Another Big Thank You

Just a little post here to shout out a big "thank you!" to Impact Miniatures. Thanks to them, not only have we gotten our hands on heaps of really great looking figures, but in record-beating time to boot! As we combine the Games Workshop rules with these impressive new figures, we've gotten a lot of great ideas for teams going. This season, Valérie Cormier will be using a team of Egyptian animal aspects with Amazon team rules, while Ryan Keizer will be showing off his Siringit team of African wildlife on a Norse team template. This is just the beginning, too, as teams of ogres, gnolls, and all manner of bizarre beasts lurk on the horizon. If you read the MMBBL blog, go have a look, you won't be disappointed!

Dungeonbowl Ramp-Up part 1: Expansion!

Hi there, sportsfiends! This is your commissioner with a special message that's sure to please.

First, however, I'd like to give an official nod to arguably the league's greatest coach since its inception. Curtis Hunt, the mastermind behind the dominant play of the Dusk Hill Dirt Bursters, moved away this past fall, unfortunately for us and his two Spike! tournament teams, the Asgard Raiders and BloodDrunk Berserkers. Everybody back here in the Miramichi wishes him the best, thanks him for his challenging and skillful play every week, and also heave a collective sigh of relief that now, perhaps, someone else will be able to start winning trophies! In honour of his stellar play and great sportsmanship, A new award is going on the list for our upcoming seasons. From now on, the most outstanding rookie player will receive the Ol' Teabagger Memorial Chalice, an award which includes a bonus 50,000 gold for that player's team! The first such award will be presented at the end of the upcoming Dungeonbowl season. Thanks again, Curtis! Feel free to stop by for a game sometime.

Next, I'd like to thank our current coaches, including those who for reasons outside of the league's control, cannot play as much as they'd like to these days. Keith Dury, Jon Roth, Jai Gagnon, Sandy Miller, Ryan Keizer and Chris Mudd have formed a strong backbone for what has become a strong league. Special thanks go to Ryan and Chris, the former for his unflinching confidence in letting the bunch of us piggyback on his credit card to get all these orders done, and the latter for being a remarkable co-founder and having a wealth of knowledge of the rules to keep me from spouting all kinds of inaccuracies.

Now, the reason I'm making such a big deal over the coaches leads up to this announcement - the MMBBL is proud to announce another expansion! This time, we're adding four, count 'em, four new coaches to the stable! Andrew "Dismembery" Embury, Neil "Rabies" Davies, Valérie "Valkyrie" Cormier and James "Jimmy" Richards join the MMBBL with their first teams - Wood Elves, Necromantic, Amazon (pharaohs), and Norse respectively. We're all looking forward to the style, strategy and of course, humour that these four enthusiastic new players will bring to the league.

With these new additions, the current lineup of teams totals a whopping fourteen! The next post you see will have the rundown of the six teams in Deathdealer division, and will be followed by a look at the eight teams calling Bloodbath division their home. keep an eye open for updates all this week, leading up to Blood Bowl Day and the season kickoff!

Spiffying Up the Blog, Part 1

As part of the celebrations surrounding Blood Bowl Day, and our ongoing effort to make this league as cool as possible, We're stepping up the graphics here on the MMBBL Blog. Part one of this initiative is a more intense way to display the games that are played each season, specifically a more dynamic header for each post.


There's going to be one of these babies up for every game post - regular season, challenge, and playoffs - from now on. The two teams, the arena, and attendance. Not too much else to say about it except a big thanks to coach Ryan Keizer for the idea!

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!

MMBBL Divisions and Challenges

This will likely be the first of many posts in our brief off season concerning the structure of the league at this point.

We're expanding for the Blood Bowl season, up to eight squads now. Since it's not very likely that we can get everyone to play everyone else like we did this past season, we now have two divisions. There will be playoffs for the Blood Bowl championship, and the seeding order for these will depend on how well teams do in league matches. The league matches are four-to-five games which count towards your playoff standings: Three divisional games (one against each division opponent) and one or more Challenge games. Each coach will be issued a challenge card. This challenge card will be used to start a league match against an opponent from the other division. For example, the Bloodsand Blasters are in the Bloodbath division. They can use their challenge card to challenge anyone in the Deathdealer division.

The division matches will happen at regular intervals throughout the season. In most cases, the two divisions will alternate each week for their matches. Bloodbath one week, Deathdealer the next, and so on. The Challenge matches will take place at times convenient to both players involved in the challenge. Ideally, this can be done on Sunday afternoons, which has worked well enough for us as a league so far, but the commissioner will make himself available whenever possible to officiate at players' convenience.

There are a few restrictions regarding the Challenge cards.

1. You must use your challenge card at some point over the course of the season, unless this is impossible (either in the event of unforeseen real-world issues or in the event of its use breaching one of the underlying rules).
2. You cannot challenge someone whose team rating is more than twenty points lower than your own. Yes, this restricts how high-end teams can challenge, but they can elect to wait until later in the season to make the challenge and this does not restrict them from accepting challenges FROM lower-rated teams.
3. If you turn down someone's challenge, it is expected that you will have a good reason. Real-world responsibilities are an acceptable excuse as always. Fear of another team's tactics, skill or casualty count shouldn't dissuade you; this is a brutal league of an imaginary sport, remember that this is what you signed up for.

Remember, you don't have to resolve a challenge immediately. Granted, the sooner it is played the better, but the challenge will stand once it's been made, and so long as the match takes place sometime before the playoffs are scheduled, it's not a problem. Play challenges when it best suits you, and not necessarily against a foe you feel "obligated" to play against. The game is here for fun!

On that note, it should be mentioned that there is no restriction whatsoever on additional games played, beyond the divisional and challenge matches. If you want to play every week, chances are someone will be up for a match. Additional matches don't count towards your standings for the playoffs, but they ARE a great way to advance your players' skills. This can help you immensely when the playoffs arrive, and can seriously bolster your chances of success against a team with a high rating and lots of cash.

If anyone has any questions about these guidelines, you know where to reach me. I may be the commissioner of this league, but I'm no more important to its success than each of you guys are.

State of the MMBBL Address

The start of the Dungeonbowl season is upon us, and it's time for a "state of the league" type of address.

While we're sad at the loss of a couple of regular teams, we're happy that we've got a solid four-player base on which to expand. At one point we had envisioned allowing players to run two teams this season to add more variety, but the general consensus is that it's too much work too soon. As a result, the four players and their teams are as follows for this season.

Chris Mudd - The Days End: The Gold Miners will be taking a rest for the Winter and their place will be taken by a Vampire squad, complete with emo-goth names for the vamps and taste-related IDs for the thralls (my favourite is "Like-Chicken").

Matt Stroud - The Woad Warriors: The Fly-by Knights, being students of traditional warfare, will not compete in the Winter months. They are replaced by a squad of Norse with a Scottish bent, mostly named with permutations of famous highland folk.

Sandy Miller - The Meathooks: One of two returning squads is the Meathooks, continuing their legacy of looking at the casualty count instead of the scoreboard to measure their success. Look for them to make a splash in their second season.

Curtis Hunt - The Dusk Hill Dirt Bursters: The returning champs are, well, returning. A strong, well-rounded squad which prides itself on both the lethal efficiency of its mummies and the highlight-reel calibre play of its ghouls is sure to electrify the crowd once again...and possibly be electrified once or twice too, since they have the highest team rating in the league.

Relegation: The Fly-by Knights and Gildengrip's Gold Miners are on one-season hiatus at this point, likely to return for the Spring season. The Greenskin Bumlookers and the Low-Blows, due to the commitments of their respective coaches, are on an indefinite "stand-by" status, and may play a match here and there as their schedule and interest permits.

Introduction: One, possibly two new players will take the pitch this season. Rob Anderson is set to field a Dwarf squad (and we've seen just how fun those can be) and Andrew "Beans" Embury is listed as possible and hasn't yet chosen a team. We wish these two the best of luck, and let them know that anything can happen once you have a feel for the game. Curtis can attest to that after defeating the only two players with actual experience prior to last season in the playoffs for the Spike! title.

The league's first meeting for the Winter season is this Wednesday, and it looks like we're going to have two matches on tap. The Dirt Bursters vs the Meathooks, and the Day's End vs. the Woad Warriors. These may change depending on player availability, but if all proceeds as normal then Rob and Beans will have their own teams created before the evening ends.

That's about it for the administrative aspects of the league. On to other matters.

A minor rules change to reflect the Winter season - The Sweltering Heat result in the weather table is being replaced by a second Blizzard result. The reverse will occur in the Summer season, to reflect the...lack of blizzards, mostly.

The league is being switched over to Excel-based team sheets. This is for three very good reasons. The first is that if a sheet gets lost, we can just print a new one out. The second is that they are much tidier and easier to track stats on. The third is that, after some strange talleys during the transfer, things like missing players, phantom injuries and miscounted skill points were popping up like some kind of numerical case of chicken pox. Luckily, we got it while we were young and with luck we can be immune from this point on.

It's good to see we've got it in us for another season, it's great to see the potential for new players as well. We'll see you Wednesday night for the first matches, and then back here on the blog for the results!