Secret League Americas is an American-timezone league that uses the Secret League ruleset. Detailed info on Secret League can be found here - essentially, it comprises some 70+ custom team rosters that can be used, in addition to the 24 standard Blood Bowl rosters and the Simyin roster (which has been available in the FUMBBL [L] division for some time).





League Structure and Scoring:

SLA is a round robin league with weekly rounds - each round has a deadline of Wednesday of that week. Round deadline dates will be posted here once the season has started.

Scoring is 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss. However, there are also 'player prizes' awarded at the end of the season (see the Booty tab for more details). Teams will be awarded +1 to their season score for each player prize they possess; however, there will only be 1 of each player prize for the whole league (regardless of no. of divisions).

Further to this, there will also be items of 'lost treasure' that can be uncovered during the course of a season (again, details can be found in the Booty tab). There will be one of these per division and any team that possesses a lost treasure at the end of the season will be awarded +2 to their season score.

The league divisional structure will be somewhat flexible and will be tailored to suit the number of teams that have applied for each season. I will aim to strike the best balance I can between high/low-TV divisions and East/West Coast divisions, depending on the TV spread of the teams.

Seasons 1 and 2 featured two East/West coast divisions, with a final playoff tournament to decide the overall winner. Season 3 featured two East/West Coast, lower-TV, Builder Divisions and one higher-TV Upper Tier div. The top 4 teams in the Upper Tier and the top 2 from each of the Builders were awarded places in the final playoff.

Lost Treasures:

As mentioned above, each division in SLA will contain an item of lost lustrian treasure, which can be uncovered and adds +2 to the season score of the teams that end up holding them at the end of the season. There are some other rules that are specific to these treasures:

• Lost treasures (once uncovered) can be stolen during the course of the season. If any team beats another team that is holding a lost treasure and scores either 2 more TDs or 2 more casualties than them, then they steal the treasure (note that this is only active during the league season, not during the final playoff tournament).
  
• If the team that wins the league (i.e. the crown) is also the current holder of a lost treasure, then that team has the option to keep that treasure permanently. However, to do this, they must voyage back to their homeland to return the treasure. This means that the team cannot play in the following season and their coach must choose (or create) a different team to play. Note that this is completely optional.
  
• In a similar way, if a team starts a season with a lost treasure and manages to hold it for the whole season without losing it, they will also have the same option to keep it permanenty, as described above.
  
• Any treasures that are won permanently will be replaced with new ones.
  
• There can never be more than 1 lost treasure in the same division (or it will rip a hole in the spacetime continuum and the unwashed hordes of chaos will pour forth).
  

Friendlies:

New teams joining the league are allowed to play up to 3 open 'friendly' games before they start the season, to help them get off the ground. Similarly, teams that don't make the final playoff tournament are allowed to play up to 3 open games in between seasons, to help them replace injuries and prep for the new season. These games can be against any Secret League Open teams, but should preferably be against different coaches.

Teams that make the playoffs don't get to play any inter-season friendlies - they have to jump straight back in to the fire again! ;)

League Rules:

1. Only 1 team of each roster will be accepted (after all, there are ~100 different teams to choose from!). This may be reviewed at a later date, if we end up with a large number of coaches.
   
2. Standard rosters will be welcome, however at least two thirds of the teams must be Secret League teams (it is supposed to be a Secret League league!). The League Commishioner may refuse entry to standard rosters if we have too many.
   
3. Turn time limit will be 4 minutes (FUMBBL standard).
   
4. Concessions are allowed, however if a team concedes then, along with the usual penalties, the opposing team will also steal any 'lost treasures' that the conceding team had.
   
5. Both teams will be given 50k extra at the start of each game, which they can use to purchase a special play card.
   
6. Claw and piling on work as normal. However, Right Stuff prevents tackle on blocks and Sneaky Git acts like guard for fouling assists.
   
7. All games are expected to be competitive - players are expected to play to win. This includes pre-inter-season 'friendlies'. Any uncompetitive pre-game agreements or behavior in-game (such as farming of spps or player stats) will be frowned upon and may attract sanctions, as appropriate. (2018-11-09)
   
8. At the end of the season, after points from lost treasures and player prizes have been taken into account, ties will be broken by 1-on-1 result between the two teams; then TD diff; then cas diff; TD scored; cas scored; and finally by a coin toss, if all else fails (v unlikely). (2018-11-09)
   
9. (Holiday Rule) A team which has played three (3) consecutive seasons is permitted to take a one (1) season holiday, allowing the coach to play a different team. During the holiday, the roster is reserved in the league. Upon returning, three additional consecutive seasons would be required before they can take another holiday. (2020-03-26)
   Added: razmus 17 July 2020, based on league PM from JellyBelly 26 March 2020 "SLA Season 9 - the Slaanesh are taking over:".
   
   

How to join SLA:

• The league is open to all coaches that are able to play games in American-timezone evenings (approx. GMT-9 to GMT-4). In terms of bbtime, that is approx. 00:00 to 07:00.
  
• To sign up, please pm coach JellyBelly respond to the league recruiting thread in forums, stating the roster you would like to play and your preference of East/West coast. Roster assignment will be on a first-come, first-served basis, subject to the rules above.
  
• Once your choice of roster is approved, you will need to create a new team using the Secret League ruleset (there is a link at the top of this page) and apply it to this group. I will make an effort to include as many coaches as possible when a new season starts; however, if you apply mid-season, I will add you to the waiting list for if/when a place becomes available.
  

We also have a league Discord channel, which can be accessed at the following link. Feel free to drop in for a chat, or if you have any questions:



Forfeit Policy:

Momentum is very important to the health/credibility of the league and round deadlines will be actively enforced, with foreits where necessary. Extensions will be given for games where both coaches have been communicating and a firm time/date can be arranged for the game. If a game is forfeitted and one coach can show that they have made an effort to contact their opponent, then they will be awarded 3 points for a 'forfeit win'.

The league will be operating a 3-strikes-and-you're-out policy regarding forfeits - if you forfeit 3 games in any given season then you will be kicked from the current season.

(Note that in the first 2 seasons I have been taking a hard line against 'droppers'. If it is obvious that someone has dropped and they aren't responding to pms, then I usually don't wait until that third strike ...)