Draft Format Competition

[Christy42]

So recently I attended a weird blood bowl competition (well a few months ago, I am slow at these things). The format was that there was one of every position available for drafting. This included Bretonia, Slann and Khorne rosters. Note that if two positions appeared on two rosters both could be drafted i.e. Kroxigor is identical on both Lizardman and Slann rosters so two could be chosen.

The draft was a snake style with the ordering changed (randomly) every two rounds. Note: no one here had done this style before. 12 picks total, all teams get a free apothecary and 3 rerolls, inducements are done on team value.


The Draft: I got the most important pick and unsurprisingly went with the wardancer round 1. For the second round I went with a Kroxigor. It is one of the better Big Guys and a few flew off the table. Maybe a mistake in hindsight. With both tackles (Chaos Dwarf and Dwarf blocker) on the same team and only one wrestle in the game (Yeoman) I followed up with the Amazon blitzer for blodging. Moving on I ended up with an Ulfwerener(ST4+Frenzy), Bloater(ST4), Ogre(ST5), Wood Elf Thrower(Ag4 +MV7), Blitz-Ra (Block), a bomber (definitely a mistake but a unique skill), Dark Elf Lineman (Ag4), Troll(ST5) and a Pestigor. I can't remember the full ordering of picks for the other teams.


Maybe I could have gotten a cheaper option than the Pestigor as I had better blitzers. The bomber was a mistake. Too much randomness in such a high quality team. It did bring down my TV a bit at least and mine was the highest. It had a good mix of strength and agility as well as some block. Maybe some worry about the armour.



Game 1: I got the ball on a deep kick. An early line of scrimmage block took out a slann blitzer. I felt I could take some risks with the ball so deep and ended up with the Troll getting a both down. My oppenent quickly overwhelmed both flanks, especially my left to put the ball under pressure. I had to whether some blocks on my Wardancer holding the ball before I managed to break to my left, avoiding a lot of cover on my right. I really underestimated the speed there and had to get my Wardancer out of a few uncomfortable spots. The Wardancer shoving the beast of Nurgle off of my Wardancer was huge even if he later messed up knocking it out of bounds! The Vampire I had been worried about ended up on the wrong flank and had to stop the Ogre getting involved.

On his drive the Wardancer disrupted the Gutter Runner charge forward with a leap.


In the second half the Wardancer again leaped in to take out the Gutter Runner though he got the ball back to a Dark Elf Blitzer. I didn't fancy 1 dicing him on a leap so fell back. He probed till he found a way through and a hand off to a gutter runner got the equaliser. My return drive had enough time but faced stiff opposition. I got a more stable cage going. In the end worry over a GFI cost me a corner and allowed him to get in. Some mad scrambles for the ball emerged with both teams having a crazy go of winning it. Both failed leaving it at 1-1.



Game 2: Kicked first. He took the quick score on offer. I used the Wood Elf Thrower as the primary ball handler to keep the wardancer free. I used as much of a blodging cage as I could to work my way through narrow confines. Eventually my Ogre got free and bashed out a hole for me to switch sides in a diagonal move to let me equalise.


In the second half I wanted to delay a bit more but my opponent cleverly denied me the even the narrow gap I had in the first half. In the end a frenzy trap on an Ogre cleared the way to move forward. The only catch was it was still so narrow that I had to move the ball handler last and he was marked. Still 2+ with a reroll. What could go wrong! The predictable 1, 1 left the ball clear and he could elf it to the end zone. He just needed a 2+ to get the ball and had a reroll. He also rolled a double 1 leaving me a chance to get the ball and bring it to where I had wanted it a turn earlier!


I was behind is formation now and his players struggled to adjust. Especially his big guys making it possible to stall for a 2-1 win. As the draft and both games were headmelters we left it at two games leaving me in second overall.



Overall I loved the format. Definitely a fun thing to do once a year or so.


The draft was weird. It was tough to figure out how quickly different types of players (big guy, st4, block, ag4) would go. All teams ended up with about 3 big guys, a few elves for ag4. A bit of ST4 and a pinch of block. In the end there were plenty of big guys.


The games were also a complete head melt. Every team could batter their way to victory and every team could pull of some elf manouveres when required and put on a burst of speed. It made for a lot of interesting tactics combining the two but also trying to stop an opponent who could nearly anything. The big guys largely cancelled themselves out and the game went on around them. The blitzers were the big movers and shakers and having the game's best was definitely a big advantage. However I did feel like they did have a massive impact whenever one got free of its marker. The Ogre did on two occasions and the Beast of Nurgle took a good few minutes of thinking time when it disrupted my drive.

Thoughts on the format? Has anyone done anything similar?

[Long_Bomb]

I love the idea of this and can imagine having some fun with a Chaos themed draft based on the idea of Chaos Pact.

I’d probably offer players from Chaos, Dark Elves, Orcs, Skaven, Goblins and Chaos Dwarves. I might also include Ogres and Humans from Chaos Pact but probably miss Nurgle to stay with the classic Chaos theme. Maybe pick a single team roster as your base and all players you recruit from other rosters gain animosity as a skill. This might encourage players to show a biase towards one of the Teams so there is some variation in opponents. Maybe even include star players...

[Fist of Gales]

We have run several draft events in our area and find the format quite fun. The biggest issue we encountered early on was how to do the miniatures, but we have since put together two dedicated draft "pods" with all of the needed models and that has made things even better.

We also add some skills each round when we do these events, this definitely makes some players more viable than without the additional skills.

We have typically run a draft at Gen Con every year, but it looks like we will forgo that this year to run a World Cup prep event instead.

TL