Inspired by listening to the mammoth tournament report on the Anything But A One podcast, and given that I had been encouraging Tournament Organisers to submit a report, I thought I should write up my tournament experience.

I took High Elves, inspired by the ABAO Podcast Highest Elf challenge, so had Eldril, 2 catchers, 2 blitzers, 1 thrower, 2 rerolls, then Leader, Frenzy, Tackle, and a couple of Dodge on the catchers.  The boys came too to this one, Linus taking Humans with Griff and Alex taking Skaven with Skitter.  Lots of star player fun!  There were 5 other High Elves, a load of Skaven, and very little bash.

Started the (freezing) day wearing a crown and playing Hobnail – the crown was to be worn by the Highest Elf throughout the day, and I got to start with it for some reason.  Hobnail had Glart and a load of Skaven, and he received and scored quickly.  I dominated the rest of the half, removing skaven, and then my ratty friend managed to pull off a 1 in 50 play to knock down my ball carrier, long bomb the ball to Glart, and go in 2-0 at the half.  Bad times.  The second half was the best kind of crazy BB, with me having a massive numerical advantage but chasing the game, and we finished 2-2.  Good fun!

At this point I was not the Highest Elf, as all the others had one, and I wasn’t even the highest Davies, as we came away with 2 draws and a win from round one.

Itchen’s Goblins in the second half, the second lot of Elves for him – feeling happy with my choice of skills, but not overconfident as he is a marvellous coach.  Started with a blitz, happily, and managed to get under the ball.  He did recover, but couldn’t get enough players back to help out (eg the trolls and fanatics on the line), so went 1-0 up early.  He then pulled off the TTM play, after I left it ridiculously open (must have been feeling generous), but I pulled off a one-turn chain push score for 2-1 at the half, which I think was my first one in a tournament.  And the scored stayed at 2-1, as I failed to score on offence for the entire second half!  Made a few bad decisions, including a rage 3-dicer against an annoying gobbo who I then pushed against my ball carrier.  Idiot.  Nice game though.

The High Elf battle then started for real, as I faced back-to-back High Elves in my last two games.  First up was Nightwing, who had both Eldril and Dolfar, but no rerolls.  He went for quite a risky score early on, but fumbled the pass, and then a combination of surfs and decent armour rolls meant that I was in control for most of the game.  Not that there was much of a game, as I won 4-0 in 50 minutes.  Played in a decent spirit, but a bit of a mashing.

Rubick’s High Elves came next in a top table clash – same rosters, but
he had a Strip Blitzer and then a lot of Dodge.  He caged up early with a tight cage surrounded by a couple of looser players, but I went in fairly close.  The looser players had a bit of a gap, so Eldril gazed the corner and an audacious 1-die Pow followed by a casualtied Eldril again put me in control, and the rest of the game was a bit of a procession, with Rubick cursing High Elves to the moon and back, but in quite an entertaining way!

So a great tournament for me – won the tournament, also got most TDs, third most casualties, and Highest Elf.  Thanks to Loki for organising and the Pharoahs team that I won!  Linus won a team as well, in the raffle, and is keen to paint them up (Ogres) to try and win most casualties at Exebowl for the third year in a row.  Alex finished midtable, so a good result all round.

Nice to give the high elves a run out, may still end up playing them at Eurobowl with their tier 2 boost, otherwise I will play the same team for the rest of the year, whatever the McCaptain decrees!