FumBBL League Updates

I'm playing in three leagues on FumBBL that have recently hit a variety of milestones worth mentioning since the last time I posted about Blood Bowl. As a reminder I'm in a league where you draft players out of a different league and an admin helps you cheat those players onto your team. I'm in a league with a salary cap in an attempt to keep teams from getting too out of control. And I'm in a league where there's one copy of every race in the game.

The drafting league recently finished off the playoffs. I managed to make it all the way to the Super Bowl finals where I lost to a Skaven team with a truly ludicrous lineup of gutter runners including a guy who can score in one turn who also has a bonus agility for funsies. I actually managed to get to the second half tied 1-1 with me receiving which is a great place to be, but I was down to 9 players and my opponent still had 12. Having 12 is important because it meant the guy who moves 13 spaces didn't have to come on the field and I couldn't try to injure him before scoring. This meant the game was almost certainly going to be at best overtime for me. But then he took out 2 more of my players right away which meant I couldn't fully protect the ball and he made some lucky but not unreasonable rolls to steal it and score himself. On the plus side I had removed a lot of his players by this point including killing his +ST blitzer. He was down to 7 players, I was back up to 8, and I had 4 turns to tie it up. I also needed to take out the one turner and maybe I could force overtime. But then he crippled my best player and only remaining damage threat and I couldn't get a hold of the gutter runners. Oh, and he stole the ball and scored again. The end result was a 3-1 loss. Second place in my first season in the league is pretty good though! I got the 31st pick in the draft as a result and took a guy with block, +AV, and 27 SPP. So he's only 4 points from his next level where he can get guard and be a nice meat shield. I suspect people think I made a bad pick but since the divisions in this league are fixed I know I'm going to have 6 of my 14 games next season against Dwarves, Khemri, and Orcs. They're all going to be slugfests and none of them can get claw so stacking up extra armour feels good to me.

The cap league has reached the playoffs and I've managed to play ahead to the point where I know I'm in the Superior Bowl finals for the second year in a row but I don't know who my opponent is from 4 available options. The finals deadline is going to be during WBC which is tricky for me. I hope the other side of the bracket plays fast so I can schedule the finals ahead, or that my opponent can play early in the week. Hotel internet is very spotty at best and I don't know that I'd really want to skip a WBC game to play Blood Bowl. Forfeiting the finals would suck. But I got to this point with a forfeit win in the wildcard round, so I can't complain too much! My conference finals game featured two teams at 2170 TV. Considering the cap coming into this season was 1750 those are pretty big numbers. My team got that high mostly by continuing to get lucky with player survival. I've still only suffered one death and one retire level injury in 44 games! I am starting to accumulate random lesser injuries but it's nothing to worrying at this point. I'm not sure if my opponent was surviving well or just earning a ton of experience to replace injuries. I suspect the latter? He also appears to be very good at rolling levels on his team since his elf team isn't allowed to take strength skills except on doubles and he had 6 guys with guard and one with mighty blow. And one guy with a bonus strength and two with bonus agility. He opened that game with a blitz and scored quickly on my possession after my ball carrier rerolled a blitz into double skulls. He then stole the ball again on the next drive and things were looking very bleak. I was out of rerolls but then I started getting super lucky and managed to get the ball back after two go for its and a two die blitz which found a pow and KOed the elf with the ball. I then continued to get lucky to recover the ball and then make the 4+ 3+ pass to end the half with a touchdown. I'd only inflicted one casualty by this point despite being a really bashy team, but on the plus side my opponent had crippled one of his own guys and killed another with failed dodges. He still had 9 left to my 14 and the score was tied with me kicking to him. My way wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible. Then my opponent rolled snake eyes on a hand-off and it all exploded on him. He'd left a lot of guys in contact when he tried the hand-off and I killed one of his best players with the first hit after that. (8/3/5/7 with leap/dodge/block/nerves of steel/catch) By the end of that turn I had the ball and it was 10v4 on the field. He continued to leave guys in contact to try to keep me from scoring and I killed one of his guard elves. He actually managed to get the ball when he was down to 2 elves and he did keep me from scoring at all which took the game to overtime. But overtime was a 4v10 with me receiving and with me having 2 rerolls to his 0. There was no miracle coming and I scored easily in 4 turns. I feel like his team with all the guard and only 7AV was probably really good at bashing finesse teams but he kept leaving low armour people in contact with my mighty blow high armour dwarves and he really suffered the consequences. His team value is down to 1580 for his next game so he probably won't have cap issues. Unless I suffer similar damage in the finals I will have to make some cuts, but those are decisions for another time. I did have a guy level in my last game and now my blocker with claw and mighty blow rolled a 6+4. So he can take a movement or an armour on top of a general or strength skill. I was planning on taking piling on but now need to think about taking the movement instead. I can piling on with his next level and it'll be a lot better when he can move 2 after standing up instead of just 1. 5 movement is also better range for a blitz and since he is claw guy he wants to be blitzing a lot.

In the highlander league I threw back my high elf team and got to start a new Orc team. I'd never played Orcs before, but since they're built with high armour and like to punch things they're right up my alley. I went 3-1 in the first half of the season, losing badly to Skaven but beating up Humans, Elves, and Dark Elves. I themed the team after wrestlers and my best player is Bret Hart, a blitzer with mighty blow and tackle. He's already scored up 2 kills!