Much is written about the box and I must confess the reputation of the place kept me away for quite a while. I played a bit previously but had only managed ~50 games up to the start of last week. Why did I stop playing? Can't really tell you. But I can tell you why I started again and why it's possibly the best decision I made on FUMBBL.

I enjoy playing lower tier teams and novelty builds. I'm not the only who enjoys that and by no means do I have exceptional teams but I like them a lot. I like some of my players as more than just "pieces" in a game. Both of my trolls in my goblin team for example are closing in on the top spots for most of the active lists (and even topping a few). The entire goblin team is mostly built around the trolls and helping them be the best they can be. Likewise, my ogre scientists have a whole back story of discoveries in the world of particle physics and play each game as a "collaboration" with the other team to try and discover (kill) the elements in the periodic table (snotlings) by smashing things into the pitch and seeing what emerges.

This kind of backstory for teams is really common on here, more so than in any other online gaming community I've been part of. Even my mordheim bands pale in comparison to a large portion of the teams on here. And it's great that people put that effort in. It truly makes FUMBBL be THE place to be for bloodbowl.

But it was after logging onto gamefinder with my goblins, turning down the usual offers from dwarf teams with TV 1.5x my own that I realised something. I'm not actually playing blood bowl anymore. All I'm doing is artificially driving up the number of spp on some of my key players. I'm not challenging myself as a player. And I think the previous matches played by my goblins shows this. The usual suspects of elves, rats etc. Yes, the goblins have played every race but it's been ages since I accepted a game from anything that wasn't in the whitelist of teams I'd play. I got fed up of checking how many tackle/PO/MB players a team had before accepting the offer.

In summary, I couldn't be trusted to play the game. Instead I was playing the system.

One of the leagues I play in is the excellent Lineman Only League and after 2 seasons of underworld gobbos and a troll I decided to try the exact opposite and run dwarves this season. And I've been having a blast. But it got me thinking. Why don't I play dwarves normally? Because (and I have nothing but word of mouth and my personal xp here) they don't get games due to people like me not playing vs them. That's a shame because I'd really love to run a dwarf team. Enter the box...

So I made a dwarf team in the box, slightly unsure what to expect as I'd never really played them before and you hear stories of what teams you find in the box. Here is a breakdown of the first 16 games I've played:

1. Halflings (yes, my first game in the box, with dwarves, was vs flings).
2. Chaos
3. Vampires
4. Lizardmen
5. Lizardmen
6. Wood Elf
7. Skaven
8. Goblin
9. Norse
10. Norse
11. Lizardmen
12. Dwarf
13. Skaven
14. Human
15. Nurgle
16. Undead

After 16 games I've played against 12 different races (of which 3 are ARR races) and 15 different coaches. The lizardmen team that I played against twice was also basically an ARR team, only have 1 saurus and a krox. I've also played against "unusual" builds (no offence) - skaven with no gutter runners.

And not only has the variety of coaches been great, but the quality of them has been excellent and the conversations I've had while playing have really added to the fun of the game. Exactly the same experience I had in ranked (rather unfairly this was a fear of mine as the chat during game is often more important to me than the game).

Due to the success of this, I've recieved word that the Large Ogre Colliders, the team of ragtag physicists last seen hurrying away from a burning lab, have been spotted boarding a boat and setting sail onto the sea. They ARR coming. Something about "opening up new avenues of research" and "maritime law not covering snotling rights".

So in summary, I'm going to be moving the majority of my ranked games into the box. I'm gonna keep the ranked teams around for when I fancy dipping my toe back in (or if I learn to stop picking) but mainly box is where you will find me.

There was also a really good thread on the forum yesterday which explains a lot of other reasons that coaches have for playing box. Check it out: https://fumbbl.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=27733

Thanks for reading