End of a Blood Bowl Season
The Aardvarks and Dragons Blood Bowl League is over for another season. We had the end of season stunty sevens tournament and cheers to Nuffle yesterday, which are always a nice community touch at the end of the season. A good chance to see everyone, catch up, play some stress-free Blood Bowl, have a few drinks, and say thank you to everyone who keeps the cogs whirring in this excellent league.
This was actually my first time making it to the stunty sevens, which has been run by one of the other players for the last few seasons. It was really good fun, and a reminder of the silly side of Blood Bowl. I won the award for Most Injured, winning a thematic and very useful prize. In my last game, I pitch-cleared my opponent twice1, which made up for how badly game two went!
Two of our admins did a video summing up some of their thoughts about the league. This one was particularly interesting because it was the first of Blood Bowl Season 3, which added a few rules tweaks with potentially big impacts to the league format. I was typing up a comment to that video, but realised it was starting to look like an essay, which is never the done thing to do in a YouTube comment, so I will just do it here instead...
4 opponents twice or 8 opponents
This season, with 35 coaches, we were split into seven divisions of 5, and played each other coach in the division twice, for a total of eight games. The top two and some wild cards (highest scoring thirds) went through to a round of 16 knockout, whilst the remaining went into the Elimination Chamber (more on that later).
In a way, I like this format, because it gives you the opportunity to play a small group of people a couple of times, and gives you the chance to enact sweet revenge if the first game did not go well! The new Hatred skill adds an extra element to this, potentially giving you an edge in the rematch. If you don't play the same coach twice, there is a good chance your hate is all for nothing.
That said, in such a big community, it is a shame to divide us into so many silos. I found during the regular season, I didn't keep up that much with how the other games were going, or what the points were, other than right at the end as I tried to calculate if a wild card spot was available for me.2 For that reason, eight different opponents is appealing. Either divisions of 9, or larger divisions where you don't play everyone in the division. This of course comes with its own downsides, but a variety of opponents is good fun.
One way to make me care more about the other games is possibly more wild card spots. Make the top of each division qualify, but everyone else has to get through based on points. Second place is no longer safe, and you need to keep an eye on what everyone else is doing.
Tricky tricky, and all depends on the number of coaches. I think my preferred option is the bigger divisions. The keywords that Hatred is triggered off are common enough (Human, Undead etc. (that there is a good chance you will face the same keywords later. And if not, all the more reason to redraft and hold on to that grudge!
Seeded divisions
Chris loves a good stat and a good spreadsheet. Based on previous performances, he has a running list of the "seeds" for each coach. At the beginning of each season, the players in each division are drawn from seeded pots. For this season, there were five pots, which meant there was a player from each pot in each division.
The idea is to avoid a group of death, where lots of really good coaches are packed into the same division, possibly with one newbie! The problem is that in a small, seeded group, the top coaches did not meet in the groups, and were more likely to make it to the playoffs. It would be interesting to see the stats for this, and whether most of the top pot coaches made the playoffs (I didn't...). The seedings also don't take into account a coach who is new to the league, but definitely not new to Blood Bowl3, which in itself can create some skew.
For large divisions, where you will have multiple from each pot, the seeding does help to create mixed groups, with a variety of league experience and skill level, and I would like to see it stay for that. For small groups, I think let Nuffle decide. The group of death is always more memorable anyway.
High Team Value Teams
The team value of teams this season has averaged upwards. The elite-skill tax didn't seem to put anyone off taking them, and I think a lot of coaches remembered there was honour to be had for having the most expensive team at the end of the season!
I think this is because inducements are currently not enough to overcome large TV differentials. There are no giants, no mega stars with MB+2, no Death Zone shenanigans to make up the difference. And, in my opinion most important of all, we did not have Prayers to Nuffle. This cheap little inducement is game changing, and game breaking, but I think the threat of the prayers is enough to make people want to keep their TV a little bit trim. They are cheap though, which dents that argument a bit, but in another league I played in, I kept a low TV so that I could have three prayers every single game. If my opponent spent their treasury to get their own prayers, it either meant mine were free (and I could spend petty cash on something else), or the extra gold opened up a powerful star player.
I don't necessarily think Prayers to Nuffle should be in the game, but their removal might be having unintended consequences.
That said, I don't think high TV is a bad thing. It will be interesting to see whether this changes or gets worse with redrafted teams next season...
Friendlies
Chris and Luke mentioned friendlies at some point in their discussion. In the first few leagues of A&D, which were not run on Tourplay, we had the option to challenge other coaches for friendlies. These games did not win any league points or gold for our treasuries, but were a chance to earn SPP and clear MNGs, at the risk of further injury.
I think with Tourplay, these would require too much admin to include, but they were a nice touch early on!
Momentum in a league
Momentum in a Blood Bowl league is a really tricky thing. You want people to stay motivated and interested, but this can be difficult over a 20 week period. This season, the momentum really felt like it dropped off. For me, this was because of the combination of small divisions, and a long group stage (2 weeks per game, for 16 weeks). 16 weeks to only play four different coaches is a long time, and divides the league from each other.
The Elimination Chamber, a knockout end of season event for any coaches not in the playoffs, didn't really kickstart the momentum. I think most people in this group had mentally ended their season, and didn't want to play anymore games with their teams, or were just now more busy with other games, or work, or holidays.
I think larger divisions, slightly shorter group stage, and maybe even a shorter playoff stage would help to maintain momentum.
Dream season wish list
Luke and Chris discussed whether there was one slightly wild or exciting thing that could be added to the season to make it better. This is where Luke mentioned challenges or drudge matches against coaches from other divisions.
For me, I would love to see a league format with eternal promotion, a la English football league structure. I don't know how you would do this logistically, but I think this would help create some flavourful stories between the teams.
Part of this, I would like to see shorter seasons but more often, even if this means fewer games per season. I think seven games in a season, with eight coaches in a playoff (three rounds), would be possible in 13 weeks. Maybe... Selfishly, this would let me try out more teams and redraft the same team without feeling like I am missing out. Redraft is a really interesting part of league, and creates some difficult decisions. I like seeing teams in their third or forth season, still holding on to players from their first season in the league (Nanny, looking at you!). This might not be for everyone, but hey, it's a wish list!
See, that is far too much for a YouTube comment... Most importantly of all of the above points, is that the league is amazing. It is by far my most enjoyable tabletop experience of any game system, the community is amazing, and the league is run so well. The hype for this league is crazy, and the numbers of coaches blows my mind. We started the first season with eight coaches!
The worst part about all these thoughts, is that I am stepping up into the admin team for the league next season, which means I will no longer be heckling from the back benches, but instead taking the flak at the front. I might have to put my money where my mouth is...
Quack