Bloodbowl, Touchdowns are optional, beatings are not Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Outline Switch to: Standard Switch to: Linear+

[Karoline]

So, the legendary edition of Bloodbowl comes out in a few days, so figured I'd poke around and see if anyone else out there is planning on getting it. For those that don't know about the Legendary edition, they're basically adding in all the races that they left out in the original version, which mostly includes the more difficult to use races such as vampires and necromancers and halflings and such.

For those that don't know what Bloodbowl is at all... well, imagine a game of football, except with orcs and lizardmen(Or elves or mummies or trolls or...), and the ball is covered in large spikes and maiming is considered less of a fowl, and more of a tactic.

Bloodbowl started out as (and still exists as) a fantasy (literal fantasy) football based board game. You had the field as a board, and minis for your players. Orcs, humans, elves, wood elves, dark elves, lizardmen, chaos, necromancers, nerguls, vampires, amazons, halflings, and ogres just to name a few of the possible races (Okay, over half). It is exceptionally tactical with multiple roads to victory. You can kill (or at least maim) your opponents enough that they quit/you can just walk in touchdowns, or you can try and play the ball with passes and sprints and such, or you can do some mixture. You're players earn experience (star player points) for things like seriously injuring other players, making passes, and making touchdowns, which lets them learn new skills such as being better at passing, running faster, being better at blocking, or (for some races) growing new limbs, just to name a very few.

You also keep track of how much your fans like you, which can influence things in the game, from game income (More fans means more people in the crowd) to what happens when the crowd (Remember, we're talking ogres and trolls and orcs and all kinds of stuff in those crowds) storms the pitch and beats down on players they don't like, or allowing you to reroll dice because their cheering encourages your players (Good coaching can do that too)

Cheating (within the rules of the game) is an option. "...has set up rules as to where, when, and for how much, a referee can take a bribe." and some races (I'm looking at you goblins) rely on it heavily to win games (Chainsaws are not 'allowed' in the game.)

The computer game is amazing as it captures both the rules, and the feel of the game. I've noticed maybe 1 or 2 rules errors, and those seemed to happen more for speed of play than anything else (There are some abilities that give you the option of rerolling if you fail a particular action, but the CG does the reroll automatically. Because there are occasionally different levels of failure, this can be a big deal sometimes, but not often) and the rather notable absence of the goblin bomb thrower from the goblin team. I'm hoping he makes an appearance in the new edition.

So, if you haven't checked it out, I highly suggest looking it up, and waiting for the new version to come out (I'm not entirely sure if it is stand alone or not though...) if you plan on buying it. Oh, and if you do buy it, I highly suggest playing good old classic as opposed to the new blitz version. Adds a bunch of bells and whistles that aren't needed (And the real time is fairly aweful).

The only real complaint I have for the game is that the AI is quite poor, and wins more by virtue of you rolling snake eyes more often than you should than anything else. Luckily there is online play from single matches to tournaments.