Blood Bowl, the Halflings

There's no more apt description of the underdog, as least in Blood Bowl, than the Halfling team.  They are smaller and weaker than most other teams, but they're also faster and really good at handling the ball.  For blocks and tackles, the Halfling team fields treemen players.  These hulking giants are placed right on the line of scrimmage and provide a nice defensive line for a ball carrier.  They are very slow, not that great with ball handling, and will sometimes root in one spot.  They are also very resilient, being able to take hits from multiple opponents with their Stand Firm skill.  The next two story matches would definitely be interesting.

The first was against a Skaven team, and as usual the goal was not to win but complete a particular objective.  This time it was two successful passes, which sounded easy enough, especially since Halflings have such high agility.  We kicked off first, they received and quickly rammed it down our throat.  The rats were really good at dodging and rolling out of tackles, around my defenders and scoring a touchdown on their first possession.  Now it was our turn for possession, so after receiving the kick off I immediately tried for a close pass with little risk.  It was successful, but the receiver got knocked down attempting to dodge an ogre.  They picked up the ball on the turnover and scored again.  Thankfully I needed only one more good pass to complete the goal, no matter how bad the scoreboard looked.  I think it's interesting they were running the ball instead of passing.  The Skaven obviously have good agility, passing should be a natural part of their offense.  I guess the computer was playing it safe, though I'm not sure why.  We still hadn't managed to score, and even if we did it certainly wouldn't have made any difference.

Another kick off and another successful pass and I could now rest easy.  The rats scored again on their possession, taking their lead to 5-0.  At this point all I had to do was wait until the match was over, but I felt I owed it to my portly team to at least try and score one touchdown.  Sadly we just couldn't make it happen, as every time we'd get the ball we'd either fumble or get knocked down for another turnover.  I honestly think the dice were working against me here.  The Skaven players would move in and surround whoever recovered, and it's easy to guess what happened next.  The game ended pretty quickly after one more touchdown, then I was able to move on to the next match.  This put us up against an Ogre team, which initially had me rolling my eyes.  I wondered how on earth the Halflings could stand a chance against such a strong, offensive team.  To my surprise, they held their own quite well.

 

The Ogres consist of not only the brutes themselves, but also small greenskins called snottlings.  They are very fast and good with the ball, which complements their bigger teammates quite nicely.  The trademark of this team is their ability to toss a snottling, with the ball, down the field and into the end zone.  I kept waiting for this to happen, as they had several opportunities, but they never even tried.  This time the goal was not only to complete two passes, but also dodge successfully ten times.  That wasn't a problem, as I already knew how good stunty players are at blowing right through a tackle zone.  We kicked off first, and I tried to put it as far down the pitch as possible.  It really didn't matter, as a snottling snatched it up quick, with his ogre teammates then surrounding him for protection.

 

Ball in hand, they marched down the field, pausing only to knock each of my defenders out of the way.  A touchdown seemed imminent, but luckily their snottling fumbled the ball right at the end zone.  One of my players was close by, so I moved him in for a quick.  At least three ogres were close enough to reach him next turn, so I took a chance and passed to another player down field.  That high agility score came through with a perfect pass, and luckily a perfect catch to go with it.  With most of their players on the opposite side of the pitch, I easily ran into the end zone and scored.

Somehow we were now in the lead 1-0, but the game wasn't over yet.  I had completed the ten dodges and two passes, so winning at this point really didn't matter, but I was emboldend by my first touchdown.  We kicked off with the rats running the same offense as before.  This time they didn't manage to get very far before I was able to use my treemen to tear down their defense.  An ogre fumbled the ball while trying to break out of our tackle zone, but of course we also fumbled trying to pick it up.  That turnover was all they needed; a snottling grabbed the ball and scored a touchdown just before the game ended.

We didn't win, but a tie is better than a loss, especially with the Halflings.  Given my limited experience with the game, I felt like I had really accomplished something.  It was pretty obvious after reading the post-match news that we wern't even expected to score, let alone tie.  Maybe the Halflings aren't such underdogs after all?  Regardless, my tenure as their coach was complete.  After my success I was offered the chance to coach two different elf teams for their next match: regular run of the mill Elves, or their distant Wood Elf cousins.

Blood Bowl : Legendary Edition

Blood Bowl combines the Warhammer fantasy world with American football, the result being the most violent and bloody sport ever.  Two teams square off on a pitch surrounded by screaming fans, and just about anything goes.  The Chaos team I played wasn't very good at handling the ball, but they were really good at beating the opposing players into unconsciousness.  You really don't need an offensive strategy if most of the opposing team is either dead or knocked out.

The original version came out last year, complete with 8 teams and a campaign mode where you could play an entire season from start to finish, even the Blood Bowl itself if you're team made it that far.  Shortly after, a new edition was released with Dark Elves as an added team.  Last week, the Legendary Edition came out and now I think all but one of the official teams is playable.  It retains the campaign from last year's version, as well as a new story mode.  When playing the original, I opted to let the computer handle all of the rules and dice rolls for me by playing the game in real-time mode.  Any true Blood Bowl player will tell you that is sacrilege, as at it's core it's a turn-based board game.  For the LE, I've only been playing in turn-based and it makes a world of a difference.  So much is hidden to you in real-time, it doesn't even feel like the same game.

I've finished the first two matches in story mode, mainly just to get a feel for the rules. It seems interesting, but I'm already getting the itch to create my own team and jump into a campaign.  I'm not sure that would work, as the first two matches are pre-set with specific goals.  Luckily I was able to meet those goals, but I still don't understand the game enough to formulate tactics or strategy.

The first match pits Orcs against Dwarves and starts just as half-time is ending. I picked Orcs, and the game started with my team leading 1-0. The dwarves had the ball, so I tried to set up a good defense with every open square covered by a tackle zone. The dwarf team would always cage the ball carrier, then start moving towards the line of scrimmage. They downed both of my black orcs and linemen quick, but luckily they turned the ball over fairly quick. One dwarf player was ejected for kicking a downed Orc, two others were knocked off the pitch and beaten into unconsciousness by the crowd. After that I had the numbers advantage, so it was a matter of dismantling the cage he had around the ball carrier while keeping them away from the end zone.

The second match was as Goblins against Humans, and man did that seem like a lopsided match-up. We started down by 4 I think, but luckily the goal wasn't to score but throw 2 goblins. Not as easy as it may sound, but I did manage to get it done. I had one troll throw a goblin at the human ball carrier, only to miss horribly and smash him into the ground. Needless to say he didn't make it, but my next attempt was more successful. They kept the ball almost the entire game, except after their two touchdowns. We had the ball once, but fumbled it quick and the Humans recovered. The one other possession we had was when they kicked off and one of my goblins managed to get a hold of it. I didn't waste any time, marched him down the field, then grabbed and threw him with troll. I thought maybe I could land him far enough down field to get at least one touchdown, but of course he face-planted too. At least the throw was good, so the goal was complete and I moved on.

The last match had me play the Halflings against the Skaven I think, but the game crashed as it was loading so I'm not sure what the specific goal for that match is yet.  I really hope it's not to win. From what I've read, Halflings are only for the more experienced players, and that is definitely not me.