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I'm having a problem with it, mostly, I often don't have enough time to complete the objectives, despite the fact that I won the game I wasn't able to fulfill the game plans, which are often weird and arbitrary.

In specific, I haven't managed to finish the second high elf game where you face off against dark elves-- the game plan is "two fouls, three pass completions, and two touchdowns".

Sounds simple enough... eeexcept for how the AI plays dark elves. They play them like you'd expect Dwarves to be played. As a result, the game just feels too short because the dark elves constantly play heavy defense instead of the running game they're supposedly supposed to play, and so they slowly make their way to the in-zone surrounding the carrier with three to eight players-- and the high elves just don't have enough power to really do anything about it, especially with the prevalence of Dodge on the Dark Elf side. Gotta attack the same person twice just to down them, and they'll usually just get back up the next round even if you foul them-- because high elves are sissies who can't hit hard enough.

Hell even just forfeiting and LETTING them get a touchdown takes forever, and usually without much help as I often get really crappy rolls when I try that so half my team is knocked out on the first turn... It's really frustrating to me-- I was enjoying the game up until this match...

You might want to wait until someone makes an AI mod for it, because at the moment, the ai is one of the worst I have ever seen.

It seemed to me that 90% of the work went into making them look nice, than they taped together some sort of AI program at the last second.

Yeah, the AI occasionally sits there for a minute then ends its turn doing nothing after doing little more than surrounding its ball carrier with protectors and blocking a few of my players...

Guess Im glad I never bought the game then, as Ive thought about it plenty of times. That sucks

Honestly, I wouldn't hold your breath for the mod community to make any sort of impressive breakthroughs. From I've seen it's based around making skins and the like, and I think I saw one for an upgraded UI.

However, common opinion from people online is that bloodbowl is at it's best against a human opponent.

I saw an AI mod but it's a WIP.

I stand corrected.

What I would like is a way to tell if the AI is screwing with the rolls. Although honestly I think this would just piss me off to know.

Yet...because I don't know I suspect that's the case so I'm still pissed when ridiculous plays occur against me.

Lose/lose situation.

The AI seems to play all teams like they're a hitting team. Same tactic regardless. Regardless of platform too. Really it only works well against humans.

I do know for a fact that on the xbox version the AI does fudge rolls. It happens more often the higher the difficulty is set.

Yeah I bought this when Steam had the 80% off at the weekend - the AI is always setting up cages and can be hugely frustrating to play against. It could need to pull off 6 or 7 rolls to get exactly what it needs in order to score a TD and do it. More often than not I get a little frustrated when he dodges 4 or 5 times with Zombies or other AG 2 models - IN THE SAME TURN I know things like that can happen in Blood Bowl, but it just happens a little too often in the game - which is a shame as everything else is great but the dice rolling is highly suspect at the best of times - even when play goes for you. I've had games where I've decimated the opposition a little too easily or where the AI just fails everything, but they are becoming a rarity the more I play. I guess I should just play against other humans...or the actual board game - at least then I know how the dice work

The 3 fouls and passes should be easy enough - it's those TD's that can be a problem, I haven't really tried the story yet - but I guess it's as frustrating as the campaign play

The touch downs I've managed, but passes not so much-- because my catchers seem to be eternally cursed to drop the ball every other time.

That's a shame! Im gonna start playing this tomorrow morning (as that's all the time I have spare during my working day), and to hear that there are some stupid near unwinnable situations like this..... Makes me a little sad

Still, I will give it a chance... As I love tabletop BB!

Just play campaigns and it's not as bad. From my experience (probably 100 hours of play time or so) the AI isn't quite as bad as people make it out to be, but I may just suck also

Yeah, this is just the Story mode. The Campaign mode (you create a team and lead it through a series of tournaments, buying and training players, hiring cheerleaders and assistant coaches, and so on) lets you win however the hell you want to win.

The AI in BB is terrible, and for the most part I've only seen people play multiplayer (as you can pick this game up cheap from Steam most of the time).

That said, you should be able to get the fouls in pretty easily. You can foul once per turn, so it should only take three turns to get it. I'd recommend against doing this until you've finished the passing requirement and at least one TD, as depending on the die roll, your fouling player can get sent off for the match, and that causes an immediate turnover.

The passing requirement should actually be pretty easy. Put your passer and a catcher or two in the backfield when you receive. Pick up the ball with your passer, and move up to one square away from your catcher before throwing the ball to maximize your odds of throwing a successful pass. An agility 4 player like an elf catches an accurate pass on a 2+. If he has Catch (which the high elf catchers start with, I think), then he gets a free re-roll on the attempt if he fails.

The TDs are fairly easy to accomplish. It should take a high elf team 2 turns to score, barring a crafty opponent, which the AI is not.

Given the random nature of the dice, you aren't guaranteed to succeed, so you may need to attempt the challenge more than once (be sure to save between challenges in story mode).

I'm sure I've played the challenge you are referring to Melissa, but I can't remember, do they give you the whole game to achieve that one, or only a single half?

As a side note, if you do elect to try multiplayer, I highly recommend finding a good league to join (the matchmaking system is atrocious). I've personally had some great luck with Bloodbowl North America (http://www.bloodbowlna.com/). It's a relatively new league which tries to stick to the North American timezones (as scheduling gets ridiculously complicated otherwise), and has thus far been a lot of fun for me. The players are great, and all of them offer some pretty good advice. There are multiple tiers, so that players with roughly equivalent experience or Team Value wind up competing with each other. The next season should be starting in 6-8 weeks (We are currently in the middle of Season 4).

Do you have any players with Guard, Melissa? I find they're a great help for breaking cages when they form, since they're less picky about placement and can provide ganging up bonuses and negate the opponent's at the same time. If the opponent has left any spaces in the sides like this:

XXX
XB_
XXX

A Guard player lets you get a +3 strength modifier on their turn, which should easily be enough to punch a hole in their formation, and a +1 modifier on their turn, meaning you should last long enough to beat up everyone else.

Should I get this game? It still retails for $30....

Eh, at 30 I wouldn't. I like it, but the game is so damned frustrating sometimes I see myself playing it less and less. If you have a friend who would play you, then it might be worth it. Otherwise it's impossible to tell how well you'll take to it.

No players with guard. There's one really good thrower, a catcher with +1 strength, a blitzer with some odd skill or other, and another blitzer with mighty blow. Not much else.

Has anyone else noticed strange things happening at the start of the AI's turn? For example, green lightning appearing to strike their players, a pair of stone fists banging together above each of their players or a bunch of question marks floating above one of your players.

Does anyone know what this signifies?

If the lightning strikes a player and injures them, it's a wizard's spell. The question mark is the "dumb" (or something like that) trait which is given to certain creatures that are, well... dumb.

Dunno what the stone fists are.

There are a few different icons that appear above the head of a player:

Lightning Bolt: This appears when the player attempts a blitz (the bolt looks yellow to me)

Bull Head: This is a red bull-head, as if viewed from directly in front of the bull. This indicates that the player has fallen victim to the Wild Animal negative trait. There are only a few players with this trait (Minotaurs and Rat Ogres are the only two I can remember)

Gears & Question Marks: This indicates that the player has fallen victim to the Bone-head or Really Stupid negative trait (Ogres and Trolls).

Tree: This indicates that the player has fallen victim to the Take Root negative trait (Treemen).

A Ringing Bell: This indicates that the player has been knocked out.

A Red Cross: This indicates that the player has been injured in some manner.

A Skull: This indicates that the player has been killed.

The following skills/traits are ones I haven't seen in play yet, so I don't know if they have an icon that appears above them: Hypnotic Gaze (Vampires, and a few star players), Bloodlust (Vampires), Foul Appearance, Disturbing Presence.

Also note that I've only played the turn based mode. There may be other icons that appear if you use the real-time Blitz! mode.

Those are not the icons I am referring to. I think I worked it out, though: one of the changes in the Blitz rules is race-specific wizards' spells. Since my first two teams were Dwarves and Amazons which use the standard spells, I hadn't noticed.