Well its that time again guys and gals, this time we have one of the most infamous coaches around......paulhicks!!!!!

Take it away Mr Hicks.

1. Firstly, how long have you been playing Bloodbowl and how did you discover Fumbbl?

I first began playing bloodbowl as a youth with the release of 3rd Edition and fell in love with it straight away. I played sporadically over the next several years sometimes playing a few times a week, sometimes going months without any of us playing a game. In 2003 me and a friend started playing bloodbowl again occasionaly and in '04 he introduced me to FUMBBL. and (apart from a couple of short breaks and one long one) i've been playing ever since. His coachname on here is Inquisitorpustus but sadly he doesn't play anymore and i havn't seen him in RL for a long time now.

2. What is your preferred play style and why?

Does "badly" count as a playstyle? I guess i'm probably best known for being a fouler (I have the highest fouls per game ratio on the site by about 2) and most of my games are played as total foulfests. When i first started on FUMBBL i never used to foul at all. I didn't mind it being done to me but i never did it myself. It was actualy Inquisitorpustus who encouraged me to make my first foul and i guess i enjoyed it so much i ended up doing it a lot.

3. Tell me about your foulosophy and what caused this slightly deranged mindset?

The foulosophy is simply there to hopefully make sure that the people i play against know what they can expect. This means i get a higher percentage of good games than i otherwise would simply because my opponents are still having fun and therefor i do too. It works quite well as i very rarely make challenges as well so its very rare someone will be playing me without wanting to get into that kind of match. If it turns out they havn't seen it i just offer them the chance to abandon the game. As for why it says i'll foul so much... simple.... i just love fouling and geting fouled D:

4. What caused you to form DMU and how do people join?

DMU was originaly formed years ago as a bit of a copy of the Elf Mangling Union but obviously designed to hunt dwarfs instead. It really started as a bit of a joke but grew into something i enjoyed. Back then dwarfs found it very hard to get any games at all no matter how inoffensive their skills were as most people refused to play them and there were no Smacks so a lot of people thought we were kidding about it. Its was badly run (by me) and died out after 2 seasons. Late last year i got all nostalgic and decided to revive it and its just begining its second season. Coaches who want to apply just enter with any ranked non dwarf team here http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=group&op=view&group=5934

5. Would you ever start a dwarf team?

I have actualy run a few but i tend to get bored of them too quickly. They're probably the most brutal team available if you develope them by giving everyone mb and then gaurd (and dp on the runners) and so i keep thinking i'll go back to them and make the most dangerous team i can... but i don't enjoy doing it so theres no point. If i can figure out some wacky and interesting thing to do with them i might try again but at the moment theyre too much of a serious team.

6. TheSpoonyBard? has made over 400 fouls!!!! Why make a leaping, dirty player troll?

Hehe because even now he still makes me giggle when he tries to jump over someone onto another players head. My love of fouling with trolls started after a troll was the only player i had left available to foul on t 16 in this game: http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=match&op=view&id=1664474 and i started taking dp on them on my chaos after that just for a laugh.. At one point i asked christer in chat what the highest number of fouls on any troll ever was and he told me it was 178 (i still don't know if he was serious or winding me up) and i decided to beat it. When i reached 179 i just carried on going. Hes destroying the team but im keeping him till he dies. A player like that deserves to die on the pitch.

7. Skill or luck, in your opinion which is more important on Fumbbl?

Skill and luck are closely related. Firstly they have a big effect on each other... the more skillful you are the less bad luck will effect you and the crappier you are (like me) the more you have to rely on luck (i'm lucky... nuffle loves me). Skilfull coaches reduce the amount of dice they have to roll per turn therefor limiting lucks effect on them whilst at the same time making their opponent rolls more dice to get anything done. There is such things as "bad" and "good" luck but most commonly when people start moaning that they're always unlucky its because theyre making mistakes that they don't see.

8. How does it feel to be a Zen master fouler and what advice can you give anyone else looking to emulate this feat?

Its pretty cool actualy to have finaly acheived it. You don't think its gonna take so long to throw 10,000 fouls until you set it as a target. Doing the last 1,000 in under 100 games was pretty fun and kept me interested in it Very Happy I was the 4th person the achieve the award after Emphasy, Manbush and Burnalot (in that order) but so far i've done it in the fewest games. It'll be nice to see who beats my target now. As for emulateing it thats up to the individual coach. I'd encourage everyone to find the way of playing that they are happy with rather than doing exactly the same as someone else .

9. What is your most memorable game?

Thats almost impossible to answer to be honest because theres been so many of them. Because of the foulosophy i do get a high proportion of fun games and can say for certainty that i've only had 1 "unfun" games in at least the past 300 games. I guess if i had to choose a few they'd be some of my games with Manbush, Mr_Foulscumm, Chewie and Emphasy and probably loads of other great coaches. The games that tend to stick in my head the longest are either the ones where really silly things happen or my team gets pasted all over the field by a fun opponent.

10. And finally, any advice in general to new members of the site?

The absolute most important thing is make sure you've read the rules properly. Too many people just jump straight in and then get in trouble when they break a rule they never read properly. Besides that i guess just to be flexable and accept that your probably going to loose lots and learn from it. I've actualy created an accademy team to start helping out a bit more and included lots of advice in the players bios: http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=team&op=view&team_id=519974.

Enjoy.

Will.

_ The bigger the risk the more your opponent will laugh when it all goes horribly wrong.