Up the Hammers!

The sun was high in the sky over the Blasted Wastes, beating down on the parched earth of the practise pitches of Up-Town Park, home of the Wasteland Hammers.  The ground, baked hard by the heat, was shaking as the team's Bull Centaurs practised their sprints on the far side of the field.  Sweat flew from their flanks as they hurtled down the side-line at full pelt before skidding to a halt and punching one of the unfortunate Hobgoblin assistant coaches as hard as they could. “Take that, you green twat!”, bellowed Trevor Booting, the team’s star player, as the limp body of Slaven Bile-Itch crashed to the turf again.  Attendants rushed onto the pitch with smelling salts to revive him and get him in position for the next pass.  It had been a grueling morning and his face bore the bruises of a successful day’s punching.  “Get him to turn round and bend over!” came Trevor’s voice from the far end of the field as he turned for his run-up, “I’m going to punch him in the arse this time!”

Clyde Beast, one of the Chaos Dwarf Blockers, noisily hawked up a gobbet of phlegm and spat it on to the ground beside him.  “Trevor’s having fun”, he said. 

“Aye”, replied Stewart Spearson, “he’s always like this before the first game of a new season.  Like a kid in a sweet shop…If that kid was a tonne of muscle...”

“with severe anger issues….”, added Clyde

“And the sweets were Hobgoblins he could punch…”, finished Stewart. 

“He’ll get bored in a day or two.” Said Clyde, raising his voice to be heard above the screams of Slaven Bile-Itch who had just discovered that there are worse things than being punched repeatedly in the face and one of them was being used as a hand puppet by a clearly amused Bull Centaur.

“I hope he washes his hands before lunch…”, mused Clyde.

“Who’s the new guy”, asked Stuart, jerking his head in the direction of the Chaos Dwarf being shown round the facilities* by the Head Coach.

“Ach, he’s just a merc, they’ve brought him in for the game against the Humans while Geoff is in the injury room.  I spoke to him earlier, seems a decent enough sort.  I can see him fitting in if he wants it…”

First game of the 8th season of the Blood Bowel League and I found myself once again matched against my longtime foe, Henry Pootles.  Although this is the 8th season on Blood Bowl 2, the Blood Bowel has a long and illustrious history stretching back to Blood Bowl 1 and incorporating one season on FUMBBL.  That one season of FUMBBL being the unfortunate season that Pootles and myself played 3 games on the trot due to the vagaries of a Swiss pairing system.  Last season, my first game was a hard fought 1-1 draw against him and his seasoned Human team, Big Al's Flying Circus and now we get to fight it out once again.

My team took a fair battering in the previous season and both my Dirty Player Hobgoblins had died, my Sure Hands/Block/Kick Off Return Hobgoblin had died, and one of my skilled Bull Centaurs had, you guessed it, died.  They had all been replaced but none of the Hobs had received a skill yet and the Centaur only had Block.  On top of that one of my Chaos Dwarfs was MNG for this game so a lot rested on the shoulders of Trevor Booting, my Block/Break Tackle/Mighty Blow/Tackle Bull Centaur.  He would be Supported by 'Filthy' Phil Sparkes and Stewart Spearson, Guard/Claw and Guard/Mighty Blow Chaos Dwarfs, respectively.  I had 20k inducement money and enough in the bank to splash out on a Mercenary Chorf to bring me back up to 6.  Having won the toss, I set up to receive the ball and commence the grind.

The first half began fairly well when Julian Fists, the Mino, badly hurt Little Al, the Ogre, and a cheeky foul KOd a lineman. Both in Turn 1.  Unfortunately, that was about that in terms of any removals (bar my losing a Hobgoblin after an over officious ref spotted a foul) and it became a very tight contest where I inched up the pitch, shifting the play from right to left and back again while Pootles fell back into columns in front of me.  You know it's been a tight game when at the end of T6 we both had all our RR left.  No risks were being taken at all, it was very cagey. Finally, in T7, I felt that I had shifted the Humans over far enough to one side and made a break for the other.  Trevor Booting broke cover and ran as far as he could but it wasn't completely safe.  The humans had to make 2 GFIs to get a player on him and then a simple 3+ dodge for a 1 dice shot on the ball.  Fortunately for me, they failed the second GFI and used a RR to keep the player on his feet.  The dodge was successful but my luck was in and the Block was a Skull.  A few pointless blocks later and Trevor break tackled away to score in T8. So far, so good.

The Humans had 1 turn left in the half, their KO stayed out but with a couple of reserves we had equal numbers on the pitch.  The merc Chorf was deployed on the line of scrimmage and first block he was killed stone dead.  In what had been a fairly sedate game up to that point, the dice rolls went 4/6 for Armour, 6/6 for CAS and a fourth 6 for the Casualty.  Standard Blood Bowl.  The first half petered out and we lined up for the second half.

Turn 9 was almost innocuous but a foul by the dirty, dirty Humans  saw a Chorf KOd while I could do nothing in return.  I didn't defend well and in T10 Pootles took advantage to get in behind me with the ball after a short pass from Big Al, the Thrower.  On the way to completing that pass, another block with no kill skills managed to, in fact, kill another Chorf.  Frank Lamp'em-Ard was about to be pronounced dead when the Apo rushed on to the pitch and managed to patch him back up.  He'll be missing next game but there's no lasting injury. In my T10 I took a risky series of dice rolls for a 3+ dodge, 3+ dodge, 2 2+ GFIs and a 2D block against a blodger to get the ball carrier down against the sideline.  I had to use a RR but I was thankful that it came off.  Sadly, the ball did not bounce out and the Catcher was unharmed.  Inspired by this clearly amazing play, Julian the Minotaur took this opportunity to Wild Animal.  This was to become a rather unfortunate theme during the 2H.  Luckily, 'Filthy' Phil Sparkes was there to pick up the slack and he punched Just Al so hard in the face that he instantly died.  The next turn saw the humans recover the ball and then, despite getting 4 dice on the ball carrier, I couldn't bring the Blodger down.  The following few turns were played out to the music from the Benny Hill Show as I unsuccessfully chased after the catcher with the ball before forcing then Humans to score in their T15.  In a sad accident for the Human team, Sir Hitalott had delusions of Elven grandeur and tried to dodge away from his marker.  He failed, obviously, and the resultant injury saw him take an armour bust.  I assume he'll be shown the door very soon....

I had two turns left to try and pull off the impossible but with both teams having been reduced to 8 players on the pitch by this stage, the impossible proved to be exactly that and the game ended in ignominy as the Minotaur capped a woeful second half performance with a double push leading to a frenzied double skull and the game ended the same way as last time with a 1-1 draw.  In all honesty, I'd say we were both happy with that although we could have done without the injuries.  The next game will be a little tougher with only 5 chorfs on the field.

Overall, I felt I played OK, not great but OK.  I think I was too slow getting forward in the first half although Pootles excellent defence certainly hindered me in that respect.  I was fortunate to get away with my score although I did give him some dice to roll and, well, Nuffle is a fickle God.  Second half was poor for me.  I didn't defend well and  struggled to adapt to losing players so early.  I pushed forward too fast and managed to get myself completely out positioned.  It was always hard after that with slow, low agility Dwarfs and as has been proven many, many times, you can't rely on a Hobgoblin.  So, many lessons learnt and much to take away from this game.  As always, an absolute pleasure to play Pootles and I look forward to meeting him again.

The final whistle blew bringing to a close a brutal first game for the Wasteland Hammers.  The fans cheered wildly, drunk on the carnage they’d witnessed.  The score had finished 1-1 but that wasn’t the whole story and the sounds of moaning from the injury area of the dugout accompanied the 8 players left standing as they limped off the pitch.  “Frank doesn’t look good”, muttered Clyde, casting a glance over his shoulder at the prostrate form of Frank Lamp’em-Ard Jnr on the treatment table.

“Could have been worse”, replied Stuart, “He was dead for a while out there.  He’s lucky the doctor got there in time”

“Where’s the new guy?”, said Clyde, “He promised me a drink after the game.

“Err, well, you know how Frank got lucky with the quack…well, the boss decided that you only get that kind of luck if, you know, you’re a permanent member of the team.”

“Bollocks! he owes me 5 gold pieces", spat Clyde, "Some people will do anything to get out of paying their debts..."

*The term facilities is used very loosely here and actually covers the equipment shed with a broken door that doubles up as the team toilet; the tin bucket which is home to the 'magic' sponge; and 2 bright orange cones with a white fluorescent stripe round the middle. Nobody knows where they came from or how long they'd been around but when they weren't being worn on the head of drunken Hobgoblins during the Nufflemass celebrations, they were used to mark out the presence of pot holes in the club cart park.

Win or Lose, Sink or Swim.....We All Stand Together

Well, it's been an awfully long time since this blog saw any activity.  After a couple of years though I've decided to pick it back up and make the occasional post.  I can't guarantee it will be regular but I'll do my best.  So, for this return, I'm going to follow the progress of my latest Blood Bowl project, the Frogmen team by J-Bone Industries.

The team itself was the brain child of my good friend and [lapsed] podcast host JBone who came up with the idea of producing one the lesser represented teams in a style that was reminiscent of the great 2nd edition Games Workshop teams.  The team he chose were the Slann and to carry this off he enlisted the services of one the best Blood Bowl sculptors out there at the moment, Pedro Ramos, and it wasn't long before I had the chance to see some of the initial concept sketches.  The 2nd edition influence was immediately apparent and even though I'd never played Slann, or even thought I'd want to play them in the future, I knew I'd be supporting his campaign.  The early shots of the greens convinced me I'd made the right decision and as the crowd funded campaign went through the roof, more and more items were added to the list.  I think the initial idea was to launch, get funded and then have everything produced relatively quickly.  Most of the greens had been done as JBone was clear that from the beginning he wanted people to see what they would be getting rather than just sketches.  The success of the campaign, however, meant that things took a little longer than anticipated.  In total there were 1,409 backers who raised 36,282 Euros making it one of the most successful Blood Bowl campaigns.

The team arrived a little while ago and after unpacking them and admiring the quality of the casting I packed them back up and tried to forget about them.  I have now dug them back out from the pile of un-started teams that I have and decided it's time to paint them up.

The miniatures themselves were lovely and the quality of the casting meant that there was very little flash to clean up and mould lines were practically non existent.  The detail on them was nice and crisp and they aren't overly detailed so it's not a as daunting a prospect to get them painted.  The only criticism I would have is that the Blitzers came with their heads separate from their bodies.  This was so you could choose which head you wanted to use - initially there were just 4 heads but one of the stretch goals extended that to 8 so there were plenty of options.  The issue I had, however, was that the heads were wider than the gap where they were supposed to sit.  I did a bit of cutting and some filing but still couldn't get perfect fits.  I've had to add a little bit of Greenstuff to make them look better.  It's not perfect and it would have been better had they fitted but it's certainly not the end of the world and, as you'll see, they still look good.

So, what did I get from the campaign?  Basically everything that was put out - all of the team, markers, star players, coaching staff and sideline figures.  The only ones I haven't started to base yet are the Star players.  I've got enough to be getting on with at the present and they're not essential to have.

Let's start with the Blitzers.  There are 4 unique sculpts for these and the poses are very dynamic which makes them very easy to differentiate from the rest of the team.

They look great and you can't see from the front the issue I had with the heads.  Looking from the back, however, and you can see the rather large gaps left by the poor fit.

When it comes to painting the miniatures I'm going to incorporate the old 2nd Edition base colours but rather than do them as lines on the base, I'm going to bring the base colours onto the model itself.  I think this will work really as they're frogs and frogs come in a variety of different colours.  So, Blitzers always had a red base so my Blitzers skin will be predominately red.

Next up are the catchers and of the team sculpts, these are easily my favourites.  Again, they're very dynamic but easily distinguishable and they look quite different to the rest of the team.  They're thinner, more lithe, and the way that Pedro has been able to visually represent the fact they're only Strength 2 and Armour 7 is very good.

Catchers in 2nd Edition had a yellow base so these will yellow frogs...

Next up are the Linemen, cannon fodder of the team.  The best thing about these guys is that that are two sculpts included in the linemen offering where the influence of the old Games Workshop sculpts can be easily spotted.  One of the poses has the lineman pointing with one arm outstretched which is the classic pose of the old 'Chucker' position, and the second is where the pose is of a Lineman kicking the ball to reflect the 'Kicker' position.  For me, these are just superb and provide a knowing, respectful nod to the GW models of the past.

The difficulty with painting these is that the base colour for 2nd Edition linemen was grey and I'm not that convinced that grey would work very well as a skin colour on these.  So, instead, I'm going to do them blue but the underbelly will be a grey/blue to at least have something in there that references the old base.

Lastly, for the team positionals, there's the Big Guy, the Kroxigot or, as it's known on this team, the Big Croaker.  This is a beautiful miniature and you get two choices to reprsent the the Prehensile Tail skill that this player has.  The first is a traditional tail but as this is a frig team, that just doesn't sit well with me.  The second is much better and is a long tongue that can easily be imagined as shooting out to trip unwary opposition players.

This guy is much more toad-like than the others and he'll be painted appropriately.  There wasn't really a 2nd Edition base colour for Big Guys but as he's essentially a big Blocker and they're base colour was green, I'm going to do him green with a lighter underbelly.

That's the team and all that's left, for now, is to look at the staff/sideline figures.  All of these look great and we have, from left to right, a referee, a wizard, Head Coach, Cheerleader, Apothecary and a drunken fan who I'll use as Bloodweiser Babe/Keg.

Although they all look great, the star of the show is easily the Head Coach who bears an uncanny and, no doubt, entirely coincidental resemblance to a villain from popular 80's kid's cartoon 'Danger Mouse'.  Quite obviously, he will be painted in the same way.

That just leaves three markers.  A small frog to use as a turn counter/score tracker and 2 tokens for the Big Croaker to use as Prone/Stunned markers.

Right, that's it for now.  The aim is to get then undercoated as soon as I get a bit of dry weather and then make a start of them.  I'm going to batch paint them by position so all the Blitzers will get done, then the Catchers, etc.  I'm hoping I'll be able to do justice to the incredible sculpts and give them a paint job they deserve.  I'll post an update once I have something to show.

Bye for now....

Being Human

This weekend was the third instalment of a semi regular event, Blood Bowel Live, which is held in a pub in London.  There's a group of us who play Blood Bowl, predominantly on the Cyanide PC version of the game, and over the years we've all got into the Tabletop version.  Some of us play more than others but through a common bond forged on the PC game we all get together and play the game as it was meant to played.  Originally we met on the Gamesblog pages of the Guardian newspaper website and when Cyanide first released Blood Bowl we were quick to set up a league - The Blood Bowel.  Over time the league has grown to be the largest continuously supported game played by members of the Gamesblog and at it's height had 30 coaches signed up to play.  Not big by some standards but not bad for a niche game based on a 30 year old board game played by a group of people who's main interest was video games.  It's from that group that a core of about 10 of us decided to meet up and play tabletop Blood Bowl as means of socialising, drinking and playing the game we've come to love and loath in equal measure. It's not really serious and we're all there just to have fun - or as much fun as you can have rolling 1s and swearing a lot.

This time I decided to take Humans, the archetypal middle of the road team.  Jacks of all trades and masters of none.  My team is the Grim Bay Hackers and they had the history to do well.

The event was based on the NAFC rule set so TV was 110 with 6 skills & one of those could be a double. Having said that this wasn't a serious event I did deliberate for a long time over the best roster to take.  Initially my plan was to fit in Mighty Zug as the thought of taking what was basically an Ogre with no Bonehead was very tempting.  On the downside, he was a lot more expensive than the basic Ogre and I lost a lot a rerolls to fit him in.  Then I considered Griff Oberwald.  I've used him before and he worked well but, again, he's a lot of extra cost and I had to lose some players and, again, most of the rerolls.  As good as Griff is, at TV110 he's just difficult to justify.  I finally settled on what I thought was the best balance for the Human team and took 4 Blitzers, 2 Throwers, 2 Catchers (No's 11 & 18), 3 Linemen (No's 69, 21 & 70) and the Ogre.  I had 3 rerolls and 2 Fan Factor.  2 of the Blitzers had Guard, 1 had Tackle, both Catchers had Block and the Ogre was given Block as the double skill.  On paper, it looked OK as 7 of the 11 players on the field had Block, 2 had Block and Dodge, there was some mobile Guard and the Strength of the Ogre. Of course, on paper is one thing and on the pitch is a whole other matter.  I could have dropped a Thrower and taken an Apothecary instead (along with 2 Fan Factor, an Assistant Coach and a Cheerleader) but I felt that the extra man was a better option so went with the 12 man team.

First game of the day was against Ziploc and his Dark Elves.  He loves DaE and has played them in every league and Tournament we've had in the Bowel.  It's all he plays.  His roster was 2 Witch Elves, 2 Runners, 2 Blitzers, 4 Linemen and an Assassin with 2 rerolls.  Skill choices were a little left-field with Pro on a Runner, Mighty Blow and Strip Ball on the Witches, Dodge and Dauntless on the Blizers and Sidestep on the Assassin.  Everything started off really well when I won +2 FAME and the kick off so elected to receive.  After that it started to fall apart quite rapidly.  This was partly due to poor dice and partly due to very poor coaching.  Turn 1 saw the first reroll used on the second block of the game when double skulls popped up.  The second reroll was used in T2 when my Ogre rolled double Both Down.  Rather stupidly I forgot he had Block and so rolled the Loner roll, passed that, rerolled the Block and got the POW I wanted so it was kind of OK but then, after I ended my turn and had time to go back over the previous events I sudden;y realised what I had done.  I was not particularly proud of myself there.  The problem was the Ogre had no skill ring on him - he's based on a large base and skill rings don't fit but I thought it would be OK, what kind of idiot forgets his Ogre has Bock? right?  Then, in T4 my second set of double skulls popped out and that was all my rerolls gone for the half.  Weirdly, once the rerolls had all gone, I stopped getting bad rolls.  Maybe the Zug roster could have worked after all.  I caused a couple of casualties to the Elves and in turn 7 Jarred Mankin ran the ball over the line for the first touchdown.  My joy was short lived as in turn 8 'Slay' Mathews, one of my Guard Blitzers was carried of the pitch with an injury.  So, it was 1-0 to me at half time, I was kicking to the Elves for the second half and I was a Guard player down.  I was in the lead but I wasn't feeling confident.  My confidence dropped even further when Ho-Ho Dixon-Clint was KOd in turn 1 but I managed to contain the Elves until I got the chance to Blitz the Runner who tried to dump the ball off but failed and I soon had the ball in the hands of the team's star Thrower, Aaron Dodgers.  In turn 6 Jarred Mankin dodged free and ran to the end zone, A-Dod ran as far as he could up the pitch and launched a short pass to the waiting Mankin to make it 2-0 to the Hackers.  The last few turns were played out but the elves failed to make any inroads and the game ended 2-0.

I should say at this point that it was my intention to make notes during each game so that I could refer to them when doing this write up.  However, as the games wore on and the pints of beer were consumed I found myself writing less and less.  So, I'm having to rely on my memory and it might be a bit shaky.

Game 2 was against my old adversary Henry Pootle.  We've played many times on the Cyanide game and he's been coming to the NAF championship with me for the last 4 years.  He had decided to bring his Chaos Dwarfs and, in keeping with his reputation as master fouler, he had a Dirty Player Hobgoblin along for the ride.  His roster was a little light as he had decided to take a Minotaur with Block, 6 Chaos Dwarfs (4 had Guard) , 4 Hobgoblins (1 Dirty Player), 1 Bull Centaur, 3 RR and 3 FF.  If the first game started well, this one was the opposite and started badly for me.  Pootle won +1 FAME, he won the kick off so elected to receive and the weather was bright sunshine which would hamper my passing game even more than the Humans AG3 already did.  It wasn't looking good.  The first half was a brawl played out largely in the middle of the pitch.  If one of my players went down he was swiftly stamped on by a Hobgoblin and even with the referees at first ensuring that such deeds didn't go unpunished, Pootle continued to foul throughout the half.  As I expected, it was difficult to break Dwarf armour and my players were, rather predictably, being removed from the pitch.  I put up a strong defence though and the Dwarfs were held to 0-0 at the end of the half.  I received in the second half and Double Skulls re-rolled to Double Skulls in T1, followed by the same in T2 saw my dice cup go flying.  A short walk to the bar and the purchase of some refreshments for us both saw me regain some semblance of composure and the game continued.  More and more fouls were thrown but the refs were now oblivious to what was going on and only 2 Hobgoblins were sent off.  2 more were injured leaving the Chaos Dwarfs without any foulers.  No, they just started using Dwarfs instead.  Several times I managed to almost get away but numbers were very short by this stage and I couldn't get the separation I needed.  At the death a Bull Centaur had the ball and after making 3 GFI's was 1 square short from a TD with no turns left.  The game ended with 2 casualties each and a 0-0 scoreline.  The foul count was 7 for the Chaos Dwarfs and none for me.  It was a very tight game and I'm still not sure how I managed to hold out but it felt like it was deserved draw.  Highlight of the game was the sheer number of times that Pootle forgot he had Blitzed in a turn and would try to do it again.  I'm convinced he has the memory of a goldfish.  On one turn he Blitzed with his Minotaur, then moved a player next to one of mine and then declared a Blitz with his Centaur!  There had been about 30 seconds since he actually blitzed.  Brilliant.

So, game 3 rolled round and with 1 win and 1 draw but no TDs conceded I somehow found myself playing at the top table against Cunningstunt and his Skaven team who were on 2 wins.  His roster was a Rat Ogre with Block, 2 Blitzers (1 had Tackle & the other Guard), 2 Gutter Runners with Block, 1 Thrower and 5 Linerats.  He had taken Fezglitch, the Skaven Ball and chain Star Player, 3 RR and 1 FF.  I can't for the life of me remember what his 6th skill choice was.  Again I lost the FAME roll and the kick off.  The rats received so they could maximise the use of Fezglitch and I kicked off.  I set up a wide defence on the line of scrimmage to frustrate Fezglitch and, sure enough, in T1 he danced around my linemen before finally knocking 1 down and standing in front of my Ogre.  In my turn 1 I got the assists I need, punched Fezglitch in the head KOd him off the pitch.  With no bribes that was him done.  100k for 1 turn of fairly ineffective shoving and you have to wonder if the Stars are really all they're made out to be.  The rats were hard to stop but I brought enough pressure to force the score in T4.  I had a lot of turns to bring the pain but although I was breaking a lot of armour I was only KOing them.  Cunning felt like the dice were against him but, as I pointed out, they all had a chance to come back whereas the player of mine he had injured was off for good.  All my other ice rolls completely deserted me and despite removing 7 players I was unable to score.  The turning point of the game was in T8 when I  got the ball passed it to a  free catcher and he dashed up field to where a Blitzer was waiting in scoring range.  I handed the ball off only needing a 3+ with a RR in hand for jut this occassion.  Of course I rolled a 1 followed by a rerolled 1.  The half ended 1-0 to the Skaven but I was receiving and there were 7 Skaven in the KO box.  Without any Bloodweiser Babes to rely on, Cunning then made 6 out of 7 4+ KO rolls to bring back almost every player he had.  I'll freely admit that moments like that are immensely frustrating and the fact I was behind because I couldn't roll a 3 or more with 2 dice rolls but my opponent sat there and rolled so many 4+ rolls really got to me.  The second half kicked off and before long both my Catchers were gone and I was struggling to make any progress.  Yet another Double Skull block put me in a horrible position and the Skaven soon had the ball to make it 2-0.  The last few turns passed and I was unable to even get the consolation TD to end the game.  A 2-0 loss then but I felt like I played as well as I could and with a bit of luck, or bad luck for my opponent, it could have been different.

So, 3 games and the standard 1W-1D-1L result.  A perfectly average result for a perfectly average team with a perfectly average coach.  What did I learn from the experience?  Firstly, there were moments where I felt like I could really do something with the team only to fall short at the last hurdle.  The lack of any real agility players is a pain when it comes to playing the ball and without any reliable strength players it's not easy taking the fight to a game.  As a team I thought I had picked a good roster and it looks like it can deliver but looks can be deceptive.  I know I need to work on my game a bit more and I think if I get a better handle on how to use the Humans as a team then I'll get more from them.

Secondly, Catchers are great on Defence.  I was worried that the ST2 would be a problem and it was but not where I expected it to be.  On defence they work fine providing mobile assists and you can block players away from them with relative ease.  It was on offence where I had problems and too often I pushed them deep to threaten the opposition and they just got battered.  Even with Block and Dodge losing out to 2 dice blocks from opponents (3 dice from the big guys) is just too much and then the AV7 doesn't stand up well and all of sudden you have no catchers.  I hate, hate, hate that Human Catchers are only ST2 and I can see no reason, either from a thematic point of view or a game point of view to support why they are.  I'm sure better coaches than me can go on at length about how they're not that bad and that they should only be ST2 to balance the team but I just don't get it.  Bar the Wood Elf catchers - and they're essentially forest fairy folk with Agility 4 and Sprint so I kind of get it with them - the Human Catcher is the only other ST2 one in the game. Why?  Both the other human type catchers, the Norse and Amazons, are ST3.  Sure, they have slightly less movement, MA7 and MA6 respectively, but the Norse one has Dauntless!  High Elf Catchers have MA8, same as the Human ones, have AG4 and AV8 and are still ST3!  The Elf team Catcher is arguably the best Catcher out of the box with AG4, MA8, Catch and Nerves of Steel.  They can catch the ball on a 2+ anywhere on the field and they're also ST3.  Like I said, I don't get it.  I know that the latest game from Cyanide has seemingly drawn from the Narrow Tier Blood Bowl work by Plasmoid and the Human Catchers gets AV8 instead of 7 which I can see being good for long term survivability in a persistent League but doesn't really help in a tournament environment.  And if you really want to increase the chances of a Human Catcher surviving a game then reduce the amount Block dice that can be thrown against him by increasing his strength.  Would it really unbalance the team that much?  Apologies for the rant but I've never used Human Catchers in a tournament before and, after this weekend, I'm not sure I would again without much, much more practice.

Lastly, I think I made a mistake taking the extra player over the apothecary.  In the first game it really hurt me when I lost the Guard Blitzer.  I've found that the Humans rely on the Guard they can get and having 2 of them on the pitch is great.  Losing one to be replaced with a normal Lineman or Thrower isn't a real replacement and it was a struggle from that point on.  Yes, I won that game but it was closer than the score suggests and the other two games were demonstrably harder once I lost key positional and even the chance of getting one back would have better than the spare player I had.

So, to sum up, it was a great day with mates with a few beers and some lovely food.  The Blood Bowl was good as well, despite my dice strops, and I look forward to doing it again sometime.

Team Selection for Gert Bowl

The changing room was crowded.  More so than usual as the hulking form of the team’s Troll, Rock Goblin-Eater, had forced his way into the room.  The coach had called a team meeting to discuss the team selection for the next tournament in Brizzle.  He came in through the door and silenced the room with a glare from his one good eye.  When the boys were finally quiet, bar the occasional snap of a goblin bone as Rock chewed his breakfast, the coach stepped to one side and the recognisable figure of Varag Ghoul-Chewer strode into the room.

“Youse all know Varag”, said the coach, “it goes without sayin’ that he’s a star round ‘ere, a super star, and he’s kindly pulled on the red and white a few times dis season to help us out.”  He paused before continuing, “We’ze had a few tournies that haven’t gone well but the last one, with Varag on board, was a spectacular success! If it hadn’t been for da Oomie scum and doze bluddy Elfs we could have won it!”  A great roar rose up from the team and a multitude of fists punched the air.  Some punched their team mates and a scuffle broke out as the boys piled into the fun.  Varag strode into the middle of it and started banging heads together until once again there was silence.  “Saves yourselves for da game!” shouted the coach, “I’ze don’t want no injuries now, I’m gonna need you all fit and healthy for dis Brizzle bash”.  “Right, where wuz I…….Yes! we nearly won but we didn’t.  Better dun dat though, we caused da most injuries and dere’s nuffin we'ze like more than 'urting people.  So, the aim for Brizzle is to try and cause more Injuries!”.  

The coach held his hands in the air and waited for the hubbub to become more subdued.  “So, I’ze picked a team that’s designed to intimidate and annihilate, it won’t be pretty but I don’t want pretty, leave dat to da Elves, I want to smash stuff!”

 Da Coach gives his team talk

He took a piece of paper from his pocket and looked it over.  “I’ze been through dis with Varag, and ‘ere’s where we is:  Ulgan, Da Wall, Slaug & Krank.  All 4 of you Black Orcs is on da bus.  Borgor, Vork, Kruugash and Rurk. All 4 of you Blizers is on da bus too.  To lend more strength to the line, Rock…..Rock…..ROCK! you useless  Troll – youse better pay attention on the pitch, son – You is on da bus as well.  That leaves space for 2 more.  Kruug and Lugash, you Linos is da last of da team.  Everyone else….get out!”

The 11 players left in the room looked at each other with a smile on the lips.  This was a bold move by the coach but that’s why he got paid the big money.  It was going to be tough but with Varag on the team as well it was a formidable lineup.  In all, 5 ST4 players, 1 ST5 and all players AV9.  5 Players starting with Block and no doubt more would learn how to before the game.  Sure, there was only the one team reroll, sure there was no Sure Hands in the team as Osgar, the Thrower, hadn’t made the cut, sure they would be light on skills if the coach made one of them into a Leader but not one Orc there cared.  They were Orcs and they were born to fight!  The fans would love it – 

Da mob, dey came for blood, da mob, dey came for gore!
 

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Crumb Bowl - April 11th 2015

It was the annual Crumb Bowl 1 day tournament this weekend and as defending champion I had lot of pressure on my shoulders.  The Undead boys had performed really well last year when they snagged me the top prize so I was thinking that maybe they should get a chance to defend their title.  Then again, maybe the Gouged Eye should get a run out, they had earned it and could probably do a good job for me. On the other hand, maybe I could get an Elf team and really power game that title defence, show the world (well the 50 or so people in the world that were at Crumb) what a magnificent coach I am.  All were great ideas and I could put together a really strong roster for each.  So, in the end, I decided to throw those ideas away and take on the challenge of playing with a Human team.  The most average team in the whole of Blood Bowl and, to make it more interesting, I ditched the traditional build and hired the mighty Griff Oberwald for the tournament.  Sure, it meant I could only take 1 RR but it's Griff Oberwald, the greatest Blitzer to ever step on the Blood Bowl field, what could go wrong? eh?

The Roster I eventually decided to go with was 4 Blitzers, 1 Thrower, 6 Linemen, 1 RR and Griff.  The skills pack for Crumb was quite interesting this year.  You could have 6 skills comprising of 5 Normal skills and 1 Double skill or, if you wanted, you could trade the double skill for 2 Normal skills on the player in the no.4 slot on your roster thus giving you 7 skills in total.  I decided to trade the double straight away.  The roster I had chosen didn't need it but would really benefit from being able to stack a skill.  So, I took Guard on 2 Blitzers, Frenzy on a Blitzer, Leader on the Thrower (to give me 2 RR for the tournament), Kick on a Linemen (giving me the opportunity to control the game a bit better) and finally I gave my 4th Blitzer Tackle and Mighty Blow.  My thinking was twofold.  Firstly, Tackle can be a bit hit or miss - come up against a team with no Dodge and it's essentially wasted - but if that player can also take a Mighty Blow then even in games where I faced no Dodge, he would still be a threat.  Secondly, if I am facing a player with Dodge, it's usually the low armour, agile teams and the players with the Dodge skill are usually a threat to me.  If I could take them down with tackle then, with their lower AV, the Mighty Blow would help make sure that they stayed down if not take them off the pitch altogether.  That was the thinking anyway.....

The team itself was the Grim Bay Hackers Based in the small town of Grim Bay, at the mouth of the Black Gulf in the Border Princes territory of the Auld World, the Hackers are developing a reputation for themselves. They are a strong team at their home stadium of Lonecrow Field but the real test would be how well they travelled to deepest Wiltshire and the village hall ground of Christian Malford.  The players that made the journey were:

#52 - Clayton 'Slay' Matthews (Blitzer)

#56 - Julius 'Hot' Peppers (Blitzer)

#27 - Edward Laces (Blitzer)

#44 - Jim Stark (Blitzer)

#12 - Aaron Dodgers (Thrower)

#70 - T.J. Clang (Lineman)

#30 - Jack Boom (Lineman)

#69 - Dave Backery (Lineman)

#90 - B.J. Argy (Lineman)

#50 - A.J. Eagle (Lineman)

#21 - Ho-Ho Dixon-Clint (Lineman)

and, of course, they were joined by Griff.

So, with their 1 re-roll in hand and the second re-roll relying on the fact they had to protect their Thrower, the team set off to play.

1st game was against a team of Amazons, the Callous Cowgirls, coached by Cornish.  I've only played against Amazons a few times and I've never really been able to get a handle on them.  His was a strong roster that included [the obligatory] Roxanna Darknail.  I won the FAME and the kick off and elected to receive.  One thing I knew I would have to do was play conservatively, I couldn't afford to be rash and waste the precious re-rolls I had so the Blitzers did all the heavy lifting, Griff swept up behind them and the Linemen just tried to get in the way.  It worked really well in the first half and, helped by the fact that Roxanna rolled something like 4 consecutive 1s to fail leaps & dodges, I went over in T8 to go ahead 1-0.  Second half started really well with a deep kick and I quickly corralled the Amazons onto one side of the pitch, their Thower was forced to run back deep into their half and for 4 or 5 turns I held the line.  During this period, Griff was lurking in the backfield, an ever present threat to any Amazon player that wanted to come into my half.  Then, for reasons I don't even understand now, I committed Griff to the attack and he was hopelessly out of position.  A 1 dice block knocked him down (so much for being a Blodger) and Roxanna raced off with the ball.  I tried as hard as I could to get back to her but she was just too quick and she went over the line to make it 1-1.  I had a few turns to try and get the winning score but it wasn't to be and the game ended a draw.  Overall, I was very happy with how the game played out and the team performed very well.  One silly mistake on my part cost me the win but it was great experience and Cornish was a lovely bloke to play against.  Sadly, I already knew that my defence of the Crumb Bowl title had fallen at the first hurdle but there was a lot more to play for.

Game 2 was against the Wood Elf team of the Glade Runners coached by Speedingbullet.  I won the FAME but lost the kick off and was forced to kick to the Elves.  My Lineman with Kick sent the ball deep and my MB/Tackle Blitzer set about putting Elves off of the pitch.  An early KO to a Wardancer certainly helped but the Elves scored in about turn 4 to go 1 up.  The Wardancer felt he'd had enough that half and decided to stay in the KO box which was good for me and having received the ball I caused a few casualties and scooped the ball up.  Unfortunately, it all went awry and before I knew it Elves had flooded into my half of the pitch and Aaron Dodgers was stranded on his own, with the ball, and 5 or 6 Elves breathing down his neck.  The Frenzy Blitzer pushed one Elf out of the way leaving a narrow corridor for Dodgers to run into and attempt to throw the ball.  Griff was down field, hand in the air signifying that he was open and A-Dod cocked back his arm and flung the ball with all his might.  At this point I should say that I only wanted to get the ball away from the Elves.  Anywhere but where it was at that point in time.  I wasn't looking for accurate, I was looking to move the ball.  It was a desperation play, a million to one shot (well, 1 in 6 but that doesn't sound half as exciting).  I shook the dice cup, slammed it down and said a little prayer - "Please be a 4 or more" - lifted the cup, slowly, eyes' half closed, and heard an audible groan from my opponent above the background noise in the hall.  A 6! Get in you beauty! There's a reason that Dodgers was chosen as the Leader for this team and that was it right there. The ball spiralled through the air tightly and Griff caught it with ease before sprinting off into the corner where he hung around for a bit before crossing the line to make it 1-1 in T8.  The second half kicked off, the Elves were back up to 2 Wardancers (for a short while anyway) and I had 8 turns to thin the numbers and get a second.  Griff once again proved his worth as he rolled back the years and rampaged around the pitch.  The MB/Tackle Blitzer got himself in the mix and the Elves didn't know which way to turn.  I managed to split the Elf team up and Griff again ran free.  A-Dod lived up to his name and dodged free of coverage before launching a long pass to the waiting Oberwald.  I needed a 5 and, of course, I rolled a 5.  Griff made the catch and soon scored the second.  I had a chance for a 3rd later in the game but it wasn't to be and the game ended 2-1.  A great victory against a strong team with a good coach.

One strange thing happened in game 2 that I've never had before.  Both of us lined up for a kick off with 11 players on the pitch.  I had +1 FAME for the game and I rolled the Kick Off event.  Double 6 came up, Pitch invasion!  I hate that event as it can totally turn games around.  Anyway, I only had to roll a 5 to stun some Elves, my opponent had to roll a 6 to knock down my humans.  We rolled 22 dice, 11 each, and not one single player was knocked down!  Not one, I was amazed.  The worlds worst pitch invasion.....ever.  I'm glad though, like I said, I hate the event and I was happy that it had no effect on the game at all.

So, with a record of a draw and a win game 3 came round and I found myself facing The Melvins, a Chaos Dwarf team coached by FistyPete.  This was a tough, tough game.  Dwarfs are hard to beat at the best of times and with the addition of a Minotaur and 2 Bull Centaurs it was never going to be an easy game.  Again I won the FAME and lost the Kick Off so kicked deep to try and slow the Dwarfs down.  My tactic was to hold them up in the first half, stop the score, get the ball in the second half, score in about T6 or 7 and hold them up again.  The first half of this plan worked to perfection and it was 0-0 at half time.  I had managed to take out a couple of Hobgoblins but the Dwarfs were resolute and I had lost both my Guard Blitzers.  I worked the ball up the field but without my Guard and with thinning numbers it was proving rather difficult.  Finally , I had a chance.  A Blitzer was free, A-Dod had the ball, what could go wrong?  Dodgers forgot what it was to dodge and failed the first part of the play.  Balls!  I had a RR though and it was promptly called upon.  This time he successfully made the dodge and set off on his passing run.  His arm came back and again he launched a high, spiralling ball across the field.  It was beautiful, it really was.  Slay Matthews looked up and I don't know if he was blinded by the sun, confused by the fact that he wasn't hitting something or if he was distracted by the Bloodweiser Beer concession stand he could see out the corner of his eye, but either way he fluffed the catch and the ball was on the floor.  It was a disaster but we could get it back......maybe.  The Chaos Dwarfs played a dirty trick at this point and Griff, noble Griff, was smacked in the face with a custard pie.  I was outraged!  To make matters worse they then picked the ball up with a Bull Centaur and ran away!  The devils!  Fortunately he couldn't get far and, with 2 Turns left, Griff hauled himself off the ground, wiped custard off his face and Blitzed the defenceless Centaur for a 1 dice block.  Griff has Block, the Centaur has nothing so, obviously, Griff rolled a Skull.  He then failed the Loner roll and hit the dirt hard.  So hard in fact that he broke his armour and was stunned for the remainder of the game.  That was it, game over.  The Bull Centaur sprinted off to try and get in scoring range.  Last turn of the game and a failed blitz meant that the Centaur only had to Go For It 3 times to score, with Sure Feet.  He ran his full 6 squares, then made the first GFI, a 1!  Sure Feet Re-roll succeed; second GFI was a success and he was standing on the brink of greatness.  He lifted his head high and flared his nostrils, filling them with the sweet, sweet aroma of victory.  He had single-handedly downed the great Griff Oberwald, picked up the ball and now he was on the verge of winning the game for his team.  It was probably this train of thought that led to him losing concentration for a second but, in Blood Bowl, a second is all it takes.  his feet tangled up as he crossed the line and he went down in a crumpled heap.  the game ended 0-0.  I nearly won it and then I nearly lost it,  all in a couple of turns.  Sums up what's great about this game.

It was a fabulous day and I finished 17th from 46.  Not quite the title defence I had hoped for but, then again, not the abject disaster that I feared either.  I won one game because I rolled a 6 on 1 dice roll and I avoided defeat in another because my opponent rolled a 1 on 1 dice roll.  I'll take that.  As they say,  I would rather than be lucky than good.  I'm certainly not good so the luck is all I have.

Congratulations go out to HungDonkeyMan for taking the title this year, to darkson for coming second, Rubick for his third place and to Dionysian for taking the coveted International Glowworm Award in 4th place.  The Stunty Cup went to Shortarse and the Wooden Spoon to Tully.

Crumb Bowl is a really great tournament and has been the biggest one day tournament in the South West, if not the country, for the last few years.  I understand that next year it may move towards being a two day tournament and I would encourage everyone that plays Blood Bowl to attend.  It's well run, the food is great, it's very friendly for newcomers to the game and those with little tournament experience, and because of all that has a great atmosphere.  The more that play next year the bigger it will be and we get to keep one of the best tournaments on the circuit.  Who knows, you might even get to face the Grim Bay Hackers with Griff and it's got to be worth it for that alone.

Full Results:

BUBBA Bowl 2015 - Blood Bowl on a Farm

This weekend saw the Gouged Eye take to the field for their second tournament of the year - The BUBBA Bowl - and in a shocking turn of events their former star and coach, Varag Ghoul-Chewer, laced up his boots and took to the pitch once more to show the young pups how things get done.

The full roster for the weekend was:

4 x Black Orcs

4 Blitzers

3 Lineorcs

2 RR

and, of course, Varag

All of which weighed in at a whopping Team Value of 1.2million.  The tournament also granted every team 5 free Fan Factor and an extra player in the shape of a baby cow whose stat line was MA5 ST3 AG2 AV7 and she came with Loner, Disturbing Presence and Horns.  I'll say it now, I fielded her once in the entire tournament and that was when I was forced to bring her on as a sub due to a couple refusing to leave the KO box for the drive.  I felt that having Varag with Loner on the pitch was risk enough and she just didn't add to my team.  I think she worked well for some rosters but, for me, she wasn't really required.  Maybe I'm an old killjoy - everyone else seemed to have a lot of fun using her although Glowworm flatly refused my request to declare a "Mooo-ve" action when moving her  - but she stayed in the reserves for the almost the whole day

Skills wise, the Orcs were considered a Tier 1 team and I was only allowed to take 4 skills and none of them could be a double.  I ended up going with 2 Block Black Orcs, a Tackle Blitzer and a Guard Blitzer.  I was concerned that only having 4 skills would actually hurt the Orcs and not having access to doubles (or a thrower in my team build) I couldn't get Leader on anyone to give me the third RR.  In actual fact, I think they worked really well.  Yes, a third RR would have been nice and I only won FAME once in 4 games so didn't even pick up many 'free' RR from events but it was ok, I managed the 2 I had quite well.  The biggest problem, as always with the Orcs, is the fact they're very much a Jack-of-all-trades team with no real specialist skills that can allow you to change games.  This became most apparent in the last game of the day but more on that later.

So, on to the event itself.  It was held on the farm of one of the organisers.  Not an old farm or a disused farm but a proper, working farm and the shed where we were playing was only yards from the cow sheds.  The shed itself was cold and, as evening fell, lit by people's iPhones to supplement the few bare bulbs that were in there.  It was however, an absolutely cracking day and the venue just added to it.  There's always a real sense of camaraderie at Blood Bowl tournaments and it was more present than ever as coaches laughed and joked about the weather and we hunkered down into our layers of clothing to keep warm - all of us bar Loki who, as a Scot, found it all a bit warm and played in his shirt sleeves!! Hungdonkeyman, whose farm it was, had roped in his family to help and his wife was getting the urn going as I turned up so we had tea & coffee all day with a plentiful supply of biscuits.  At lunchtime she cooked a wonderful chilli-con-carne with rice and garlic bread for all 30 of us and it ranks up there as the best food I've had at a Blood Bowl tournament.  If it's held there again next year, I'll definitely be returning.

Game 1 - First game of the day was against a player I met last year via Twitter and who has become a good mate.  Hairy Pete, who also runs the Exebowl tournament, had brought down his Chaos team to play the day.  This team being classed as a Tier 2 team had access to 6 skills and the Clawed up Minotaur was a worry from the minute I saw it.  In what became a pattern for the day I lost the FAME roll, won the Kick Off roll and elected to receive.  In hindsight I should have probably kicked but I didn't.  Something to remember for the next time.  I worked the ball up the pitch and the both of us took turn to ineffectually swat at each other before I finally scored to make it 1-0.  Pete worked his drive well and it was 1-1 at the half.  I kicked off for the second half and promptly saw a Blitzer take a rock to the face, KOing him and leaving me with 10 on the field.  I hate, HATE, that event.  At one point I thought I had him and could take the ball away but it wasn't to be and Pete took the game 2-1.  It was a great game, lots of fun and very close.  I don't think Pete would mind me saying that it really could have gone either way.  One dice roll here or there a little different and who knows, the result could have been reversed.  It was nice to play Pete though and despite the loss, I really enjoyed the game.  Oh, as it turned out, the Mino had  rubber tips to his claws in our game and I came out of it unscathed.  In fact, for a game between Chaos and Orcs, the casualty count was a woeful 0.

Game 2 - Second game was against Enderman, the youngest player at the tournament.  He had travelled down with his dad, Sann0638, and quite honestly, his enthusiam for the game should be an example to us all.  His cries of joy as he caused casualties were often heard across the hall and he simply enjoyed playing the game regardless of what was happening.  If there was a "Most Sporting" award he would have got my vote.  I'm old and forgetful and declared a 1 dice block at one stage.  Before I rolled the dice he stopped me and pointed out an assist I missed thus giving me a less risky 2 dice block.  Fair play to him as it would have been easy to be quiet but he didn't and you have to respect him for pointing it out and his dad for passing on the ethos of playing fair.  He played Orcs as well and his basic roster was similar but he took Scrappa Sorehead as his Star Player and he had 3RR, an Apothecary and a Cheerleader.  He played really well but I got a couple of breaks early on, including killing one of his players and managed to take the game 2-0.  It was a lot closer than the score suggests and the fact that he went on to win his third game shows he was a more than capable player.

Game 3 - In the break between games, Glowworm collared me and asked what I was on.  "A win and a loss", I replied.  "Same as me", he said, "We could play next".  "I hope not" was my response.  Now, I love Glowworm, he's a great bloke, well known on the tournament circuit and I always enjoy my games with him.  Thing is, he's in my local league and I can play him whenever I want.  In fact, I played him the Tuesday before the tournament in a practice match for the tournament!  Of course, as game 3 was announced I had drawn Glow.  He had brought his Underworld team out to play with Glart Smashrip and Skitta Stab-Stab in tow.  To my relief, he had decided not to put Claw on his Troll as that had caused me no end of trouble in our practice game.  I was still perturbed to see Skitter again though or, as I like to call him, Skitta the c**t, because he is a real pain.  I tried as hard as I could to get him off the pitch but the bloody thing had mithril armour that refused to break.  Again though, this was a great game and I haven't laughed so much during a game as we did in this one.  We shared a few jokes with MadeofWelsh who was on the table next to us - he particularly like my "Mooo-ve" action joke  - and the game went by quite quickly.  It ended up a 1-1 draw, which I was happy with.  Highlight of the game was Varag picking the ball up and Glow moaning (he didn't mean it, we do it to each other whenever an action succeeds) about Varag getting the ball.  "Of course he's picked the ball up!", I shouted, "He's a fucking Star Player, he rolled a 6!  That's how we roll dice in the big leagues!"  Even Glow cracked a smile.

Game 4 - Going into the final game with a 1-1-1 record I was determined not to lose.  Don't get me wrong, I wanted to win but I was determined that this wouldn't end with a loss.  I was up against Frogboy, a player I hadn't played before but I had seen at other tournaments, and his Necro team.  It had been a long day and we were both feeling a little jaded.  Luckily Lunchmoney was next to us on the table and he was able to provide shortbread to keep us going.  This was the only game that I won FAME but, for the 4th game in a row I won the kick off and, for the 4th time in a row, I elected to receive.  I caused an early casualty to a zombie but he regened so would be back next drive.  I did manage to KO a few and with numbers reduced, Frogboy couldn't stop me scoring on my drive.  The biggest thing for me in the game was badly hurting one of Flesh Golems who then failed to regen. I stopped his drive and the ball was on the floor flanked by 2 Orcs.  He dodged a Werewolf free, stepped onto the ball, picked it up on a 5, dodged out on a 3+ and ran off to score.  I was gutted but fair play to him, if you don't make the play then you can't get the score.  I've done similar myself in a tournament and so can't complain.  On the next kick off I got the ball and had two chances to get the ball into the hands of a Blitzer who would have then scored.  1st time I failed the throw but the scatter saw it caught by another of my players so not the end of the world.  Second attempt, without RR, I failed the GFI to bring the range down to a 3+ throw and that was the game.

I finished my day on 1-2-1 in 19th position out of 30.  I had 4 great games against 4 great opponents and really enjoyed the whole day, you can't ask much more than that really.  The Orcs worked much better for me this time round and Varag was a beast.  Sadly, I don't know many tournaments where I'll be able to fit him in around a solid team, certainly not the NAFC, so he won't see any use for a while but it was fun while it lasted.  I don't have a tournament booked in for while now but hopefully I'll get some more in before the NAFC in Nottingham.  I'm up to 71 NAF ranked games now and would like to hit 100 before the year is out so I had better start looking at the calendar.