Let's Play Chaos League!

What is Chaos League?

Basically it's Blood Bowl without GW's stamp of approval. I was interested when it first came out since I'm a fan of both football and fantasy, but forgot about it until I saw the ads for the new Blood Bowl game.

Where can I buy this wonderful game?

Fuck me if I know. Gamespot says you can buy it on gamersgate, you can't. Some press release I found on google says that you can buy it on the dev's website, you can't. The publisher's website is DOA and it's not listed on Amazon. I did find two used listings on Amazon.uk, but gave up and got it off The Pirate Bay instead. I'm sorry.

If you too get it off TPB, be sure to get the patch from the dev's web site and the NO-Starforce crack from gamecopyworld.

Here we will chronicle the exploits of a team of Dwarves based loosely on my beloved San Diego Chargers. The game is RTwP, it has a "turn based" mode that just periodically pauses the game for 8 seconds and then unpauses. Used "active pause" mode instead. I've played one one-off skirmish game, which I lost, but I think I know what I'm doing now. And now I'm creating my own team and playing the campaign.

There are six types of players, Linemen, Linebackers, Quarterbacks, Runningbacks, Receivers and Big Fuckers (Monsters? Big Feet? I don't remember what they're called, I can't afford one yet). Everyone's going to have to play both offense and defense so you can sort of divide them into physical players (linemen, linebackers and giant monsters) and skill players (quarterbacks, runningbacks and receivers). As a dwarf, I have no receivers. There are nine players on the field at any one time and starting out, that's about all I can afford.

Players are rated by their Speed, Savagery (melee ability), Dexterity (ability to handle the ball) and Protection (armor). My dwarves are relatively slow and clumsy, but well armored and strong.



My Opponent for my first game is a hodge podge of different races, including dwarves.



Before the game you can dope your players, bribe refs and hire hooligans, as well as testing your opponent's players if he wants to dope them. I have no idea what the fuck any of this does.



The game starts out with each team deploying on its half of the field and sending out the ball strapped to a pig; first player to reach the pig kills it and takes the ball.



The mercs scored on me twice with their superior speed, this is after I managed to creep within one after a lineman stripped some asshole and ran it back (slowly) for a touchdown.



One of my quarterbacks scores.



The same linebacker breaks out of a huge brawl and gets his 2nd touchdown.



The mercs throw the ball over my head and my incredibly over-aggressive play leaves me with no one in the backfield to do anything about it.



My running game keeps on trucking and I tie the game up.



Notice all the pink haze? You can throw smoke bombs to cloud your opponent's vision of the field. The AI does this to me constantly.



The AI tries to get clever and I catch them in the backfield and pound them.





My running back has the ball and some blockers, I'm thinking touchdown.



Things don't go according to plan, he gets tackled and after a huge dust up, he gets back on his feet, gets the ball back and scores anyway. Dwarven fighting ability FTW!



Passing game! Fuck!



Oh well, clock runs out, I hold on for a narrow win.



That linebacker that scored two touchdowns also knocked someone out of the game, snagging the game ball for his efforts.



Two players acquire enough XP to buy a feat/trait/skill whatever. I buy "strong arm" for the QB and "critical hit" for the LB.



I'm having a blast so far. I've played another game, this time against goblins, which was a much more convincing victory. I'll post those if there's sufficient interest here.

this game has 2 many stats

Interest +1

At least finish one season, and do it ironman style.

Looks cool. Keep it up.

Hm, I might have to get this and try it out. Looks fun.

Alright, Game 2: Goblins

For my next match, I was allowed to choose my opponent (maybe because it was a home game?). I chose a team of goblins; my thinking: my physical advantage should hold and I'm less worried about goblins beating me with the passing game than say, elves.

So what do I have to worry about? Goblins all get a bonus for stomping on a player while he's down. The ref can toss them out of the game for this, but is unlikely to because of their skill/trait thing. Goblins are also so cheap that they can afford a monster right out of the bat. Monsters get some bullshit rock-paper-scissors offensive bonus against linemen, but take a defensive penalty against linebackers, so hopefully my two LBs can keep him on the dirt.

It looks like the "dirty tricks" money refreshes for every game, so you might as well spend it all.



Here's an example of poor offensive technique. I've got the ball in goblin territory, but I don't have any blockers. Note that the fights are generally going my way.



Tie game here, but my lineman has the ball and plenty of space. Goblins are putting up a better fight than I'd anticipated.



Hard hits are giving me a nice positional advantage, but I keep ending up with the wrong players running the ball.



Deploying after I managed to score on that last possession, I'm keeping my quarterbacks back to try to interfere with any goblin passing, linemen up front and linebackers lurking around trying to match up with the monster. Running backs are trying to "set the edge" against the speedy goblins.



Now this is the dwarven way, put them all on the ground and there won't be anyone left to play defense.



Now let's put it all together, running back with the ball, blockers, lots of goblins on the turf and that's right, my linebackers actually killed that monster.



My number two quarterback is the game's MVP, but the linebacker got a nice chunk of XP for the kill as well.





My super linebacker gained enough XP to upgrade his "frenzy" skill "aggressor" or something like that (basically, he gets a bigger savagery bonus the longer he fights). The number two QB took "pickpocket" which means that any player he tackles drops the ball, regardless of what else happens during the fight. Sadly there's nothing a lineman can buy with 8 XP that's worth a damn, so he just holds on to them for later.



The thunderbolts are now tied for first place with 3 other teams. But that's first place of the absolute bottom league.

MOAR

There's also an expansion called "sudden death" out there that's supposed to add quite a few cool features. It's almost impossible to buy and the only version on the internet seems to be a russian one.

Still, chaos league on itself is quite a fun game. More plz!

So after that goblin game, I had an away game against another, very similar team of goblins that went pretty much the same way (right down to injuring their monster player). The score was closer, but I didn't think it was worth posting.

For my next home game, I found that I was running out of teams in my league (the bottom one) that I could get full points for beating, the game seemed to be telling me to choose a tougher opponent. It was a tough call, but I decided to go for some dog-people called praetorians. They're really fast, but not so great at handling the ball or fighting.



Game 4: Furries

I missed the first flurry of scoring, but let's just say that their ball handling skills are good enough. You'll notice that I'm deploying a little differently here, linebackers ahead of linemen, because I'm starting to think that linemen are actually better tacklers (counter-intuitive for an American Football fan). Offensively I'm going to make more of an effort to use the passing game now that my quarterbacks both have a passing upgrade.



Here I've gotten a little smarter and kept my quarterbacks back even if I have possession because there are so many turnovers, that saved a touchdown here.



This lineman is going to use "sprint" to get into the endzone despite the fact that his pursuers are a lot faster than he is. The downside is that it drains your whole stamina bar and only lasts for three seconds. So if you don't score, you're pretty much SOL.



Lots of good stuff here, running back with the ball and blockers, we just critically injured a quarterback to bring their passing game down to earth and that running back actually just caught a pass from the QB. On the downside, you'll notice that that lineman still hasn't caught his breath. I've decided I need a 10th player.



So I took that last pic because I thought I was going to score but it didn't work out, after a little more shoving, it does this time.



Dog people are using a lot of magic and I'm going to have to win a few more fights to move the ball.



That's more like it. Magic has run out and now I have blockers.



Ok, another minor setback, but the nice thing about blockers is that they can pick up the ball if they have to.



I hired a cheerleader last time. I have absolutely no idea what effect she has but she's shown when I score.



My quarterback sprinted for the endzone, got caught anyway, the ball rolled into the endzone, and now we're fighting over it there. Their speed means that they can always get men (dogs) to the ball when they need to. I need to be a little more careful. It'll be a short scoring drive if I win.



My passing game is picking up, but now my running back has to do it alone. Note that the two blood splotches represent both of their quarterbacks being taken out of the game. Now that's what I call a steel curtain!



Well my running back lost a fight for the ball and ended up on his back while the dog-man ran off with it but this time I have dwarves in the secondary to make a tackle. I tried to throw it heroically for one last touchdown but I screwed it up and time ran out.



2/3 of my touchdowns in this game came from running backs.



But the game's real MVPs are the two linemen who took out the opposing quarterbacks.



I think I'm unquestionably the best team in the gutter league at this point but I think I don't get moved up until the end of the season. I'm currently tied for first with some dark elves. I'm also considering raising the difficulty from 3/4 (pro) to 4/4 (master). I still don't quite have enough for an ogre (need 285k, have 275), so instead I buy my 10th dwarf, a running back (80k) since they seem to be the best all-around players I have. I also buy two more cheerleaders since they're cheap and I'm now hell and gone from the kind of money I need for an ogre.

Two of the linemen and both running backs (before I brought in the 3rd) buy skills. Both linemen buy "Mighty Blow" and both running backs buy "Sledgehammer". Mighty Blow is supposed to "increase the strength of your blows" (no idea what that does in game, but it sounds good). Sledgehammer is supposed to keep players you knock down on the turf longer.

Right on the tail of the Superbowl. Good timing. This looks like a lot of fun, but I'm having some problems discerning what's happening in some screens. A bit more helping pointing out who has the ball and who is who might be good

Also Chargers suck the big one.

Also also what's the logic behind 4 TDs = 1 INT in exp. You'd think TDs are the most important thing one can do, as in real gridiron.

Brother None said:

Right on the tail of the Superbowl. Good timing. This looks like a lot of fun, but I'm having some problems discerning what's happening in some screens. A bit more helping pointing out who has the ball and who is who might be good

Also Chargers suck the big one.

Also also what's the logic behind 4 TDs = 1 INT in exp. You'd think TDs are the most important thing one can do, as in real gridiron.

Click to expand...

I can't remember about how it works in standard Chaos League, but I'm playing Sudden Death ATM, and players gain experience based upon their position. I'm using Barbarians, and my Receivers seem to get more XP for touchdowns, my Quarterback for passes, my Linemen for tackles and my Linebackers for injuries.

Not 100% sure about the annoying player lifespan "feature" in this edition, though... it was most of the reason that I stopped playing it soon after buying. Managed to get far more milage out of the original Chaos League.

Thought I'd give Sudden Death another go after reading this... and it's better than I remember it.

Also also what's the logic behind 4 TDs = 1 INT in exp. You'd think TDs are the most important thing one can do, as in real gridiron.

Click to expand...

It's kind of weird, but it appears to work something like this- each player has his stats in each area tracked (number of tackles, picks, TD's, injuries inflicted et al). You get points for moving from one bin to the next (with the bins getting progressively larger so that XP gain slows down over time), so the number of XP you get for any given action depends on how many you had before. On top of this, each position has two tasks for which it gets double XP. For running backs it's TDs and receptions, for linemen tackles and picks.

Alright, time for another away match. This time I've been challenged by orcs. It's kind of like looking into a mirror. They're another slow, well armored team with no receivers.



Here you're going to see me try to pass the ball down to my running back downfield (note that the ball carrier always has that golden aura).



Two orcs appeared out of the smoke, but he pasted both of them (right side of the field). By the time the QB and LB got there to help out, there was nothing to do.



This is an orc cheerleader wearing my uniform (blue). I have no idea why the game is doing this.



I broke my own rule about not letting anyone get in behind me since everyone's faster than I am. It looks like I'll pay a terrible price.



But wait, my QB actually brought the orc down from behind and threw the ball downfield to a running back.



This time the RB only manages to beat one orc, the other knocks him down and strips him.



I can't get enough dwarves over to the ball to quickly enough and the orcs tie it up.



I put enough orcs on the ground to free up a little running room.



Here you see a huge pile-up over on the left side of the field. My dwarves are better fighters, but not enough so to maintain an edge, the orcs are winning enough that I rarely have an "extra" dwarf on the field. We still eventually come out on top and score again.



Notice that the orc with the ball here has been chased all the way to the sidelines and is now surrounded by hostile dwarves. I think what the AI is trying to do here is lure opponents to one player and then throw it across the field.



I had a dwarf back to make the tackle, but the orc just bowled him over. That hasn't happened in a while, these greenskins are tough.



Here I am trying to run it up the sideline again. Look at how many of my dwarves are eating turf! I need those dwarves to block against the orcs that I know are back in that smoke.



Here we go, Rivers is the QB at the bottom of the screen, he's going to try to throw the bomb to the RB at the top of the screen.



He bungled it and the orcs scored off the turnover, tying the game again. But here's a another shot of the same plan, and this time it works.



In this shot, a lineman has stripped the ball, he's going to pitch it back to the QB, who will throw it downfield again.



He couldn't get a man open and had to run with it himself for a bit.



Now he passes it to the running back; who seals the game up with a score.



The rookie running back gets the MVP for his two touchdowns.



I now have a hard choice to make about my next home game. You'll notice that I didn't get much money at all from this win. I think this is because my record going in was so much better than my opponents (and they still played me pretty close, so I should probably stop talking about how great my team is). To get more moolah, I think I need to take on a serious opponent. I think my two best choices are the other dwarven team, which has three wins and two draws and has an ogre that maybe my LBs will match up well against. Or the team of dark elves that I'm still tied with.



Oh, The rookie running back gained enough XP to take "Sledgehammer" like the other two, Phillip Rivers the QB gained a 2nd passing skill, "Strong Throw" to go with his "Strong Arm" and another running back fitted his equipment with "Spikes" so he harms anyone who strikes him.

Brother None said:

Also Chargers suck the big one.

Click to expand...

san diego super chokers

Everyone who hates the Chargers just because we fired a good coach and hired some washed-up heroin addict can suck it.

Moving on, I decided to take the bull by the horns and challenge my main rival, the dark elven team I'm tied for first with.



Their QB is the guy with the sash on the left in front. My plan is to shut down their passing game by keeping him on the pitch. I'm also going back and forth between 2 QB / 2 RB and 1 QB / 3 RB.



So far, so good. Here I'm going to try a short pass to the running back at the top of the screen.



Alright, all my RB needs to do here is break one tackle.



Now I'm going to steamroll them on the right to go up 2-0



I missed a score somewhere, but who can keep count anyway? Time for the long bomb again.



Well the pass worked, but my running back sprinted for the endzone and still got caught and flattened.



The wretched elves easily run it back for a touchdown.



My QB threw for the endzone, but by the time the pass got there, everyone was engaged, so now it's a race to see who can break free and get to the ball.



One of my linemen just killed the QB, leaving them with 8 elves on the field until we score, which we propose to do here with another long pass to a running back.



The new guy is the MVP again, probably because you gain more XP for the same actions earlier in the progression.



Made some decent money this time, but I must have accidentally ordered my super linebacker to stomp on someone when he was down because he got sent off the field. I could have avoided this if I'd paid for a bribe before the match started.



Now both of my QBs have "Strong Throw". Pretty much everyone else is saving up for "spikes" (RBs) or "Parry" (Linemen / LBs)



I played another, much more exiting game right after, pics soon.

There's a console trash version coming soon.

Real time or Turn based. So one or both will suck.

http://www.bloodbowl-game.com/#

For my next away match, I'm challenged by wood elves. After my last pasting of an elven team, I anticipate a slaughter.



I'm now keeping a bribe in reserve in case the ref wants to send someone off. I'd also like to point out that for the first time ever, I actually caught someone doping, their only receiver. Take that vegans!



They're lined up with QBs on the left, running backs in the middle and linemen on the right (don't ask me why)



Here we are pounding the rock to score first, everything going according to plan.



Running back with plenty of space, but no help. He makes it in anyway.



I move both of my quarterbacks over to deal with one of theirs, throw a pass, get stripped and can't get over in time, the elf easily outruns my sprinting lineman.



While I have an orc cheering for me, the elves have a dwarf. Does anyone know what the deal is here?



I'm unbalancing my line here to put more potential ball carriers one side. My hope is that my running backs are good enough blockers to give me some more flexibility that way.



It's a tie game here, the elves having scored again. But my QB prevents another elven touchdown and prepares to rocket the ball downfield.



Instead, he gets tackled and the elves score again. The elves are up by two when I realise that I now have just over two minutes to score two goals just to avoid a loss.



I've scored again to close to within one before this pick was taken, but I still can't just score, I need to score quickly, hail mary pass into the endzone coming up.





Tie game, time running out, QB has the ball, but nothing downfield. I can't take any chances since even a draw is better than a loss.



He takes off running with it, lineback out in front.



Linebacker makes the key block, less than a minute left. We're about to take the lead.



Clinging to a lead now, QB has the ball, all I need to do is run the clock out.



Despite the fact that I won the game (however narrowly), the MVP is a wood elf.



A little money never hurts. And apparently two of the bastards were doping, so much for communing with Nature, the cunts.



Now both of my QBs have "Pickpocket", everyone else is still saving up for more combat skills.



Now, the next game is a home game, so I get to choose my opponent. And now my number one rival is another team of dwarves. The stage is set for a knock-down drag-out fight for supremacy.

Looks like fun

Good LP thread there, game looks like fun.

Anyone else remember playing the DOS Blood Bowl game back in '95? I did for a while, got bored, hexedited my players into virtual gods and steamrolled every other team with wood elves, of all races.

[EDIT]
Hmm.. Seems I can't do the fancy url linkie thing, when a webpage includes parantheses. You can see the wikipedia entry about the DOS based game here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Bowl ... video_game)

http:\\www.fumbbl.com

Biggest online bloodbowl site around using, currently, a java based client for games. It's not pretty, but turnbased and ... well more fun.

I got sudden death installed last night. This weekend I hope to take a break from my 3 week long HoI2 game, and try it out.

Azira said:

Anyone else remember playing the DOS Blood Bowl game back in '95? I did for a while, got bored, hexedited my players into virtual gods and steamrolled every other team with wood elves, of all races.

Click to expand...

Hell yeah. I played the hell out of that game one summer. It's a real shame they put all that ground work into the game and never added more content.

Hopefully the new version will be better, but I assume it will follow the GW computer game model of having almost no content with promises of expansions later on. So far they are 1-200 on that promise, and the 1 is a shitfucking RTS.

Crichton said:

Everyone who hates the Chargers just because we fired a good coach and hired some washed-up heroin addict can suck it.

Click to expand...

Oh well that's ok, I hate the Chargers because they're the Chargers.

Crichton said:

Made some decent money this time.

Click to expand...

Eh? Winning vs Orcs was 53k, vs Elves 50k, I don't see the big gain there, or am I missing something?

Eh? Winning vs Orcs was 53k, vs Elves 50k, I don't see the big gain there, or am I missing something?

Click to expand...

You're right. I was just looking at the relative money and assumed I was doing better. Now that I look back through the various matches, I have no idea how the money is calculated. It was the same for the first two games, so I thought it was a set pot with the shares varying, but it isn't.

Short question:

Is it really difficult to direct all your crew on the field? And to play in the proper way to achieve your goals?

I am from those guys that are to lazy to click-clack like there is no tomorrow. On the other hand, your description made me really sucking for the kind of a gameplay you are describing in your posts.

Is it really difficult to direct all your crew on the field? And to play in the proper way to achieve your goals?

Click to expand...

Not really. You click on a player to select him, click on ground to move, click on the ball to pick it up, click on an opponent to attack him, click on a friend to tell that player to follow the him. As long as you're on "active pause mode", it's RTwP, just hit spacebar whenever you want to give orders and give orders to as many players as you like.

As an extra note, for people thinking of trying Chaos League for themselves, I found some rapidshare links to the "Sudden Death" version.

http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/764362

I downloaded the .rar and instead of the 800 megs of poorly dubbed eastern european porn that I expected, it's legit. "Sudden Death" adds a few cool features (more skills/feats/traits/whatever you want to call them, more fields, better rosters, 3 new races) but it also adds a "longevity points" feature that makes it very hard to keep many players forever (as I understand it, a player loses 10 for every game he plays and gains 10 for every game he doesn't, but 9 players play in a game and you can only have 15, so you can't just alternate them, you'll have to have some churn in your roster).

Anyway, on to the next match, The Dwarf Bowl. It's my thunderbolts versus the Squales.

As I mentioned before, they're not quite as experienced as my team, but they saved up for an ogre.



I'm in red, fairly even early on, this is my first grab at the ball.



QB on the right botched a pass to the running back in the endzone, now we have to try to pick it up.



We've got the ball back here after tackling their running back, but don't have an obvious path to take it through.



We finally run to within scoring distance.



Once again, clearly no room to run, have to find another way.



Couldn't get a pass off in time, but it looks like I've got their ball carrier in a little trap.



Threw the ball into the endzone, but my RB got knocked cold before I could recover it. They score off the turnover.



Here I've got two RB's right in the endzone and a QB back with the ball, about to try a long pass.



It one RB makes a block, the other catches the ball and bowls over one of their RBs for the score.



Convoy of two QBs and an RB coming my way, and one of them is about to catch the ball.



I've got the ball back, but I've also got a lot of players out cold; that Ogre is tougher than I gave him credit for.



No room and no one to pitch it too, just too many of my dwarves taking naps.



For the first time ever, I'm not at a speed disadvantage, watch my running back outrun all these pursuers for the score.





Two of my linemen use up all their stamina to heal themselves. One running back is also a little winded from sprinting. I also note that my cheerleader is a dwarf now.



Their RBs strip me and run it back for a TD to save face, but I easily run out the remaining time when I get the ball back.



The MVP is a QB again, but in a low scoring, defensive struggle, he didn't have to do much to get it.



Tight game, and I made enough money to hire an Ogre if I want one.



I hire the Ogre and for the first time, one of my players learns a spell. One Michael "the burner" Turner now knows "Slaughter House". It's an AoE spell that makes all enemies within its area of effect easier to injure.

Here we are, last home match, so the last chance I have to pick an opponent. There are two teams that will award me full points for a win (5) and are races that I haven't played yet, one of humans and one of undead. I decide to play the humans.



As you might expect, humans are kind of mixed bag, being fairly average at everything; except smoke-screens, the bastards love smoke screens.

Here we are deployed. I'm trying out my new ogre. Their running backs are the ones in full, shiny armor, receivers have those golden arm-piece things, QBs wear hoods and the odd man out is a lineman.



I forgot to get a screen cap of their first scoring drive, but it's pretty much like the one shown here, they run right past me and I huff and puff trying to catch them.



So I'm down 0-2 against a team of weaklings despite my new ogre? Why? I've lost my identity. I need to get back to running the football, like this.



Here's a QB trying to run the ball, but I know there are some humans hiding in the smoke.



My QB gets tackled, but a running back recovers it and runs it in. Note that they've only got 8 on the field since I knocked a guy out.



Running down the sideline with blockers, nothing like it.



Sometimes I try to hold off scoring to give my players more time to beat their adversaries, but that's blown up in my face before.



I'm doing a better job leaving dwarves behind to "guard" downed humans. It prevents surprises and mostly the dwarves are too slow to effectively redeploy anyway.



We score!



We're really cleaning them up on the line now. [Bonus] Check out the blood-splatter from the crippling injury.



Hawt dwarven cheerleader action! The boys will be hitting some of that tonight!



Humans go nuts with smoke bombs; it doesn't help.





Final minute, just need to avoid turning the ball over.



MVP is my #2 linebacker (the one without "Critical Hit" for a KO and a crippling injury. Oddly enough, he only has one other tackle.



3 KO, one cripple, 6 TD, 1 pass, that's dwarven football.



The MVP linebaker elects to take "Parry" instead of "Critical Hit" because I think it'll help him win more fights which will eventually lead to more injuries anyway.



Final game of the season coming soon.