Because at heart we want to be 15 year old geeks again.
Even the small guy will have his day! With those words of comfort I declare the 4th week of league games will be the most spectacular yet.
This is the place to issue your challenges and organise your matches for this next week of games.
May the gods of luck look down on you more favourably than they did during last weeks lizardmen matches!!!
Chapter 3 – Coach Gav.
Our study of the great coaches continues with a look at the greatest coach of the first Broken Sword League, that is if you measure greatness by leagues won. The coach is coach Gav the winner of season ones league.
Coach Gav and a Nurgle Blood Bowl team, not the obvious combination. The academic background of Coach Gav combined with his own great sporting achievements would place him more with the wood elves or at very least with a human team, but this was not the direction he wished to take. How exactly he ended up in the Nurgle city of Hel Ens after being brought up in the religious Mecca of St is unclear, but he did and the Nurgles welcomed him.
It is believed Coach Gav had to invest in powerful magic to protect his body from catching the nurgle rot that was running rampant throughout the city, luckily, as far as we know anyway; the rot has been kept from his body. With the blessing of Father Nurgle Coach Gav put together a team (some of the team was more together than other team memembers, it is a well documented fact that the young rookies would be responsible for the collecting of the body parts that fell from the rotters as they trained).
The start of the first season came, but for the opening games there was no sign of Coach Gav and The Chalice of Filth (the name given to his Nurgle team) this though was down to the fact that his beast of nurgle had escaped its cage and it had taken Coach Gav nearly two weeks to track it down through the sewer system and capture it again. When the Nurgles did reach the league they wasted no time in making their rotting, stinking presence felt.
Their style of play was broadcast from the start with the bandages the only remaining evidence of the Mummy Lydan Tyr after the opening match against the struggling Defenders of the Light. The violence and destruction seemed to energise the team (and seal the fate very early on for The Defenders) for the rest of the season.
With the stubbornness of the Dwarf Granitebacks and the tactics of the Norse the only teams to slow the Chalice’s progress to the league final and I guess you can say it was only fair that it was the Dwarves that they knocked out in the semi finals and the Norse Frost Giants that met their match in the final… Coach Gav and his rotting team of freaks had done what most Nurgle fans would have said was impossible he had taken the league cup.
The Nurgle’s had brought something different to the league, something to but a smile on most Blood Bowl fans face, something that had worked to great effect, they had brought mindless violence to the pitch and in doing so Coach Gav had claimed his place in the Nurgle and Blood Bowl history books. So what does the future hold for Coach Gav, will he take on the challenge of leading the Nurgle’s in the defence of their cup or will his greatness draw the attention of a new team wanting a winning coach for themselves at any cost. The league holds its breath in anticipation of Coach Gav’s return to the second season of the broken Sword Blood Bowl League…
This is the place to discuss availability/location for games taking place during the week beginning 08/02/10.
Coach Lee slowly walked down the corridor towards the locker room, He smiled to himself, this season was shaping up better than he had ever hoped for, already the Dark Elves and undead had been crushed in the hand of despair. Coach Lee was ready for the next challenge the only thing he had to do was find a team to challenge him…. So let the word go out The Hand of Despair will take on all comers…….
This is the place to accept challenges and issue your own challenges for the second week of the new season.
Coach Dan lay back on the luxuriously upholstered leather lounger, pressing an ice pack to his head and letting out little groans of misery .
“Steggles? Steggles!” he bellowed down the corridor. “Steggles! Bring me some more paracetamol!”
Steggles, the trusted butler of the Ravenblight Club for Gentlemen, shuffled up to the lounger, his ancient bones making involuntary creaking noises as he moved.
“Yes sir” he wheezed “And would you like me to send in the gentlemen from the err, bowl of blood team in to see you?”
“That’s Blood Bowl you imbecile. And no, don’t bother. I don’t think I could face them right now anyhow”
“very good sir” Steggles said as he diplomatically backed out of the door.
Coach Dan put his ice pack to his forehead once more and let out a little wimper.
“Skinks” he said “Bloody skinks”
———————-
Well, Lee thrashed me. But in my defence the score doesn’t reflect how close the game was. His last touchdown was a complete bloody fluke and would never have happened if he hadn’t got that bloody defender goes first thing and powered through my lines and picked up the ball before I even had the first go of the drive.
Note to all the other teams: Those skinks are bloody fast, and bloody annoying.
Anyhow, the main reason I’m posting is to say I can’t work out how to give everyone five free fan factor. Therefore can people keep a manual track of their fan factor and then keep adding one to it on the database every game until it reaches the real value.
Hope that makes sense.
Chapter 2 – Coach Dave.
The second Coach I will examine was known as the oracle of the game, his deep and detailed study of the ancient rules of the Blood Bowl game gave him great insight into the tactics and strategies for achieving success and with his half pint sized team he needed all the help he could get. I am of course referring to the mastermind behind the Dwarf Granitebacks, Coach Dave.
How Coach Dave found himself coaching in the Blood Bowl league is not entirely clear, very little is known of his past and what we do know has come from rumours. It is believed he worked at the Great Library as cover colour coordinator until the whole library was burnt down by a celebrating Orc Blood Bowl team, who had just won their greatest victory, unfortunately in a post match interview with the team’s star player (and stupidest) the interviewer mentioned how great it had been that they had managed to rewrite the history books on Blood Bowl, the team decided that if the books were to be rewritten they should dispose of the old books!
After his unexpected unemployment Coach Dave was seen travelling all around the land studying the Blood Bowl leagues that were going. He then disappeared off the crystal ball before joining the Broken Sword League and bringing the bad tempered stumpy ones to the league (and I’m not referring to Coach Craig).
Any Dwarf coach knows they are in for a rough season and that is just from their own locker room. What the Dwarves lack in height they make up for in stubbornness and their stubbornness was not improved by a rough start to the season, with the Granitebacks only winning one of their first four games.
The opening games saw the slow moving Granitebacks drawn into great brawls with the likes of Chaos and Frost Giants. But with a bit of luck and a thick skull the Dwarves grew in experience, the wins were difficult to get, but the fighting gave them great skills that Coach Dave expertly used to begin his road to the league cup semi finals. The Granitebacks slow start was boosted by their unexpected points from their matches against the undead teams; both Coach Karl and Coach Lee found the battle hardened Dwarves impossible to beat.
Coach Dave’s season looked doomed six games from the end when a run of three loses impacted heavily on his league position. A less thoughtful coach might have thrown in the towel at this stage but not Coach Dave, he analysed the problems, studied the opposition and had the best possible end to the season. Three great victories gave him the strongest finish in the league not even the speed of the Wind Lords could stop this momentum. The Granitebacks had secured their place in the semi final.
Confidence was high, the Dwarves had a chance to take the league cup, and the only obstacle to the final was the foul, rotting, disease ridden Nurgle team of Coach Gav. The semi was a dirty, foul filled, brutal match (pretty much the norm for the Chalice of Filth) that left the Granitebacks and Coach Dave reeling from the disregard to the rules of the sport, though if you ask any of the fans who saw the match and did not get a disease from the Nurgle team, they would rate it as one of the most exciting matches they had seen. The Granitebacks chances of holding the league cup were shattered as they lost 2-0 to the Chalice of Filth.
The season had taken its toll on the Granitebacks and on Coach Dave. The team returned to their mountain home to lick their wounds and mourn the dead. But Coach Dave did not return with them his quest for knowledge had led him to a deserted tower in a small village. The tower was equipped with scientific equipment, tables connected to wires, in the top room of the tower a large water bowl lay in the corner, above the bowl was an etching in the wall, it read ‘RIP Jackson’.
It is in this tower that we believe Coach Dave found a new library to work with, a much darker source of reading, but this was a chance to use knowledge to create a winning team that would not fear death as they had experienced it already and returned to the fields of glory, Coach Dave was about to become Coach Dave the Necromancer and a new age of the undead was about to be released on the second season of the league…
Introduction.
The league grew in strength after its successful first season, but how well had the founding coaches survived that tough and gruelling start to the Broken Sword league. Over the next few chapters I will take a look at those original coaches and how their first season shaped the seasons to come.
Chapter 1 – Coach Dan.
The coach I will start with is a man with powerful contacts as it was rumoured he was very close to the commissioner of the league, I am of course talking about the Frost Giants manager, Coach Dan.
Coach Dan is said to have some Norse blood in him from his Mother’s side who had met Coach Dan’s father during his early tours with the Bloody Hippies when she had been cheerleading for their Norse opponents the Outback Sports. The match itself ended in a total blood bath much to the crowds delight, but the two of them made a clean get away on the Bloody Hippies double Decker team bus and as they say the rest is history.
It was no shock when their son’s first major team was a Norse one. The Frost Giants stormed into the battles of the league and made a big impact during those early games, mostly thanks to the carefully planned tactics of Coach Dan who wasn’t that well known for his organising skills. The games he won were won by the narrowest of margins but these wins were enough to move the Frost Giants to the top of the league and set the standard for the other teams.
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The winning streak was stopped by the most unexpected of teams, The Defenders of the Light. The Khemri team had found the start of the season tough and after already losing to the Frost Giants the bookies were strongly backing the Giants streak to continue. But this time The Defenders seemed to have discovered where their strength laid and in one of the few highlights for Coach Lee and The Defenders the Giants took their first loss.
This could have marked the beginning of the end for the Giants but Coach Dan maintained his focus with the team and he managed to grab victory from the brink of defeat in a number of games. The victories came at a cost with Coach Dan’s tough tactics bringing the reaper to the locker room most games. Even with the loss of popular team members the Giants rallied under the leadership of Coach Dan and with an end of season surge the Giants made the play-offs.
The semi final match saw the Giants face Coach Mush and his Chaos team, having beat Coach Mush two out of the three previous encounters Coach Dan was confident. By the end of the match the pitch was running red with the blood of Norse and Chaos but Coach Dan had got his team to the league cup final.
Coach Dan’s popularity was at an all time high with the Norse fans and the Giants were the odds on favourite to lift the cup, their only obstacle was a Nurgle team who had beat a brutal path to the final under the guidance of Coach Gav. The final was played out to a packed stadium and both teams took every opportunity to score but it was Coach Gav who was to leave the stadium as league winner and not Coach Dan....
So where did this leave Coach Dan for the new season? The Norse had lost faith in him, the thin line between being a hero and being the destroyer of dreams had been crossed and this negative image was something the Norse team needed to get rid of, if they wanted to regain the trust of the fans and more importantly the gold from their pockets. So Coach Dan and the Frost Giants parted company, but it was not long before Coach Dan was seen offering his skills to a new team to the league, a team that brought even more evil to the violent and bloody world of the Broken Sword League, a team of Dark elves.......
This is the place to discuss availability/location for games taking place during the week beginning 23/01/10.
Here are the proposed details and rule alterations for season 2. I know that some people aren’t too keen on the special play cards, but I honestly don’t think they will alter game balance that much.
I personally am planning on running my Dark Elf team this season.
People are welcome to organise their own tournaments, however all prizes, cash, or penalties must be cleared through the comish first This is to maintain game balance.
After consideration I have decide that players can’t have more than one team int he league at the same time, as I feel this may result in unfair manipulation (or at least accusations of unfair manipulation).
As before, coaches are not allowed to play the same opponent more than two times in a row.
At the end of a match each coach selects 4 members of their team. The MVP award is rewarded to one of these at random (i.e. by roll of a D4).
All teams start with a free fan factor of five as per optional rules on page 34. Fan factor does not add to team value. If you are playing an already established team then you can get a refund of up to 50,000 GP for existing fan factor.
We will use the special play cards as inducements as described on page 34 of the rule book. No more than 5 cards can be used in one game.
If anyone disagrees with these arrangements or wishes to suggest something to add then please let me know.
Is everyone still up for season 2?
A few people have said that they would rather we started it in January as December is a busy month. I’m happy either way to be honest.
Any suggestions to any changes to the second season now we know what we’re doing?
