I've recently played my 250th game on Fumbbl. It was a dice-fest in my favor, so of course nuffle decided game 251 would cause me to send 11 more rookie Lizardmen off to the retirement home :P

However, this is not a 'personal anniversary' post. The thing that most struck me about having played 250 games of blood bowl is that I'm still pretty awful at it. I know the rules (quite well, honestly), I've played games against all types of teams, and used all types of teams myself. I've read the racial strategy articles, as well as many, many general strategy articles, in hopes of being better. What makes me terrible, in my estimation, is not a general lack of knowledge, but simply poor decision-making. So often, I'll know what I've done wrong the second the mouse is clicked, and have no idea what I was thinking. The problem was, I wasn't.

On the advice of a friend here (I won't name names, lest he be implicated in my terrible crime), I've slowed my game down significantly. This has led to great frustration from my opponents, and I feel guilty about it, but I've also noticed a significant improvement in my overall record.

Many of the games in which I'd formerly play 5-6 turns of good defense before allowing a score, I'm now at least managing a tie. Basically, my turns are more consistent. There are certainly holes in my overall strategy, and I still make mistakes, but even the games I've lost are generally closer than the blowouts I used to allow.

So the purpose of this post, is to advocate, to a degree, a bit of slow play, and hope to give pause to those who are quick to harass or badmouth a player taking his time.

To me, the competition and strategy of the game are what makes it great. I love the fluff and the humor, but the core of the game (for me) is the chess-like aspect. I'm always excited to go up against a good coach, because I feel like I'll probably learn something, and as long as the dice are reasonable, I feel like I'll have really earned the result, either way. In essence, the better the opposing coach, the more satisfying the game is, win, lose, or draw.

Perhaps this attitude isn't shared widely, I know it's fun to beat up on bad coaches (my opponents seem to enjoy themselves), but isn't it more fun to play somebody at their best? I think for a lot of players, who lack 4-digit game experience, their best comes from taking the time to think out their actions. I'm certain this is true for me.

I've heard several times that fumbbl has the best blood bowl coaches in the world. This seems inarguably true, as I think very few people have played hundreds, let alone thousands of tabletop games. I know I take pride in being a part of that, and I hope most of the community feels the same way. I'm probably not contributing to that fact myself, as I am, in my estimation, one of the most mediocre coaches in the world... but the guts of my argument is this: the site and community is better as a whole if every coach is playing at the highest level he can manage. And for the inexperienced and impulsive coaches, I think that only manifests itself with careful thought.

So yes, many, if not most, of my turns will go longer than 2 minutes. I try not to use the extra time reservoir, since the 4-minute rule *is* a rule, straight from the book, but I'm not shy about being meticulous either. I know this frustrates the coaches who know this game so well they see their next turn before I'm done with mine, but I hope those of you in the latter category can at least appreciate that I am trying my hardest to play at the highest level I can.

Thanks for reading,
~pubstar

PS, unrelated:
If you've scrolled this far, you might end up scrolling all the way to my last post, which was a crummy retirement post. This is not an 'I'm back' post, but for the curious, I've decided to play again, but only in Blackbox. It's a great time. I'd post a pro-Blackbox blog, but I think all the excellent things about that division have been enumerated by more prominent coaches already. It really is a great time though, I wish I'd played less ranked and more Blackbox from the start.