Sunday 20 May 2012

Gaming with my Son - Bloodbowl 2nd Edition

As my Blood Bowl painting efforts continue I managed to gee up some enthusiasm from the eldest to have a game, it was either that or 40k and he opted for the fantasy American Football. Of course I've only ever played 2nd Edition and I don't have the current 'Living Rulebook' for modern play so we stuck with what I know. In the past we just did the basic rules but I decided to up the ante and go with the advanced set and we had elves versus skaven, here's the end of my Son's first turn, no head to head shenanigans in 2nd Edition, and I never liked the kick-off rules brought back in with the Blood Bowl companion.


A number of his skaven ran upfield with his thrower hanging back completely undefended, lets just say he was very new to the game.


You don't see that every day, a three armed, be-tentacled giant mutant rat!


After some deft play and a few blocks one of his Skaven was deaded, 2 K.O.ed and 2 stunned but he'd still managed to slip through my defensive line and thrown the ball to a scuttling little rat fella - 1-0 to the skaven.


So, next round and I start off with the ball. 


At the end of the first turn my elves are heading upfield, I suppose this illustrates we they all start in the middle now.


Some punishing blocks put a lot of my elves on the floor, I'm not even sure where the ball is, it seemed to bounce around that pile of flattened individuals in the middle.


I think this picture pretty much describes what happened, the catcher managed to break free for the end-zone and my thrower managed to get in a simple pass to gain a draw.


That was it, we packed up after that. I think it was a fun little game. I know the new rules have that if you fail a block, throw or tackle etc. and it's a turnover from playing Blood Bowl on the DS but I kind of enjoyed the original you get to keep on blocking, rolling armour saves next block and on and on. The new rules add more tension, any fail could be your doom but it ends up a bit more tactical, a bit more like chess. Every move has to be made with 'what will happen if I fail?' in mind and so you have to try and plan your moves in a set order. It's interesting and perhaps more of a challenge but I feel 2nd Edition is a little quicker because if you do fail so what you just make your next block. It's like in 40k when you have a target you absolutely must kill and so if one thing misses you fire at it with another until you bring it down. Could you imagine if your turn in 40k was over if a unit missed? Of course they're different game mechanics and amounts of figures involved but it's an interesting thought.

8 comments:

  1. 2nd edition rocks!

    Haven't it played in years, I'll have to assemble the team =)
    If you have all the adv rules be sure to try out a mixed race team - nothing like having your own team trying to kill itself throughout most of the game!

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  2. Whenever we did mixed race teams we ditched the animosity stuff as it spoilt the fun but I suppose it can be fun because of it too, cheers.

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  3. I love 2nd edition Blood Bowl. Some old friends and I gather a couple of times a year to dust off the ol' Astrogranite pitch and get some miniatures on the field. We've found that dwarf teams tend to dominate because of their brute strength and ability to rapidly stun/injure/etc the other team's players. I prefer good old Orc versus Human matches with the Veteran Rules.

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    1. Daniel, keep holding the torch high for 2nd edition. I've got an unpainted Dwarf team too and nearly a Halfling team. Need some treemen for my Elves which are 75% complete.

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  4. I honestly think the 80's alternate universe 2nd Edition of BB was GW's best game.. simple to learn.. deep rules... tactical.. funny quirky theme totally of it's own... fantastic 3D playing board.. great end zone cards.. and you know what I think? I think GW killed it on purpose... It was too unnecessary to buy more with the 2nd Edition! the thing I remember about it all is that GW made a game so bloomin perfect they had to break it to stop it I think that's why they originally added the Compendium, and the Star Players which made 2nd Edition messy slow and complicated.. to the point where GW finally had to murder it with the "new" fantasy 3rd edition (which is now still in existence as the LRB). Why? so they could sell all new miniatures, and make sure the "new Blood Bowl" created a "pressure to buy"!

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    1. Amen, although I did like the added lunacy of Star Players and compendium but we 'pick 'n mixed' those rules anyway! I even got away with creating a new secret weapon of 'power fists' - gloves attached to a car battery that worked in exactly the same way as Chainsaw wielding loonies but instead of based on the players Ag is was based on their St. The table was nearly the same just replacing decapitated with electrocuted and then promptly gave them to a Dwarf blocker, +4 to the dice roll. Not sure my mate let me play that rule much...

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  5. I love the pitch! How did you prepare it i.e. give it that excellent color with the black cracks? Any tips are appreciated!

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    1. This was right at the beginning of my falling off the wagon. The black was the dregs from an old Satin Black paint we'd used to paint some skirting boards [it was a nightmare trying to get them white again afterwards]. The other colours were a couple of home emulsion tester pots that I mixed together to get the successive lighter shades. No tricks, just endless squares, and they do seem to go on forever...

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