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Played my first game the other night--what a great game. A thinking persons game I would say without blushing. Question--how bad do halflings suck? I'm going to start a team and I was thinking about them or undead.

Welcome to the best game that GW has ever made. And the most suited to competitive play. IMO, of course.
It is a game that rewards and punishes careful planning and risk-taking.
To quote the guys from World's End Radio
"Blood Bowl has taught me how to deal with dissapointment".

Halfings are going to die. A lot. They will be a very frustrating rookie team.

I am unfamiliar with how the Undead team works, but Necromantic are fairly solid.
You need to use each player type to their strengths to win, but you can rack up a collection of zombies quickly.

I would suggest Orcs or Humans to start until you have a firm grasp of the game. It makes it easier to concentrate on the rules, when you have a simple, straight forward team.
Halfing and Undead have special rules that you will need to remember on top of everything else.
Elves are not bad either, but you will feel the pressure a lot more if you get a few KOs or injuries.

http://zlurpeebowl.com/Forums/index.php
Good board of mostly U.S. based tournament players.

http://zlurpeebowl.com/Bloodbowl.html
Lots of resources here.

http://pseudoradio.blogspot.com/search/label/Three%20Die%20Block
Excellent podcast that talks about the game, team builds, and their local leagues.

http://shows.lifestylepodnetwork.info/tacklezoneradio/
Another BB Podcast. First couple are rough, but they get better.

http://worldsendradio.com/
These guys mostly talk GW stuff, and almost always hit on Blood Bowl.

Undead can be fairly solid - mummys hit pretty hard and their wight blitzers are quite handy. Where they fall down is in speed - your average mummy/skelly/zombie shambles along - and dexterity - don't expect to pick up/catch/intercept with anything other than a wight or ghoul catcher.

When I started BB way back in the mists of time, I was much partial to my dark elf team, complete with Harkon Heartripper, as I found DE to offer a fairly good blend of speed, agility and strength and therefore able to mix up a passing or rushing game as needed.

Welcome to Blood Bowl, in my opinion the best game GW ever created.

Halflings are a very bad team to start with, quite possibly the worst. And while I've only ever played against Undeads, never with them, they do offer a decent opposition in my experience. Like Skrulnik said, humans or orcs are to be preferred as your starting team. While I'm sure you could learn to play with undeads, you'd also get a very limited view of the game as a whole.

Welcome To Bloodbowl
My favourite GW Game (though ive never played it)
Getting the rulebook next weekend so ill come and hit you back then.

Steve

You don't need to buy the rulebook.

You can download the current version on GW's site under Specialist Games.

At least I believe it is the current version.

Ah.. This one IS LRB5. Living Rulebook 5
http://www.bloodbowlonline.com/LivingRulebook5.pdf

Welcome to the most fun and balanced GW game, and possibly the most addictive too. If your looking for the rules check out

http://www.bloodbowl-ireland.org/

You'll find the complete rulebook for free and 3 extra new teams, Slann, Chaos pact and Underworld I think. Plus its Irish run so you should be able to find a league near you to join.

On team choices, go with the halflings if you don't mind getting stomped 99.9% of the time, undead are'nt a bad choice and seem like fun.

Mookie.

With that URL they are gonna get hit with a C&D soonish I would think.

Never played the actual tabletop game, but I play the computer version all the time. I have been wondering, how does that game (Under the Blitz play style) match up with the tabletop? I always wondered how close the two were...

Oh, and as I said before, no idea how the two games match up, but I love playing as Chaos in the PC version of BB. It's hilarious that their entire strategy is to knock everybody else down and hopefully get a touchdown at some point during the game.

As far as I am aware, the turn based option in the Blood Bowl PC game is identical to the tabletop game. It was one of the major selling points for me, and I think they talked about it when developing the PC game that they actively sought to recreate the board game rule for rule.

Its not quite there yet filbert (in regards to table top perfect representation of the game) as there are several things missing. You can't hire bloodweiser babes for a 50k inducement as an example.

Welcome to the best game GW ever created, and the community has shaped the game into what it is today.

I'm looking forwards to next months national tournament here in Australia. We were only outdone numbers wise to flames of war and easily beat the 40k and fantasy players numbers.

A quick note: BB Living Rule Book 6.0 is due out in a matter of weeks or months (1 or 2) depending on GW's release. To get an idea of what it will be like, get a copy of the LRB 5 2008 rules review document.

As a dedicated halfling player I have to tell you I have only one won once. It was against a bloodletter team and they decided it was more fun to kill my team than to try to score. I've had some extremely close games though.

All said, if you're playing to have fun go with them. If you have to win a resonable amount of the time, look else ware.

This game rules, big time... wait.... yeah I think everyone said that already

Halflings are fun... I play Skaven! We both get krumped!
Seriously though, as long as you are in it for a laugh, don't mind getting bounced around the field for at least your first few games and replacing players on a regular basis - you should be golden.

It took about 5 games before I finally got a player up to a sensible level. The rest of the roster was full of injuries and stat penalties.

The main advice I can give, because your team is kinda gonna be like mine (weak). Don't fight... for the love of all things good do not fight! I played two matches trying to go toe to toe with other teams before I started to get the hang of how my team works. Skaven do not fight... not unless they are lucky enough to get some bonuses... and even then I'd be inclined not to fight they break easy.

I think someone's already said it. Play to your team's strengths and don't try to take on a team at their own game. Chaos punch hard, Orks do as well and Undead too methinks... not sure what Halflings can do. But find what it is and use it!

Another bit of advice... wait for them to fail and fall over and then stamp on their head that bit of advice has got me through several matches