Blood Bowl Day 2008: Highlights and Hijinx

This past Sunday we held Blood Bowl Day, our one-year anniversary celebration for the MMBBL. By all accounts, it was a complete success, thanks to the enthusiasm and efforts of our eight coaches. Off-field highlights included four pizzas, three cases of pop, and a lot of laughter. The on-field highlights are a bit more...reportable. Additionally, we implemented our new "Stadium Rules" for the first time, for the most part to everyone's great amusement. We'll have another post up about them soon.

The Asgard Raiders had a pair of games, and their results were varied. On the upside, both the team's runners learned to dodge thanks to some fortuitous doubles being rolled, but on the downside, lineman Thor Kilval was turned into a sort of viking paste.

The Blackwater Bilgerunners had some significant successes in their outings. Linerat Stumptail learned Dauntless, marking him as a sort of secret weapon against big guys. Piddlepaw the gutter runner, after an entirely ridiculous four touchdown performance against some goblins, learned Sure Feet, while his associate Dingleberry mutated himself some Extra Arms and the towering O'Rattigan took Stand Firm on his level up. Finally, a new linerat by the name of Notchear was added to the mix.

The BloodDrunk Berserkers had one game, and the results were not pleasant. A few points were awarded, but most notable were the niggling injury picked up by beastman Bone Chewer and the gruesome death of chaos warrior Halford Heartripper.

The Darkmire Carnosaurs did well for their first outings, and though Kakayo Puddlejumper was throttled out of a movement point in one game, he regained it later on in a level-up. Toka Reedrush was another skink to get faster, and Huila Windwhip picked up Sidestep and topped the team with eight Star Player Points.

Gildengrip's Goldminers made an appearance at Blood Bowl Day, and made a strong showing of it. Line dwarf Willron Weldon learned the Guard ability, and runner Gilgarry Goldrush picked up Block after his touchdown and MVP performance. Though he learned Mighty Blow, blitzer Cooper O'Copper's day was soured slightly when he was slapped with a niggling injury.

Also making a brief appearance were the Mount Darkham Gryphons, a human squad fielded by the coach of the Smash and Go'nads. Their victory was well-played, particularly by "The Presence" John McElroy at quarterback, and "Shake and Bake" Blake Baker at receiver, who far and away had the most amusing name at the entire event. The former picked up the Strong Arm skill while the latter increased his movement rate.

The Muenster Valley Stinkers easily had the worst night of the lot. Five games, each one a loss, saw a litany of injuries and a pair of deaths. Goblins Slappy Sloptongue and Armpit Goozer met their respective ends, the latter after learning Sidestep in a previous encounter. Among the permanent but not fatal injuries suffered by others were a loss of strength and a niggling injury for Punchy Clognostril, an agility down for Donker Dungheap, Armour penalties for Nudgy Bangfart and Kicky Mudgob, and a niggling injury for bombardier Blaggat Horkbag. The only bright spots on this day were the discipline of the team's trolls, who didn't eat a single goblin all day, and Ziddy Blotch, who learned sure feet and was given the captaincy for not dying. The Stinkers were also able to hire on a fanatic, one Whirly Early.

The Pancake Valley Shortstacks fared much better than their equally stunty counterparts, though possibly only because they knew when to quit. Cream Sugarfoot had two touchdowns in their lone game, earning him the Sprint ability.

The Razor Hill Spinebreakers played very well, with all but three players earning points of one kind or another, and one of them actually leveling up twice! Kiro Stormaxe was the blitzer in question, collecting a whopping 23 Star Player Points en route to picking up the Sure Hands and Fend skills. Fellow Blitzer Soran Steelfury had a kill and learned Strip Ball, and two black orcs, Kolark Bonefist and Brakgul Bloodsnarl, each got Block. Bonefist also had a fatality attributed to him. After the day was done, the orcs made matters worse for their opponents by adding troll Zor Loneblow to the team. From what I can tell after one day, the Spinebreakers are going to be one hell of a fun team to watch.

The Sun Temple Chupacabras had a couple of strong games, and were rewarded by saurus El Mucho Grande getting faster and skink Harpo Xtopilopicoatl picking up the Side Step skill. Aditionally, Meepo Xtopilopicoatl became the latest of the Xtopilopicoatl siblings to join the team.
Finally, the Traumatic Takedown had a day full of pleasant surprises, as line dwarf Rip Tendon picked up two casualties and a kill, and hobgoblin Ortho Pnoea got Block on a level up. Perhaps the most impressive of all, however, is centaur Charlie Horse, who, after getting an agility increase last season, followed up by learning Dodge on Blood Bowl Day. The only downside for the Takedown was line dwarf The Buccinator getting an armour penalty.

With all said and done, there's going to be a lot of heavy competition in the MMBBL this coming season! Many of the newer teams picked up significant amounts of Star Player Points and won't be rushing into the season without anything to build on. Only two squads came up worse than they started, and neither of their coaches is particularly discouraged. The regular season kicks off on the 30th of September, so look for more posts here and there before then!

League Expansion, Returning Teams, and Blood Bowl Day

Time now for a few administrative posts concerning the MMBBL.

First up, we're expanding the league from eight to twelve teams this Autumn. We don't have any new coaches, but four of our current coaches have expressed interest in fielding a second team. Therefore, there will be six teams in each division, with each of the two-team coaches having one team in each division. When playoff time comes, only one of that coach's two teams may advance, even if both teams are technically eligible.

In theory, we have the resources to support up to sixteen teams at this point, since there are four boards among us. If we expand further, it will be directly to sixteen teams if possible. If that can't work, then the two-team fielding coaches may be asked to cut back to one in subsequent seasons. This is simply a matter of everyone being able to play on the alternating game nights of the two conferences, Bloodbath and Deathdealer. having an odd number of teams in either division means that someone's got to wait nearly a month between games, and that would be frustrating to say the least.

And now on to the returning teams announcement. To begin, several teams who've been with us recently are taking breaks, mostly so the coaches can experiment with new team types. The Dusk Hill Dirt Bursters, Meathooks, Brutakai Ragefangs, and Bloodsand Blasters are all getting put on the shelf for a little while, after four, four, two and one season of play, respectively.

Returning are four of the squads from last season - The Smash and Go'nads, the Blueriver Wardoves, the Traumatic Takedown and the Blackwater Bilgerunners, as well as a previously established team, the Fly-by Knights, who were last seen in the Spring season. with five returning teams, this means that over half of the league will be entirely new squads. Though the returning teams have an edge as far as skill and playoff hope goes, there's still a lot of wiggle room for new teams to get off the ground quickly. Those new teams will be given an introductory post soon.

Something that pleases me to no end will be our first annual Blood Bowl Day. Commemorating the start of the MMBBL last year, this is the sort of landmark that every league commissioner hopes for. Enthusiasm seems to permeate the league, we've managed to find a balance between the more casual and more hardcore players (namely the aforementioned two-team coaches) and we've set a foundation of league history that we can build on with each passing game. Everybody still gets a little chill at the mention of Ol' Teabagger. We know what it means to exclaim "HUNGRY!" when the die roll comes up a 1. We've even got a handful of creative alternative projectiles when "Throw a Rock" comes up on a kickoff. In short, we've taken the generic core of the game and covered it with a gooey, sweet, unique MMBBL frosting. This Fall, we start on the second tier of this delicious, vicious cake.

Blood Bowl Day is going to be a celebration of the league, and as well an excuse to hang out with what's become a tightly-knit crew of fantasy sports fans. There'll be pizza, drinks, and of course on-pitch carnage. The games themselves with carry a few twists - money earned will be halved as it's "preseason" play, the games themselves won't count in the standings (thought star player points will), and teams who aren't even in the league itself this season will be welcome. Don't expect to see too much on the blog about the games, aside from the major highlights. I love updating this site, but there's no way I'm going to be able to scribble out 10-15 matches in full detail.

There's still a couple of posts to be made - One concerning the new teams, one for a new house rule we're implementing which will give flavour to the different venues the teams play in, and one to showcase some new graphics - a league map, a "head-to-head" match post header, the MMBBL logo with all the current team logos incorporated, and the biggest project to date, player cards! Keep an eye open, and we'll see you on Blood Bowl Day!