ExScore ready for Eurobowl

euroresultThe spreadsheet I’ve been working on should now be ready for Eurobowl, after many hours of work.

You can run simulations of the tournament, and happily for Italy they earned their 4th star in the simulation to the right!

Please do have a play with the spreadsheet on the ExScore link, see if you can find any problems, use it for your own tournament if you want, and let me know how you get on (via Facebook, Twitter @sann0638 or any other method).

 

ExScore test of Elflympics

One of the fun things about ExScore is the ability to quickly simulate the results of tournaments, and I have put this to the test for Trumpkin’s Elflympics, a tournament that rewards TDs a lot.  The scoring system is 14/6/1, with 2 bonus points per TD, as well as bonuses for interceptions and long bombs.  By randomly generating results over 4 rounds for 20 coaches, I ran the tournament 5 times (which took about 2 minutes).

elflympicsThe upshot is the WDL primacy is largely upheld, with some interesting interaction between Draws and Losses, in that in one simulation a 1/3/0 record equals a 3/0/1 record (not to win the tournament, mind).  There are no tiebreakers used.  Any 4/0/0 record wins the tournament.

Edit!  I had a couple of dodgy settings – 1 bonus point per cas, and max of 3 TD bonuses.  Changing these puts the cat among the pigeons!

Cakebowl Day 1

Cakebowl is Swindon’s 2-Day Blood Bowl tournament, taking place this weekend at the Great Western (GW, ironically) Hotel.  30 coaches, 115TV 6 skills per day, much beer and even more cake.  After 3 games I’m on 3 wins, along with Glowworm, who is taking a break from his beloved goblins to play Chaos Dwarves, and they are agreeing with him.  Scs sam may well end up on 3 wins as well if he ever finishes his game against Greshvakk…

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And he has!

We’ve had the football on as well, and we have the venue for the evening to watch the England game, as well as playing lots of board games and (again) more beer.  All the food has been included, except for the optional unlimited breakfast at the lovely hotel.  2 rooms, one of which with a massive projector, plenty of space to play.

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Thanks to Gary for some deadly serious organising, and of course Mrs Gary for the lovely cake!

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34mm Board Tryout

Played a drive against Alex (9) on my home-made 34mm board.  I kicked to him, as Skaven.  Interestingly, he struggled to reach the other end when he was close to my endzone, so dependent on what demographic GW are going for this might be something to consider!

We were using Cakebowl Day 2 skills, which meant 12 skill points, with a normal being 1 points and a double 2 points.  Lots of block on both sides mostly!

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Set ups

I kicked to him, tried to encourage him to anticipate all of his first turn, looking at how many 2D blocks he can get in, but he wasn’t very keen!  He started his drive with a block with his Rat Ogre – he did have block but still not the best idea.  He then picked up with the thrower (against advice) and fluffed it.

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Turn 1

My wolf swooped on the ball, assisted by a guarding wight.  Other wolf held back as a sweeper, because pesky gutter runners are quick.

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Turn 2

He killed the wolf with the ball. Regen fail.  Sad times.

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Dead wolf

Good recovery of the ball, though he did leave a blitz on the ball carrier with a 3+ dodge.  Luckily for him, the dodge failed.

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Turn 3

Which allowed him to form a solid cage on his right flank.

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Turn 4A

I tried to disrupt the cage, but he had numbers advantage by this stage.

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Turn 4B

He managed to get a decent position, and could have quite happily stalled out for a few turns (and would have done in a tournament!), but it was his bedtime so he scored.

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Turn 5

The pitch has now adjourned upstairs with the boys!

Bugmans XXXXXX

On the weekend of 21-22 May 2016 I headed to Warhammer World for the return of Blood Bowl to that esteemed venue for the first time in about six years.  This is my summary of that weekend, and will include a timeline of sorts, a few kind-of match reports, a quick analysis of results, but largely philosophical musings on the nature of BB in a tournament setting or otherwise.

I travelled up with Hudson on the Friday evening in a 4-hour journey that should take 2.5 max, due to the joys of motorway traffic. This was to avoid any possible problems with travelling on the Saturday morning, but also to have an extra evening in Bugman’s, the bar attached to Warhammer World (henceforth WW).  I absolutely love this place, it’s a massive castle, with orc heads, dwarven axes, and all sorts of foolishness.  And it sells beer.  I just wish the bar was open later, as it’s a huge shame to have to leave there at 8 to head somewhere else, especially as my favourite BB tournaments have a single evening venue, to be welcoming to anyone who has travelled by themselves, and to allow different groups to effectively mingle.

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I did a quick write-up of the evening, so will skip ahead to the Saturday morning.  There were just over 100 coaches in attendance, playing 20 of the 21 possible races (no khemri, and obviously no slann, underworld or pact).  Looking around the room I recognised about 15-20 of the participants, which was an interesting contrast to the 100+ of the 150 at the NAF Championships 3 weeks before.  The random draw was showing, which was done on the two massive screens, with each “player number” having a table number next to it, and everyone headed to their tables to find their opponent.  This massively (apologies for overuse of the word) depersonalised a lot of the experience, as you couldn’t look at the list of people (which obviously didn’t have NAF names next to them anyway) and look for plum matchups, interesting racial clashes etc.  We didn’t in fact find out the racial breakdown until the very end of the tournament, though I did ask.

My first game was against humans, a 1300 TV team with no stars (lots of rerolls).  I won 2-0, with 7-2 (I think) in casualties, mostly from a single turn where I killed 3.  I chatted a fair amount about the NAF and the tournament scene, and he took down the address of my youtube channel (which I should get back to doing), but I wasn’t sure how much coaching to do, as I tend to only coach really when asked for it, in order not to seem presumptuous.  It’s fair to say at this stage that I won all 5 games, net 15-1 in touchdowns, and none of them were close (despite playing JBone in game 5, he decided to roll shockingly to make my life easier).  But I played each game as though it were a NAF tournament game, in a similar way as I play each league game, or in fact any game of BB I play ever, unless it is specifically a teaching game.  Thinking about this, however, and I won’t particularly edit this, there are differences depending on who I am playing (i.e. are they a strong player or not so much, so what do I need to do in order to win).

Highlights of other games were playing Sergi Torras, the miniature sculptor who has recently started working for GW, and destroying JBone’s dwarves, but then voting for him and seeing him win favourite opponent.  Otherwise, the games were against really nice guys, played in a good atmosphere (I thought…), but always with a slightly strange feeling about whether I should actually be trying to win or not.  Just in case anyone didn’t know before, the whole of this and the paragraph before is dependent on knowing that winning a game was irrelevant to winning the tournament – the tournament winner was the one with the most SPPs over the 5 games, with bonus SPPs each time you got someone sent off (not including secret weapons).

So, why did I feel like I shouldn’t actually be trying to win?  The feel of each game was actually a little like playing games in a perpetual league on Fumbbl or Cyanide, in that the result did not matter.  So why were we playing?  I still do try and win on Fumbbl, even though nothing rests on it, but I think I play there just to continually improve my game.  Or perhaps just because I enjoy playing.

I think if someone asked me to go along to a weekend at Warhammer World where I played games against inexperienced players and offered advice about how to improve their game, I would sign up for that like a shot (if GW staff are reading, the offer is open).  And that’s kind of what the games felt like, but without the authorisation to offer tips without seeming patronising.

In terms of winning the tournament, it felt like you could play the perfect game 5 times and not win.  So, winning was not important, to which the obvious result (thanks Wulfyn) is not to give prizes.  But there were prizes.  So people tried to win.  Not sure what the answer is to that one.  One solution is offering extra SPPs (5?) for winning, maybe?  But the SPP system doesn’t work with Swiss, as the two top teams could just farm points and move ahead.  Depends on people not playing the system, and any system that does that is not a great one.

So, those are the philosophical musings.  Logistically, it made me think that if I was allowed to run a tournament there I would be able to do all the things that I have ever wanted – it is virtually the perfect venue in my opinion, with space, character, booze, food, technology, and other extras.  Not showing people’s names on the draw was a shame.  The clock and the old-school pictures were great.  Too much time was allowed between games, although interestingly the time never dragged because there were lots of interesting people to talk to.  Having said that, it did drag after game 5 – I finished destroying JBone at about 3pm (albeit that being a quick game), and prizes were at 5.20.  All games were finished at 4, and there was an audible gasp when the big screens said 5.15 for presentations, as the point of 5 games seemed to be to get people away nice and early.  I got the final results of the World Cup done in 45 minutes, including the best player for each of the 24 races.  Not often I get to use the word unconscionable, but I will do here.  It seemed like the organisers didn’t start to enter any results from round 5 until all the results were in, basically.  Enough said, especially when the organisers are professional.

Other stuff – best painted was a public vote, which was a little surprising with so many good painters who could have been judges.  Minor point for me, as I’ll never win one.

Results wise, the top 4 were wood elves, and the top 10 were Ag4 except for me (hurrah!) and an impressive performance from a goblin team (lots of 4-3 wins etc).  Ogres won most casualties.  Some interesting skills developed as stacking was allowed, as was putting skills on unlimited Stars, so there was Eldril with pass, making him an SPP machine, someone else building a Vampire with all the skill choices, and Hudson’s amazing 6-Star Ogre team.

Great to have Andy Hoare there all weekend, really good engagement with the community, answering lots of questions honestly, and a massive shame that James Hewitt couldn’t make it.  I would thoroughly recommend both of them heading to a NAF weekend sometime soon, to experience another side of BB.  That side I did struggle to explain convincingly why it is so good, and for me it comes down to seeing so many people regularly, and putting names to results, something that was missing from this.

Would I go again with this setup?  Honestly not sure.  I do love Warhammer World, and it was great to meet so many new people, but I do like competitive games, and I mostly go to tournaments for those. But then I have 10 other tournaments a year for those.  Lots in the balance.

1400 words that seems like enough.  Will add more if there are unanswered questions.  Apologies if I have come across as arrogant, or whatever – just trying to be honest.


Added facts:

I took Necro, with J Earlice.  Rolled a 6 on a wolf, and thought I gave him MB, but actually it was a special “stunning stick”.  Next was block on the other wolf, then Nerves of Steel on Earlice.  Final skill was MB on a Wight.


Final standings:

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Official Warhammer World photos.

Bugmans 1

It’s the morning of Bugman’s XXXXXX (henceforth referred to as Bugman’s) and as ever I woke up crazy early on tournament day.  Just under a 4 hour journey from Swindon to Nottingham in Friday evening traffic left Hudson and me just enough time for a swift pint in Bugman’s bar before heading to Pizza Hut with JBone, Be4ch, JT-Y and Ruthy to set the BB world to rights over unlimited salad.

Before that though, we pre-registered with Nick, putting in team names to the big GW spreadsheet.  The event is sold out at 100 people, and there was a big box of white classic block dice being given out (should have taken a photo, sorry!), along with templates for anyone who needs them, and name cards, which get you food all weekend.

 

13238977_10153486920461244_1525876316119283038_nThere were a few BBers gaming in the hall, great to see, though one of them was using Space Wolves!  Didn’t have time to say hello, but looking forward to meeting lots of new people today (I knew >100 of the 140 at NAFC, expecting to know about 20/100 today).

After Pizza Hut, Gary and I headed to Ludorati, a board games cafe in Nottingham, getting there about 10pm which gave us an hour of gaming time – ran through the tutorial of Warhammer Quest and then a few quick games of That’s My Fish, awesome little game, suprisingly tactical and frustrating when you realise you’ve lost (and satisfying when you realise you’ve won). Sounds like a game I’ll be playing today…

BB2 Campaign

Working through the campaign out of interest – I may have lost a game early on as I hadn’t decided to document.  Whenever a new thing happens (e.g. someone getting knocked over), a small pop up explains what is happening.  There are some weird things that happen through the campaign, but there is no need for spoilers – my interest

Game Aim and Outcome
1

Game v Orcs

Score a TD to make your opponent concede.  No turnovers, only move and strength shown.  Assists in action from the beginning.  No skills except Block.  Opponent concedes as soon as you score, which doesn’t give a great impression!

2

Game v Dwarfs

Before this game you buy a team, but no support staff.  Still no turnovers, but agility is introduced.  No AV, though KOs are introduced.  Seems arbitrary as regards prone/stun/KO.

3

Game v High Elves

Rerolls and turnovers are introduced – still no time limit.  Dodge is in the game, but not sure if it came in this game or the previous one. One popup came up the first time a rerolled dodge happened.

4

Game v Bretonnians

Apothecary hired before the game.  Need to win and inflict 3 injuries.

 

TT Obituary

Well, he died as he lived – going for the glory.  As part of the original line up of the Media Moguls, Ted “One” Turner picked up the nickname after skilling up with +MA twice, and getting sprint on top, to make him a feared turn 8 machine, especially with Diving Catch giving him a catch on a 2+ from his captain Mike Davies, who had Accurate and Kick-Off Return, so only the most delicate of kicks or resolute defences had a hope of stopping the scoring supremo.

These two led the Moguls through five seasons in the UKBBL, including as champions of their division last season, but perhaps he sensed that the end was in sight as the team was planning to take a sabbatical in the next season anyway.  So turn 15, with the win in the bag, could have waited until the next turn to score, but had a reroll in hand…

GFI, 1, Reroll, 1, Injury, Dead, Apo, Dead.  The trumpets rang out.  The choirs of Middenhof sang their lament.  And the game was over for this most glorious of players.

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Bubba 2016

Inspired by listening to the mammoth tournament report on the Anything But A One podcast, and given that I had been encouraging Tournament Organisers to submit a report, I thought I should write up my tournament experience.

I took High Elves, inspired by the ABAO Podcast Highest Elf challenge, so had Eldril, 2 catchers, 2 blitzers, 1 thrower, 2 rerolls, then Leader, Frenzy, Tackle, and a couple of Dodge on the catchers.  The boys came too to this one, Linus taking Humans with Griff and Alex taking Skaven with Skitter.  Lots of star player fun!  There were 5 other High Elves, a load of Skaven, and very little bash.

Started the (freezing) day wearing a crown and playing Hobnail – the crown was to be worn by the Highest Elf throughout the day, and I got to start with it for some reason.  Hobnail had Glart and a load of Skaven, and he received and scored quickly.  I dominated the rest of the half, removing skaven, and then my ratty friend managed to pull off a 1 in 50 play to knock down my ball carrier, long bomb the ball to Glart, and go in 2-0 at the half.  Bad times.  The second half was the best kind of crazy BB, with me having a massive numerical advantage but chasing the game, and we finished 2-2.  Good fun!

WP_20160220_002At this point I was not the Highest Elf, as all the others had one, and I wasn’t even the highest Davies, as we came away with 2 draws and a win from round one.

Itchen’s Goblins in the second half, the second lot of Elves for him – feeling happy with my choice of skills, but not overconfident as he is a marvellous coach.  Started with a blitz, happily, and managed to get under the ball.  He did recover, but couldn’t get enough players back to help out (eg the trolls and fanatics on the line), so went 1-0 up early.  He then pulled off the TTM play, after I left it ridiculously open (must have been feeling generous), but I pulled off a one-turn chain push score for 2-1 at the half, which I think was my first one in a tournament.  And the scored stayed at 2-1, as I failed to score on offence for the entire second half!  Made a few bad decisions, including a rage 3-dicer against an annoying gobbo who I then pushed against my ball carrier.  Idiot.  Nice game though.

The High Elf battle then started for real, as I faced back-to-back High Elves in my last two games.  First up was Nightwing, who had both Eldril and Dolfar, but no rerolls.  He went for quite a risky score early on, but fumbled the pass, and then a combination of surfs and decent armour rolls meant that I was in control for most of the game.  Not that there was much of a game, as I won 4-0 in 50 minutes.  Played in a decent spirit, but a bit of a mashing.

WP_20160220_003Rubick’s High Elves came next in a top table clash – same rosters, but
he had a Strip Blitzer and then a lot of Dodge.  He caged up early with a tight cage surrounded by a couple of looser players, but I went in fairly close.  The looser players had a bit of a gap, so Eldril gazed the corner and an audacious 1-die Pow followed by a casualtied Eldril again put me in control, and the rest of the game was a bit of a procession, with Rubick cursing High Elves to the moon and back, but in quite an entertaining way!

WP_20160221_001So a great tournament for me – won the tournament, also got most TDs, third most casualties, and Highest Elf.  Thanks to Loki for organising and the Pharoahs team that I won!  Linus won a team as well, in the raffle, and is keen to paint them up (Ogres) to try and win most casualties at Exebowl for the third year in a row.  Alex finished midtable, so a good result all round.

Nice to give the high elves a run out, may still end up playing them at Eurobowl with their tier 2 boost, otherwise I will play the same team for the rest of the year, whatever the McCaptain decrees!

BB7s Tournament

I had the pleasure to attend a Blood Bowl 7s tournament at Promethean Games, near Bracknell in England on 23rd December 2015.  Accompanied by my two boys, we made up a field of 14 ready for a tournament different to any I had been to before.

All we had to bring was dice, as the fields and all players were supplied by the marvellous Smee, the Tournament Organiser (different person to Schmee).  The day started with the draft.  All 84 different BB positions were printed on a card (Slann Catcher, Snotling, Beastman etc) and dealt out to a pool of 7 players.  From your hand, you chose a card, and then passed the hand to your left, repeating this process until you had a hand of 10.  From this 10, you chose your team, with a budget of 600k.  No rerolls allowed, apos were 50k, and AC and CL were 20k each. You could have as many players as you wanted (no min or max) as long as you were within budget.

You then put your cards into a plastic sleeve to show your team, and stuck stickers (thanks loads to Fumbbl for the icons!) on your coloured cubes to show which player each cube represents.  The first 4 rounds were then randomised, playing 2 games against players from your own pool and 2 from the other pool.  The two players with the best record then played a final to find the winner.

In terms of in-game rules, most were as you would expect if you have 7s experience.  Only 7 turns per half, and all passing ranges were increased by one.

This was a brilliant tournament, extremely well-organised and played in an amazing spirit.  The draft removed a lot of balance issues, and the winning team didn’t have a wardancer on!  Alex took a treeman and a goblin, which is the best TTM combo, and managed one against his brother, before killing his wardancer!  That was their first tournament game (in their 7th shared tournament) and honours were even.  Alex came bottom, with 4 losses and a draw, and Linus managed to come 3rd with 3 wins and 2 draws, finishing above me (3 wins, 2 losses) for the first time. A sign of things to come, no doubt!

I will definitely be running one of these tournaments at my house in future (Birthday Bowl 2016?), but will use all my own figures instead of the cubes, as I have at least 2 of each positional.  Should be fun!