Aftermath Blood Bowl League - Season II

Ex unum plures

Due to the Blood Bowl league having very rapidly become a great deal more popular than I originally anticipated, the next season will be run a bit differently.

The league will be split into 4 divisions of 5 teams, with each team playing 4 games over the course of the season. The current system of 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw will remain, with ties going to touchdown difference, then casualty difference, then touchdowns scored.

Each coach in the 4 divisions will need to play at least 1 game each month (or 2 if they are running 2 teams - see below). Note that this means 1 game each month minimum, not that you have 4 months to play 4 games. Obviously coaches who want to play more games each month are welcome to, but bear in mind that if you play 4 games in 4 weeks then your season won't last very long ...

Fixtures

Due to there being an odd number of teams in each division, this will mean that the fixtures will have to be wrangled a bit so that whoever isn't playing that week is playing something else (which I don't think will be a problem given that there'll be plenty to do with the WFB league restarting, Old west, pirates, wings of war, warmachine, 40K etc). I will leave coaches to sort out fixtures with Craig.

Divisions 1 and 2 will contain the top 10 teams from the current league, in the order they finish (I have taken into account the fact that certain teams are going to retire).

Divisions 3 and 4 will contain the teams of the remaining 10 coaches who wish to play competitively in the league (ie, not 'just for fun every now and then' - teams who wish to do this are covered later) These divisions will be randomly drawn as all the teams in them will be starting teams.

Play-offs

After each team in the division has played 4 games, there will be 2 further games between the 2 top and 2 bottom teams to decide who gets promoted/relegated. This is subject to change as coaches may choose to retire their team at the end of the season. This means there's all to play for as there's no real 'safe zone'!

At the time of promotion/relegation, there will be a cap on team values, limited to the value of the most expensive team in the division they are relegated to. For example, if the Bearded Avengers were relegated to division 2 and their total value was 1.6m, but the highest value team in division 2 (including the newly promoted team) was 1.5m, they would have to retire players/staff/rerolls to get the value down to 1.5m. This represents players getting better offers from other teams and leaving. This only applies to relegated teams (otherwise teams could be punished for being promoted, which is daft ...)

Conflicts of interest

For coaches who have stated they wish to run 2 teams, I have made sure that these teams will be in separate divisions. If a situation arises where one team gets promoted into a division containing their coach's other team, then one of the two teams must be retired.

Changing a coach

If a team is retired, it can be taken over by another coach, as long as the original coach agrees and it won't upset the divisions (i.e. no one has more than 1 team in the same division).

Casual Sec Bloodbowl

Any coaches who have said that they wish to run a team for 'now and again' type games (whether on it's own or in addition to team/s in the league) are free to play as many games as they like with this team against other non-league teams using an open format (i.e. play who you want, when you want but you can't play the same opponent more than twice). These results will be recorded in the Never-ending Bloodbath table, which will be reset for the new season. Obviously non league teams and league teams can't play one another.

Tick tick tick tick bing!

There will be turn time limits for the new season, and for the cup competition at the end of the current league (see below). Teams in division 1 are limited to 4 minutes per turn, teams in division 2 are limited to 5 minutes, and divisions 3 and 4 have 6 minutes. There is no time limit for open league matches in the never-ending bloodbath. Bear in mind that the idea of time limits is to give the game a sense of haste and excitement, not to punish people less familiar with the game than others. I am aware that every now and then you'll get one of those turns where it all gets way too tactical and the only option is to have a bit of a think about how to get out of this unholy scrape you've found yourself in. In light of this, each half will have a 5 minute 'buffer zone' which can be spread however the coach wishes over the 8 turns. Note that if a turnover occurs before the normal time runs out, the remaining time is not carried over.

Most Valuable Player awards

The MVP for each game will be awarded randomly for each team. My original idea was that people awarded it to whoever they thought provided the most entertainment during the match, but this clearly hasn't worked we're going back to the "official" random method. The award can be given to anyone who took part in the match (i.e. was on the field at some point). This includes any mercenaries, star players or journeymen but doesn't include any players who spent the whole game on the bench. It can also be awarded posthumously. You can use a D16 (or a D20 for that matter) and simply re-roll if a shirt number comes up who didn't play or doesn't exist. Alternatively, of course, you can always use the chits which came with the game.

Ending Season I / Up for the cup

The current season (not including playoffs for the top 4 teams) will finish at the end of October. I know for some this is not long but the idea here is to avoid coaches having to wait months on end until their next game. Any outstanding fixtures will be decided by a pools panel, except where this would affect who the top 4 teams will be.

At the end of the current season there will be a knockout cup competition, which will take the form of the Blood Bowl trophy. The winning team receives a sponsorship deal from Bloodweiser, which adds 20,000GPs to their winnings for every match in the following season. Every player from both teams who participate in the final gets a Blood Bowl players medal and counts as having been awarded an MVP.

The new season will also end with a cup competition. The details haven't been finalised yet but it will probably be the Dungeonbowl.

These competitions will be open to all teams in the league, including any retired teams from this year's league, and also to non-league teams. There will be no inducements for the cup competitions, so think carefully before you sign up.

Selling players on

At the end of each season you'll be able to "sell" players and will get, in return, their nominal value taking into account skills gained and stat increases. Unfortunately, their values will also take into account both permanent and niggling injuries (e.g. if your player's lost a point of Strength, he'll be worth $50,000 less than he would have been). Players with niggling injuries have their value reduced by $10,000 per niggle. Any players sold will be leaving to join teams in other leagues and cannot be signed by other ABBL teams.

The benefit of doing this rather than just retiring the player mid-season is that you get some cash with which you can buy a (rookie) replacement - or, at least, to reduce the cost of the replacement. If, due to injuries, a player's value is reduced to a negative number (e.g. a halfling with a headache), then you're better off just retiring them and you won't be forced to sell them at a loss.

The other reason why you you may have to sell a "star" player is to be able to start the season with a full roster of 11 players. If you're understrength then firing a star may be the only way you can afford to buy enough linemen to have a valid roster!

Bear in mind that you can only make these sales at the end of a season. If you need to clear a space in the roster mid-season then retiring a player's the only option.

Rules clarifications

The 'players automatically stand up after a turnover' rule is no longer in effect from the start of the new season. This was a bit of a boo-boo on my part. Sorry guys ...

It has come to my attention that the rules for hiring journeymen are a little unfair if taken literally. I'll give an example: Team XYZ has suffered a serious injury and is only able to field 10 players for the next match. The coach has 50,000GPs in the bank, enough to hire a replacement lineman. The rule says that coaches can hire journeymen if they 'can only field 10 or less players for the next match'. As the coach technically is able to field 11 players for the next match (because he has the cash to do so), but may not want to hire another permanent player, this seems a little harsh. Therefore I have decided to introduce a house rule to say that this only applies if your player is actually dead. This would mean that team XYZ would have the option of hiring a journeyman for free to stand in for an injured player. If a player had been killed, then because the coach has sufficient cash to replace him then he would not have the option of hiring a journeyman and would have to start the match with fewer than 11 players.

Put another way, if one of your players dies and you have enough cash in the bank to hire a replacement - even if that replacement's a basic lineman and you just lost a $140,000 Big Guy - then you have to either sign a lineman as a replacement or waive your entitlement to a journeyman and play below strength while you save up for a more expensive replacement. If a player's dead and you don't have enough money to sign a replacement then you will qualify for a journeyman until your finances improve.

Obviously this is all subject to change if anything needs tweaking, but hopefully it should all make sense.

Play nice ... !

 

Ian - League Commissioner

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Next season's leagues have been decided and will comprise the following teams:

Team	Race	Coach
Dark Land Gooners	Orc	Craig
Har Ganeth Executioners	Dark Elf	Nick
Orcs is da Best	Orc	Wrighty
Stop It!	Human	Leon
The Fabulous Arabian Knights	Undead	Dangerous Jim

 

Team	Race	Coach
Bearded Avengers	Dwarf	Ian P
Bergsburg Bunnies	Human	Jason
Moot Mosquitos	Halfling	Emrys
Ostland Redbulls	Human	Marky D
Ulthuan Eagles	High Elf	Dan

 

Team	Race	Coach
Natural Spawned Killers	Lizardmen	KT
Rottington Deadskins	Necromantic	Leebat
The Dirty Scurry	Skaven	Leon (2nd team)
Under-Empire Squeakers	Skaven	Evil Steve
Dreadwood Dryads*	Wood Elf	Ben

Team	Race	Coach
Badbog Smeggerz	Orc	Jason (2nd team)
Molten Death	Chaos Dwarf	Leebat (2nd team)
Swamp Town-Sartosa Shipping Confederacy	Lizardmen	Nick (2nd team)
The Naughty Norsettes	Norse	Emrys (2nd team)
Woodland Wanderers	Wood Elf	Craig (2nd team)

Green teams have rosters submitted and can be viewed on the site. Red teams do not - please send your roster sheet to Emrys ASAP.

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Those teams who don't want a place in the league will get to play unlimited (un)friendly matches in the Never Ending Bloodbath. Games will still count for team development, so you'll be able to beef up a starting roster ready for league duty should a vacancy arise. If this happens, though, your team will be treated as if it's been relegated to the bottom division and may have to trim players/staff/rerolls to fit in with the capping rules.

If things go badly for a team you'll be able to "reset" them to a starting roster and start again.

Team	Race	Coach
Blackrock Ballstampers	Orc	Paranoid Jim
Bouncy Bouncy	Squig Herders	Emrys
Carroburg Panzers	Chaos	Craig
Elfy Competition	Elf	Emrys
Flash's Serial Superstars	Human	Pat
Hellsden Hammers	Human	Kevin
Kirschehügel Cherrypickers	Halfling	Emrys
Mrs Jim's Dwarfs	Dwarf	Paranoid Jim
Naggrund Nightmares	Chaos Dwarf	Chris
New Orc Giants	Orc	Emrys
New World Order	Dark Elf	Emrys
Pro Swift	High Elf	Leebat
Those Bloody Sylvanians(?)	Vampire	Paranoid Jim
Minisorta Vikings	Norse	Pat
Violent Desires	Chaos	Jason