In the Third season rules you choose your top 6 players and roll a d6 to see which of them gets the MVP, you don't have to choose the top players that game, you can choose to give it to players you want to level, but a lot of times you will end up giving it to someone who hits hard but could hit harder, someone who can make more touchdowns, or even just a lineman with no SPP that you want to throw a random skill on.
The way it's been done in the rulebook has changed from edition to edition. When I first started playing Blood Bowl, it used to be that you'd pick three players on your team and roll a d3 to determine who'd get it. The following edition had it such that it was strictly determined by d16 (you get a 16-sided dice in each set) according to where on the team roster the player was listed. Haven't checked what it will be for the new edition, but my group is ignoring it anyway in favour of our own MVP selection method. Not necessarily, especially if a team has the misfortune of not scoring any SPP over the course of the game. How we do it is based on which player impressed us the most by its actions over the course of the game. Obviously, priority picks typically go toward players who scored SPP that game, but they're just as valid as the player who ran a lot of interference, were key to pulling off a ridiculously difficult play (with or without scoring any SPP themselves), did something that stands out as being unexpected, or otherwise did the most to help their team try to win the game. It's also worth remembering that not all sources of SPP reward players equally either. At its most basic level, Completions are worth 1SPP, Casualties are worth 2SPP, and Touchdowns are worth 3SPP. Incidentally, some teams in the new edition have the Brawlin' Brutes special rule, which switches the SPP gains for Casualties and Touchdowns by players in that team. Depending on the team you're playing, touchdowns are the easiest to get, as it's just getting the ball to the end zone after either catching or picking up the ball, with outside interference being the only obstacle in the way. Completions are more involved and a little more difficult to pull off, requiring a Pass roll by the player throwing the ball and a Catch roll by the player receiving it, even before accounting for outside interference. Still manageable if you have 2+ PA and/or relevant skills though. Casualties are notoriously unreliable to get by comparison. First you need to knock another player down via block dice, then you need to roll to break armour on 2d6, then you need to roll an injury result of a 10+ on 2d6. A few factors can modify this - the Claws trait treats natural rolls of 8+ as a success when breaking armour, Mighty Blow allows you to add +1 to either armour or injury roll if you so choose, Stunty players can be made casualties on a 9+, etc - but you're still relying on dice rolls that give you a relatively small chance of success by comparison to other means of getting SPP, and unlike nearly every other roll made in the game there is no way to re-roll the 2d6s.
When my group used to roll for who got it, we'd always pick the players who would be eligible to gain an advance if they got the MVP, rather than those that could get the advance regardless.
Thanks! It's great to have another person join in on the conversation. What teams do you play @Bowser ? I saw that. I really like that change. It's thematic for those more fighty teams and gives them a fairer chance to level up. Poor Stunties A question for you guys, what is the rationale for the cost of team re-rolls. You'd think it would be linked to the teams power/tier level in an attempt to level them out a bit, but that isn't the case. For instance, Snotlings who are a weaker team pay 70k, while Amazons who are being touted as the very best team in the game pay only 60k. Wouldn't it make sense to have it the other way around? Why advantage a top tier further?
Eh... on an injury roll of a 9 against a Stunty player, it's an automatic Back Next Game without any need to roll for lasting injury, which helps solidify the comedy of playing a Stunty team without it automatically being crippling. It's only when the result is a 10+ that it starts getting worrisome. Most of the time, it's counter-balanced by the fact that the players in your roster are what you pay for them, and the teams in which you're paying less for team re-rolls are often also the teams with more expensive players by default. As an example, you can fit an entire 16-player halfling team (all hefties, catchers, and treemen included) into a starting roster and still have enough money left over to hire an apothecary and buy at least 3 re-rolls. Conversely, an elf team will typically struggle to meet the 11-player drafting minimum for the same amount if they expect to have more than two re-rolls and their better players.
But couldn't the cost of rerolls be better used to balance the teams? Amazons are the strongest team, so maybe their rerolls cost 80k. If that means they can only have one or even none at the onset, that might bring them in line with weaker teams. Conversely, Gnomes might be the weakest team, so 40k rerolls would allow them to bring a whole bunch of them into the game, helping them content with teams with better players. Obviously, the exact cost of the rerolls for each team could be fine tuned for maximum balance.
I'm sure that there's additional criteria that influence the rankings (the starting skills and traits of a given team roster, for instance). I also wouldn't lean too heavily on what the "strongest" or "weakest" teams are. At the end of the day, teams can only be as strong as the coaches' ability to play them, even if some are less forgiving to play than others.
I have just finished playing a quick lizard man league, I play necromantic horror, and goblins a bit. Now deciding on Chaos Renegades, Underworld Denizens, or a theory crafted nurgle team, though due to the increased cost of the rotter linemen, it won't be exactly the same theory. As for the question of reroll costs I think it's some balancing and some fluff. 60k is your bang average, 50k is for teams that work well together, and 70k is for teams that train their positional quite a bit differently. Like Skinks and Saurus would be running entirely separate drills, so takes a bit longer/more money to get them to train together, or patch up injuries when they do train together.
And which team is your favorite? And does that favorite differ in terms of team aesthetics versus on field rules/gameplay? Sounds interesting. Curious to see what you will decide on. That would explain a team like Snotlings!
I like them all for different reasons, Goblins are probably my favourite, but they are the least favourite of my friends to play against, so Necromantic is usually a good go to, they're a good team to play and usually pretty fun for others to play against. Necromantic is also my favourite aesthetically.
Because they reek carnage? Injuries and fatalities? They're pretty neat. Very Halloween! Any Mario/Bowser converted teams?
Yeah, when you get a Bomma with accurate, those bombs are nasty, chainsaws making good armour look like snotling armour, and the good old doom diver one turn touchdown, (which happened far less often than people remember) they're a lot of carnage and chaos, and a lot of fun. I just use my old conversions from Warhammer /AOS and use them for blood bowl. I used the Bowser Carnosaur as a giant in one game, a bit unwieldy but it was fun.
Yeah, that would do it. One thing that's also worth keeping in mind when it comes to "team power" is the investment you put into your players. When starting out, it's very likely that, no matter which team you're starting from scratch with, they're likely to suck until at least a couple of your players have gained their first advance. Players can gain up to 5 advances over the course of their tenure as part of the team, and each advance will increase their hiring cost (and your team rating) as they progress. These advances consist of your primary skills, secondary skills, and ability improvements. For primary and secondary skills, you have two options for advances: roll for a random skill, or spend more SPP to choose one instead. Both have their place, but, apart from the former lacking any control over what skill you get (a major detractor to random roll), the differences are really in the changes they impose on the player's value: - Randomly rolling a primary adds 10,000 to the player's value - Choosing a primary or randomly rolling a secondary adds 20,000 to the player's value - Choosing a secondary or rolling for an ability improvement adds 40,000 to the player's value And of course, re-drafting them for the following season adds 20,000 per re-draft. For an example, this is what my Lizardmen team is sitting at with three years tenure in my league, having just played enough games to be play-off qualified for this season (bear in mind that my group isn't switching to the new edition until next season come January). Italicized skills are those the player starts with when drafted from scratch. I should also mention that, yes, my Saurus have taken a bit of a beating. Such is their lot in life as blockers.
Season 3 rules are a bit different, 20k for primary, and 40k for secondary, random or not. And of course an extra 10k for an elite skill. The difference is for Random is you roll twice and select the skill from those two options, unless you roll the same skill twice, in which case you're stuck with it. Nuffle wills it. Pretty significant change to the meta.
Very nice @Bowser ! All part of the Old Ones Great Blood Bowl Plan! I could be mistaken, but I recall hearing on a video that there are no more random secondaries.
I'm happy to hear that at least some of the blood bowl information I've been watching/reading/following has managed to seep into my head.
What all have you been watching? I am sporadically catching Bonehead and Jimmy Fantastic, but more as background noise while I read through the rulebook.
Funnily enough, I've been watching those very two; along with Bar0n's Den . How do you like the new book? I don't have the rule book yet... maybe for Christmas.