How about some Dungeonbowl?

Yes, how about?
 
As I've had the chance to mention a few times in past posts, we at NABBO League enjoy playing a bunch of other games between our official league competitions.
It's a nice way to get to know other games, put to use some of the non-bloodbowl related miniatures we all have, and have a good time amongst friends.
All while scheming and plotting for the next NABBO league competition of course!

One of those games we play, is a home version of Dungeonbowl - a very short version of it where several coaches may play at the same time, each controlling a big guy, and as in other DB type games, each has the herculean task of finding the ball hidden in the chest, and carry it safely to his end zone, all this while the opposition tries to stop it anyway they can - including throwing chests at each other...

Anyway, I did a post a few years back, with a WIP photo report of the building of the dungeon, and in that report I mention a couple of fellow Talk Fantasy Football mates, over their own forum threads on Dungeon Bowl.
One of them - yggdrasil,  has recently put together most of the info he had in that really long thread in TFF, joined a ton of other photos and info about the game, and made a fantastic web site with it: 


DUNGEONBOWL : ASTROGRANITE EDITION

 In there you can find and download several rules pdfs (from the 1989 original ones, to his own adaptation to them), read fluff and game reports, and last but by no means least see photos of his beautifully converted and painted teams for many colleges of magic, along with quite a few extra stars, monsters, and a ton of other stuff that crawls in Dungeonbowl dungeons!
Awesome.

Miss it at your own peril, that's all I have to add to it!

Have fun,
Axtklinge

Sad news for Blood Bowl :(

These are just sad news for the Blood Bowl players around the world  :(

"This is a very special episode of Zlurpcast. No jokes here. We somehow managed to get a former higher up at Games Workshop on the line to tell us the REAL future of the game we all love, Blood Bowl. I’m still in shock how we managed to get this interview. Many have speculated about a new release and/or a new set of rules. What you find out about the future of Blood Bowl in this interview will blow your mind to tiny bits. Listen now, before the Empire forces us to pull it down!"

Chaos Cup 2013

"There is still a really cool giveaway I'm working on for this year that hopefully I can give info on within the next couple weeks.

So you get the coin, the dice, the patch (coming soon), the Chaos All Star Apothecary...and who knows what other surprises!


Do not miss CHAOS CUP 2013! These giveaways are exclusive to attendees and I cannot promise I'll have any extras leftover after the event."

Snotlings? Really?

I made a chaos team, the Death Valley Destroyers, to play my best friend Rich.
I'm suffering with a broken back (in 2 places) and Rich came over to have a game and cheer me up, problem was, he bought his snotling team...
Now, what you think of as a ogre team with snotlings, and what rich is tinkering with, a snotling team, are very different animals.

The team, as it appeared in Citadel Journal, is 0-4 Trolls and Snotlings.
I don't remember how the roster entry is worded, but the snots have the ORIGINAL titchy rule, i.e. after placing the first 11 on the pitch, roll 1d6-1 EXTRA Snots.
That's potentially a lot of the little green buggers.
Now, I like "unofficial" rosters. I think, as long as they are balanced (I know, I know), the more the merrier.
That being said, this snotling team is tough. and no mistake.
I won't go through a play by play, because that's not the point of this blog post (and I lost), but I'll give you a few highlights.

I kicked to rich on the first turn.
He used 3 Trolls and 8 Snots. Then he rolled for the EXTRA snots and got a 6, so 5 more on the pitch for a total of 11. Even at ST 1, that's a lot of the little pains.
His Trolls didn't do much but stand around and pick their noses, but Rich threw a 3 die block against my mino and not only he went down, he got KO'd. You read that right!
He did'nt even attempt to cage up. and since he rolled pretty good for extra snots most of the game, he just flooded my backfield with the snots, so I was dodging a lot (and failing a lot).

The final result was 3-1 and it was'nt even close. Too many dodges, and there are rules for "pogo snots" that he did'nt use. That may have given him even more touchdowns.
It was a fun game, but I don't know about how the snot team would hold up in league play.
They break easy, but cost little.

Sandstorm Devils - Converted slann team

As many of you Blood Bowl fanatics know, one of the latest three races that the Blood Bowl Rules Committee (BBRC) endorsed were the Slann.
In the their (BBRC) fluff paragraph, they are described as "an ancient race of space travellers", where amongst their kind some "more energetic members enjoy travelling the realm and playing Blood Bowl".

With their skills (Leap and Very Long Legs on everyone of them), and this "ancient space travellers" kind of look in mind, I´ve decided to have a go at them using a box of GW kroot gifted to me a looooong time ago, for which I've (happily) never found any use before.

 

 The conversions for most players were very simple (clipping off the weapons, some repositioning of the arms and legs, and some green stuff to fill the gaps).

One of my major concerns was to be able to clearly separate all the positionals (Liners, Blitzers and Catchers), so I've kept the Liners fairly 'normal', while giving all the armour to the Blitzers, and the most acrobatic positions to the catchers.


To make sure they would 'stay in place', many of those with more dynamic poses needed to be pinned, and have a bit of wire inside their support leg, to make sure they wouldn't break if hit by and dice out of of control...




With the core of the team settled, I still had to find a suitable Big Guy (Kroxigor) for them, but since I wanted to keep the cost of the team low, and within the theme, I've nailed a cheap plastic Rat Ogre from evilbay, and sculpted his head from scratch, facsimileing their younger (and lighter) brothers heads.
The prehensile tail of the Rat Ogre was spot on, since the kroxigor also has one, so it saved me some work there!

An undercoat and a few splashes of ink later, they were ready to step into the pitch and have a few games in our local league, the NABBO League!
Oh and speaking of ink, besides the distinctive poses I've decided to also give them different coloured "barbed spines" (those sharp things on their heads), to make 'em easier to spot on the pitch, both for me and for whomever I'm play with.

 Here are some of the Liners, with their more 'normal' (jack of all trades) poses, and distinctive blue head tones...









The Blitzers get red/orange heads and a some armour to set them apart from their team mates...

 ... and the last contenders, the Catchers, get yellowish beaks and purple tones on the head spikes.








For the Big Guy, I felt it would be about right to give him the very same tones of the Blitzers, since he's supposed to be a 'strength' element in the team (a bit like the blitzers).

As a final touch I've built a "Turn" counter for the team: a banner inspired in Japanese crests, representing the distinctive the barbed spines in their heads.

 

Hope you like them!

Deathbowl X - result = 5th/24 (without a win!)

Check out my preamble to Deathbowl X here.  I did make a last minute change to my roster, dropping Strong Arm on the troll and Catch/Sprint on the goblin to give the goblin Pro and +MV.  Thinking back upon it now I wish I hadn't of changed my roster as I was always failing the catch or the throw. Hindsight is 20/20 but I didn't even think of probabilities in terms of actual opportunities (ie. I wanted Pro to reroll the landing, however it would have been better to make the catch roll easier with a full Catch skill reroll rather than Pro, and Strong Arm would have meant a 2+ throw instead of 3+ - which would have given me more chances to attempt to land and I should have just worked on saving my rerolls for that instead.  Ah well - maybe this means I take the original roster next year!

Game 1: 1-1 tie 3-1 CAS

My direct opponent was Matt, playing High Elves. To my left was Manuel also playing Orcs and to my right was Leathan playing Wood Elves.

Started on table one, which at this point seemed a blessing but by the end of day one was a curse.  It's impossible to sit down at this table due to it's height so I spent all day standing!  In this match I quickly decided it was best to focus on Leathans wood elf linemen so I could get them down and get some casualties.  I got 2 pretty quickly but then had to wait a long time for my third.  Leathan has won Deathbowl the past 2 years running so I wanted to make sure he didn't get a good start.  Debatable whether that helped him get to 2nd by not playing at top table or not, but in any case, right near the end of the game I made sure to help Manuel by blitzing one of Matt's players off his black orc so he could score the tying TD vs. Leathan.

I ended up with 5 points from this match.  1 for tie, 2 for having most CAS on the table, 1 for having 3+ CAS and 1 for sharing most TDs.

Game 2: 0-2 loss 3-2 CAS

My direct opponent was Mark H playing Humans. To my left was Peter playing Dark Elves and to my right was Colin K playing Skaven.

I wasn't too surprised to still be on table one, since I got lots of bonus points.  Mark's team was well composed with a ST5 blitzer with juggernaught as well as a MV10 catcher.  He and Colin made a good team, nullifying myself and Pete throughout most of the match.  I was very unfortunate to end a great turn one (first blitz = CAS vs. Colin) by eating my goblin.  Mark was very fortunate to have the ball bounce right next to his thrower (from the crowd/wall twice) after Pete failed a Leap to score vs. Colin and was able to run in his first TD without any blocking required!  Both he (again!) and Colin managed to score throughout the second half, so in the dying parts of the game, in order to screw Colin out of 2 points for the win, I threw the ball in front of Pete's blitzer, giving him a walk in TD and resetting the board. At this point Colin had 2 turns and I was willing to throw a ball to him, to then return those points but screw Mark out of the bonus points for most TDs on the pitch, but not surprisingly Colin didn't trust me and tried to get the ball himself, failing the pickup.

I ended up with 3 points from this match, 2 for most CAS and 1 for having 3+ CAS

Game 3: 1-2 loss 4-2 CAS

My direct opponent was Rod playing Skaven. To my left was Mark H with his Humans and to my right was Alex G also playing Orcs.

OK, NOW I am surprised to still be on table one.  CAS is apparently the way to go for bonus points so I am likely going to alter my plan away from the Slaan next year.  In this game Rod was really unfortunate not to score a couple times, with his gutter runner either dropping an accurate pass or failing the last GFI to score.  I also lucked out that in the later stages of the first half, nobody realized how close my goblin was to Rod's endzone so with a simple hand off, I ran the ball in and scored without even so much as a dodge or GFI required.  At this point I thought I had a good chance of progressing to play on top table again on day two, however in the second half, trying to throw a goblin twice ended up giving Rod easy TDs and he took the game 2-1.  I had maybe 5 TTM attempts this game and only once did I even get to roll to land the goblin which failed.  4 unsuccessful catches.

I ended up with 3 points from this match, 2 for most CAS and 1 for having 3+ CAS

Game 4: 1-4 loss 4-2 CAS

My direct opponent was Leathan with his Wood Elves.  To my left was Matt with his High Elves and to my right was Peter with his Dark Elves.

Again in this match I wanted to make sure Leathan didn't do well as there was definite possibility of him winning the tournament for the third time if the top table drew a bunch or he got a bunch of bonus points.  As it was I think that first tie in the first match just kept him out of 1st place (whew). Which was good because during the match, Matt took offence to me blitzing his catchers who he setup behind my LoS and CAS'd then fouled 2 black orcs out of the game.  He also went for it early but unfortunately his blitzer who knocked the ball loose caught the bouncing ball, which gave the impetus to Leathan with a big gap Matt had created, and it was quickly 1-0 Leathan.  Pete early on tried to return the favour by throwing a ball right in front of my blitzer to screw Leathan but luck or perhaps karma meant my blitzer bobbled the pick up and saved Leathan from a TD.  Later on, Pete did help me get a TD but it was too little too late since Leathan had a 2nd already and Matt kept fouling me to death, causing a casualty against my troll and removing my OTT TTM option.  Right near the end of the game I got my 3rd CAS (+ a bonus 4th).

I ended up with 3 points from this match, 2 for most CAS and 1 for having 3+ CAS

So I ended up with 14 points which tied me for 4th place and put me in 5th on tiebreakers, without even winning a game and with only 1 tie!!  WOW, so that's taught me something.  Colin K ended up in 3rd behind Leathan so mission accomplished to keep the Keilars off top spot.  If Stephane had managed to tie Colin late in game 4 on top table (Rod stopped him by scoring first) I think there was a chance I could have squeaked into 3rd place, however thinking back now I am pretty sure that then Stephane would have gotten 3rd.  Still I was very close to the podium without a win which was quite the feat.

I ended up winning Most CAS with 14, and due to finishing 16th last year (was 6th in 2010 - but last year everyone was ready for my Slaan) and 5th this year I also won Rising Star.  All in all a great fun and successful tournament for me.

dual posted on GWpertinent

Deathbowl X - year of original six

So I am pretty pumped about this weekends trip to Ottawa for a special edition of the Deathbowl tournament. First off, Deathbowl is awesome fun, 4 teams/2 balls/1 pitch - you know it's madness.  Second, being year 10, instead of it being "year of" a single race, it is year of the original six.  So if you bring any team of; dark elves, dwarves, high elves, humans, orcs, or skaven you will get a boost.  You can check out more about this particular tournament at the NAF forum thread.

I was originally thinking of bringing my new dwarf team, however 1 significant rule change this year is max 3 upgrades per player.  There used to be no limits and super players were definitely in vogue.  Without a super dwarf runner or blitzer I don't like the thought of playing the dwarves.  I also want to be careful which tournaments I take them too now that they are Warpstone Cup 2012 champions!

I don't find the build very suited to my dark elves either.  They are too expensive, even with 1250TV I didn't like any roster I came up with.  That only leaves 1 of the original six that I have teams for left which are the orcs (I've been told even on top of the roster bonus, it will be very worth playing an original six team).  So I've been throwing together some orc rosters, an all rounder, one built for getting casualties, and one with a souped up troll and 3 souped up goblins for TTM attempts.

In each case I am taking the free reroll original six bonus (it's worth 60k vs. the other bonuses of 50k so it seems a no brainer)

All Rounder
4x Black Orc w block/guard
2x Blitzer w tackle
2x Blitzer w +MV/dodge/sure feet
2x Lineorc
Thrower w +AG/Leader

Most CAS
4x Black Orc w block/mighty blow
4x Blitzer w mighty blow
Lineorc w guard
Lineorc w dirty player
Thrower w +AG/Block/Dodge
1 Reroll

OTT TTM
Troll w pro/strong arm/break tackle
3x Goblin w +AG/+MV/sure feet
Blitzer w dodge
Thower w leader
6x Lineorc
3x Reroll

All of these were interesting, so I've been debating the pros/cons of each.  The All Rounder is pretty solid, the Most CAS would be a lot of fun, the OTT TTM list would be silly fun, but since it's a one trick pony I'd think that most opponents would be able to setup in such a way as to prevent the OTT with lots of tackle zones. I am pretty confident that a skaven team is going to come out on top this year.  They are nearly the perfect team for Deathbowl with their high movement and getting an extra free reroll is perfect for them.  Gutter Runners are scary good in this format.

So I've been seriously considering just going for Most CAS.  It is DEATHbowl after all and with all the extra players on the pitch, I could really just attempt to injure a ton of players every turn.  It does mean I probably won't win many matches, so yesterday I came up with a new roster which combines the Most CAS and OTT TTM in such a way that I think I can still take a run at the Most Casualties trophy and with a bit of luck pull out some ties/wins.

COMBO
Troll w pro/strong arm/break tackle
Goblin w catch/sprint/sure feet
1x Black Orc w block/guard
3x Black Orc w block/mighty blow
1x Blitzer w guard
3x Blitzer w mighty blow
Thrower w leader

Still 7 pieces with mighty blow, plus a troll/goblin/thrower combo with;
pickup reroll, hand-off reroll, 1 of really stupid/always hungry/no fumble PRO reroll, GFI reroll

I am pretty sold on this list.  Just enough silly to not be bored playing 4 Deathbowl games for CAS only, I am just debating where to put the guard skill.  I think mixing 1 Black Orc and 1 Blitzer is the right combo, but am open to comments.

dual posted on GWpertinent

Warpstone Cup 2012 - Result = WINNAAAAAR

This past weekend I travelled to Niagara Falls with a couple guys to play in a blood bowl tournament called the Warpstone Cup.  I missed out last year, but two years ago it was a bit different with everyone bringing 2 teams.  It changed last year to be division/playoff based and continued in that vein this year. There were 4 divisions of 4 coaches and you would play everyone in your division and the top two players from your division would play in the winners bracket.  Everyone gets a special magic item that just gives you a skill, which you can move between players every drive.

I recently got my Karak Nhati Bengals dwarf team back from David @ LaughingFerret Studios - so I was itching to use them.  The build was either 1M or 1.1M, and we gained random skills along the way, so TV was increased and some inducements were available.  I brought a 1M roster with every positional, five blockers, 2 rerolls and an apothecary.  When selecting my magic item, I got "Claw" which was great since I was drawn in a division with 2 other dwarf teams and a chaos team.  This is the first time I have ever played dwarves, tournament or otherwise.

DAY 1
Game 1 vs. Austin: 1-0 win
For my first game I was matched up with Austin, the son of one of the Niagara locals - at 12 years old he really impressed me with his maturity.  He had painted his own team too and it looked really good.  The poor kid did get drawn in a not so fun division (his Chaos + 3 dwarf teams) and to make matters worse once he was finally done with his division games, he played the final dwarf coach at the tournament in his 4th game!  He had played about 5/6 games of blood bowl but this was his first tournament game ever.

dwarves vs. chaos

He started off by kicking to me, and I tried not to take forever to score so he can at least get a chance on offence to see what he liked.  His dad does play dwarves as well so he was familiar with the team.  I think I scored on my turn 6, giving him about three turns to attempt something which didn't quite come off.  During the first half he impressed me a couple times with going for a slightly riskier play with better rewards.  The best was I had a trollslayer marking a beastman on the sidelines, and instead of dodging away on a 3+, he dodged into the trollslayers tackle zone directly across from the sideline!  If his next turn hadn't of ended abruptly, I'm sure he would have surfed that dwarf.

In the second half I kicked to him and there ended up being a huge scrum right in the middle of the pitch.  He would inch forward a bit but it started to get too congested.  Some super bad luck hit him over a couple of turns.  First he blitzed with his minotaur and went down after failing his loner to reroll a skull/both down - then to rub salt in the wound I the minotaur got casualtied.  Next turn he handed off to a beastmen at the front of the scrum and was considering just dodging through, but after some discussion we both felt using his blitz at that point was a better idea due to horns getting him 2 dice.  He made the block, knocking down my dwarf and dodged away, but somehow fell over.  I could only put a tackle zone on the ball, but while he managed to pick it up - he unfortunately failed a GFI and dropped the ball near my endzone.  My runner then spent 3 turns failing to pick up the ball - and there was a period of time where I was really nervous that would give him the tie, but unfortunately for Austin he had been forced to use his rerolls early in second half and he couldn't string together enough plays to score.

Before game 2 you got 3 skills rolls on random players.  I got a double on a blitzer and gave him dodge, I got +ST on a blitzer and a normal on a blocker who got guard.

Game 2 vs. Matt V: 0-1 loss
Second game was against Matt and first of two games versus dwarves.  Matt beat me once before playing dwarves vs. my dark elves (also at the previous Warpstone Cup I attended) but that seems to have been the only tournament he played dwarves prior to this one.  He is a very strong coach though, having won several tournaments including Chaos Cup 2010 and Zlurpeebowl VI with a large smattering of other trophies.  Matts team was similar to mine but I think he ran 1.1M and had a 12th player + some FF/AC/CL

dwarves vs. dwarves

Matt had a magic item that gave him "Side Step" and had 2 guarders and a piece with diving tackle.  He won the coin toss and received.  I chose a card as inducements and got "kicking boots", which I put on a longbeard (dirty player, kick, -1MV).  He went first and knocked my LOS down, then in my first turn I blitzed with my trollslayer, knocking down his trollslayer then attempted a foul action with the kicker, only to roll double 1's and get ejected immediately.  10 men for 14 turns - ouch!  I did pretty well at keeping his cage from staying solid or getting too close to my end zone.  I then pulled off some crazy dodging with my blodger blitzer to throw a 1 dice block against his unskilled runner and knocked him down - popping out the ball.  He managed to recover it but in his last turn he tried to blitz with the runner and went down himself.  First half ended 0-0

Second half he kicked to me and I held the ball deep in my end for a few turns trying to get a numbers advantage or at least break a hole in his defence.  It was pretty 50/50, until maybe around turn 6 when I freed up my blodger blitzer near the LOS and then attempted a hand off, which if it had come off - would have meant I could run the blitzer away and have a very strong chance of winning the game.  Unfortunately I failed the catch with a reroll and the ball fell.  At this point I could still have pulled off a win with some real luck, but I should have just totally marked his runner who was downfield.  Instead I left just one tackle zone on him and went for the ball.  This was a mistake and Matt made me pay when he pulled of a 4+ pass, 4+ catch (in a tackle zone) then 3+ dodged away to score on his turn 8 of the game.  A tough loss to take but I knew I was risking the tie when I didn't blitz his runner.  So in two games I have never beaten Matt (and funny enough of his 9 games with dwarves, 2 have been against me)

Before game 3 you got 2 skill rolls on random players.  I got a normal skill on my blodger blitzer and took guard.  I rolled a 10 on a runner and gave him +MV

Game 3 vs. Rob P: 2-0 win
Last game of division play was against Rob, who beat me in the final game at the Challenge of Q'ermitt to sweep all the trophies there.  Rob had a very different dwarf roster, ditching a blitzer to bring a deathroller - yikes!  He chose to kick to me and had his deathroller on the pitch.  He also had a warpstone token which you are allowed to roll for, which can be used in several ways but are fairly unreliable.  Nice for Rob though can be used as a bribe which works on a 4+.  I took 2 cards as inducements and got "chop block" and "inertia dampner".  Matt was already guaranteed in the winners bracket as he beat both of us, so the outcome of this game would decide who else would join him from our division.

dwarves vs. dwarves

I received and began to push up the side of the pitch away from his deathroller after he blitzed to the other flank with it in his first turn.  Then at the end of my second turn I used the chop block card to put his deathroller stunned at the cost of a prone longbeard.  First few turns my blocking wasn't great but then around the middle of the half my block dice heated up and wouldn't stop throwing POWs for the rest of the game.  I KO'd a longbeard and casualtied a trollslayer.  Kept pushing forwards slowly and after a couple turns once his deathroller stood up, I threw 2 dice uphill against it with a longbeard with my claw magic item and after rerolling got a both down/pow result, broke it's armour and stunned it again.  Near the end of the half he made some nice moves to make scoring difficult even with MV7 on a runner, including blitzing with the deathroller to put it's tackle zones in the easier path, but I got enough assists against it I got 2 dice with a trollslayer and knocked it down to score.  Then I got even more luck when his bribe worked, but he failed the 4+ roll to bring back his KO piece, meaning he had to waste the deathroller in his one turn drive for turn 8.  He tried to use dirty player but all he got was a stun.

Second half my block dice stayed hot and I would knock down 5-6 of his dwarves a turn.  Eventually I turned the ball over, picked it up and managed to score a second TD late in the half.  There wasn't much Rob could do my dice were just too fortunate for him to cope.  He took it with good grace as usual and wished me luck.  So we are now 50/50 each with 1W/1L in our head to head matchup.  I am discounting deathbowl games from this.

Before game 4 you got 1 skill roll on a chosen piece.  I picked a trollslayer and rolled a normal skill - taking mighty blow.

Game 4 vs. Tom R: 2-0 win
The quarter-final match - I played against Angry Tom with his Orc team.  This was the first time someone had inducements against me - he took a miscellaneous mayhem card which meant any crowd surfs against him were automatically just stuns.  He won the coin toss and elected to receive.  Stupidly, I completely forgot to give my claw magic item to someone in the first half!!  I have played Tom three times previously.  A draw at my first ever tournament, a win at the same Warpstone Cup I played Matt and a loss at Zlurpeebowl 8 this year.  Now am back in the lead considering our head to head.

dwarves vs. orcs

I kicked to him and I immediately thought he was playing a bit too aggressive.  He tried to pull me towards 1 flank and then reverse, but in doing the pull I pushed a trollslayer up behind his lines to threaten and when he went back in that direction I think he was so focused on that trollslayer he didn't realize he left his thrower open to a blitz from my other trollslayer.  Even though it didn't get the ball loose right away I think it rattled him and he rushed even more trying to get deeper into my half.  I KO'd his only Guard piece (which refused to come back the entire game) and this definitely made his cage more vulnerable.  I blocked open a whole and blitzed his thrower, knocking out the ball and picking it up.  I pushed forward up the flank, and having over committed his black orcs, he struggled to slow me down enough and I was able to score a touchdown on my turn 8 giving him only 1 chance to attempt to get his KO guard piece back.

I remembered to bring my claw item for this half, and after receiving the kick - kept my runners deep to force his hand at over extending again.  He was much more patient this half and tried to get me to rush it, but I managed to stay patient myself while I built up a solid position to attempt a long push.  Once ready, I blitzed a play of his off my runner without the ball - ran up and handed off to him (using my reroll) - then I ran him up as far as he could go and thought long and hard about either continuing my intended play.  It was near the LOS but I also didn't have many pieces on that side of the board so I decided to keep going with the play even though it meant a pass and a catch with no reroll available.  Fortunately for me my dice were still working with me and I made both rolls (each barely) - which meant I could run my blitzer way up and nearly out of reach.  Tom made it difficult with a tackle zone (he didn't have enough move for a blitz) so in the end I had to attempt a blitz with my blodger blitzer.  I rolled a both down, and instead of rerolling that - went for the dodge away instead, which worked (can't remember if I used skill reroll) and gave me a 2-0 scoreline.  I kicked once more to Tom but held him up for the win.

DAY 2
Game 5 vs. Colin K: 2-1 win
The semi-final against Colin's Commie Rats (who won best team!).  This was the toughest game of the entire tournament - his upgrade rolls had been as good if not better than mine (ST3 gutter runner!) and his magic item gave him frenzy so he had two frenzy pieces as well.  I have beaten Colin when he played skaven once - I think it was the first game he played with them at the Power of One tournament in Montreal.  In that game I got 7 casualties against him so that definitely tilted the odds in my favour.  Since then I have played him once and he has massively improved with his skaven.  This year he has won/placed in many many tournaments so I knew I was in for a tough game.  I got a couple inducement cards and got the "rabbits foot" magic item (Pro to one player for rest of game) and "greased shoes" (for one turn, his GFI would need a 5+ to succeed).  I won the toss but elected to kick to him to go for a classic 2-1 grind.  With this win I have taken over our head to head with 3 wins/2 losses.

dwarves vs. skaven

Started as assumed, he managed to get behind my lines with gutter runners however I had him scared enough that he scored on turn 3, so I had 6 turns to score.  After receiving the ball I gave my MV7 runner the "rabbits foot" and pushed up the right flank after his rat ogre got pulled to the left.  There were several scares as I caged up and he would pop the ball out, only for me to knock out the ball again.  Patience again was rewarded as I got the ball again and built a strong position within easy scoring distance on my turn 7.  He put two gutters one square from sideline one behind the other to make that dodge difficult and then two blitzers three squares away from them to make going around them extra difficult.  I got several assists against his blitzer including the runner originally carrying the ball (handing off to my MV7 runner) then used my ST4 blitzer to push his forward most blitzer out of the way to reduce the number of GFI my runner had to do to one.  Fortunately for me he made it without needing to use pro and that evened the score at 1-1.

Second half I received but he rolled a BLITZ kickoff result...  AARRRGH.  I thought it was all over at this point, but I just about did enough when I lucked out that after my runner failed to catch a bouncing ball after I popped it out that my blodger blitzer failed the pickup but it bounced to my runner again who caught it the second time. (I completely forgot I could have used pro to try rerolling the first catch).  Then my luck really came good as I KO'd or CAS'd about 4/5 of his players including rat ogre in two turns.  I pushed up the left with a very strong cage right on the sideline - and this is when Colin almost changed the entire game.  I thought I'd made the cage so that he couldn't touch my ball carrier - which he couldn't but he used a piece to fill up the space so he could chain push my ball carrier into the crowd!!  Unfortunately for him the bounce was still favourable to me, and even though he could pick it up, he couldn't move away and I was able to pop it free and score on my turn 8.  I then kicked off to him for 1 turn (he hoped for a riot, I played my greased shoes card) and there was no riot so he just beat on my players for a turn and I was into the finals!

** Little note, Joe is a new buddy who moved here from Britain - he got a ride up with me and being in the finals meant our car definitely had 1st and 2nd place locked down.  The third guy in my car was Alex who was in the bronze medal match, so if he won - all three podium finishes would be in the same car!! **

Game 6 vs. Joe P: 2-1 win in OT
The final match - I made it!  Guaranteed 2nd place by this time so was quite happy but being only the second time I've been close to winning a tourney, I was really focused.  I got a single card and picked a magic item which was a teleporting ring.  I have some experience with it so I knew not to save it for something like scoring but to try and bust a cage with it.  Joe was playing lizardmen but had taken tackle on 2 pieces since he had to play Alex's dark elves to get to the finals, so that definitely helped me a lot there.

dwarves vs. lizardmen

He won the toss and chose to receive.  My block dice were still hot and I started to smack him around, then I used the ring to put a second tackle zone on his skink ball carrier.  He managed to move his cage away, but I started to injure his players - he used his apothecary on his Kroxigor that I casualtied.  Then I killed a skink outright.  He scored pretty early because he shifted over to an open skink who was in the clear - but I closed him down enough with a runner to scare him into scoring.  I then set about trying to destroy his team which worked quite well as I pushed forward.  I made a small mistake which gave him a blitz opportunity - and unfortunately was unable to get even a single chain push to get someone in scoring range - so I went in at half time down 1-0.

He got about 1/2 of his KOs back and kicked to me.  I just kept smashing him around as the block dice stayed hot and did some more KO's and CAS.  Eventually he just left his pieces on the ground so I couldn't injure him anymore - holding on to go to OT.  I scored on turn 8, he got a riot on the next kick off but couldn't make it count when he double skulled.  We went to overtime and he had about 6 or 7 pieces for OT, while I had lost a longbeard to getting ejected trying to foul out his skinks.  Here's where he made his biggest mistake in my opinion.  For OT to be fair - one person receives and the other automatically gets a blitz result.  He chose to receive thinking I would be too slow, but he didn't tie up enough of my pieces so I got into his backfield and then his mistak got compounded by bad luck.  He failed dodges and pickups a couple times, allowing my runner 2 chances to pickup the ball and score (first time I failed the 1st GFI, giving him a second chance where he failed to get the ball - second time I scored) so I won 2-1 on turn 2 of overtime and won the whole tournament!

** Joe got 2nd place and Alex ended up beating Colin 2-1 on the last turn of their game to take 3rd place - so all the podium finishers were in my car on the way home.  An upbeat drive for sure!! **

As mentioned this was my first tournament with my new dwarf team so am obviously quite chuffed at how it all went down.  They are definitely a strong team for low # of skills.  I am going to have to be careful about which tournaments I bring them to now - since I beat a lot of very skilled coaches with strong coach ratings, my dwarf rating is likely to skyrocket!  Am pretty sure I am going to land in the top 10 of all dwarf coaches in Canada.

Me with 1st place trophy

dual posted on GWpertinent

Spike! Magazine Blood Bowl Championship 2012

So,todays post goes to...

 

...yup...thats right...Spike! Magazine tournament in Canada  :)

- Spike! Magazine

"The SPIKE! Magazine Blood Bowl Championship is the Canadian Blood Bowl Major.
There are four major tournaments annually, each in a different country. These are:
1. The Dungeonbowl, Germany
2. The Blood Bowl, each year at GW HQ in Nottingham, England
3. The Spike! Magazine Trophy, each year in Surrey, BC, Canada
4. The Chaos Cup, October each year in Chicago, Illinois, USA"


Now for some info:

"Spike! Magazine 2012 Blood Bowl Grand Tournament
Dates: Saturday, September 29th, and Sunday, September the 30th, 2012

Location: Compass Point Inn
Address: 9850 King George BVLD, Surrey, B.C.
Hotel Website: http://compasspointinn.com/
Accomodations: Mention the Spike Tournament when booking a room at the Compass Point Inn and receive the Corporate Rate.

Time: 8AM Registration Saturday

Contact: Craig or Mike
Email: thunder-bowl@hotmail.com or PM me (generaljason) here.
Web: http://www.spiketournament.com/

Additional Information:
- $45 non-NAF pre-registration, or $50 at the door
- $40 NAF member pre-registration
- 6-game Swiss Resurrection TV 110
- Door prizes from local and online stores"

 

"This year all registered participants at Spike! 2012 will get a set of 3 official Thunderbowl block dice, complete in the traditional TB colours of silver on black, and designed by our very own Blammaham (aka Steve)."

"Each attending coach will also receive a pair of Spike! 2012 d6s"

Also,if you attend the tournament,you´re going to see this bad boy live:

How awesome is this trophy  :)

And to end this post,please make sure you visit the:

- Spike! Store

There you can get goodies like the following:

- Ulfwerener – Bear

- Ulfwerener – Wolf

- “The Duke”

- Spike! 2010 Commemorative Coin

And the Gallery...containing 4 years of pictures...yuuummmyyy  :p

- Gallery 2008
- Gallery 2009
- Gallery 2010
- Gallery 2011

Mr. Merry Mayhem...

...what the hell happened to you!!!????

 

 

I bet you´ve been hanging with Mrs. Cecilia Giménez...LOLOLOLOL

Blood Bowl: Team Manager - Sudden Death Expansion

Oh...Christmas present of mine...lolol...Just told my wife about this  :)

 

From the Fantasy Flight Games website:

 

"Blood Bowl: Team Manager - Sudden Death Expansion

 

Sudden Death is bone-breaking, pulse-pounding expansion for Blood Bowl: Team Manager – The Card Game that brings three new teams to the pitch, plus a host of all-new gameplay options! Enhance existing teams with additional Staff Upgrade cards and Team Upgrade Cards, and take the competition to new heights with never-before-seen Highlights and Spike! Magazine Cards. Meanwhile, all-new mechanics like enchanted balls and contracts provide a variety of new strategies.

 

Three New Teams Take the Pitch

Sudden Death introduces three new teams to the skull-crunching action; the Dark Sorcery Syndicate union features dabblers in forbidden magics who just don’t know when to stay down. The undead Champions of Death tear up the pitch – sometimes literally as they raise new zombies and skeletons from the corpses of former Blood Bowl players. The vampires of the Black Fangs are always thirsty for victory (and blood). And the Dark Elves of the Naggaroth Nightmares are happy to give both teams plenty of fresh corpses with which to play.

Champions of Death: Not even mortality can stand between an Undead player and the pitch! While Zombies and Skeletons are not the most durable players, they can survive nearly any beating and come back for more! And woe to the opponent who has to stand up against a Mummy or Wight.

 

 

Naggaroth Nightmares: Dark Elves are merciless players, always looking to exploit their opponent’s weaknesses to find the quickest path to victory—even if it means eviscerating the competition. Dark Elf players rely on versatility and brutality, plain and simple.

 Black Fangs: The mighty Vampires of the Black Fangs do not know the meaning of mercy—they don’t even show it to their own teammates! Whenever a Vampire player isn’t feasting on one of his Thrall players, he has got his eyes—and fangs—on his opponent.

Once any one (or all three) of these new teams take the pitch, Blood Bowl will never be the same!

Claim Victory with Contracts, Enchanted Balls, and More

Sudden Death also introduces exciting new mechanics that expand the game’s strategic options. Contract tokens are a reward that let managers gain fans in whole new way. Managers earn these tokens by competing for Highlight and Tournament cards that feature the Cabalvision Contract icon, and each token provides a different number of fans.

But here’s the catch: no one know the value of the contract tokens they’ve earned until the end of the season! Will you go for the prize you can count on, or take the gamble for a potentially larger score?

What’s more, the “enchanted balls” optional rule takes the already coveted ball token and adds an extra incentive. The ball carrier gains all the normal benefits of possession, plus a bonus effect! Gain extra Star Power, a few more all-important Fans, or even interrupt your opponent with a well-placed skill; in Sudden Death, you’ll want to hold onto the ball with everything you’ve got.

Are you ready to take Blood Bowl: Team Manager – The Card Game to the next level? With plenty of bone-crunching new content and three all-new teams, the Sudden Death expansion is sure to raise your spirits...and maybe a few others."

 

Dark Elves....FRIKK YEAH  :P