Blood Bowl - Official Website Up

I own, play, and enjoy both Heroscape and BloodBowl and here's my take.

Da Bid Dabid is correct, but I'll elaborate a little more from my point of view.

1) The hobby side as mentioned in the Dark Future thread. If you're not into it, and that's cool, then there's no draw there. Why not use proxies? You absolutely could. In fact, I'd bet you'll be able to buy the new BB on ebay for around $25 shipped sans minis. I'll do that myself, since I'm not a fan of the ones in the new set, but you could use print outs, heroscape minis, bottle caps whatever.

2) If you do get into the hobby aspect, then there's an emotional buy-in that is unavailable in Heroscape. That minotaur you spent hours crawling over the web to find the right mini for, that you then spent 6 hours painting him up, saved up your team savings for three games and had to make the hard choice between him or a re-roll? That guy? When I break his ribs and he's -1 ST for the rest of the season...yeah...emotions. Then, you still have the tough choice of keeping him on your roster (inflating your Team Rating, but playing a gimped Big Guy) or dumping him and having to save up again...still maybe missing that re-roll. That, plus a grudge has formed. There's no doubt you'll be keen to meet up with me later again in the season...all the sweeter if you can take it out on the character that crippled your mino.

I haven't experienced anything close to that in Heroscape

3) Role-playing/World Building. Much like professional sports being the ultimate reality TV, when you're in a well run league with newsletters, coach/player interviews, etc you're part of something much larger than the one off game you just finished. You and the players are creating a living universe with personalities and histories. Playing multiple seasons and you're really onto something special with characters retiring or players trying to prevent other teams from getting a character from beating their star's TD record, team histories and legacies being created. You get the competition of board games and by natural default the collaborative world building of RPGs...with no DM. It's a magical thing and the best time I've ever had gaming.

Heroscape has never matched that for me. Fun times within the game session, but no hook week to week.

I'm not saying anyone else has to sign up to my club, or give up blood bowl, I'm saying FOR ME I don't see the point, I've dabbled a bit with BB and Dreadball, I don't agree they are more fun than Heroscape based on my own experience, and I would rather play an RPG if I wanted a campaign style experience with a group who committed to meet up regularly, or I could easily come up with any number of persistent campaign ideas for Heroscape if I wanted to. I just don't buy this thing that you need to dig into a big rulebook (though to be honest, BB isnt that complicated is it) to somehow gain some higher level experience. Heroscape is just a much better game IMO. And I can't see why BB campaign mode would be better than other campaign style experiences. So for me, I'm out. I've grown out of the needing lots of different options and varieties, so its definitely an either/or for me and I havent seen anything coming close to what Heroscape offers.

honesty was maybe a bad word, but basically I think sometimes games feel like theyre adding stuff to "look more advanced" like theyre a bit too ashamed to be "its just that?".

Heroscape works with some d6, move, range, attack, defense, and a couple of powers unique to each card, theres no convoluted rules, LOS and height advantage etc its all just a basic thing

Its like Tigris & EUphrates (awesome) vs Terra Mystica (bleurgh)
Nexus Ops vs any number of convoluted games that still boil down to armies on a world map
Combat Commander vs other tactical squad wargames.

all the games mentioned first get right to the action with much less overhead than the ones on the right.

I prefer the games that dare to get by with the minimum amount of rules and extra "complexity" and just say, yep, thats all there is to it. Have you tried it? Its fun. No added Ingredients needed.

and thats why I have just 1 or 2 games per player count
For 2P ive played Twilight Struggle, streamlined and awesome CDG
now Im playing COmbat Commander, an awesome streamlined narrative driven wargame
for 3P I have through the desert
for 4P I have Tigris (which fired Acquire)
for 5P I have El Grande
for 6P I have Medici (the kids like Winners Circle)
and Heroscape is there to enjoy with the family

I dont see myself buying any other games or needing to play any other games until something comes along and fires one of those, or I get bored of them. I dont see it happening based on their longevity so far

Bojack wrote: and thats why I have just 1 or 2 games per player count
For 2P ive played Twilight Struggle, streamlined and awesome CDG
now Im playing COmbat Commander, an awesome streamlined narrative driven wargame
for 3P I have through the desert
for 4P I have Tigris (which fired Acquire)
for 5P I have El Grande
for 6P I have Medici (the kids like Winners Circle)
and Heroscape is there to enjoy with the family

I'm the last person on this site that would try to get one to buy a game. If you have found the minimum number of games you feel you need to own and enjoy the hobby...that's gaming nirvana as far as I'm concerned. Sounds like you're in a good spot.

Play someone else's BB...

EDIT: I own and enjoy Heroscape because it allows me to play a minis game with my kids with no worry to chipped or broken minis or them having to wait around until everything is painted up. We just dump them back in their box. Plus, the kids play with the figs outside of game sessions. It's a great toy to have!

EDIT: EDIT: BB is a dinosaur still using a similar ruleset from 1994. It really was streamlined compared to 2nd, so I wouldn't accuse it of adding stuff to appear 'advanced'....these are old, but good, rules! Titles like Dreadball have attempted to modernize the genre.

Yeah I do the same, even though some of those minis are worth quite a lot. That just annoys me though. Most of the multiplayer games are at work, I play with work friends when I can, not as often as I initially hoped but now I'm into COmbat Commander which I can play with the missus so I'm gravy. So I only have Combat Commander, Twilight Struggle and Heroscape at home (and a PnP version of Medici), oh and Tigris. I'm good. I mean, I get that there are lots of other great games out there, but I'm just more honest with myself about my available time and social circle. I've done the "game closet for an imaginary life or times gone by with hundreds of hours and hundreds of friends just there for the asking" thing, which was an expensive lesson but I've purged down from around 1100 (700 base/400 expansions) to just those games listed (less than 10) in a year or two and with each sale/dump I just felt more and more convinced I'd done the right thing, and only harder and harder to understand what the fuck I was thinking / doing. I guess its an easy hobby to live vicariously and feed needless OCD compulsions about collections and toys or something

Oh, man, that's a topic that we've gone round and round with over the years past.

This hobby supports all types, but I'm definitely in the 'less is more' camp. It can be hard to maintain that position though as new shiny titles come out seemingly daily (weren't there 2,000 titles released last year? Maybe it was 5,000!) and it's easy to feel left out of the conversation.

I just kick back a little and attempt to control the conversation. Notice I'm the only one talking about Dark Future and keeping that thread alive. It would be easy to let it slip away since no one else is playing, I could even jump in on some of the new post-apoc KS games...be part of the current scene...it would be easy. Instead, I've decided to stick with what I already enjoy to think about and play.

I've got other areas of my life I want to 'grow' in...I don't need to jump from board game to board game because one has more recent production values or has a different method of resolution.

But, again, the hobby can be what you make of it and this is a place I like reading what others are playing.

Enjoy the Fort and the way you hobby. Don't get caught up in the FOMO.

I think you guys are discounting the strategic and tactical depth Blood Bowl has. I've never played a board game (and yes, Blood Bowl is a board game with a thin veneer of miniatures hobby on top) that keeps me coming back because the variations and permutations in a given game of Blood Bowl are like nothing I've found in another game. Yes, Blood Bowl shines the brightest when played in a league with your guys leveling up, gaining new skills, increasing attributes, suffering permenant injuries or even being killed. The RPG-lite aspect to that is awesome. I'll always remember when my first season playing with Jeff, how my human team the Wolves of the Wynd (from the Wynd neighborhood of Middenheim) had a losing record in the first half of the season to rally back and make it to the finals where my ogre Razzogut the Titanic killed my opponent's orc team's troll in the first half of the game. I went on to win the championship. It was epic.

But even stripping away the RPG-campaign aspect and the hobby painting and modeling aspect, there is so much game to this game. There are variations upon variations to set up your team at kick off. What type of offense are you going to try and play? Run the ball down in a cage? Screen off the field and play a quick running play? Sit back deep with your thrower while trying to avoid being blitzed and trying to get a catcher out into the open? Have you overcommited to your offense leaving you exposed if you give up the ball? Can you figure out how to stop a fast-paced scoring team like wood elves if you're slow, ponderous dwarves? If you're wood elves can you figure out how to score if you only have 6 players on the field and you're playing a high-strengthed chaos team? If you're playing humans can you figure how to play fast/agile against orcs and in the next game how to be the strong/bashy team against skaven? Can you set it up so you score a 1-turn touchdown after kick off? Can you set up your team to avoid being scored on by a 1-turn touchdown set up? Can you set up to keep your most skillful player from being blitzed after kick off? Can you set up a 3-die block chain? Can I gain selective dominance on key areas of the pitch while sacrificing other areas that may result in some players getting a beat down? On top of that there are so many teams that play so differently from one another, there is so much to try, experiment and play with here.

I've never played Heroscape and it's totally cool if it's your thing, but I wouldn't write off Blood Bowl for attracting players just because of the hobby and league aspects.

I don't even do the mini part of the game anymore. I enjoy playing it via Fumbbl or the Cyanide game. That is really the only way I can get into a league setting.

Wreckage put together a fantastic 100+ page document on basic Blood Bowl strategy. I have pointed all my friends who are newly into BB to check it out.

There is always something new to learn when playing against other people and new strategies that open up when a player gets a new skill. Every team plays and grows differently and a defense from one game will not necessarily translate to the next. This is a game that I don't get to play F2F often enough and I hope it brings more people into the community.

Didn't see it mentioned anywhere else but a store owner I know just threw out there on social media.
11-25 street date
$99

Da Bid Dabid wrote: Didn't see it mentioned anywhere else but a store owner I know just threw out there on social media.
11-25 street date
$99

I saw the official GW page say pre-orders start next Saturday but no mention of price. $99 is cheaper than the other GW board games (well except gore chosen or lost patrol) but I was still hoping for cheaper.

I would have paid $60 maybe. No way.

I'm seeing 65 pounds....so about $80?

maybe $60 from some sellers?

$25-30 minus minis?

I take the weekend off the forums, and I come back to this?
Blood Bowl being compared to Heroscape?
Bizarre.
I own, play, and adore them both.
But they're apples and oranges.
Blood Bowl should be contrasted against other fantasy sporting titles. Take your pick:
DreadBall (I kind of dig this)
Guild Ball
Slaughter Ball
Elf Ball
Battle Ball
Grind
Kaos Ball
there's probably more, but I can't think of any.

If anyone digs board games and "rosterbating" over their weekly Fantasy Football lineup, a gaming league is up your alley. Don't paint or get your hobby on? Pay an art student to make your team table top ready.

A little more on the release...

It seems like there will be rules for four teams in the base game (humans, orcs, skaven, dwarves) and DeathZone will have about 7 (with 4 of them elf teams). Looks like undead flavors, lizardmen, chaos, norse, etc will come in later books?

As DB2 is consolidating to one book, BB'16 seems to be splitting out to multiple books.

drewcula wrote: I take the weekend off the forums, and I come back to this?
Blood Bowl being compared to Heroscape?
Bizarre.
I own, play, and adore them both.
But they're apples and oranges.
Blood Bowl should be contrasted against other fantasy sporting titles. Take your pick:
DreadBall (I kind of dig this)
Guild Ball
Slaughter Ball
Elf Ball
Battle Ball
Grind
Kaos Ball
there's probably more, but I can't think of any.

If anyone digs board games and "rosterbating" over their weekly Fantasy Football lineup, a gaming league is up your alley. Don't paint or get your hobby on? Pay an art student to make your team table top ready.

Andrew, have you played Guildball? Thoughts?

I can't get over the minis looking like mordheim warbands and not sports teams.