RPS Blood Bowl League - The many, many Divisions of Death!

[X_kot]

(Ogr, X_kot) The Knuckle Heads 0 - 2 Wayward Gladiators (Nor, El Cubo)

The opening match of the season saw a clash between Nordic and Ogrish brawn, and the stadium managers were thankful they shipped in additional medical staff. Three injuries a side, along with one dead snotling and two dead Norse lineman (one was a free agent...at least he perished doing what he loved), brought the crowd to their feet for the entire match. Physical plays dominated the highlight reel, including one Nordic rush that saw two ogres knocked to the pitch and stunned almost simultaneously. After making quick work of the opposition, the Gladiators walked the ball in for a 1-0 lead less than a quarter of the way into the game.

The Knuckle Heads received the return kick and attempted to equalize. A brawl ensued at half-field, preventing the ogres from advancing in force. Snotling after snotling were sent skyward in an attempt to a) get the ball or, failing that, b) injure random players; however, even a brave blitz by #02 Grug the Bulg through a tackle zone could not wrest control away from the Nords at the end of the first half.

By the opening of the second half, both teams were down four players (one particularly well-armored linesman had slipped on a pool of bile and snapped his spine in half). The Knuckle Heads pushed ahead, and the Gladiators hit their left flank hard. This gave the runningback snotling #06 Ruzek Windbreaker the chance to dash to the wide right zone and hand off to #07 Nmatub Murshroomgas (of the prestigious High Ridge Murshroomgas clan). Their ogre teammates managed to concentrate long enough to assemble themselves in what amounted to a defense. However, Gladiator #02 Xeno would not fall prey to a simple paradox, and he managed to move from Point A to Point Snot, freeing the ball and ensuring a Norse victory.

This was a brutal game, and El Cubo ran a clean, tight playbook. I got to toss gobbos around, so that was entertaining. Well played!

[groovychainsaw]

I may have to get in and still accept a few applications before the remaining divisions can get going (particularly the new division!) - I'll do that tonight unless another admin gets there first.

Xenny! Like PW said, apply for H and we'll fit you in there, wasn't trying to lose you, just trying to get us all going as quickly as possible :-). We've had a fair number of new people forget or lose interest before their first match in previous seasons, so I tend to be pretty brutal with those deadlines!

For everyone, if you add 'daily/instant email alerts' to this thread (at the top, under 'thread tools'-> 'subscribe to this thread') it'll help keep you up to speed (I couldn't manage this without them!)

PW - keep that skaven team on standby just in case I've missed something and we still have a space somewhere, I know we're missing mrpier from div 3 still and I haven't started 7 as null could get a bump...

/Edit - think i fixed the sheet - ntw, it's probably worth checking I haven't mangled it ;-)

[ntw]

Christ on a bike - X_kot and El Cubo are keen!

I'm really busy at work with a new job which started on *SUNDAY* April 1st (hence my uncharacteristic lack of posting recently) - I literally haven't stopped since, but from a quick look at the sheet it all looks good to me.

[squirrelfanatic]

Dear Nuffle,

please fix mrpier's internet connection.

Thanks
a fan

P.S.: You better be quick about it.

[El Cubo]

(Ogr, X_kot) The Knuckle Heads 0 - 2 Wayward Gladiators (Nor, El Cubo)

It's always nice to play against ogres. It's easy to overlook them, but snotlings are surprisingly able players. Although, against a block-heavy team such as Norse, they go down frustratingly easily. Still, I think I was lucky that the armor of the Gladiators kept up as well as it did. The dice were loaded with knockdown inducing results and I had to sacrifice players to tie down the ogres.

---

The irony of this team is that so far the most well protected norsemen have suffered the most casualties: -st for an ulf, -ma for a blodging berzerker and a death for an av8 lineman. Two of these were failed GFIs and when an apothecary was used, on both occasions he offered to end the patient's misery altogether! I think I should concentrate more on the offense. Frenzy for the whole lot of them from now on!

[mrpier]

My connection should be up again tonight, if the internet gods are just.

[ntw]

OK - everything (except the below) is setup, checked and ready to go!

Div3 is waiting mrpier and Div7 is on standby incase Nuffle strikes and Null has to fill in for mrpier in Div3.

Everyone *PLEASE* check that the match schedule in the sheet results and fixtures tab matches what BBLE says ingame and post here ASAP if it doesn't! Doubly so because I had to switch a few teams around to tally up the fixtures on the sheet...

Likewise if anyone has problems finding the match organising discussions or actually connecting to a multi-player game - let us know ASAP.

As far as I know, everyone except Divs 3 & 7 can now start - go crazy kids.

[President Weasel]

Good work, everybody. That was relatively painless.
And once again, big thanks to Groovy and ntw for herding all the cats!

[squirrelfanatic]

Yes, thanks to all the admins for bothering with the whole organisation and spreadsheet updating.

[X_kot]

Honor and glory to the admins!

[El Cubo]

All hail our admin overlords!

[Kapouille]

0 - 3

Despite some decent cooking happening on the sidelines, nothing could be done about the relentless grinding of nurgle corruption.

Lots of victims. 3 dead Halfling, among which a rising star that happened to run faster than the others (but not fast enough !)

Granted, one of the death was due to an over enthusiastic treeman throwing a little bit hard and a little bit wrongly (like, straight to the floor)

This is going to be an expensive match for replacements!

[ntw]

An expensive victory.

[Heliocentric]

Was a Bloody mess for me, but I think I might have impacted him enough to bias his later matches allowing me a strategic victory overall by winning the casualties scoreboard 5 to 1 including 2 deaths (1 apoced)

edit: I killed and then raised a player, then brought him onto the pitch to foul the others, its like a mexican wave.

[ntw]

Well, that was brutal.

Winning the toss, IWTNH chose to receive. Linerats ineffectively pushed on the line, GutterRunners ran through into the backfield, basically everything going as expected so far. Taxiderm immediately kill a Linerat, Fodder5b was his name - the "b" denoting that he is already a replacement for a previously killed or retired player - and I suspect that the Fodder5 slot on the team is going to be like the drummer from Spinal Tap... Hoping to minimise casualties, the IWTNH Thrower passes to a waiting GR and a quick score is recorded.

IWTNH 1 - 0 Taxiderm

Taxiderm receive and immediately celebrate by killing another Linerat, IWTNH's Apothecary actually manages to do something useful (he'll probably take the rest of the season off now) and staples the rat back together. At this point it all gets a bit hazy in my memory, but I'm pretty sure the rest of the match happened something like this... Helio leaves his ball carrying Ghoul exposed to a GutterRunner blitz and IWTNH's two ManRunners (GutterRunners with the strength of a man!) set precedent for the rest of the match by successfully making multiple GFI rolls and dodges to free the ball then score shortly afterwards.

IWTNH 2 - 0 Taxiderm

The rest of the half continued to play out with Helio bashing the bejezus out of any Rat foolish enough to stand close to the Taxiderm players.

Second half starts and somehow IWTNH have still *almost* got a full team on the pitch, but Taxiderm are receiving and have a full 11 thirsting for ratblood. A few turns progress as expected - Rats get bashed and leave the pitch, undeads slowly rumble forward. When about 6 rats remain on the pitch Taxiderm's ball-carrying Ghoul launches a pass over a pack of fighting Rats and bones (well - 1 rat, 2 or 3 undeads), which is then somehow plucked out of the air by the solitary LineRat in the ruck. He then dodges out and hands off to the Thrower, who makes a beautiful pass over the lines towards a ManRunner, who catches the ball then dodges away from his marker to score a completely unexpected 3rd for IWTNH.

IWTNH 3 - 0 Taxiderm

Only about 6 Rats remain for the kickoff, so things are looking grim for the rest of the match. Helio displays his inner cruelty by gangfouling a Rat with his freshly acquired Fodder5b Zombie. Somehow the ball pops free again and IWTNH's Thrower manages to end up with it and launch a long pass way upfield into open space, but it is not enough to stop the Taxiderm steamroller from scoring with 1 turn left on the clock.

IWTNH 3 - 1 Taxiderm

The clock ticks down as the IWTNH's MightyBlow endowed StormVermin *finally* gets an armour break (16th turn FFS!), and the whistle blows.
_____

Helio's undead were a Rat-mincing production line, and my rats were almost completely unable to land a blow in return (not through lack of effort!). Fortunately for me, I horrendously abused GFIs and dodges with *very* few failures. From the first turn I felt on the defensive, but with lucky rolls I was able to score against the run of play at least twice.

Cheers for the game Helio, it must have been frustrating to see all your bashiness countered by the Rats slipperiness, it was certainly frustrating for me to watch my Rats going through the Taxiderm sausage machine. However for the first time I think I've seen what people mean when they say "never write off Skaven".
Now if you'll excuse me I need to visit the rat hospital to congratulate the vermin and encourage them to get back on the field, then deliver some bad news to the Rat family of poor Fodder5b as well as starting to scout for his replacement - Fodder5c.

/edit - I'm pretty sure that bit in the middle is mixed up, some of the highlights are in the wrong order, but they all happened at about that stage of the match.

[HughTower]

Apothecarising a line rat? Sacrilege, ntw, pure sacrilege.

[Zoraster]

Especially in the first half unless it had a good set of skill rolls... before the interval I’d rarely even use it on a Storm Vermin.

Still I had a linerat I used to apoth on the Rats charge to the championship... it really summed up Nuffle’s evil sense of humour too. I’d hired Margaret Thatcher with the intention of deploying her in marking killer duties but the sneaky bitch rolled +ag on her first level and became a core part of the team.

[Heliocentric]

This match will long stand in Taxederm's history as an important one.
Not only did I pick up my first non guard/block skills after it but it taught me much on priorities of development and deployment.

Sure my iron curtain of guard players is devastating on the LOS but I need to force dodges, risky passes and do a little square counting for point to point risk assessment.

Also ag 3 players are bloody useless at passing without skills.

[Screwie]

I'm glad you're having fun Helio, but your team and your tactics terrify me. :P

[wink5000]

Div H is missing the match making thread http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/foru....php?groupid=4