Blood Bowl, Gaming

Big Summer Bonanza 2024

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Following on from UKTC 2024 Day 1 and UKTC 2024 Day 2, what better way to wind down than a day of Blood Bowl in Bristol!  Well, many ways, but this is the one we chose, to bring the numbers up to 14 at a lovely little gaming store – Bristol Independent Gaming.  Some pretty decent players in amongst them, with members of Teams England, Wales, Scotland and the mighty Sann Clan in attendance.

I took pro elves (Elf Union) to this one as the first tiebreaker was most touchdowns, so it seemed a bit of a no-brainer to take elves, and mine had been sat on a ranking of 149.99 for a while.  Mulled over a few options on the 115 roster, and went with 4 Catchers, 1 Thrower (risky!), 2 Blitzers and 4 Line, with 3 Rerolls and Apo.  Dodge on 3 Catchers and 2 Blitzers, and a Guard stack on one of the Blitzers.

Alex had a decent weekend with vampires and tried a non-Vargheist roster this time with 6 vamps and 3 rerolls, 2 dodge runners, dodge/block throwers and dodge/block blitzers. 

Game 1 was v 8ulldog’s orcs and he couldn’t buy a break on elf armour, which made life hard, ending in a blizzard GFI over the line without a reroll, which he made.  I then one-turned with a couple of rerolls, which the blizzard made a little tricky but the dice helped!  Second half I had 9 elves, and a couple of orcs left the pitch, so despite trying to block my own path to get enough assists I was able to get the 2-1 win.

Game 2 was v Jip’s Slann, who were looking for revenge after I put them away after the last tournament and managed to break one.  They had snuck the final of the league against Alex’s underworld though, so there were scores to be settled on both sides.

I let him move down the pitch to either force the turnover or early score, and taking more blocks than required meant that there was an easy 2 dice on the ball.  Pushes ensued, and he scored in turn 4.  On my drive I failed the pickup and didn’t reroll, and Jip threw everything at the recovery to get the 2-0, using 4 rerolls in a turn.  He got in a reasonable position with me needing 2 3+ and a 2+ to blitz the ball carrier, which didn’t come off, so I was 2-0 down, but with rerolls to help. Sadly the dice let me down, and I went in 2-0 at the half with an uphill battle to come.

I scored quickly, then looked for the turnover, and Nuffle provided a blitz.  Didn’t catch the ball, but had enough players to do the damage, and it became 2-2.  One failed pick up later by him, and it was 3-2 to me, though I did give him 2 turns to score back with no rerolls.  Time Out!  He failed a hand off, and I was about to scoop up the ball and head off for the 4th when a 1 in 81 reared its ugly head.  2+,2+,3+,2+ and it was 3-3.  Time for another one turner!

3 on the line, and a back line of 7, so the 3 pushes were reasonably straighforward, though did eat both my rerolls, unfortunately, meaning that the white line was able to do its thing and trip me over it.  110 after two games, but with a healthy number of touchdowns, I needed the only person on 2 wins to draw or lose, as Alex and NoNumber had fought out a draw on the next table.

Jip had a better TD difference than me, with the same TDs, so played Doglobro’s Khorne, who were on 2 wins, and I faced Alex’s Vampires in a possible title match.  Tense!

The pro elf armour held, and between us we decided that 3 rerolls were not enough for a vampire team, so when the thralls started leaving the pitch it became difficult for the vamps, and I pulled out a 2-1 win.  The frogs and Khorne drew, so with 2 of us on 210 the trophy was mine.  And boy, what a trophy!   No NAF shield as not enough players/games, but I now have NAF wins with 9 different races, which is quite nice.

Gaming

UKTC 2024 Day 2

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Following on from UKTC 2024 Day 1, which was lots of fun, we were up against Team Wales for the beginning of day 2, and dreaming of great things.

The UKTC hall for the top half of the draw

I played Jayward, a new opponent for me who is likely to be a solid part of team Wales based on his performance this weekend.  He had Orcs, including a feared tackle blitzer.  The first half was marked by him not being able to roll a pow until turn 6, and said blitzer spending a fair amount of time on the floor getting kicked in the head.  He withdrew sensibly, which isolated one of my trees when he went to the flank, but my bizarre numerical advantage meant I was able to force multiple 3+s from him, all of which came off, then a key one of mine failed and he went in for the turn 8 score, and the TTM score was not to be.

There was also a weird situation where I used the same player twice, as a combination of a jump up block and orc removal meant he was facing the wrong way and neither of us noticed until about 20 dice had been rolled.  Luckily we were able to rewind to the position before it happened.  Apologies again!

Second half belonged to the aforementioned orc blitzer, dodging into the cage on a 5 to take out the first fox, then pulling off a 4,3,2,2 to take out the second, leaving the game at 1-0 and a squad loss for us.  Team Wales went on to come second in the tournament, so well done to them!

Round 5 was the fine gentlemen of Two Men One Dice Cup, and I got to play Chilli for my 600th game of NAF tabletop 11s, whose pro elves promptly destroyed me 5-1.  He scored in 3, then took a 5+ into the cage and catch the ball.  I wrestled him down, and the ball popped to the other blitzer, and the game was pretty much over, save for a consolation TTM score and a bit of elf faffing.  Blood Bowl, eh?  A team win though, happily.

Round 6 was the return of the vamps, coached by blackduke on a team from one of my home counties of Somerset, but only 3 rerolls, which Sunday and Monday (more later) has convinced me is too few.  He burned through them super quickly with an impressive collection of 1s, and the game finished on a 2-1 win, leaving me on 303 for the weekend and bottom of our squad, as Chicken23’s goblins went 222 with a better strength of schedule.  Alex (Pegleg/Dementor) smashed the weekend on 510, coming 3rd out of 300 individual coaches on SOS, and Stewbacca had a great 321 with his amazons.

The Sann Clan finished 12th out of 76, which is fair to say probably slightly higher than expectations!  Many thanks to Pipey and the team for a great weekend again, and look forward to returning under Haychdee’s stewardship.

Sann Clan – Stewbacca (Stu), Chicken23 (Tom), me, Dementor / Pegleg (Alex)
Gaming

UKTC 2024 Day 1

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Fun day yesterday, quick Gnome download!  My roster was all the toys, 5 rerolls, 2 coaches, 15 players, with Guard and Block on trees and 4 dodge gnomes positionals, 3 dodge linemen.

Game 1 was Bashto’s vampires.  I’d played a warmup game against Alex’s vamps, with basically the same build, and failed to hurt anything, so I thought as long as I can get some dead thralls it should be OK.  Didn’t happen, sadly.  We played in a blizzard the whole game which was pretty crippling, as well.

He put me in for the first drive, and I was a little sloppy with my screen set up, meaning he could get round the outside with a few players.  Didn’t have the movement to protect the ball afterwards, but 4 dice on the carrier for me was not enough, and he was able to wriggle free and score on my turn 4 when I pushed him to the end zone to prevent the further stall.  A few solid turns put me in easy TTM range, but fluffed the 3+ landing and then they did the AG thing and travelled the length of the pitch in a couple of turns for 2-0 at the half.

The second half was a procession, and it finished 4-1, not a great start and the team lost as well to Tactic and Theatrics, who finished day 1 on 3 wins, so didn’t feel too bad about that.

Game 2 I had snotlings coached by Squigthrower, in our marvellous hats!

He had an excellent devil may care attitude to playing snotlings, and it ended in a 3-0 win for me and a team win as well.  Back in the game!

Game 3 was Necro coached by Gizmo3k on the Scottish Murder Queens team, who is waiting for his gnome team to arrive!  Bit of a relieve to be playing a fairly normal team.  He fluffed the pick up early on, and my fox scooped it up, surviving 4 dice to run in for 1-0 on my turn 2.  I then scored in my turn 4 of the second half, and it should have been fairly comfortable, but he pushed to make it 2-1, and then I did my best to lose by faffing around in the backfield instead of consolidating, but got away with it.  Phew!  A solid team win put us and me on 201 for the day, in the hunt for the stunty trophy and a top 20 finish for the team, I reckon.  A decent showing would also put me world #1 for gnomes, as this is a major, but 3 games to go first, and Team Wales in Game 4, which will be a challenge.  Facing Jayward and his orcs, and hoping he left his tackle behind having seen the racial breakdown (45 orcs!)

Game 5 will also be my 600th NAF game of Tabletop 11s!

Blood Bowl

Thrudball 2024

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Thrudball 2024 will be one for the history books in the Sann Clan household.  Alex broke his leg falling down the stairs about a week before, but we had him with a cast and in a wheelchair, so it was full steam ahead!  Unfortunately, we saw the nice surgeon on Friday, who said we should come in for the weekend for a CT scan and possible operation over the weekend.  We protested that we were playing toy soldiers, but he was quite insistent, so we enjoyed the Sevens and gave up to our fate.

Sevens with Gnomes

I was playing Gnomes all weekend, in order to get the full set of teams (31 now, including Bretonnians – 14 in the world who have done it at time of writing…)  I was the spare man for 7s, as I was running Score for it – a Tree, Fox, Beastmaster and 5 Gnomes.  Pro on the Tree as the captain, then one dodge gnome for each game.

The first game was glorious, played against Stewbacca’s Vamps.  Went slightly pearshaped when my tree did a 1 in 27 to allow a simple vargheist block on my fox, but then he triple skulled to allow me to run in.  Pushing for the score, his backfield vamp blood lusted, so I was able to chuck a gnome in for 2-0.  We exchanged scores in the second half for a 3-1 win.

Second game was Gr4not4 and High Elves, and we both scored on offence for a 1-1, as well as my masterly defending ensuring that he tripped over the white line for me to avoid the losss.

Third was bee333, new to the tournament scene with Imperial Nobility, who duffed me up for a 2-0 win!

Alex was hoping to play some Magic after the tournament, but got sucked into a game of Spartacus, a fun but complicated board game!

Congrats to Elspoonio’s vamps for the tournament win.

Saturday

Headed to the hospital for a CT scan, lunch in the bag, expecting to be there all day.  CT scan done, then told to bugger off home, so we head to Thrud, arriving just after round 1 so played each other!

For the main event I had full positionals, plus Puggy (without his special skill) and gnomes to 14 players, plus 5 rerolls.  I really like rerolls, so this was awesome.

Alex was using Imperial Nobility (benching the Tomb Kings for the moment).  His block Ogre was on fire, smashing through my little guys, for a total of 11 team casualties in the game.  He scored easily, and my throw team mate scattered three times in the wrong direction, so was not to be.  In the second half I was a 3+ dodge away from a decent screen after my fox decided to go for a semi-potato.  The dodge failed, and the ball was loose.  Bit of a scramble ensued, and the match finished 1-0, 11-2 in cas.

Phone call at lunch told us to come in for an operation in the morning, so we had to make the best of the day!

My game 2 was a Gr4not4 rematch, but this time his High Elves were tooled up to the max, with a M9 blodge catcher and a hail mary bomber.  My guys started bashing, with 2 MB block trees and the gnomes able to hit without too much worry of turning over (the joy of wrestle!).  Was feeling pretty comfortable on my drive until I forgot about his bomber sitting in his end zone, and got too close to it, which spoilt my drive and led to his touchdown.

The second half was exciting, as he had very few players!  His fast catcher used his speed to run deep into his half as the rest of the team disappeared, and a TTM assist allowed me a one die on the ball carrier.  POW!  I scooped up the ball, but he still had 3 rerolls, and enough KOs, so I thought 3 turns would be too many to let him score back on, so I decided to risk not getting powed.  Sadly, I got powed, and the game finished 1-0.  Don’t like bombs.

On two losses, I was drawn against ManfredIronskull and his Chaos Chosen, who had a Fezglitch style star (Drunken Thrud).   I received, and the ball and chain was on the line, so my tree punched him to the KO box.  He had two extra arms, and two claws, so with a lack of block my trees and mass wrestle were able to out block him, aided by a few surfs.  This was my first 11s gnome win!

The Thrud auction is an integral part of the tournament, but I knew a while ago that there was a birthday party in Swindon that I was keen to get to, so stayed for a few items and then left Alex with his chums for a bit.  I came back about item 75, so got a flavour of the awesome charity effort, and Alex got to play some Magic!

Sunday

Alarm was set for 6, then we were about to wake Alex for his op when the phone rang and the operation was postponed!  Day 2 for us!  Alex was on 3 wins, so was a bit chuffed to be able to return and go for the tournament win.  Linus (Enderman) was also able to join us, as he was signed up for the tournament but wasn’t feeling up to it on the Saturday.  Because I’m a friend of the tournament I was able to sneak him in, which was kind of the admins – many thanks!

My game 4 was against BigMace’s goblins, a cool squig-themed team with the Thrud Squig – S4, horns and pogo stick monster!  Only 2 rerolls though, and these went quickly, making life difficult for him.  I was able to score pretty quickly, and the bribes started kicking in, such that by the time of the second half there were not many goblins on the pitch, and a lot of gnomes!  This was a 3-0 win against a lovely opponent.

More goblins in Game 5, this time OddGood, and now the wheels really started to come off for my opponent, who had two ball and chain players.  Trees love ball and chains though, as they often aim for trees and miss, which means they are left nearby, and get punched.  Happy days.  This was one of the things that went seriously wrong, along with the goblins getting walloped and failing dodges, and this led to a chunky 5-0 win.

Sadly, having won his game 4, Alex lost to Trondur in game 5, so the Thrud dream was not to be.

I was now on 3 wins and 2 losses, so on a reasonably high table, and faced Nazgob’s 210-ranked wood elves.  He chose to kick to me, and I was able to build a solid drive.  A lot of my rerolls over the weekend went on rerolling take roots, meaning that the trees were able to trundle down the pitch, and combine with the beastmaster guard to make a decent cage, as well as killing a few elves on the way.  The first feasible wardancer leap was in turn 6, and the bounce was safe, so I was able to score.  He had two turns to score back, with no rerolls, and came worryingly close, but I went in at 1-0.

Naz went for the quick score to get the win, but it went wrong with not many elves on the pitch, and the foxes were able to scoop and score, and then a combination of TTM and a gnome passing play (6s, anyone?) meant that this one was 3-0, with many casualties to me.

So a pretty successful weekend, with 11 touchdowns in one day!  I think I was pretty lucky with my fixtures, but the gnomes are pretty solid.  I based or otherwise exposed the foxes too often in the first couple of games, before realising quite how critical they are to the team.

I had a M8 fox, who was ace, and seemed significantly better than M7, as the trees didn’t need to be quite as far up the pitch for the fox to be the scoring threat.

In terms of team build, one guard tree might have been better.  Mass dodge on the gnomes is a no-brainer, there would have to be a good reason not to take it, really.  Lots of rerolls was great, and as I’ve said before it was mostly used on root rolls and the occasional double skulls.

Before the tournament we had recruited well to the Sann Clann, signing up Kfoged and AndyDavo (#2 and #3 in the world), so it was nice to be able to take the trophy home for the best team performance!  Congrats to Davo for retaining the individual trophy.

Another great weekend at Thrud, thanks to all who organised, see you next year!

Links

Thrud Rosters: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/mike.sann0638.davies/viz/Thrudball24/CoachRosters

Coaches who have played 31 races:

https://public.tableau.com/views/NAFGames_0/Prolific?:language=en-GB&:sid=&:redirect=auth&:display_count=n&:origin=viz_share_link

Final standings:

https://www.thrudball.com/thrudball-2024-results

 

Blood Bowl

Alicante Pt 2

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A continuation of Alicante Part 1, unsurprisingly, in which I finished the day on 3 wins and was getting ready to face Caio from Uruguay and his Chaos Dwarves.  The first day stress about finding the buses was alleviated, so everyone was a bit more chilled, and obviously the entrance to the venue was more relaxed with no queues at all.  We found our opponents (5 Spanish and Caio) and cracked on.

An early removal of a bull centaur helped make this a pretty comfortable win, driving down the pitch for an eight turn score and then popping the ball loose after a drive down the flank.  Claudio is a great guy trying to get the BB scene in South America going again after Covid messed with it, so if you’re in that part of the world (which is pretty big, in fairness) then give him a shout.  This was a second team win for us, so we were pretty much mid table after lunch, and this was our first English matchup, including Paul playing Stewbacca, pretty much his closest geographical NAF coach (except his sons).

Lunch was a Spanish omelette made on an industrial scale, which filled me up nicely (though there were plenty of other options, including Ramen and hot dogs, for those who didn’t fancy the queue, the food, or were extra hungry).  It was quite salty though, so I was forced (I tell you…) to indulge in a few more two euro beers.

I was up against Yantz’s Amazons, who played in a slightly unconventional style, running backwards on offence and then getting behind me (which I’ve subsequently found out is a reasonably common tactic with fast agile teams).  This was my first game against the new Amazons, so took a bit of getting used to the M7 and S4 (not on the same pieces) in this game, and then Hit and Run and Defensive later in the tournament. 

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It also took time to get used to Yantz making 6-7 protected 3+ rolls each turn, and failing for the first time in turn 11 (it’s bad for one’s mental health to track these things, I know!  There were passes, hand offs, a million dodges, pickups, all sorts of fun stuff going on, so I wasn’t able to stop the score, and I hadn’t hurt many players (because they hadn’t been in base contact or failed dodges – did I mention that?).

At this point I was on 4 wins and keen to get best Black Orc, so I decided to push for the win and scored in 4 turns.  Unfortunately, the craziness continued, and it turned into my first loss, and double unfortunately this meant we tied the round instead of getting another win!  Congratz to Yantz for messing with my head and breaking my win streak – I’m glad you’re a UK coach so I can get my revenge (come to Thrudball again and you will be grudged…)

We moved one table for the next round, with SKABB Scoundrels staying where they are, and played the Northern Knights from northern Madrid, and an excellent Dark Elf coach in Goldarck, who was on 500 coming in.  I made a mistake early on, where a successful TTM to get a goblin into a useful assist position actually worked, so I tried to put him into position before moving a few other players.  He snaked, and the rest of my team were left stranded, meaning that he had a straightforward 8 turn stall. My drive was hard, in the rain with a deep kick, and it was only saved by his third snake eyes of the game in his turn 16 before he had the chance to try a 4+ reroll dodge to blitz my ball carrier.  Counted myself lucky to draw that one, and it was enough for a narrow team win.

This was a good day for the team, with Kismet bouncing back from 003 to 303 and Dementor going from 012 to 222, as well as a 210 for the team.  Everyone was feeling pretty tired, so we got take away pizza then most headed to bed (or so I thought…) while I popped to the Red Corner to watch England v Argentina, including explaining the rules to some mystified northern Europeans.  Good fun!  Came home to find Dementor and MiniMorg playing Blood Bowl, the loons. (Ed: 1-0, 11-2 win to Dementor).

Day 3 started with a presentation to Galak for his work on developing the Blood Bowl rules,  and it was nice to have everyone gathered near the stage.  We played against an Italian team with a German freebooter, and this was a bit of a tricky game with a clash of Blood Bowl cultures and personalities.  We won, so on to the next after an excellent ham sandwich!  Was laying off the beers today because flying in the evening (or so I thought…), but the social side continued, including meeting people in person for the first time after many online conversations (Christer being a highlight, along with many others).

Game 8 was against a team from Mezquita Bowl, who knew how to play Blood Bowl very well!  My opponent was using a more conventional Amazon team (in skill choice and play style), and ran many rings around me such that I was in serious danger of losing without making many obvious mistakes, and killing quite a few of his players!  Some nonsense saved me for the draw, and another team win, putting us on table 27 for the final round against the NOF Pirates.  This was better than we’d ever expected to do, so we were pretty happy all round.

Game 9 started quite late, which might have been to do with the organisers wanting to make sure everything was sorted, or to do with the software overheating – who knows?  We had to be at the airport for 10, so were aware of the clock ticking, but tried to be philosophical about it as there was nothing we could do about it!

The last round was exactly as we’d have wanted to round off the world cup, with 6 games transcending a couple of language problems to be played in a fantastic spirit.  I was very tired (which is why winning a World Cup is such an impressive feat!), and made an obvious mistake in taking a 3 dice blitz before getting all my players in position, and failed the 1 in 27 to allow him to score.  Fortunately for me though, most of his players were dead, so I scored quickly and then set up for my last drive with 11 v 5.  He defended valiantly, and it came down to a turn 16 3+ pick up to seal the win.

The squad side of the tournament really shone in this one as well, with the first 5 games to finish being honours even, and the 6th game in the balance as MiniMorg fought out a close one v Humans, including his opponent needing a 4+ dodge to blitz, and making it.  The game and the tie were lost, but an excellently fun time was had.  We sat not in order for this one, so I got to hear Paul respond brilliantly to getting one of his trees sent off by an officious ref (for the second time in the tournament!) and make life impressively difficult for his Chaos Dwarf opponent.

We finished probably around 70th (no results at the time of writing), with my results looking good for Best Black Orc and Dementor in the hunt for Best U18, though the latter was very difficult to track.

I was very pleased with my results, relying on dice a few more times than ideal, but some very solid wins as well against good opponents.  I was also proud of the way the team played, both standard wise but more importantly playing the games in a good spirit.  Everyone had a good time, and as we spanned 33 years in age and 550 games in NAF experience, this was pretty awesome.  Thanks to my team mates for a great time!

The clock ticked on and the closing ceremony started at 9pm, with us needing to leave by 10 to get to the airport.  Happily they started with best in race, in a random order, and it was great to win for Black Orcs!  I have a new favourite mug, which will be coming to the next tournament that I use the big guys in.  Just waiting for the NAF upload now to see if I have the world #1 race position as well.  Happy days!

At this point the Easyjet notification came through that my flight had been cancelled, which meant we could stay for the whole ceremony.  Time pressure off, just the pressure of getting home!

Next up were the painting awards, for which the standard was obviously insane, and hopefully some pictures will appear at some point, probably on that Instagram thing that I hear all the cool kids are using.

After that came best U18, which went to Mort-Junior from Poland on 612 with wood elves, an amazing result just nudging past Alex’s 522.  Well done to him!

The individual awards came next (which I always find a bit odd in team championships, but it’s all good fun).  Again, results will be forthcoming later!

The top 3 squads were all ones in the top 30 seeded squads, as expected, though Cocoripow as favourites fell at the last to come in second to the Azes (both French teams from that excellent Blood Bowl nation). 

The closing ceremony then finished with Ulva proposing to Ako, who had organised the tournament together, which was a nice moment to say the least (she said yes…), and it was then time for the last buses back to central Alicante and to the AirBnB, which we luckily still had because half the squad were staying until Monday!

I managed to get a flight home Monday evening, so I’m sitting in Alicante airport writing this after a visit to the fort and some good lunch.  It’s been an awesome trip, and I’m now (of course) planning my next Blood Bowl tournament.  Foul Bowl, anyone?

 

 

Blood Bowl

Alicante Arrival and Day 1

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Silly brain woke me up at 4am local time, so getting my revenge by forcing it to write words!  This is the half time (of my visit) report of the 5th NAF World Cup currently happening in Alicante on the southern Spanish coast.  The WC happens every 4 years and has been growing kind of exponentially since 2007.  I helped organise 2015 in Italy, then was on a competitive team in 2019 in Austria, and this time was with a collection of local and not so local coaches looking to enjoy the atmosphere and have an awesome time (and get best Black Orc coach…)

L-R: Kismet from Little Git Painting, Doddsy (last minute stand-in, signed up on Sunday!), me and Dementor, and father-son team from Bromley MiniMorg and EyeballPaul.

I did some pre-tournament roster analysis, which was fun to build the hype, and it was great to see a load of people who appreciate the Tableau stuff.  Can be a bit like shouting into the void sometimes, but great conversations with people like Drakenspear were had, who was over from Canada.

There are just under 2300 people taking part, and on Thursday it seemed like every bar had a collection of BB coaches in as we wandered around the town centre in the hours leading up to the opening ceremony on the pier at 8pm.  Fantastic to have a central meeting point to meet people like Fumbbl’s Christer, NAF committee members  and the like, who I have lots of dealings with online but seldom see in person.  One of the big differences this time for me is travelling with Dementor, who since the last WC has built an online presence himself as part of AndyDavo’s streaming team and general roster and rules guru, so nice for him to see people in person too.

On Friday the buses to the venue ran from various points around the area, starting from 715, so a nice early start.  Everyone had QR codes, and the line moved pretty quickly to get everyone into the amazing venue, a central playing area surrounded by awesome vendors (Charlie Victor, Hungry Troll, Pedro Ramos etc).  The draw for Round 1 had already been done so game started gradually as people converged on their tables (186 tables of 6 coaches of 2 teams!), which meant there was plenty of time for round 1.  

 

All participants got a great goody bag with tokens and pitch, a felt one which can fold nicely and then go out smoothly, which is pretty much going to be my standard tournament pitch from now on.

Our first match up was against a Spanish team.  My first drive was absolutely golden, bullying dwarves until they lost the ball and I went in 1-0 up and very cheerful about life.  My dice then deserted me, and he scored on my drive. Tried not to get too grumpy, then pulled off a nonsense TTM to pull out a 2-1 win.  They all count!

Lunch was a massive paella, supplemented by the food vendors around the hall.

The queue was pretty massive, but the sun was shining, everyone was chatting, and there was lots of time for lunch, so very little grumbling that I saw.  I invested in the WC beaker at this stage, which allowed 400ml beers at 2 euro a time.  Happy days!

The start of round 2 is always a nervous one for a TO, as it’s the first time of drawing a new round in anger and getting it out on time with no mistakes, and there was a little delay while it got sorted with a few teething problems, but was soon underway.  I was against necro, and my dice issues continued a little, but he scored in turn 5 and I was able to score back when his sweeper ghoul failed to dodge out and sweep.  The second half was straightforward, so another 2-1 win, this time against a German squad, and our first squad win (and only squad win on day one).

The ranking is swiss within swiss, so I was a surprised (and pleased) to be playing a nurgle team on table 1 of our squad match up round 3 against another Spanish squad (who make up a 3rd of the field!). Nurgle is a great match up for black orcs, and I was out guarding him (he didn’t have any…) so with my seven strength  to his five he found life hard going.  It was sweltering heat as well, so his rotspawn missed one of his drives.  The only worrying part of the game was him coming too close to a two turn TD with no rerolls after I scored in my seven – I thought with Nurgle it was pretty safe, but dice happened!  When the penultimate rush failed and his beast felt the heat, I was pretty confident, and ended up with a 3-0 win, including a rare troll touchdown after he caught the ball!

The ball token is great, along with the rest of the swag, and I bought some adhesive magnetic bases for my team, which meant that as the goblins didn’t have any skills it stuck to them.  Very pleased with that.

Unfortunately my win was the only one for the squad in that round, so we finished 1-0-2 for the day.  Time to submarine!

The day finished pretty late, but the buses were there ready to take the troops back to town, and the squad headed straight to bed after a long few days.  I popped to the local Irish bar to watch the second half of New Zealand v France, then settled down myself for what turned out to be 4 hours of sleep.

The organisers have published the overnight standings, which put me around 100th individually, only black orc coach on 3 wins, and the squad just in the top 300.  We are playing a Spanish team in the morning, though led by caio, a coach from Uruguay, who again I have chatted to online through NAF work, and it will be great to play him and his chaos dwarves (another good match up for me, especially since minos don’t tend to have claws any more, and his doesn’t).

Time to see if I can grab some more sleep now, or if a mid-day power nap might be called for during the long lunch break (spanish omelette, yum!).  If you want to know how the napping turns out, follow me on Twitter for more updates (yes, it’s rubbish and evil now, but it’s where updates are…)

 

 

Blood Bowl

Cots for Tots 2023

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Good day at Cots 4 Tots yesterday, which is a 24 hour charity board games tournament. Probably about 250 people in the room and various other adjoining rooms playing a plethora of games, including a 3 game BB tournament. Duffins started it off a couple of years ago and Simon ran it this year with 18 competitors, so not quite enough for a NAF shield, but pretty much the right number to find a winner with 3 games.
I took Black Orcs, hoping that a positive record would push me above 200 after my recent successes with them, and providing a good launch pad to overtake Panzer as world #1 for Black Orcs. With the obvious caveat that ranking don’t mean very much, it’s still a fun target!
 
I mirrored my World Cup build but with two fewer guard, due to fewer skills and no spamming allowed, so black orcs with block/MB, bloc, 2 guard and a tackle. 2 bribes, 2 rerolls, 13 players. First run out for the new Charlie Victor bands too, which was fun!
The field was half locals and half tournament regulars, and the clan were out in full with Enderman taking his favourite necro and Dementor using Griff/Zug halflings.
First game was against Nazgob, Chaos Renegades with Lord Borak, and a stacked Dark Elf with Block/Dodge/(third skill. Tackle?). Sadly for the game, the Officious Ref decided to send him off at the beginning of the game, which spoilt it as a spectacle. Early pressure meant that the potato was the only option, and because the marauder didn’t have any skills it didn’t work, and then it was a bit of a procession for a 3-0 win. Very few casualties though, just a lot of KOs, which was enough to win the game but not good for tiebreakers (net TD + net cas).
Game 2 was against Dan’s Wood Elves, which was a nice change as they don’t turn up much. I kicked and he surged forward, but left a two dice option on the blodging catcher, and I promptly rolled a pow. A bit of chaos in my back field ensued, ending up with me having the ball with just enough squares to make it to the end zone in four turns. At half time few KOs came back, and both wardancers were dead, so we finished 2-0 in 1 hr 15 mins, and time to learn and play some other board games!
We came very close to all the Clan being on 2 wins after two games, but fungus flinga bomb KOd Griff and spoilt that plan. There were 4 on 2 wins, and by luck of the draw I avoided Enderman, instead facing FreezingStar and his Elven Union. I’d thought about EU as my NAF ranking with them has been parked on 149.99 for a long time, but there was not enough Dodge in the build for my liking!
This was a great game, made great because of my inability to hurt elves and a quality opponent, so it was a mighty struggle to wade through the dodging pointy ears and their cage diving half dicing madness! We started with a black orc catching the ball, but he didn’t last long and the goblin who picked it up had to deal with many dice on him, somehow surviving right until the elf turn 16, and ready for a glorious finish to the tournament.
The ball popped loose, bounced into space. Gloriel (for it is she!) scooped it up and prepared for the Hail Mary punt, needing a 5 in a tackle zone for the 1-1 draw. 4, reroll 4, and the wildly inaccurate pass ends up in the end zone! Goblin dodges free and scoops it up for 3 wins in the tournament, and as table 2 drew there were no need for tiebreakers.
I finished first, Enderman third and Dementor/Griff most touchdowns with 9, despite not scoring in game 2. I picked up an Amazon team that should allow me to bring my team into BB2020, and Dementor got some Dwarfs, with trophies for both of us!
Will be in the diary for next year whether or not the BB runs again, I think!
Blood Bowl

NAFC 2022 Day 1

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Semi-traditional mid tournament roundup from me, though with a twist as I spent yesterday streaming from the NAF Championship instead of playing.  This was an absolute blast, and will hope to do it again soon!

The kit was provided by the Tabletop Sports Network (tSN), who were also streaming live to Twitch and will be putting the videos up on their YouTube once the dust has settled.  These guys are proper tabletop streaming pros, and having a two-person production team made the whole thing an absolute dream.  We had two games on the streaming tables, with Scrivo sitting next to them and giving occasional factual updates, and Rob on the production desk controlling the stream and the movable cameras, while I and a guest commentator talked about the action – absolute pleasure to be joined by Sizzler, Deeferdan and Leipziger for the 3 rounds.

We chose the games for interest, featuring some top players, international players, interesting races and famous faces from around the BB world.  On Sunday as the tension builds we’ll feature one of the top tables from each round, and then the Grand Final at around 3.15 BST.

May be an image of text that says "NAF THE 10TH NAF CHAMPIONSHIP 2022 SATURDAY 30th April 2022 ROUND ONE: 10:00 12:15 ROUND TWO: 13:15-15:30 ROUND THREE: 16:00 18:15 SUNDAY 1st May 2022 ROUND FOUR: 09:30- 11:45 ROUND FIVE: 12:45- 15:00 ROUND SIX: 15:15- 17:30 ALLTS ALL TIMES ARE BST Catch it live twitch.tv/tsportsnetwork tSN"

So what games are we likely to see?  After 3 games we are down to 19 players on 3 wins, so two of them will be in the final.  This is how round 4 is looking.

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In the mix notable names include Team England players petew (current Captain), geggster and joemanji and Twitch streamers RickWreckless (on the stream for game 2 Saturday), purplechest and JBone.  The South West of England is well represented by ceetee, Jip and whitey (local derby on table 8!), as well as Loki who is both from the South West and a member of Team Scotland (hence the kilt). 

Sporran is also from Scotland (obviously), and along with freezingstar, iantheace, el_spoonio and Dragonborn are representing the “newer” contingent with fewer than 100 NAF games under their belts.  Scouseboy and Lyracian meanwhile could be ones to watch, both previous NAF tournament winners.

GrumpyMaestro has an interesting backstory, as he’s a Team Scotland member who has decided to retire from Blood Bowl and is selling off all his stuff – a NAF Championship win would be a great way to go out!

Finally an honourable mention for fatgandalf who has been rewarded for his record of two wins and a draw by being chucked in with the 100% crowd and a game against a double NAFC winner!

Hope you enjoyed the updates, it’s looking like another glorious day in Nottingham, so please do join the stream, or follow along on Twitter or Facebook.  There are also many photos available in this Google album (thanks Lunchmoney!).

Blood Bowl

UKTC 2022 Day 2 Roundup

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Following on from part 1…

Game 4 was against the Swedish Whine Squad, and a bit of as pasting as a team with only Ronaldbeanio managing a win.  The critical moment of his match was his chaos dwarf opponent setting up with 12 players.  It took until turn 2 to notice, so the mino was promptly sent off!  After a check of the FAQ and a roll of a 6, luckily for him he went to reserves rather than off the for the rest of the game.

I was against orcs, and was a bit disappointed when my line of scrimmage all left the pitch, along with the blitz target, so 4 off the pitch in turn 1.  It was a struggle after that, with the only glimmer of hope being when a 2 dice blitz was left for my bloodspawn, who promptly rolled a useless double both down.  Bizarrely, my one turn score attempt was again marred by a freak kick off result as an officious ref took out a key cog in the machine.

In the second half he rolled a blitz on the kick off and killed my bloodspawn, so I was a little sad.  Made good progress up the pitch but an opportunity to surf two of his blitzers didn’t come off and I was left in a pickle.  The wheels quickly came off and the last 4 turns were a write-off.

As a team we then headed back to the lighter, airier and quieter second room and played the Fumblebrewskies, though one of them had to head home so Bron had a bye.  He was offered a NAF ranked game but decided there were better uses of his time.

My opponent’s skaven team mostly decided to leave the pitch, though a single lineman put up stiff resistance and scooped up an unhelpful scatter to score, meaning the pressure was on to score quickly in my half and then turn him over.  Luckily, he was out of rerolls, so a single dice skull finished his drive quickly.  Ronaldbeanio had a torrid time against a goblin bomber, but it was a comfortable team win and we were back in the darker, stuffier and louder top room.

Squad Tzeentech were part of the Squad Chaos collective, and were all playing greenskins – Orcs, Black Orcs, Underworld and Goblins.  I was against Throgg’s Underworld and his uncooperative Troll, who decided to start the game with a double skulls.  This led to a fair amount of pressure, but the gutter managed to sneak free and survive a blitz, only to fail a 3+ dodge on the next turn, so I was able to go in 1-0 at the half and in a comfortable position, only marred by my bloodspawn having been fouled to death.

The second half should have been straightforward, but was not to be, as a two dice uphill on my blockless ball carrier popped the ball free.  Luckily the scatter was favourable, and eventually ended up on one of my Bloodseekers, only for another two dice uphill to again work!  A goblin sneaked in to retrieve, and then survived a five dice blitz to head for the end zone, though couldn’t reach it.  He didn’t survive the next three dice, but by this stage the gutter runner was standing next to him, and was able to catch the bouncing ball then run in the 4+ 2+.

More about that gutter runner, however. Earlier in the drive he got stabbed to the KO box due to a Prayer to Nuffle, and like the nice person I am I reminded him a) that he had an apo and b) that he could change the KO into a Stun!  Won’t be making those mistakes again (kidding, of course I will).

Similarly, didn’t help Ronaldbeanio’s cause when I reminded his opponent that Goblin Trolls are now 3+, though that counteracted an earlier correction about a 6 on a Throw Team Mate not affecting the Scatter.  Probably brings up an interesting philosophical point about when it is OK and not OK when spectating to point out a rule misunderstanding.  I assume it’s usually for the best!

3 draws and a win for Barnacles meant a team win, and we finished on 312, which was certainly respectable.  Barnacles was Star of the Car on 402, Ronaldbeanio and I both on 231, so a positive result, and Bron on 213 or 113 depending on whether you include the bye…

All in all, a most excellent weekend.  Team tournaments are the best, as I’ve said before, and this was a good one with a good team!  I’ll definitely be using Khorne again at some point, as the mass Frenzy is much fun.  Obviously they need a couple of beer pigs to be a fully rounded team, but you can’t have everything…

Blood Bowl, Gaming

UKTC 2022 Day 1 Roundup

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The day dawned bright, clear and cold in York as over 300 gamers convened in York University’s Exhibition Centre for the expanded UK Team Challenge (not Championship, I’ve just found out).  Pipey’s flagship event is one of the stars of the UK calendar, and many of the people attending had not been to an event since the last one two years ago, or attending a tabletop event for the first time. Great stuff!

The Swindon and Wiltshire BB League (SAWBBL) team was made up of myself (Khorne), Ronalbeanio (Orcs), Bogenhafen_Bron (Black Orcs) and Barnacles (Chaos Chosen).

Round 1 was against CLAW, gamers from the frozen North (relative to us).  I was using my Impact Siringit as proxies for “The Khorne of Africa”, with a block Bloodspawn, 2 Block and 2 Guard Seekers, Extra Arms Khorngor and 2 Block linemen.  12 players, 3 rerolls, no apo.

First game was against Yersinia (NAF)/PorterSorter (Twitter) and his Imperial Nobility, the nemesis of Khorne with all the Fend and Stand Firm.  A spectacularly frustrating first half led to me putting my grumpy face on, with no armour breaks and a 1 in 81 turnover as I attempted to surf his Leader, one of the few players I’d be able to surf.  Went in 1-0 down, but then the dice took pity on me as the rain started to come down and the kick off scattered next to the sideline.  The inevitable failed pick up and scatter off the pitch delivered the ball, and I strolled in for the draw.  Luckily the rest of the team won, so a solid 3.5 – 0.5 win in the first round.

This took us into the main room after the random first round (bottom tables are in a second room with a fantastic view, due to the expansion) and up against the ECBBL Blackshirts, a team from one of the UK’s most competitive leagues.  I was against SteAirey’s Chaos Chosen, so it was always going to be a ruck.

I displeased Khorne early on by taking a both down with my Bloodspawn where we both had block instead of taking a pow, because the follow up would have taken me next to his minotaur.  He showed his wrath by howling with pleasure as the minotaur’s blitz sent my big guy to the dead box.  Uphill struggle time!

Being on the back foot, I decided that aggression was required.  A nice chain push would have opened up his cage if a beastman had been removed from the pitch, but wasn’t quite to be, so instead I fully committed and trusted in the dice, leading to the mess below.

2-3 turns of really tight BB followed, including the ball popping loosed, but eventually I ran out of useful players, and with a nice hand off he was able to score in his turn 8.  I attempted the frenzy one turn score, which had him worried, but a pitch invasion and only having 8 players scuppered me.

Second half started trickily, with a brilliantly placed Guard Chaos Warrior making life spectacularly difficult, but a lucky one dice pow opened up half of the pitch and I was able to equalize for the draw.  One of the best games I’ve had in a few years, and a reminder of what an awesome game this is.

Another win for Barnacles, a tie from Ron and a loss from Bron meant a creditable team draw, and a match up against the Welsh Dragons!

My opponent was the Welsh captain and lovely chap 20phoenix with Undead.  My drive was predictably difficult, saved at the end when my Bloodspawn removed his Guard Mummy, failing regen.  His team pretty much imploded in the few turns over half time, and he did well to score in his turn 4.  With my Khorngor off the pitch I was relying on Linemen to score – the first pickup failed but I squeaked in for the turn 16 win.

Sadly it was the only points for the team as AndyDavo and Boneless (Hawca) snuck close wins over Barnacles and Ron and Hellboy mercilessly battered Bron 3-0.

We finished the day on 1-1-1, comfortable midtable, but most squad casualties! (I think).  Excellent curry in York joined by Twelfman, Wobert and Rubick, then a fairly early night in the excellent AirBNB. 

Back to the front shortly to take on the Swedish Whine Alliance!  I’m off squad bottom table, and ready to rumble.

All draws, tables and so on available at https://www.bbuktc.com/drawsandresults/ – pleased that ExScore seems to be coping with the 320 entrants, even though someone did their best to break it at lunchtime, which was a bit hairy!

I’ll be continuing to Tweet throughout the day, so follow along, and put the date in your diary for next year.