Dart Bowl is a Round Robin league format, designed for six coaches. You will also need an additional person as League Commissioner (LC). In order to take full advantage of the format it is best to play four seasons. We used (completely free to play) Fumbbl for our games. This format could be used in real life too down your local gaming club.

Team Selection:

1) All 24 teams are written onto slips of paper and placed inside a cup/hat/skull-of-your-enemy.

Personally, I use a Korean beer glass. South, not North.

2) One team is drawn for every coach.

3) Coaches can stick with their team or mulligan and draw again. They must stick with their second result.

4) Any mulliganed teams return to the cup/hat/skull-of-your-enemy, but selected teams do not (meaning that there will only ever be one Orc team, one Human team, etc for the entirety of the league).

5) On subsequent seasons a coach's possible teams are restricted based on their previous team.

Tier One: Can only play a Tier Two or Three team in the next season.
Tier Two: Can play a team from any tier in the next season.
Tier Three: Can only play a Tier One or Two team in the next season.

In the event that a coach draws a team he/she cannot play, simply keep drawing until a playable team is drawn. At this point the coach can stick with the drawn team or mulligan as normal (after this, all the unplayable teams should be returned to the pool before the next coach draws).

This means that with six coaches and four seasons all 24 teams will be used.

Teams by Tier:

Tier One
Amazons
Dark Elves
Dwarves
High Elves
Humans
Norse
Orcs
Skaven
Undead
Wood Elves

If speed equals quality, then Skaven are undoubtedly the best team there is.

Tier Two
Chaos
Chaos Dwarves
Elves
Khemri
Lizardmen
Necromantic
Nurgle
Slann

Slann are one of the newer teams, so present fresh challenges for experienced coaches.

Tier Three
Chaos Pact
Goblins
Halflings
Ogres
Underworld
Vampires

Well aren’t you adorable? Useless, but adorable.

Winning The Season

In Dart Bowl coaches will score points from four different sources:

• Game Points
• Fluff Points
• Sportsmanship Points
• Betting Points

At the end of the season these four areas are added together, with the coaches total scores being their final positions.

So far our two seasons have been won by Khemri and Necromantic teams. Clearly being dead is an advantage in Dart Bowl.

Game Points
Season Maximum = 90 points

The biggest victory we’ve seen so far in Dart Bowl. BoW’s own Ben playing one of the sides involved in this massacre. I won’t point out if he was Amazons or Goblins of course…

After each game coaches will receive Game Points based on their results:

Win = 18 points
Draw = 6 points
Loss = 0 points

Fluff Points
Season Maximum = 30 points

Troll poetry leaves something to be desired. That something? Words.

Throughout the season the LC will check each team for descriptive material that enriches the play experience (I tend to check at the start, middle, and end of each season).

Coaches will receive Fluff Points for the following things:
• Team logo: 5pts.
• Team Bio: 5pts if one off, through to 10pts for richly detailed and constantly updated.
• Player bios: 5pts if one off, through to 10pts for constantly updated and evolving profiles.

This fluff scored five points. These were for the team bio that was written at the start of the season and not updated.

In addition players may receive points for particularly creative acts, e.g. player images, sound files, inner team competitions, posters, match reports, etc.

This entire section is the most subjective and at the whim of the LC. For example I tend to give fewer points to a bio that was done at the start of the season and never touched, than if the same length bio has grown throughout the course of the season. One displays information, the other tells a story.

This fluff scored 25 points. There is a team logo, a team bio that has been updated as the season progresses, some player bios and the coach devised (and kept track of) his own scoring system to see which Ogre would win the beauty pageant that was his team’s theme. Congratulations Jennifer.

Sportsmanship Points
Season Maximum = 30 points

This goblin spells ‘sportsmanship’ : Brrrrrm! Brrrrm! Brrrrrm!

After each game coaches must submit a Sportsmanship Rating for each other. This is done privately to the LC and there are 3 choices:

• 6 pts for a good opponent
• 2 pts for an average opponent
• 0pts for a poor opponent

Exactly what constitutes good, average and poor is down to the subjective judgement of each coach. Some coaches enjoy wacky games with a lot of laughs, others look for no-holds-barred competitions. Some want a lot of chat and joking, others want to keep the banter to a minimum.

Generally it's unnecessary for the LC to do more than simply record the scores, but if a coach has awarded another coach zero points I would usually request the reasons for that decision.

Betting Points
Season Maximum = 30 points

Worshipping Tzeentch is a sure fire method for winning your bets. And damning your soul.

At the start of each new round, coaches will submit predictions for the two games being played that they are not involved in. They must either predict which coach will win, or that the match will be a draw.

• Every Correct prediction: 2pts
• Incorrect prediction: 0pts

Over the course of five rounds, with two matches to bet on each round, the maximum score possible is 20 points.

Dream Teams

At the start of the season, once all teams are published but before any matches are played, every coach will make a Dream Team.

Ah Wardancers, so dreamy.

Dream Teams are made using the following rules:
• They must have 11 players
• Players are chosen from any of the other five teams (i.e. a coach cannot choose players from his/her own team).
• A minimum of one player must be chosen from each of the five teams.
• A maximum of three players may be chosen from any one team.

At the end of a season a Dream Team’s success is calculated by the amount of Star Player Points all its players have earned. All of the 11 player’s SPP is added together and the coach scores Betting Points based on how well his/her Dream Team did:

1st: 10 Betting Points
2nd: 8 Betting Points
3rd: 6 Betting Points
4th: 4 Betting Points
5th: 2 Betting Points
6th: 0 Betting Points

An end of the season Dream Team. Each of the five colours indicate which team the player is from, with the coloured numbers showing how many points a player scored in a given round. The players crossed out died or were retired during the league. The coach still gets all the SPP they’ve amassed up to that point, but no more can be earned.

End of a Season
The maximum points possible at the end of a season is 180 (hence “triple 20” Dart Bowl). In addition awards are given to the coaches who scored highest in each of the four areas (Most Sporting, Best Fluff, etc).

Bob the Blitzer worked hard to keep his spikes sharp all season.

Once a season is finished you wait as long as the coaches want, then you draw for the next season. Remember the Tier restrictions mentioned in “Team Selection.” If a coach has just played as Orcs (Tier One) this season, then next season he/she can only play a Tier Two or Three team.

And that’s Dart Bowl! Hopefully I’ll get an opportunity in a subsequent article to go through the reasoning for some of the design decisions, the ups and downs my group has had over two seasons, what you can do as a coach to make the Dart Bowl better, what an LC can do to enhance the experience, and some coach testimonials.

For more information on Dart Bowl, as well as being able to see our two seasons played please check out:

Our Dart Bowl Videos, starting with Instructions but also news on the teams, dream teams and results of our first two seasons

Our Dart Bowl League FUMBBL page

Our Jim and Bob’s Dart Bowl Talk Radio sound clips

Artwork from Knut_Rockie's FUMBBL Collection

Thanks for reading. May your pick up rolls always succeed.

Tom Kendrick

If you'd like to submit an article then contact me at [email protected]