Welcome To Fumbbl's Academy of Blood Bowl.

Welcome to Fumbbl's Academy of Blood Bowl. The vision of Academy is a place that new coaches can learn the basics of the game and site use before being "let loose" into the many variteties and formats of Blood Bowl that are played here. Whether you want to use it or prefer to jump directly into the other possibilities that can be found here is, of course, completely your choice, but it´s a great forum for learning and you could take advantage of that.

To achive this we will try to provide the resources (The User Guide, Coaches willing to help out, The division, The official channel et al) and an atmosphere which promotes these values.

Site Rules I can not stress enough to read these. If you dont and break them it does not matter you agreed to them when you joined the site. Take a few minutes and read them It will save you some grief in the future

• Division specific rules at a glance

Academy

A division for newcomers and people who want to become better at the game, without a permanent record or the competetive tone of the other divisions.

Faction

Highly competetive division that requires a high level of activity. Not recommended for newcomers to the game or FUMBBL.

Ranked

The main competitive division and the largest one on FUMBBL. Free choice of opponents, a ranking system and regular tournaments.

Blackbox

Newly created division with a high competition level. Scheduled matches in a blind system, with assigned matches.

Stunty Leeg

Highly unique division with custom races.

League

This division is designed for coach-run leagues. A large number of leagues and tournaments run here, using their own specific rules.

Unranked

This division follows the same rules as Academy, but without the TR150 cutoff. It is intended as a recreational division without rankings or non-LRB rosters. Back to back games vs same teams and or coaches are not allowed in this division.

Changing Division

You can move your teams to Unranked Division at all times, but not back.

Special rules

Your wins/draws/losses statistics will not get updated by games in this division.

Your teams are not playable above TR 150. They will not be retired or deleted, you can simply not play with them. If you accidentally get a team above the limit you can either move the team to Unranked or trim the team to get back under that limit.

Coach Ranking is not affected by games played in this division.

Teachers

Everybody there are most likely in the Academy to play and you can ask the more experienced coaches to review one of your replays, give you some pointers in a game vs. them or just ask general questions about skill choices and team management. Anything goes, no questions are too stupid to be asked. But as everybody else on this site they are there out of their own free will, spending their time helping you! So a little politeness would be nice :-)

Finding games

Chat

One of the easiest ways to get games is to use chat. Many coaches do not see or respond to site private messages for games. Most are in main chat. Here is how to install Install Chat.

Once you have installed chat or have joined thru the site SiteChat you can usually find a game. Some rooms to check out are #fumbbl which is main chat, #fumbblacademy which is the academy channel and #fumbbladmin this is the admin channel should you need admin assistance. Which brings us to the next thing

IRC Commands
BBTEAMS Ro will show a list of teams for any coach you name
BBLFG message to bowlbot telling it you are looking for game with your teams
BBLFG Pony | Irrational : by putting part of the team name you can specify which teams you are looking for game with
BBd6 rolls a d6 and displays the answer in chat
BBLAST Ro shows when a coach last accessed the site
You can also use the game finder page as with any other division that is played on Fumbbl. It shows the coaches that are LFG and what teams they have

Gamefinder and You

Ulm's Nice and Accurate Guide to Gamefinder

Gamefinder. It's a strange and confusing place, filled with people of dubious morals, common sense and general grasp of the English language. But! With a few simple guidelines, your challenging and being-challenged experience can be so much more enjoyable for everyone.

So without further ado, let me propose some simple ground rules for gamefinder:

1: Always specify which teams you intend to play with.
"Hi! Game?" or just "Hi" will leave your opponent unsure. As a bare minimum, "Hello. How about your <race> vs. my <race>?" will tell your opponent everything he needs to know in one line.

2: Include a link to your team.
Building on rule #1, copy-pasting a link to your teams page means your opponent won't have to find it on a cluttered GF list. This is doubly important if either you or he has more than one team of the race you asked for a game with/against.

3: Have the team you challenge with on gamefinder, and only challenge the teams your opponent has on gamefinder.
Some people call it stealth-picking, others don't mind it. Either way, expect to have a lot of challenges turned down if your team isn't on GF. This goes doubly if you for some reason don't follow rule #2, since most people will be put off with having to dig up your roster

4: No means no. Accept it.
Talking smack or insisting after someone you've challenged says no just makes you look like an idiot, and it won't change their mind.

5: Be responsive.
When someone challenges you - no matter how unfair their proposition - you should give some sort of response to let them know that you're either not interested or that you're looking their team up. Nothing's more demoralzing for someone than asking for a match for half an hour, and everyone giving them the silent treatment.

6: "Sorry. Got game" doesn't work if you wait until 10 minutes after you got challenged.
Saying "no thanks" won't annoy people nearly as much as having to wait for you to find another match just to have an excuse. In fact, if 10 minutes have passed, chances are they've already given up on you as being one of the silent people mentioned in #5.

7: Don't be afraid to say no.
More often than not, coaches will offer you games they wouldn't accept themselves if the teams were reversed. There's nothing wrong in simply saying "no thanks" when a killer Khemri, the 12470th Orc team or something 20-30 TS above you asks for a game. Close the discussion and let people get back to looking for a game.

8: Don't run and cry foul on the forums.
There's already at least 15 topics on it, no matter what your peeve is.

9: Do not offer matches, you think are skewed.
Very few people enjoy playing against team that is far stronger than their own. Compare your teams roster with that of the player you're about to challenge. Would you say yes to the match if you had swapped rosters? If not, chances are your opponent will decline, and possibly become annoyed with you if you're offering a very unfair match-up.

Back to Finding Games
(Originally posted by Ulm on his blog on 29/7/08.)

Setting up games

Help Section The information in here will assist you in a lot of different ways. It covers everything from downloading the client to how to handle Disconnections and Loading A Saved Games Be sure to read through it and have an understanding of how things work. This will save you a lot of headache and trouble at later times. Make sure you are using JRE for WIndows Do not get 64 bit or Itanium.

A list of terms used on the Site can be found here :Abbreviations

There is also a lot of information available to coaches in regards to teams, races and tactics. The best place to start is with the Race Strategy section, the Game Reference and the Strategy and Tips sections of the Help Pages

Spectators in game sounds: while spec a game you can type /boo /cheer or /hurt to make sounds.

See also the Overview for Experienced Coaches

View the Academy division teams
Thanks to the coaches that gave me input into the changes