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!

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.