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Hello coaches! Welcome back to Orca Cola Fluff Studio's Blood Bowl Dictionary, a programme where we learn words useful to aspiring Blood Bowl coaches with variety of useful and funny examples. Today's word is block. Many of you likely know this word in its usual meaning, but we're going to give you a grand total of 4 definitions for it: three that recap various rhyme-infested lessons given to you previously this season, and one that tells how that meaning you all are familiar with is also horribly unjust. Block one: Block of Players Perhaps you know colletive nouns for some animals: murder of crows, sloth of bears or inebriation of dwarves. This naming scheme extends to even to the simplest of animals, reaching its ultimate conclusion in block of players. These players are Blood Bowl players, violent thugs who spent their youths beating the new kids in their neighborhoods to show them who was the boss. Now they are grown-up thugs in jerseys and know that their coach is the boss. These blocks of players naturally form around the important things on the pitch: the ball or star player lying prone. Like groups of buildings, they are impassable by physical force short of deathroller, but metaphysical force of wizards just might work. Just remember our previous lessons to ye, never never never trust your wizardee, and fouling is just a waste of money as well, so just spend all your inducement money on bloodweiser babes. So perhaps you should try to go around the blocks of players? Just beware of tripwires set for those who take the long route and do remember that leaping over them is also an option but never a good one. A block of bretonnians dressed in blue. Add in a ballcarrier in the middle and any wizard would be happy to cast some fire. A block of humans in red have gathered around their victim, blocking his breathing apparatus with their blocky boots. Trying to run around blocks of players to score usully end in surprise meeting with a tripwire. Block two: Blockhead Just take our previous definition for the word block as physically impassable group of thuggish Blood Bowl players and combine all that physicality and all that thuggery into one being. Most often this being is called big guy, someone more stupid than rest of their team combined, but they are also sometimes known as blockheads. But not all blockheads are big guys, for even the feeblest of feeble individuals might have all the stupidity of humanity compressed in them. Just check out the story of Bob (not Bifford, he is a really smart ogre who knows where we live). Some coaches even go as far as to call their every player a blockhead, but they are mostly ogre coaches, so that is allowed to them. A blockhead ruminating its own blockheadedness. Very typical sight. Block three: Pass Block Word "block" may refer to certain skill that Blood Bowl players can learn... and not the one all of you are thinking about. The oft-forgotten pass block is a general skill... and that is all we can really say about it because we have found no trustworthy sources of anybody ever teaching that skill to their players except by a mistake or something called "glitch". If you have ever thought about teaching your player to pass block, please let us know how it went and commit yourself to mental asylum soon as possible. Until then we can only guess the skill has something to do with passing, which is a move always fails anyway. Our best reporters spent many seconds googling this mysterious pass block and this was all they found. Block four: Physical Blocking This is it! The one you've been waiting for! The one! The only! Block as physical action by a singular player against other singular player, also known as punching, hitting or kicking them, some more aggressive coaches and players even refer to this kind of blocking as "caving some sod's head in". Very useful tool on the pitch and eternal fan favourite, especially when bodies that hit the grass stop moving. Just beware that not even this block is just. Even if you gather a block of players to support it or if you order your blockiest blockhead to do it, there is always a chance that all you'll be seeing is the skulls of defeat smirking back at you. And what have we learned from all the previous lessons this season? Yes, Nuffle is a vicious and hateful god. Blocks can also work amazingly well, but that depends on the perspective. So much on the perspective.

There was a thread here previous week, fluff drafted in ballad-verse oblique. Amusement was its game, and truly did it aim. It was poem with limerick's cheek. Those of you counting and calculating syllables, metres and rhymes on that above limerick may notice that it tumbles and teeters at times. Yes, for a poem of mirth it has not much worth, for its writer is known for his aim, and that aim is known to be lame. It's that master of skyfire and flame who in hates of many ranks higher than any. It is that wizard whose friends (not that he has many), know him as Willard. If some coach has money enough to spare, he might approach this talent funny and rare, hire him for his fireballs (and perhaps lightning bolts) to bypass those screening walls made of linemen dolts. Ever played a turn immaculate and great? Perhaps the pace is yours to dictate, after that nasty wardancer got slayed? Then he has turned your bliss into hate, when his fireball kills eight out of eight, making you cry: "Why, Nuffle, why?" And then there is the oft-known case, when your opponent gives you a chase, but your ball-carrying star looks behind his linemen wall to see the chasers are really quite far. In that moment of your triumph, when you should feel all-defiant, the magic ol' Willzard casts, will birth a memory that lasts, when your star he blasts. Your opponents all rejoicewhen your apotechary will voice: "He was missing a bit of his head, so I filled what remained with lead, but he remains mostly dead." And after experiences many salty and strong, your team looks quite faulty and wrong, with half of your old roster dead and gone. Within you builds a desire to waste your inducement on wizardly seducement; need is too dire and old Willard you will hire, to have your own fun with his fury and fire. Carefully you wait turn after turn, until your opponent earns the burn, of his team's fiery funeral pyre, because his attention did tire, in a three-by-three formation lies his team entire. But guarantee of the fireball is a guarantee of a liar: your targets all have outrageous gall to disagree with the fire, remain there three-by-three, earning your ire. And just when you decide to retire, sponsors decide you to fire... with a ball. So let this story be a lesson to ye, never ever trust (or like) any wizardee. Friend or foe, magic gives no guarantee.

Kislev can prosper, but with my amount of deaths... oh well, things happen.

2-1 for elves, almost 1-1. Still, I had utterly bonkers luck again first half. I would love to play one game where at least one of these things didn't happen: my gfi to score doesn't fail, I don't lose a vampire (or two or three) to cas and regen failure before turn 3, I get a blitz and only remove my own thrall with it or a thrall gets MVP. Any one of these things could stop happening any day now, I hope. To be fair, I had some good turns second half and this was probably my third best match with these vamps so far (after my two wins), those elves were just better. Heck, my armour even held over 50% of the time, only a little worse than it should have. I can't be happy about this team or even BB overall yet (I have had a really shitty year; 3-1-12 last month, far too much down to bad dice at bad spots), but this game actually had its moments.

I am finding these vamps hard to enjoy. I had over 50% overall armour breaks last season, and 53% for the first match of this season just now. And it was 100% until turn 7, I think, and like 80% until turn 14. My vampires went to KO from almost every hit against them and my GFI casually failed almost half the time. No permanent injuries or even MNGs, but development was, like it has been for almost all my games, very minimal. Thrall got MVP (9/10 so far for thralls) and vampire did a casualty and a pass for a total of 8, 3 for vamps; I failed 2/3 of my easy spp farming passes. It is very depressing when I have better vamp teams after just 4 matches elsewhere. Still, there are 8 games left for Nuffle to turn his other buttcheek towards me. If not, then elves it is.

Okey, I forgot to report stuff happening here; me and my mercurial moods. Anyhow, OCC didn't even get to the playoffs. That said, a new season is starting and OCC warband is likely to need some fresh blood. @Kubusta already contacted me in Discord about joining, but we need at least one more and probably like 2 or 3 new names. Anyone is welcome, no need to actually be good at this game.

2-1 defeat against elves of Ruszi. Very fun game even if I had 2 blitzes against me (out of my 2 receiving drives) and buttload of bloodlusts. Vampires, unless they are totally wiped, can always attempt something. Would have been 2-1 for me or 2-2 if I hadn't failed a scoring GFI and 1-1 if Ruszi didn't have a AG5 witch elf that did a TD with a casual 2+, 2+, 2+, 2+, 2+, 2+, 2+ (skill reroll (dodge) available for 4 of those and team reroll on top of that). Got passing vampire (no previous levels) and wrestle thrall for my trouble. No permanent damage.

Yeah, I was not expecting a win in any of my matches so far, and I only suffered one bad injury in this one. I just like complaining aboit things and I have been having a bad series of games lately.

Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong (except casualties, only one niggling 0spp thrall) and it ended with roll of 1 for money. If you want some numbers, let's just say that my armour failed 47% of the time and I had only like 6 stuns in total, rest were KOs and casualties. Orc armor also failed quite often, 30% of the time, but I caused only stuns. I don't really mind it for this team, but I have now been diced 7 or 6 times since my last week's match (one was an edge case where I think I was diced but just might be salt), and I have horrid history with these kind of streaks.

Just for your information: Ratamo's toaster managed run it with 15 to 20 FPS with everything set to lowest. That is not good but it is surprisingly high for something that designed the same time as rudimentary steam engines.

Dodge didn't exactly win me the day, but it helped me at least twice, and I won in the end. Hard earned 2-1 over some UD, and I must put most of the blame on dice. One MNG on a thrall, six for money and normal skill on a vamp. Orcs next, dear me.

I understand it is much better optimised now, but I have also seen you streaming once... you need a new computer for sure. Also, I am quite surprised that I wrote something this coherent while alt-tabbing between the game and writing it. I was doing a solo hunt and camped in an outhouse for 20 minutes or so after sniping one hunter down.

It is a hard game that can and quite often will take up to an hour of your time. That out of the way, I'd consider it a modern underappreciated gem. What is it? It is a battle royale game... please don't run away, you'll make noise and they'll hear you, and we wouldn't want that. It is a battle royale game that either went into development before battle royale games became a big thing or its developers just hated BR games and is thus utterly unlike other BR games. It is a game with a perfect name: there is a hunt and then there is a showdown. Basic idea is this: there is a 1x1 kilometres large map into which 12 human players arrive from map edges. These players are either solo players, duos or trios, and all of those can mix (solo players and duos cannot meet trios unless they check a box before matchmaking). All of these players share the same goal: to kill a bounty creature (sometimes bounty creatures) and get out alive with money-worthy bits of those things. Matches start with each team carefully moving from a point of interest to point of interest. These points have clues to the whereabouts of the bounty creature or, if team is really lucky, they stumble upon the creature itself. Each clue greys out parts of the map and clues contained in that area for the team. This way each team gets slowly but surely funneled towards each other even in these large maps. Each team is hindered by NPC zombie-monsters in their way, most which are but a distraction. Some tougher variants are actual threats, but mostly those zombies pose a threath because fighting them distracts the players and causes noise. Hunt has amazing soundsystem, where sounds are heard across the map and actually travel through environment; single powerful rifle shot to vanguish a mere zombie tells your rough position to the players even in the other side of the map. Even quick and quiet knife strikes can give your position away to someone in the vicinity. If some other team heard your noises and decided to ambush you or you just stumbled upon you, it gets dangerous. Even the weakest weapons of the game can kill you in two headshots, and most weapons kill you with a single body shot in close ranges. Ambushers and defenders usually win fights fast, but if they don't it might turn intoa minutes long shootouts where furious fire is punctuated by queit reloading times, for Hunt's setting is late 19th century, and guns are slow to reload. These firefights echo across the map, and other teams either know to stay away or decide to join the fray or perhaps camp nearby to finish the survivors. With or without these random clashes, some team sooner or later discover's the bounty's location... and decides to camp close to it to kill people who come to kill the bounty. If these second comer's are wise, they will also camp or at least check the neighborhood for ambushes. Still, sooner or later some team fights against the boss creature, usually letting one person solo it while other(s) watch their back. Once killed, they can start banishing its demonic soul, healing back to full. Then they will fortify the boss arena and defend it until they can gather the bounty items from the banished boss' body. This gives them several seconds of wallhack vision. With this vision they can check the ambushes planned around their fortified position, and decide to either camp for some time or to make a break for it. If they decide to camp, it usually means engaging in a long-distance fights against teams lying in ambush, or hoping that those get greedy (or perhaps go for the second bounty, if there is one). But if they decide to make a break for it, other teams can track them with their magic vision that shows huge lightining bolts striking where bounty's carrier is, and it soon turns into a merry old chase towards some extraction point... and perhaps some team waits in ambush in that extraction point. When a team, any team, arrives at extraction point, they are out of the map to fight another day in 30 seconds. This way even a sole survivor of a team or teams without a bounty or someone who just has to quit fast can leave the game and keep their hunter for future matches. But if any enemy should be close to extraction point also, extraction is paused until the problem is solved violentely. And there it is: slow and methodical hunt, with a couple of epic showdowns here and there. I really didn't do it justice with my quick summary of a generic match, but it is amazing. Everything in this game just works: world design is atmospheric and functional for a shooter, shooting itself is tactical and fair (skill and experience are worth more than all the equipment), sound design is best in any game and core of the gameplay (even surpassing my all time favourite game: Thief; Hunt is actually multiplayer stealth game, come to think of it), tension is constant and hectic gunfights rhytm is superbly. But then again: it is hard and sometimes whole match is but a 30 minute wait for other teams to show up to your camping spot, so it is not for everyone, but I love it. Just be sure to play it with friends or at least a friend, random team mates are rarely willing to play with noobies. Now, you may have heard of some issues it had: lag and poor performance. From what I can tell, those have been mostly patched out; my dececent-but-not-stellar rig gets 45 to 60 FPS depending on the situation on the high settings, and only lag spike was problem on my end. I assume anyone not trying to run it with a steam machine can get the enjoyable level of performance out of the game. I have also heard of some bad design choises that are no longer in the game. And while there is permadeath, your accounts overall level is much more important than lives of hunters and their equipment, both of which you can buy a plenty with the rewards of a single succesful match.

I value bloodbanks that can dodge to support vamps. Still, you are right that is is more for the thrall than the team. I'll decide between it and leader when I see how my next opponents look like after their 1st match.

I'd argue now is the best time to take a dodge: new teams have no tackles (no dorfs in my division) and blocks are few. But yeah, leader is also an option, but it just feels off to me at the moment.