WARNING: Beta State, changes are to be expected!




Forum (mostly members only)

Big Guy Development | News on how the Arena stars develop
Big Guy Rankings | Your personal ranking of all available big guys
Rule Changes & Clarifications | Official changes appear hear even before they are on the group page
Organization | Basically the place for everything else


The Arena

Big guys have always been a part of Blood Bowl, often an entertaining one - no matter if they shine or utterly fail. However, they're often punching-bags and rarely stars of the team (list of notable exceptions). In newer days, they often even aren't considered worth their cost. In the Big Guy Arena (BGA) it's the opposite: Here the hulks of Blood Bowl are the true and only stars.

Blood, sweat, feral roars - the crowd goes wild when the largest warriors roaming the pitches clash!

The Big Guy Arena itself lies in the far north, maintained by a bunch of ruthless businessmen and war-chiefs loosely associated with a cult of Khorne worshipers. Each of them supports at least one of the several stables, coalitions of three Big Guys each. The stable members never fight each other (at least not on the pitch) and their individual glory is partly transfered to the stable. Supporting headhunters are constantly roaming the lands (often in disguise), searching for raw new talents.


Stables and teams

In the Big Guy Arena you are not just a coach and team manager: You are a stable manager. A stable consists of three teams. Each team represents some kind of tightly connected social group (a family, a tribe, a pack, a tomb...). From those groups the actual players emerge.

Stables aim to amass money and fame and so does the Arena management. Fame is measured in the group's point system. The stable points represent the state of the stable. The teams have team points as well. While winning (during) a tournament is the most obvious way to rise (or fall) in the Arena management's favor, there are other events that can have impact as well (example: special accomplishments grant extra points while kicking a well-known family out of the stable has a negative effect).


Pitches

The Arena provides two pitches: The Arena itself is the place where all tournaments are played, while the Mosh Pit is an area nearby, where big guys (and other folks) can face each other for training purposes. Playing in the Mosh Pit is completely optional. Not participating in a tournament can lead to a slight decrease of a stables' fame. Once a stable or team has joint a tournament, playing the games is mandatory, not doing so will have severe consequences.


Tournaments

By now there are two main competitions:

The "Clash of Big Guys" is a tournament where teams (and the social group they represent) stand against each other. Usually only one team of each stable can participate. Teams and stables get or lose stable/team points after the tournament according to their final position. The two best performing big guys meet again immediately after the tournament to fight for the title "Arena Champion" (a shiny trophy that also adds stable and team points).

The "Stable Wars" are more complex with an additional layer of strategy, as stables bring all three teams into the tournament and decide from round to round which of them joins the arena. The Stable Wars have a higher impact on the stable scores and less on the team scores.


Special Events

From time to time the Arena will host special shows. Only the most promising big guys will be part of it (measured by team scores, champion titles and/or team value in skills). These events can increase stables' and teams' fame (and therebye score) further.


Big guys available - for future reference

Big guys will be categorized in tiers. Each stable may only have a certain combination of tiers. After a period of time yet to be determined, new big guys become available (partly random, partly depending on which of them are under-represented). A coach may only take a new team into his stable when he drops a current one. He may only take a team of the same tier or a lower one as the one dropped. Unless the dropped team had a really bad reputation, the stable will suffer a fame decrease and even a higher one if the team contained a healthy and developed big guy (concrete numbers will follow). Same goes for retiring a healthy big guy unless his team already has a bad reputation.

Beast of Nurgle * Kroxigor (Lizardman) * Kroxigor (Slann) * Minotaur (Chaos) * Minotaur (Chaos Dwarf) * Minotaur (Chaos Pact) Mummy * Ogre (Chaos Pact) * Ogre (Human) * Ogre (Ogre) *

Rat Ogre * Snow Troll * Tomb Guardian * Treeman (Halfling) * Treeman (Wood Elf) * Troll (Chaos Pact) * Troll (Goblin) * Troll (Orc) * Warpstone Troll *

* Currently in use, but will be available once multiple big guys of each type get allowed.

The first game

A team's first match always has to be played in the Mosh Pit (new teams will be added to the running Mosh Pit instance as soon as possible).
Since only full rosters can be submitted to FUMBBL, the first game has to take care of this issue. The game can either be played as normal as possible (following the rules below) with an additional player on the pitch who's not allowed to interfere with the game. Or it can be used as an opportunity to "feed" one (opposing) big guy Star Player Points. In this case, the setup rule for kickoffs (defending big guy in the central square) does not apply. Both forms are legal, coaches only have to agree ahead of the game and play the hole game in the spirit of this mutual agreement.


Rules for playing the game (overview, will be improved)

• each team consists of one big guy (that always has to stay of the same type for a Chaos Pact team)
  
• if the big guy is Really Stupid, the team can feature an unlimited amount of assistants (see "Assistants" section below)
  
• Wizard, Star Players and Mercenaries may not be used (except for replacing a missing big guy)
  
• in some scenarios, both teams get 200k of extra inducement money that have to be spent on two Bloodweiser Babes and one Wandering Apothecary or Igor, while Cards are not available
  
• a missing big guy has to be replaced by a mercenary of the same type (with or without additional skill); the extra inducement money mentioned above may be used for this reason instead of taking Babes and Apo/Igor
  
• only two players can enter the pitch
  
• no player can be set up in the wide zones on kickoff
  
• on kickoff, the defending big guy has to be set up exactly at the center of his half, an assistant right behind him
  
• the kicking team always has to aim the ball for the central square on the LOS
  
• assistants are very restricted in their behavior (see "Assistants" section below)
  
• fouls get an automatic +1 bonus to armor rolls
  
• Sneaky Git works like Guard on foul assists
  
• a player that uses Piling On and rolls a double in the process is knocked out immediately
  
• Claw and Mighty Blow do not stack

Assistants




Special Teams

Arena Legends

On special occasions, true stars (like Berta Bigfist, Ripper... did someone say Morg?) visit the Arena.

With permission from the staff, coaches are allowed to create one team dedicated to this cause. The team has to be named "Arena Legends [coach name]" (replace "coach name" by your nick but leave the brackets!) and may contain no players on the roster after the first (Mosh Pit) match. It has to start with a Fan Factor as high as possible (usually 9) and 3 Cheerleaders. Assistant Coaches and Team Re-Rolls are allowed, Apothecary not (since it cannot be used on star players). The team may only be used after announcement made by a stuff member. IMPORTANT: Staff and coaches have to make sure that the team can hire at least one (big guy) star player via inducement money/petty cash ahead of each such game!

Maintenance Crew

There are quite a few dwarves working on the Big Guy Arena's service team. The green keepers are using steam rollers to flatten the arena ground after the matches. Among the dwarves it became a sport to "improve" their rollers in all kinds of ways. And they like to take them into the Mosh Pit, battling each other - and anyone else who's brave/stupid enough to challenge them.

Each coach may have one dwarf team that (after the first match) consists of one Deathroller only. The teams have to be named "Green Keeper X" (replace "X" by the lowest number available for a green keeper). They can join any Mosh Pit, but no other competition.