Review: Blood Bowl Legendary Edition (PC)

Despite problems with work and home, I've finally been able to finish off the Blood Bowl Campaign Mode by winning the game's most prestigious trophy, the Blood Bowl itself. My Necromantic team, the Order of Darkness retires with a record of 52 wins, 3 draws and 3 losses including a 29 match unbeaten streak.

Order of Darkness vs Khemri, Final Score

If you haven't followed the progress of the Order of Darkness in it's quest for head-smashing, elf-thumping football dominance (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), then a brief rundown of the game is in order...

The sport of Blood Bowl is very loosely based on American Football adapted for the Warhammer Fantasy setting. Races that normally fight on the battlefield, instead face each other on the Blood Bowl pitch. The 20 different teams include the agile Wood Elves who favour the passing game, the slow moving Khemri mummies and skeletons who'll worry about scoring touchdowns only when they've knocked the opposition out or off the pitch, and the sneaky Goblins who will use every secret weapon they can get their hands on and hope the ref doesn't notice.

The PC game plays out as either a (mostly) faithful reproduction of the turn-based Games Workshop miniatures game or a real-time adaptation. I'll always prefer turn-based over real-time, so all my experiences with the game are with turn-based single player. The campaign mode that I played allows you to build up a team from scratch, improve your players as they earn Star Player Points, and compete for trophies over multiple seasons.

Halflings vs Lizardmen

The presentation of the sport in the game is really good, not because the graphics and sound are amazing (which they aren't), but because the vibe and atmosphere is brilliantly captured in all the little things throughout the match: witty banter by the commentators, individual touchdown celebrations, replays to relive the joy of a clutch interception, and so on.

The reproduction of the official rules seems close to perfect. Even some cases where I though I'd encountered a bug in the game, it turned out was just my lack of familiarity with the rules. On the other hand, there were plenty of times I encountered really serious bugs such as the saved formations feature that would just crash the game.

The bugs aren't a huge problem as you can learn to work around them. The biggest problem is the weakness of the opposition AI. I used to play a bit of the miniatures game a long time ago, so I thought I'd start on the hardest difficulty level for a bit of a challenge. I was left sorely disappointed with the challenge presented. Games I lost were almost always because I was playing against a much stronger team and I made a newbie blunder of some kind. Once my team had improved to be on a par with the other teams, I could even afford a couple of serious mistakes each game and still emerge victorious because no matter how poor your tactics, the AI's will be worse. He'll leave his ball carrier exposed to your blitzers, he won't take any actions at all on the free semi-turns you sometimes get on kick-offs, and he never takes into account the amount of turns left before the game ends.

The AI's salvation could come up from the fact that not all the teams are equally good. The mutant Chaos team is very strong once your players have leveled up a few times, whereas the challenging Halfling team has slow and weak halflings accompanied by a few, often immobile, treemen. However, even when playing with a team of Halfling novices against a much stronger established team, the challenge is limited, as this halfling proves as he scampers towards scoring the winning touchdown.

Surprised halfling runs in the winning touchdown

In addition to game-crashing bugs and braindead AI, there's an obscure interface which never explains how inducements work or how to throw a team mate, and the imaginative commentary gets tiring very quickly as the same anecdotes are repeated every single match. But despite all this, the game is really, really fun. It is probably a really great multiplayer game; I'm just not ready to throw myself to the mercy of random internet players where the game is so readily exploited. If you have a couple of friends who'll buy it, you'll have a blast together. If you're a Blood Bowl newbie, you'll probably have a longer time in the sweet-spot where the AI is a reasonable challenge. If you're a Blood Bowl veteran, you'll probably get a kick out of seeing the game brought to life and enjoy playing with Goblins and Halflings for a while.

Final Score: 7 / 10 - I can't promise an amazing game, but Steam tells me I've logged over 50 hours on it, which is more than I can see for most games I play. The challenge is lacking, but it packs in plenty of fun.

Notes on my personal rating scale: They are entirely based on my personal feelings about the game - I don't rate a game on its own merits but rather how much I've enjoyed and how much time it's sucking out of my life. Strategy games will do well and shooters poorly because those are my gaming preferences.

0-4 = Poor game that I won't be bothering to play any more
5-7 = Decent game - fun enough that I'll try play it some more if I have the time
8-10 = Good game that I'll be playing a lot more or have already finished and greatly enjoyed

The Blood Bowl Beckons and Other News

The Order of Darkness continues its progress and having won the Chaos Cup now has enough prestige to enter the greatest competition of them all, the Blood Bowl. Sporting a record of 43 wins, 3 losses and 3 draws and carrying a 20 match unbeaten run, I have one hand on the famed trophy already. Only problem is, some skeleton's chopped off the other hand! Star player (nearing on legendary), leading catcher and touchdown scorer, werewolf Simlarg Lowell was killed by a bloodthirsty Khemri team in the preliminary Chaos Cup games. I escaped with a scrappy 1-0 win there with less than half my players on the field in the end.

The Chaos Cup

Civilization 5 has received a new patch described as having made significant balance changes and AI improvements. I can't pretend I'm a Civ 5 strategic master, but I'm hoping for games where there are hard fought, evenly contested wars rather than the AI falling over whenever it doesn't have a huge numerical or technological superiority. I'll give the new patch a fair chance.

Finally, I haven't had a lot of time to spend on Jahger, my Cataclysm Worgen Hunter. But I've managed to do all the new level 80-85 5-man dungeons and acquire enough gear to do heroic dungeons. The new dungeons are all of a very high quality but they almost all have something about them that will annoy some people. My peeve is with Halls of Origination: it's fun with lots of boss fights and even some interesting trash but seems to be too long for the attention span of the average group assembled from the dungeon finder tool (I've only ever managed to finish it once).

Vashj'ir

As an aside, I've upgraded my internet connection and my earlier problems with Cataclysm lag and disconnections have mostly disappeared. It was likely this that caused the new undersea zone, Vashj'ir, to bug out on me as I have now started questing there with no problem. Since I'm max level, questing is mainly done for the gold and faction reputation rewards, but in the case of this zone, I'm just enjoying questing in a quite unique environment.

Legendary Progress

Haven't won the Blood Bowl yet, so instead an update on the progress of my Necromantic team, the Order of Darkness and an idea of my team development strategy as I advance through the seasons. A detailed introduction to the game can be found in the Wikipedia article, but is not strictly necessary to understand the rest of this blog entry.

Blood Bowl is an over-the-top, fantasy-themed sports game based on American football. Although the aim is to score more touchdowns than the opposing team, the bloodthirsty spectators are here to see players knocked down, injured or killed (and aren't afraid to do it themselves if a player is knocked out of bounds). Agility teams like Wood Elves favour the passing game and try to minimize the amount of blocks thrown against them as they are quite fragile. Bashy teams like Dwarves are happy to get into contact with the opposition, confident that they can win the physical confrontation. They'll tend to score by running the ball to the end zone, protecting the ball carrier and knocking down the opposition to move forward. Most teams fall somewhere on the Agility-Bashy spectrum (with some teams, like the slow and weak Halflings, falling outside of it completely). The starting Necromantic team is a bashy team with its Flesh Golems, Wights and Werewolves with the strength or skills for blocking.

Ghoul suffers an injuring block from a bashy Orc team

Your players gain experience (like an RPG) as they play games by scoring touchdowns and injuring opponents. As the players level up they can gain new skills from categories appropriate to their race or position. Werewolves and Ghouls have access to the Agility category and so can pick up the Catch skill. With a lucky level-up you can pick skills from different categories, such as allowing you to pick from the Passing category if desired.

I haven't looked up any strategy online and have only the vaguest recollections of strategy from my time playing the miniatures game at university. My initial games were played with the bashy-style of scoring by running the ball. Early draws and losses were often due to risky passing plays that didn't come off. Even with one Werewolf and both Ghouls with the Catch skill, not having a good passer made the passing play too unreliable. Fortunately, the AI struggles to break through to your ball carrier with physically weaker teams, so I was typically able to grind out 2 touchdowns a game (one per half) and I won many of the games 2-1. But I was keen to make the passing game work for my team, especially for use against the physically stronger teams like Dwarves and Khemri.

Being a bloodthirsty sport, players are always at risk of being killed on the Blood Bowl field - even undead can be killed (though they have a chance to regenerate). With the death of my leading touchdown scorer, a Ghoul, after 11 games, I purchased a new Ghoul and had a fresh chance to mould a new agility-style player as he leveled up. With two lucky level-ups I was able to get the Passing (reroll failed passing attempts) and Accurate (+1 to passing rolls) skills and now have a viable passing game. The Necromantic players still have a lower base Agility than real agility teams, but the passing plays are now reliable enough that most of my touchdowns come from them, even winning one game 5-0 when the hapless Halflings couldn't keep up with my catchers.

Order of Darkness near the beginning of a drive. Order of Darkness players are circled, the ball carrier is the Ghoul with the golden highlight. Two catchers wait for a pass in the backfield (green circle and lightning bolt).

The Order of Darkness now consists of the following players:

• Ghoul, a passer with the Passing and Accurate skills, he really suffers from not having Sure Hands yet as he sometimes has problems just picking up the ball especially in poor weather.
  
• Ghoul, a catcher with the Catching (reroll failed catch attempts) and Nerves of Steel (ignore opponents when catching the ball) skills, he also started with the Dodge skill making it easier to avoid opponents. He typically hangs out beyond the opposition players waiting for a pass and is my second highest scorer.
  
• Werewolf, a catcher/runner with Catching, Sprint (can "go for it", i.e. sprint, 1 square more each turn), Sure Feet (reroll failed "go for it" attempts) and Dodge skills. His great speed means he often receives the more reliable short passes and can still score touchdowns, making him the team's top scorer with 29 touchdowns and is well on the way to legendary status (max level at 176 XP).
  
• Werewolf, a blitzer with the Block and Tackle skills (which both improve various blocking results), Strip Ball (which forces the ball out of the ball carrier's hands even if you don't successfully block him) and the starting Frenzy skill (which gives you an additional block if the first was unsuccessful). He's now excellent at disrupting the opponent's drives.
  
• Wight, blocker with the Block, Dodge and Guard (greatly assists others making or taking blocks) skills. He typically protects the ball carrier. I used to have a second identical Wight who was retired following a smashed ankle that reduced his movement speed.
  
• Wight, novice blocker with only the starting Block skill.
  
• Flesh Golem, a blocker who was lucky enough to get a Strength increase. A few more level-ups and he's likely to be the most dangerous player on the team.
  
• Flesh Golem, a blocker with the Block and Mighty Blow (increases the chance of knocking out or injuring opponents) skills. I also gave him the Dodge skill on a lucky level-up. Because of the Flesh Golem's poor agility, this skill is rarely used to avoid opponents but does improve certain results when a block is thrown against him. Combined with the starting Stand Firm skill (never moved as the result of a block), he makes a good defender of the ball carrier.
  
• 7 Zombies, the filler in the team. 3 of them have the Block skill, 2 are lucky enough to have been able to pick up the Guard skill (great for support players like them) and one each with the utility skills: Kick (to reduce variance in the ball's position following a kick-off) and Dirty Player (to improving fouling results).
  

Order of Darkness star Werewolf, Simlarg Lowell

After 34 games, the Order of Darkness's record is now 28 wins, 3 losses and 3 draws. Each competition won earns prestige for your team allowing you to play in more high profile competitions. I need to win just two more competitions to be invited to play in the most prestigious competition of them all, the Blood Bowl.