Game Review: Blood Bowl 2

[Green1]

Ah, Blood Bowl.

I faintly remember witnessing people playing the board game version of this years ago. I went on a journey to a local gaming store out in Metairie, LA looking for the latest in the never ending "splat books" I had to buy to keep up in the never ending book buying arms race that was 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons back in the day.

Of course, DnD (and a myriad of other popular pencil and paper RPGS back in the day such as Call of the Cthulhu, Rifts, the World of Darkness series, etc) were not the mainstay of these places. Nor was it the main activity done there by the denizens who dwelt at the huge tables set throughout the shop you walked past on the way to the RPG book section placed way in the back of the store like the red haired step child. It was war gaming minis and collectible crack card games. Stuff like Warhammer, historical war games, Hero Clix. Stuff I was not in the market for because I really could not see myself spending hundreds for something I could only play at the one or two stores or maybe a once a year expensive convention a state away.

But something caught my eye....

Orcs, humans.... playing... football!?!?!? FOOTBALL???

I shrugged. You can not be serious.

Never mind sometimes me and some other DnD DMs sometimes had a basketball type game we drew up monsters and characters for. Never mind I have always had a soft spot for 4X strategy games like Civ, Alpha Centauri, Age of Wonders, etc. (Though, to be fair Warhammer and variants are more tactical or operational level games rather than empire level strategic.)

It was not until I got a copy of Blood Bowl 2 on a Steam sale till I revisited this again.

I was a smug elitist. I should have not outright dismissed it. I should have given Blood Bowl a chance.

Imagine if you took DnD, mixed in football, put in a gore mod, made everything turn based, and added 5 dashes of chaos that can mess up even the most anal of a perfectionist's for-sure win strategy in the shape of two skull dice and you have BLOOD BOWL in a nutshell.

On one hand you have undead, orcs, elves, vampires, and goblins. There are 8 teams that come with the initial purchase along with other teams issued through DLC or special offers. Each has stats and abilities that make sense according to what they are. For instance, the high elves are fast, agile, and make great passers. However, they tend to die a lot when faced with hardcore fighters. Or teams like Chaos that does not give two cruds about the ball, but outright tries to murder everyone on the field. (Yes, murdering everyone then scoring IS a valid tactic)

There is quite a bit of team management.  Team members level up and get better abilities. Or they can die instantly or get debilitating injuries similar but more brutal than career mode in many of the sports games the AAA game makers barf out every year. You have to worry about Team Value so you do not give the opposing team powerful inducements. "Cheats" such as bribes to foul folks, halfling chefs that steal your rerolls, and even a wizard that can fireball entire groups of your players!

I did mention the chaos about this game. Blood Bowl uses special dice (d6's) that determine success or failure. A "1" is auto failure, while a "6" is always a success. That means even the most accomplished star player has a 1 in 6 chance of having to roll on injuries, not pick up a ball, or any other mishaps. Even kicking off is not safe as they have events that can do everything from grant extra rerolls to take out half your team! This RNG (random numbers game) drives some geeks insane and means even the best player can lose if unlucky or at least lead to crazy situations. I can not say the last time I actually yelled at a video game! Or cheered at a game, either.

However, the game itself is not perfect.

If you are a solo player kind of guy, the campaign is boring in my opinion and the AI can not compare with an actual human. This is one of the few strategy games I recommend not playing unless you do MP. Do not have nightmare flashbacks of hours long 4x strategy games of Civ where you have tons of folks losing interest or dropping. Each game takes about an hour, which is still a bit long for some but MUCH more than 4X strategy MP. While the MP of Blood Bowl does have folks that concede or drop, you can enter leagues where that is penalized and you still get points to level up your players while the quitter gets nothing.

All the teams that are in the tabletop Blood Bowl are not present. They do have a Legendary Edition coming out with more teams, but favorites like the Amazons (coming in LE) and some of the more obscure ones for completionist sake or not in. Popular teams like the Lizardmen (made popular by youtuber Wowcrendor with his skink player Lil' Skittles) and the Undead teams are behind DLC paywalls.

The developer, the French company Cyanide, has issues with not communicating with the playerbase at times as much as other dev companies, putting out occasional cruddy products, and promising stuff they do not deliver or take forever to deliver.

That said, while this does not have me wanting to spend 300 USD to play at a stuffy game store or boring war game convention, I am really enjoying jumping in, yelling at my laptop, and managing teams.

That 300 I can spend on beer. And still geek out!

Can we get a digital Warhammer that does not suck and is not a MMO or "game set in universe" next? Like... actual Warhammer? I might start not being so stuffy towards it...