if you find a good league like GOBBLN I give the game a 9.95 out of 10 (I am saving my marks for future performances). You'll have some laughs, have a group of people that actually care about this silly little thing you are investing your time and energy into, and maybe even make some friends all while sitting comfortably in your underwear at home.
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