2011 - New coaches Quick Start guide

Greetings, and welcome to FUMBBL.

FUMBBL is a site dedicated to playing and discussing Games Workshop's board game, Blood Bowl (BB). Whether you're a veteran or a total newcomer; FUMBBL caters for coaches of all experience levels; the site is free, all you need is Java installed on your PC.

FUMBBL is currently in a period of change and we are steadily updating the rule set onsite from Living Rulebook 4 (LRB4) to the most up to date rules for the game that we call Fantasy Football (FFB). The latest version of the rules can be here and the rules for the 3 new teams are here. The remainder of this guide is written on the assumption that you're interested in FFB, but an LRB4 quick start can be found here.

The following five quick points are designed to get you playing the latest version of BB in no time, but once you're successfully playing, we strongly recommend that you take the time to read the remainder of the User Guide and drop into the forums to join our community fully.

If you are a total rookie to BB bear in mind that you are required to own the board game to play on FUMBBL. Assuming you do, please refresh yourself on the rules of play before you get going, since the Astrogranite pitches of your youth, things have changed!

1. Getting an account

Click here to get an account creation form. When complete, a password will be sent to your e-mail account to complete your activation. Upon returning, log-in on the front page with your Username and Password. You will be asked to read and agree to accept the rules of the site. It is important you only ever create one FUMBBL account; if you already have an old FUMBBL account and have forgotten your Password or have any other issues please contact a member of staff.

2. Team Creation

Click HOME from the menu at the top of the front page, this takes you to your homepage. Click 'Create a new team'.

At this point you will be asked to select a division for your team to play in. As a new coach the best places to find games is currently the Blackbox divisions.

N.B. Currently the Academy division is disabled for remodeling. Instead create a team in Blackbox or join a league for new coaches, such as the 145 Club.

You will be prompted to select one of the 24 races in the game, and enter a team name.

3. Getting ready for a game

From your overview, click on your team name in order to access the team screen. Click on Buy New Player to launch a window with a list of the players available to purchase.

As you build a team, be sure that your team members have individual names, 'Amazon 1' etc. won't cut it! Naming Policy

When you have a minimum of 11 players, close the Buy New Player window and refresh the team page. You should see the team you've just built. Add Assistant Coaches, Fan Factor, Re Rolls or Cheerleaders as desired. Click Submit for approval to complete the process.

Here is an offsite guide on team creation. It can be tricky at first, but you'll soon get the hang of it! Re-Rolls, for example, are very important since they only cost half as much to begin with, a common rookie error is not buying enough. Orcs are a great rookie team, try a line up of 4 Black Orcs, 4 Blitzers, 2 Linemen, a Thrower and 3 Re-Rolls if you're struggling to decide.

4. Getting a game

4.a) Blackbox

To get a game you need to activate your team within a 5 minute window prior to the draw. The draw is made every 15 minutes (on the hour and then thereafter). So if you want to play at 8:15 you will need to activate your team between 08:10 and 08:15.

The draw is made by the 'BowlBot'. BowlBot takes all the teams that have applied for a game, then pairs them according to a formula that produces the fairest games possible. If enough teams have applied for a round and the matches are fair enough, your team will be paired against someone else.

When you are ready to play your first game click Activate next to your team and you'll be entered into the next draw. Once the draw has been made you will need to refresh your home page to see who you will be playing as shown below:

If there were not enough teams that round, or there wasn't a fair enough game, your team won't be paired.

4.b) Ranked

The mechanism for starting a game in Ranked is exactly the same as in Blackbox, except you decide with your opponent if you’d like to play; the division gives coaches free choice over games. To signify you would like to play a game, put R teams you’d like to use on Gamefinder. If you see another coach with another team you’d like to play against within 15% TV, then talk to him either via site PM or via IRC (more on IRC later). If you agree to play, decide upon a game name (this can be anything you like so long as you both know what it is), and you’re ready to go. There is a rule in Ranked that you only play an opponent on average a maximum of one time per ten games. This is to ensure no groups of friends take advantage of a competitive division. To play just within a group of friends, try the League division instead.

Rookie coaches are historically encouraged to begin life on FUMBBL in the Academy division. Here you can learn the ropes against vets that help you through, or play fellow newcomers. Sadly with all that is going on onsite currently, volume here has dropped off somewhat, so it's best to dive straight into the active divisions. The learning curve here can be steep, be prepared to lose a few games and a few players! However, with practice, it'll come.

5. Playing a game, and the post-game sequence

In Blackbox, once the draw has been made you can join the game scheduled for you with one click, press Play next to your team and the FFB client will launch via the following pop-up:

Enter your FUMBBL Password, then press Start Game.

The FFB client will then launch from the server. The client is pretty intuitive, as long as you are aware of the rules of the game you should get along fine. Below is a screen shot of the client in game. Click here to see full instructions and help guide for the FFB client.

The mechanism for beginning a game in Ranked is no different; press the Play link to launch the client, but you'll simply need to add the game name you decided upon with your opponent as discussed above.

When you have crushed your opponent (or been crushed!), return to the team screen. Here, you see a red 'S' for skills to pick. Go to the team screen to pick them.

If you've no skills to pick the icon will be a yellow 'P' for post game sequence. You can buy new things, hire Journeymen and make your team ready for their next encounter. When you are ready, click the Ready to play button, and you're ready to go again!

Now you've played game one, you'll realise how much fun online BB can be. We recommend that you digest other areas of this User Guide and engage yourself in our community. An extremely useful tool for interacting with the coaches onsite and scheduling games both in and out of Blackbox is IRC chat. You'll find this extremely useful in the long run, a good guide for installation can be found here. FUMBBL is what you make it - the more you immerse yourself, the better your experience will be! See you on the pitch!