Blood Bowl Season 11

[Jonathan]

Well its nearly that time of year again, the Rygas Roughnecks Blood Bowl League (RRBBL) will be starting again at the beginning of February! Last year was great with a several really tight games and I hope we can continue this.

We will be running the league through the OBBLM again as that seemed to work for most people and saved me a lot of time and effort. All the teams from the new game plus the legacy teams are permitted, including Slann, Daemons of Khorne and Bretonnia.

Extra rules for this league: You always get a minimum of 30k for winnings (after applying modifiers to the dice roll). A variation of this has proved popular in previous leagues.

Inducements/Special Rules
In addition to the above, the other inducements and special rules are classified as follows:

• Mandatory – these rules have to be used, and the inducements can be taken without their opponent’s permission.
• Optional – these rules and inducements may be used if both players agree to them before the game. Coaches should not feel obliged to use an optional league rule just because their opponent wants to try it out.
• Disallowed – these rules and inducements may not be used, even if both players want to.

Mandatory
• All star players from CRP, Death Zone’s, Spike! Magazine and Grak & Crumbleberry (FAQ’d version). Where two versions of an identically named player exist (e.g. Lewdgrip Whiparm), use the most recently published version.
• Piling On skill (FAQ’d version)
• Special Play Cards: Use ‘Variant One – The Points System (League Play)’ from the Special Play Card Variants rules (see attached). In addition, cards can be taken as inducements as described in the ‘Variant Special Play Inducement’ section. Cards from White Dwarf and the race-specific upgrade packs may also be incorporated into their respective decks. Blitzmania special play cards may be used as follows if you have access to them:
o ALLOWED: Blitzmania Mania (Random Events); They Think It’s All…Ogre?! (Random Events); Pampered Players (Miscellaneous Mayhem).
o DISALLOWED: Heel Turn (Miscellaneous Mayhem); It’s All To Play For (Miscellaneous Mayhem).
• CRP Special Play Cards (Inducements only)
• (In)Famous Coaching Staff
• Bloodweiser Keg/Babe
• Extra Team Training
• Wandering Apothecaries
• Igor/Plague Doctor
• Mercenaries
• Bribes
• Specialist Coaches
• Temp Agency Cheerleaders
• Hireling Sports-Wizard (plus variants from Spike! Magazine)
• Weather Mage
• Cavorting Nurglings

Optional
o Famous Referees
o Themed pitches/Weather tables
o Golden Era Star Players
o Winterbowl Inducement cards

Disallowed
o Rostered Star Players
o Sponsorship Deals
o Stadiums
o Special balls

Coaches will have 1,000,000 to spend on their starting teams as usual. If you want to take part please post below with your team name and race. Games will take place every 2 weeks according to a fixture list that will be drawn up before the league starts. If you think it will be impossible to play your fixtures on a regular basis please think carefully before committing yourself. Matches can be played outside of the club if that makes it easier to fulfil your fixtures. Each coach will play each other once, and depending on how many coaches take part we may split teams into multiple groups. After the group-stages there will be a semi-final and final, and possibly quarter finals too.

The same scoring system will be used as before, which for those of you who are unfamiliar with it is:
Win = 30pts
Draw = 14pts
Loss = 6pts
+1pt per TD scored
+1pt per Casualty inflicted (only Casualties that would earn SPP’s count for this)
-1 for each TD conceded
No team can score more than 36pts or less than 0pts per game.

Any questions on how the league works or how some of the new rules changes should be incorporated please post below.

Jonathan, League Commissioner

Coach List
Jonathan - Khorne
Santa - Lizardmen
Clarkey - Skaven
Muppet - Elven Union
Kev - Humans
Dave O - Ogres

Link to OBBLM: http://rrbbl.dopeybosley.co.uk/index.php?section=main

Special-Play-Card-Variants-v3.pdf (448.8 KB)
Rygas Cup XI fixtures.pdf (99.3 KB)
RRBBL League rules.pdf (159.5 KB)

[Jonathan]

Some additional league rules:

Concessions (when one coach is unable to play a fixture)
If one player is unable to make either club night that a fixture was due to take place on, and their opponent was available for at least one of those nights, then they will have to concede the match to their opponent. The conceding player gets a 2-0 loss with no casualties inflicted is recorded against them and the post-match sequence is adjusted as follows:
The Winner gets 2 MVP’s, one generated normally by choosing 3 players and rolling a D3, the other generated randomly by rolling a D16. This second MVP cannot go to Journeymen, Star Players, or players that would have missed that game. The Winner also gets two sets of winnings, one rolled as if they were the Winner (i.e. D6+1, re-rolling if desired), the other rolled as if they were the Loser (D6, no re-roll). Both sets of winnings are subject to the minimum 30k winnings league rule.
If they are conceding for the first time in the league, the Loser gets a randomly generated MVP using a D16 (as above) and loser’s winnings. They also roll to see if there Fan Factor goes down. This will all be taken care of by the League Commissioner if the player is not present. For second and subsequent concessions, the loser gets no MVP or winnings and their Fan Factor automatically goes down by 1. In either case, they do not have to roll for Expensive Mistakes, regardless of how much money they have in their treasury.

Abandoned Matches (when both coaches are unable to play a fixture)
If both players are unable to play a fixture during the period it is due, or if both players are available but on different club nights, then the match will count as abandoned. This is recoded a 0-0 draw with no casualties inflicted. Both players randomly generate an MVP, using a D16, and both get D6x10,000 winnings as if it was a draw and with no FAME bonus. Both players then roll to see if their Fan Factor goes up or down as if it were a normal draw result. Neither player has to roll for Expensive Mistakes. If one or both coaches are unavailable this may be done by the League Commissioner (with another coach to verify).

If teams are level on points at the end of the league, the following are used to decide final positions:

1. Highest Touchdown difference
2. Most Total Touchdowns scored + Casualties inflicted
3. Most Touchdowns scored
4. Most Casualties inflicted
5. Least Touchdowns conceded
6. Win percentage
7. Head-to-head record
8. Most Sportsmanship Points accrued

[Santa]

I’m in. Lizardmen, Yer a Lizard Arry

[Clarkey]

Hey Jonathan,

I’d quite like to enter my rookie Skaven Team, The Cranbrook Cretins!

However, we are still (over a bloody year now!) waiting to complete house purchase and move back to the area, so there is a chance I might not be able to get back to the club regularly until mid/late Feb…

[Jonathan]

I’ll provisionally add you to the list for now then, hopefully your housing situation will be sorted out soon. If not, depending on how many people we get and when we start I may be able to organise it so you can still take part.

@Santa Love the team name!

[Dopey]

Re Using Star Players - if I can’t get the new ones into the database in time then, as a stop gap, add them to the match notes.

I can then add them into the database retrospectively.

Block on!

[Dopey]

Not good news re the OBBLM. … It uses outdated coding (php5.6) and my provider is stopping standard support from March

It’ll cost an extra £8.50 per month for them to maintain backwards support. I can’t fund this (the site already costs me £7.50/mth), so unless a solution can be found, I’ll have to take the site offline

I’ve taken a full backup of the database, so we at least have the league history thus far.

[Jonathan]

Bummer. Guess we’ll have to see if anyone else can take it on without the extra financial burden, or see if there is another way of managing the league other than going back to paper.

[Santa]

Alternatively we could look at the club running it on our own site. The finances are pretty healthy at the moment and I don’t think that it would be too much of an ongoing strain.

[Dopey]

Good idea Santa - worth looking into. As a bonus, it may be that the Rygas provider doesn’t charge for the older php.

There are also further options here: https://www.thenaf.net/leagues/using-obblm/

[Dopey]

Having looked about, it seems the community are working on a php7 solution for OBBLM. … so hopefully the £8.50/mth would be needed for months rather than years if the club can foot it.

[Muppett]

Hi guys

I’d be keen to play again this year. Im away in Bali so can’t set my team up until 1st week of feb though.

I’ll be fielding Elvin union - Dodgey Muppett’s

[Kev]

Hi all,

I’d be up for playing this season.

Will go with a Humans Team - Expected Toulouse

[Jonathan]

Cool, just need to strong-arm a couple more coaches into playing then we can get this thing going.

[Dopey]

I’m more than happy NOT to play this year due to spiralling personal commitments. However, if you end up with an odd number of coaches, I’m happy to take part as a “very unreliable” coach if that is better than the odd number.

I’d have to stick rigidly to the Concessions and Abandoned Matches rules. I’d also need to finish promptly (I’ll probably need to be “out of the door” no later than 2200, so this may mean timed turns in the second half.

If I am needed, I’ll play halflings - the attrition should shorten my turns and speed up the matches

[Clarkey]

Prob best not to get me in your first match then Dopey as it may take me a few games to get up to speed, sorry

On the other hand my mate is bringing me back a copy of Blitz Bowl from the States next week. Happy to give you the odd game of that every now and then matey if you need a quick blood bowl fix to fit into the hectic life of parenthood

[Dopey]

haha awesome

[Dopey]

Just a thought- this is the 10th Anniversary of the Rygas Cup!! … Maybe that could be used to big up the event / build up some hype / get some older players involved.

[Jonathan]

Not actually the 10th Anniversary as the league has been going almost as long as the club has.

The OBBLM is back online and you can now register your teams for the Rygas cup, see the other post on the forum from the OBBLM feed for more details. The Rampagers are already up and ready to take skulls and spill blood in Khorne’s name.

Unless some more coaches join in at the last minute it looks like it will just be the 6 of us. For that reason, this year every coach will play each other twice in a home and away match (rather than just once as in previous years). There won’t be any rules differences to reflect this, games will be played as per the standard league rules regardless of whether you are the home team or not. Once all league fixtures have been completed the top 2 teams will play each other once more in a Grand Final to determine the overall league champion. If the remaining coaches want to they can have a series of play-offs to establish who finishes third (the Bronze Medal Blitz).

I’m going to aim for 27th February as the start date for the league if that suits everyone. I will draw the first round of fixtures at the club this week so everyone knows who they are playing against.

[Jonathan]

Thanks everyone for getting your teams uploaded to the OBBLM. The draw for the first round was done tonight at the club and the fixtures are as follows:

Rhinestone Ogreboys (DaveO) vs Yer A Lizzard 'Arry (Santa)
Cranbrook Cretins (Clarkey) vs Angry Ron’s Rampagers (Jonathan)
Dodgy Muppetts (Muppett) vs Boogie Knights (Kev)

First round to be played w/c 27th Feb. I’ll get a full set of fixture dates up later and added to the OBBLM. If you think getting your first match done in either of the next 2 weeks let me know.