New Blood Bowl

drewcula wrote: Did someone mention DreadBall? Who wants to play? I have a pitch set up, and I'm ready to go.

Andrew Wodzianski....come on down!

www.facebook.com/events/851401994987714/

Mr. White wrote:

drewcula wrote: Did someone mention DreadBall? Who wants to play? I have a pitch set up, and I'm ready to go.

Andrew Wodzianski....come on down!

www.facebook.com/events/851401994987714/

Shiiit. Shawn puts on a good show, but I'm gonna have to save up my wooden nickels for a trip to Indy. I'll have an opportunity to play against him there.

hotseatgames wrote: Dreadball does seem very interesting. I'm in no rush.

It took me a second pass, but I see what you (probably unknowingly) did here...

I've been waiting to pass judgement until we've gotten more details, but now we have some (though still plenty of unanswered questions).

I'm glad GW is keeping the core rules the same. I know there has been lots of hand wringing in some sections of the BB community, but I didn't think GW would go too far away from the BB2 video game which has been a pretty good success. More successful than BB1 from what I can gather. But if they did make some changes, I'd be fine with that too. The CRP is essentially 6th edition right? The game isn't that drastically different than 3rd edition (well ok, roster changes, skills and new teams) but the core is the same. I'm looking forward to seeing what GW has in store for new league rules. Could be fun, it's nice to change things up every now and then.

Scaling up the board and minis is a little annoying. I'd rather the board was the same size. The square counts are the same of course, but it's designed to fit bigger models. I've been playing Blood Bowl since 3rd edition, so those are the teams and scale I'm most familiar with. I didn't even know anything about the 2nd edition models until a couple of years ago but they immediately grew on me. I like the tone and style of most of them and the spirit they add to the game. Same goes for the 3rd edition models. There are some clunkers in both editions of course, but there are some really good ones in there too.

When I first started getting interested again in Blood Bowl and discovered Willy Miniatures I thought they were amazing. They have really good sculpts, cool poses, and just look pretty great. Then I learned they were a bigger scale. I thought "Who cares, it's essentially a board game anyways, you could play with paper stand-up figures and it doesn't matter." It's not a game where line of sight matters or has cover rules or anything. But when I discovered the 2nd edition models I did become something of a 28mm snob.

With the new edition though, my stance on 28mm minis is softening. Sure it looks goofy to lineup a 28mm mini against a hulking 32mm mini. But for me, my favorite part of BB is the game. The painting, the fluff, team names, logos, custom boards are all icing on the cake. I like the varied strategies of BB, learning how to play the game better, setting up block chains and how to break through a defense to score. Learning to play new teams. Customizing your players with new skills and stat increases. Mourning the loss of a star player. Seeing them age and rack up injuries. Does the scale of the minis really have any impact on the things I like about this game? Not really.

There is no Blood Bowl scene in Pittsburgh that I know of. I became the moderator of the Pittsburgh Blood Bowl Facebook group kind of by default. There are 12 members. I know at least 4 of them don't even live in the Pittsburgh area. The rest don't respond to any of the posts or poll I've made. Maybe I should post more, flood their news feed with BB posts and maybe they'll take notice.

What I have noticed is some of local stores' support for Age of Sigmar, Warmachine, X-Wing and other games. My hope is when BB is getting closer to ship people will take notice and want to form some leagues or host tournaments. I'm hoping the new edition will bring former players out of the woodwork or get video game players to come to the table.

Having a new edition is going to do nothing but help strengthen the Blood Bowl community. How are people who only play the video game supposed to find out people still play on the table? Same with old players. I mean we are in the know about Blood Bowl, we go to special forums and learn about indie companies making new teams and kickstarters and what not. But beyond that, I don't think many miniatures players or board gamers know what's going on in Blood Bowl land.

Dammit, where's Epic Armageddon and BFG???

I currently enjoy and play Blood Bowl on IOS on the iPad--I'd say that its one of my most played games on IOS. New Blood Bowl is so tempting, but, I just don't know. Frankly, other than its bawdy humor, the Warhammer fantasy theme, its miniature sculps, and a larger market share for league play, Dreadball looks so much better and more evolved as a game. I like Dreadball's multiple scoring spots, its futuristic theme, its hex based pitch, player facing, the opportunity for coach cheating with the opportunity to position the game's referee to prevent that, the ability to use the ball as a projectile weapon, oh, and the exploding dice.

Yet, all the while, here at home, I already have a perfectly good copy of Battleball that's woefully underplayed. I've used it to introduce people to miniature gaming. And, I've also used it run a league-like game night for a small group after discovering those outstanding Battleball Advanced Rules 2.0 created by Mr. Bistro. In my opinion, using that variant with Battleball comes pretty close to the experiences offered by either Blood Bowl and Dreadball. The best thing about Battleball though is that you're not stuck using a handful of D6's and the multiple Battleball dice mechanic for the different player types is brilliant! I'm still not sure exactly why Battleball failed. Had it come out with expansion teams or an expansion including advanced rules, it could have been a real winner. It's on my shelf, doesn't get played enough, and I'll never let it go.

I downloaded those Battleball 2.0 rules. I still need to try them.