Let's Play Blood Bowl AGAIN - Skaven Team

[Brother None]

Maybe...but there are documented cases on the official forums of it happening on people without the loner skill

I heard the re-roll was bugged before, yeah. But people documenting instances when they reroll and turn up the same dice is hardly shocking. The odds are low, but not impossible.

 

[Silellak]

On that depressing note, I think I'm going to ahead and put this LP on hold a bit earlier than expected.

The Hivemind does not agree.

Don't worry, it shall return. But in a few days I will be without a computer for more than a week.

[Intelligence] It is difficult to play Blood Bowl without a computer.

I hope to be back to regular updates before the end of the month.

 

[bgillisp]

Maybe...but there are documented cases on the official forums of it happening on people without the loner skill

I heard the re-roll was bugged before, yeah. But people documenting instances when they reroll and turn up the same dice is hardly shocking. The odds are low, but not impossible.

True, the odds of it are 16.67% on the dodge/pick ups and a little lower than that on the blocks. However the problem seems to be that the re-roll is always the same as the original roll if the animation doesn't run, which makes some suspect there is an error in the animation script on re-rolls, causing the script to not run and then the die to not re-roll then. That's the official bug as reported as best as I understand it anyways.

 

[Silellak]

Maybe...but there are documented cases on the official forums of it happening on people without the loner skill

I heard the re-roll was bugged before, yeah. But people documenting instances when they reroll and turn up the same dice is hardly shocking. The odds are low, but not impossible.

True, the odds of it are 16.67% on the dodge/pick ups and a little lower than that on the blocks. However the problem seems to be that the re-roll is always the same as the original roll if the animation doesn't run, which makes some suspect there is an error in the animation script on re-rolls, causing the script to not run and then the die to not re-roll then. That's the official bug as reported as best as I understand it anyways.

Yeah, I have noticed that sometimes I hear the re-roll sound but don't see the animation. I wasn't sure if it was just an animation glitch or an actual logic glitch.

Either way I'll try to train myself not to click re-roll right away, and see if that makes any significant difference.

 

[Jasede]

Orcs, horrible creatures...

Anyway... can´t wait for moar!

Where are you getting these from?

 

[Silellak]

Orcs, horrible creatures...

Anyway... can´t wait for moar!

Where are you getting these from?

Pretty sure he's drawing them himself, because he's badass like that.

 

[Brother None]

It is über-awesome, even if death roller orcs aren't canonical

Yeah, I have noticed that sometimes I hear the re-roll sound but don't see the animation.

Just don't confuse it with loner rolls. For loner rolls, you also hear the dice-roll sound, but it's for that specific roll, and if it's failed then obviously the dice don't spin again.

And obviously strategic use of rerolls is all important. Don't reroll every time you fail a block, certainly not if it's the last block you were doing anyway. And don't use reroll for your rat ogre unless you absolutely have to, the loner skill fucks you up 50% of the time.

 

[HanoverF]

If you try rerolling with a loner you hear like a freezing sound or something when the roll fails and you get stuck with the original dice.

 

[bgillisp]

It is über-awesome, even if death roller orcs aren't canonical

Yeah, I have noticed that sometimes I hear the re-roll sound but don't see the animation.

Just don't confuse it with loner rolls. For loner rolls, you also hear the dice-roll sound, but it's for that specific roll, and if it's failed then obviously the dice don't spin again.

And obviously strategic use of rerolls is all important. Don't reroll every time you fail a block, certainly not if it's the last block you were doing anyway. And don't use reroll for your rat ogre unless you absolutely have to, the loner skill fucks you up 50% of the time.

That's what I do now...if I get a both down on my last block I just take it rather than do a re-roll. Only danger is you may injure your player as they have to make an armor roll now, and I am playing the very squishy wood elves

 

[bardon777]

Yeah the loner skill is a bitch. Whole problem with big guys and combined with the lack of easy access to block means you should never count on them when the game is on the line. They're much better on defense when they can just stand there exerting their tackle zones, especially with tentacles, etc. Thats not to say they cant lay the smack down. You just cant count on it.

But I've had double skulls followed by double skulls. Unlikely? Yes. But it happens. I've also had 2 +1 str ups in a row too. So it works both ways.

 

[HanoverF]

I'm hijacking this thread and taking it to Cuba!

Or using the intermission to demonstrate goblish superiority.
Goblins are wee little creatures that get Dodge and Stunty, Dodge lets you reroll failed dodges and changes stumbles into a push, Stunty lets Goblins dodge through tackle zones easier, but it also makes goblins extra injury prone. Somewhat like Skaven though their 3 AG isn't really conducive to dodge rolls or ball handling. Goblin teams can have two Trolls and 1 of each 3 Secret Weapons. The Fanatic has a ball and chain a huge str of 7, but little control, you point it in a direction and it scatters about in that general direction.
Episode 1: There Will Be Blood
With apropos logo and colors (RPG CODEX IS 4 FAGS) selected, let's buy a team.

Always Hungry, really stupid, troll? Who do we know that fits those descriptions?

turns out quotation marks are not allowed in player names (boo)
Trolls are really stupid, they need to roll 4+ to do anything UNLESS they have a teammate in their tackle zone, then it's 2+

Meet your 2009 Dead Codexers, go Fighting Blood Stains!

With leftover cash I buy a fan, a cheerleader, 4 rerolls and an apothecary (pretty much to keep me healthy, screw you other guys)

No inducements, a rare sight to behold.

Humans lose the toss and I get to receive. A little trick I stolded from watching the AI, surround the ball so if you fail a pickup you have a chance that it bounces to a teammate
Or at least it makes it harder for a quick opponent to grab it. But DarkUunderlord (ironic misspelling 4 teh lulz) manages to pickup the ball

makes a Go For It and hands the ball off to Vault Dweller.

The box isn't really safe for goblins, but it <i>feels</i> safe.

GULP

Vault Dweller kisses pitch, but miraculously OldSkool manages to grab the loose ball.

Andhaira stops spinning uselessly in circles to finally whollop the ogre.

Kaiserin whispers sweet nothings in kingcomrade's ear and motivates him to cause the first casualty of the game.

Unable to open up any more room, Oldskool hands the ball off to Kaiserin, you want a soundtrack?

Dodge!

Stunty!

To Go For It Or Not To Go For It?

Go For It!

GRRRR!
Make it on a reroll, of course the unopposed player I was worried about leaves Kaiserin alone and two humans make 4+ dodge rolls to blitz.
Blitz inc, only manages a push, phew.

One of only two dodge fails the hummies make, you'd think they were wood elfs or something.

Not gonna chance any combat with no one having block, just make a easy dodge and couple go for it and I got a TD. What are the chance I mess up Go For It on back to back turns?

Quite good. Fun Fact, I make 5-8 Go For It rolls a game and fail 40%, the ai makes 5-8 per turn, and seeing them fail is rarer than a game from Bioware that doesn't suck.

Andhaira get's KO'd.

Ok take two, now with a +5 degree of difficulty, get up, dodge, grab ball, run it in for a TD. No Go For it so success!

The cheerleader goes wild. Kaiserin envies her lack of a Y chromosome and testicles. (Gobbo Kaiserin is pre-op)

Did you know Cleveland <i>The Steamer</i> Blakemore is really stupid? Well he is.

kingcomrade stuns a human, DarkUunderlord goes him one better and KO's his target

I muscle up to send the Bard back to Avon. D'oh!

Reroll!

Eat Pitch, Bitch.
One bad pass later itz my turn again.

Kaiserin: "Help me kingcomrade, you're my only hope!"

FUFUFUUUFUUUUUUUUUUU-

They manage to pickup the ball on their turn and little else, I use Gobbo power to surround the ball carrier and cross my fingers.

Great success.

Have I mentioned Steamer is really stupid?

Luckily kc isn't quite as...

SON OF A BITCH!
End of Half

Which is better, getting fouled out for being a Secret Weapon, or getting KO'd and coming back after the half?
kc falls under Kaiserin's siren song: Kill Kardel the Mad for me, my pet!

All he can manage is a push, Brother None shows him how it's done.

Another bad catch, another turnover, stupid humans.

Brother None manages to pickup the ball and get to the relative safety of the line.

Steamer stops being <i>Really Stupid</i> long enough to throw a block.

Why did I bother dragging him from his bunker?
Brother None gets smacked and drops the ball, OldSkoolKamikaze yells 'Banzai!' and sends Kardel the Mad to the sidelines.

Once again kc is putty in Kaiserin's hands, the command: Destroy the Destroyer!

Reroll works for once *cheer*

DarkUunderlord grabs the ball and makes a move downfield. Andhaira rolls a both down and gets KO'd again. Turnover.

He breaks a tackle and makes it to the endzone! Touchdown!

Trash and his whomping stick make their first appearance.

Hob the Handsome blitzes Jasede. Brother None has None of it (get it). Wait, who's covering Otto?

Two 6 rolls later

FUUUUUUUUUU-

Look who's back: What is better Stun, KO, or injury and why?

HaHa, their Ogre gets knocked out by a rock. That's what you get for scoring against a Goblin team. That and (usually) a victory.

Cleveland Steamer stops being stupid long enough to cause an injury. Did you know a Deathroller once tried to block Steamer, and the driver had to jump out before it exploded, leaving Steamer without a scratch? It's true.

Itz the end of the match, with nary a goblin dead, Skyway says Shit LP is Shit and takes matters into his own hands, but just gets knocked down.

Game Over! 1 new fan, Huge Match Rating, MVP is Andhaira for weasling out of a penalty via well timed KOs and getting on the pitch 3 times.

 

[Silellak]

CHAOS!!

 

[Silellak]

Music for this update:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu9xx5Ri278

The Decline is back, bitches.

It's the eye of the tiger...

It's the cream of the fight...

Risin' up to the challenge of our rival...

Fuck.

Dwarves. Why did it have to be Dwarves?!?

Alright, so, another match against the Dwarves. Great way to re-start my interest in this game. As usual, the AI gets a ton of inducement money, and hire a star player.

I kick the ball deep in the corner. Suck on that, you slow fucks.

I try to enclose the Runner and his protection. I don't want to get too close or the Dwarves will just steamroll everyone close to the ball holder.

The Runners gets a liiiittle too close to Jasede.

But of course manages to sneak away. Before he gets too far down the line, I bring him down.

VD blows the recovery the first time...

...but eventually redeems himself and runs down the line. Unfortunately, my first big mistake...he can't get far enough away from the Dwarves who are still lingering on that side of the field.

Oh hi. JoKa has gone deep, but the pass is risky with so many Dwarves standing next to him. What I should've done is have JoKa go deep in the first place, then have VD pass it off before anyone got close. I didn't want to risk the dodge roll with JoKa, I guess. See, once you move your Thrower, you can't re-select them and make the throw - the receiver has to already be in position. So, you can't move the Thrower, then the Receiver, then re-select the Thrower to make the pass. It's a pretty stupid system if you ask me, since few other things work this way besides blocking. It would be nice if you could at least trade your Blitz for a chance to move, wait, and then opt to pass if your receiver gets into place. That way, if your receiver fails their Go For It or Dodge roll or whatever they need to get into place, you won't be forced into a turn-over without even moving the ball holder.

Predictably, VD gets knocked over the sideline and the ball goes free. Thrown, of course, deep onto my half of the field.

DU goes for the pick-up, but fails his Go For It roll on both the initial roll and the re-roll.

This, of course, leads to a Dwarven recovery followed by a...

Second half. WhiskeyWolf goes long but...again fails his Go For It roll, even after burning a re-roll.

I wish I could accurately explain why this is so frustrating as a Skaven team. The big Dwarven weakness is their lack of mobility, but with lucky "Go For It" rolls, they can largely overcome this weakness. Which the AI manages to do almost every turn this game. They must've tried for at least 30 Go For It rolls, of which I think they failed maybe two.

Luckily VD has more...luck on the right side of the field and pulls off a long pass, leading to a...

So, now I have to hold them off long enough for a tie, or hope to get a shot at the ball handler.

I assume the same basic "harassment" strategy as before.

From this screenshot, you'd think I was in good shape. Sure felt that way at the time.

Looks like I have you trapped, you little fuck.

Goddamn Ninja Dwarf.

The Dwarves do what they do best, and slowly grind their way down field. I do what I can to slow them down.

HOLD THE LINE.

Or don't. You know, whichever works for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPHfJf5ArBM

Goddamnit. Not horrible, but also not really inspiring me to keep playing with this team.

The stats here aren't much more encouraging. 9 SPP in a game? NINE?! Ugh. As I said earlier, I really think the Skaven start to suffer more and more as the campaign goes on. I tend to score less in a game because the teams I'm playing against are better, which means the SPP I earn per game tends to get lower and lower while the SPP needed to go up in level gets higher and higher. Since Skaven aren't really an injury-causing race, I can't rely on that to generate more SPP, either. Yet somehow, I still have more team "value" than the AI teams that seem to have significantly more developed players.

 

[Mantiis]

You lost to the AI? Wow.

I mean, please continue.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

What's stupid about this campaign that even at the third competition there's not yet sight of chaos, goblins nor elves. Just more Orcs and Dwarves.

I got bored with it, since the AI lets you blitz it's ball carrier every turn, lets turnovers happen before even picking players up, has skill choices like catch on a dwarf blocker and does one-die or opponent's choice two die blocks before all players have even moved. And never tries a pass, not even when there's one turn left to score. It just sucks.

EDIT : By the way, stat-ups and doubles-only skills raise your team value more than normal skills. IIRC a normal skill is 20k, a strenght-up is 50k.

 

[Brother None]

You lost to the AI? Wow.

Oh, don't be such a sour-puss. Not all of us can be supar-expahrts with years of tabletop experience

Well done, Silellak, you lost like a pro! Hurray!

 

[OSK]

You lost to the AI? Wow.

Oh, don't be such a sour-puss. Not all of us can be supar-expahrts with years of tabletop experience

This game is my first experience with Blood Bowl and I never lost a match to the AI.

 

[Morbe]

Is this thread officially dead for now? This was the one that got me hooked on Blood Bowl just a few weeks ago. It's amazing how a game so frustrating, unfair, and difficult (at least for me, since I suck at all kinds of strategy games anyway) can be so enjoyable and addicting. It took me almost 10 mathces until i won the first one on medium difficulty, and still I've enjoyed this far more than any game I've gotten in the last year.

 

[Silellak]

Is this thread officially dead for now? This was the one that got me hooked on Blood Bowl just a few weeks ago. It's amazing how a game so frustrating, unfair, and difficult (at least for me, since I suck at all kinds of strategy games anyway) can be so enjoyable and addicting. It took me almost 10 mathces until i won the first one on medium difficulty, and still I've enjoyed this far more than any game I've gotten in the last year.

For now, yeah. If I start playing the game again (or people whine in this thread enough), I'll probably revive the LP. I've almost certainly forgotten how to play at this point, though that could arguably make for a more entertaining LP.

In the meantime, feel free to hijack with your own LP if you feel the need. Glad you're enjoying the game.