Thrudball 2024

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.