Typical formats for starting a team over 1000 TR?

[Spidey88]

Hey, folks! This is my first post here, so be gentle...

I've been getting into Blood Bowl pretty heavily over the last few months, having been exposed to the Cyanide game in January, and quickly expanding to the actual board game soon after. I've been trying to absorb as much information as possible in lieu of actual play, since I'm having a hard time getting my friends involved - but that's not what my question is about.

I'll try to explain clearly and succinctly:

Since I am having difficulty getting lots of people involved (and, therefore, am unable at this point to play a lot of games), I'm wondering what sort of conventions are typical for, say, starting a short tournament with very advanced teams (as high as TR 2000 or so). I'm quite interested to see what well-developed teams play like, as at the moment I don't expect I'll ever get there the hard way.

In short: You're thrown into a tournament where the budget is 1.5 million gp or more. How do you actually build the team in a technical sense (as opposed to tactical, ie. "what skills should I take)?

My format so far: Build teams using the standard cost formula (eg. 20,000 gp for non-double skill; 30,000 for doubles, AV, or MV, etc.), but I'll actually roll for desired skill increases to keep things interesting (instead of deliberately min-maxing). For example - I rolled for 2 extra skills on one of my Slann linemen, and actually got 2 doubles - I chose Pass and HMP, and it's been devastating in conjunction with my catchers. Not something I might have chosen if given completely free reign; but it seemed like a good opportunity, and I'm enjoying it so far.

Any thoughts, folks? I'd like to know how experienced players would handle this sort of situation (or where inexperienced ones would go to look for info). I haven't had much luck doing searches on the forums here (or anywhere else), since I really don't have much clue what the proper wording for this sort of question would be ("Advanced teams"? "2000 TR/TV"? ).

(I'm not interested in hearing counter-arguments as to why I'd want to start so advanced, by the way.)

Thanks for your time, everyone!

[Nestyr]

Hi Spidey,

First off, welcome to TFF - may you long be a contributor here.

I would suggest you look through the various posts on the tournament forums, and do a web search on "Blood Bowl Tournaments" to find links to various tournament and their rules. Also, check out the NAF website at http://www.thenaf.net (you may need to join/register for access, but it will be worth it for the info you can get from them).

You should make it known that you are running a demonstration tournament, so people don't expect there to be prizes, etc at the end - unless you want to organise some, of course...

In general, there are two standard types of tournament - progressive, and regeneration.

Progressive tournaments are just that - you record SPPs, gain skills, etc, over the course of the tournament.

Regeneration tournaments are much simpler, and I think better suited to what you are proposing. You generate your team to the conditions set out by the organiser, and you keep that team throughout the tournament. Players never advance, and you team resets after each game, so injuries, kills, etc only affect you in your current game.

As a general rule, teams are restricted to a certain point total, and you can add Star Players, etc, to your team when it is created, and keep them through the tournament. You are also free to select any normal skills for your player, at the standard cost, and have limited access to stat increases and skills a player could normally only take on doubles.

The organiser is responsible for setting the limits on team creation, and making sure the players stick to it.

If you're not sure what would work, post the question on the forum, with an outline of what you want to run - there are plenty of experienced organisers on here who can tell you what does and doesn't work, and what would be too unbalancing.

Good luck - may Nuffle bless your dice.

Cheers,


Nestyr

[Spidey88]

Thanks for the response and the warm welcome, Nestyr! I look forward to learning all I can here.

For the record, I'm not looking to run a tournament - I simply expected that the setups for some of them might produce the answer I was looking for. What I'm interested in are what sort of conventions are involved in setting up teams when you've got a budget much bigger than 1,000,000 gp to spend - ie. how are you allowed to spend your budget? Go all willy-nilly on whatever skill increases you like (unlikely), or are there typical rules in place dictating how far you can improve the players on your team? From what I've already seen, the standards are all over the place; but I hadn't seen much that covered starting with really experienced teams. I'm fairly happy with the system I'd worked out, but I figured I'd pick the brains of those with a lot more experience under their belts!

I'll do as you kindly suggested and check the tournament postings - hopefully I'll turn up some goodies there. In the meantime, I'm open to other opinions too!

[Nestyr]

Hi,

For the record, personally I find building up my team to higher TR through playing is more fun than allocating points, etc, but I understand that you feel you may never be in that position.

However, if you want to build higher TR teams from the outset, you are free to do as you wish - it's your game, after all. There is no single correct or approved way to do it. If you are going to be wanting to play others, find out what they would do, and nut out the details with them.

Personally, again, I would allow any player any skills they could normally have, at the appropriate cost as per the rules. As for doubles and stat increases, I would restrict these to a sensible number (say, a total of six across the team at 200 TR - yes, that was completely arbitrary...). Alternatively, allocate them randomly - say, for instance, that any given player can have a double/stat increase, by rolling for two dice for each player on the team. If you roll a 12, that player can take a double/stat increase. Work your way through the roster until you have allocated all your available doubles/stats. Don't be overly concerned if one player gets two or more doubles/stats, as this does happen.

Another option is to build your team, then skill them up, by rolling skills for each player you want to improve as per the normal rules. The players' costs rise appropriately, and you get to better tailor your skills for the individual, and to complement the team as a whole, as they progress. I would build the team with 50-75% of your total TR, then build the skills with the remaining TR. Hmmm... this is what you were doing, isn't it?

It doesn't really matter what method you use, if you are going down this track, as long as you are consistent.

Hope this is food for thought.

BTW, if you are interested in building up a team, I would suggest you give FUMBBL a go. The majority of games there use LRB 4, but there is a LRB 5 (and thus 6) beta client being tested at present, available to all players, which includes the three officially unofficial teams.

FUMBBL is free to play, though if you like it, you should donate a few dollars every so often to the site, to minimise their server costs. Website is FUMBBL

Cheers,


Nestyr

[Spidey88]

Another option is to build your team, then skill them up, by rolling skills for each player you want to improve as per the normal rules. The players' costs rise appropriately, and you get to better tailor your skills for the individual, and to complement the team as a whole, as they progress. I would build the team with 50-75% of your total TR, then build the skills with the remaining TR. Hmmm... this is what you were doing, isn't it?

Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what I'm doing.

In lieu of being able to actually play games, I've made about a zillion different teams - and the random element helps to a) keep things interesting, b) keep me from falling into the same purchases by default again and again, and c) keep me from min-maxing the crap out of each team. If there's any budget left over after everything else is done, I might make a deliberate purchase or two (like ensuring at least one Thro-Ra on the Khemri team gets an AG increase), but I try to avoid it. I've yet to see how my skill choices turn out outside of the little vacuum I'm in at the moment, as how the games really play will be dependent on the choices my opponents make.

So far, it seems to be a good system, and I've certainly got a few pleasant surprises - my Slann team (my team I actually play) has the aforementioned lineman with Pass and Hail Mary Pass, another lineman with two ST increases (it makes me giggle deviously to think this guy could arm-wrestle an average ogre), and my star catcher with MV AND AG increases as well as Dodge (six touchdowns in one game alone)! My friend that I've played my only two games against has an ogre that got an AG increase and Strong Arm, and he's actually a serviceable thrower of both balls and snotlings now.

With any luck, I'll be able to get some of my friends together this weekend for some intro games (none of them have any experience with Blood Bowl at all, save myself and that one friend), and I'll have a better idea of how everyone feels about my setup.

In short - I'm happy with my setup, but it's nice to hear some feedback! Thanks again, Nestyr!