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.