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

[Wolfenswan]

The Division I game of Deesno's/Cacama's HElfs (The Top Brass) and my WElfs (Soviet Kazakh Chairmen) ended with a suprising 2-3 victory for the treehuggers.

With a TV difference of nearly their own TV value the WElfs got 750k in inducements which they spent on 2 ReRolls, Eldril and Morg. A Wizard and Babes would have been the sane choice but who chooses sanity over MORGNTHORG?!

Against his myriad of skills I had only my wardancers, my catcher (BH in the first half) and the two stars. The only level-gained skill I had was strip ball on my Wardancer. The HElf's longpass game was always bullseye and deadly so I played as aggressive as I could. My strip ball wardancer leapt into his cages as if she had AV9 and helped me to at least two touchdowns. On the Star-side Eldril didn't fail a single gaze while Morg was pushing guys around gently for most of the time.

The first attempt at the game was cyanided but had seen a though pitch invasion (nearly all of the Chairmen including Morg stunned) and a risky touchdown for the WElfs at turn 3.

In the second attempt some failed dodges on the HElf's part helped me to take the lead with 2-1 after the first half. Deesno managed to equalize in turn 12 after i gave away a sure touchdown to try a crowdpush with no tactical value whatsoever. My pushing mercenary rolled double both down and naturally failed the reroll which cost me both the turn and the touchdown.

Only by great luck I managed a two turn touchdown in the last turns of the match. While the remaining wardancer had broken through the HElf lines, a lino failed the pickup and for a turn it looked like Deesno would be able to capitalize on it as he had gotten a (BlodgeStepping) catcher through and picked up the ball. Luckily I rolled a POW, the ball bounced out of tackle zones, a lino picked it up, passed it to eldril (catch rerolled) who gave it to the Wardancer. A quick dash into the opposing zone secured my 3-2 victory.

Overall a very fun game and despite some bad dice I fealt no one was being majorly nuffled. Morg wasn't worth his money AT ALL but it was fun having him around.

[Dentharial]

There'll be no poetry this season due to a higher than usual workload combined with family business and a dash of Guild Wars. Also, there's probably a few details in this report that are wrong, since I don't remember it too clearly.

Week 1 Div D:

Da Blu Moonz (Orcs, Dentharial) VS Rattatatz (Skaven, mrpier)

The dog-faced rats win the toss and opt to kick to an orc team that is cautiously trying the idea of placing their troll on the line to hand out some beatings. The skaven give away a whopping 490K of inducements which get spent on a wizard, 2 more rerolls and a babe (and there must have been something else that I forget), none of which will have much impact on the match.

The orcs manage to grab the ball with a thrower and get him into a cage, and begin to go to work on thinning the rats' numbers...which utterly fails. This pattern continues for several more turns, with the rats even managing to score a few KOs, and eventually knocking the ball to the ground, attempting a pass, and utterly fumbling it. Nonetheless, the orcs just can't create the space they need to really move forward, and before the half closes out, the rats are able to grab the ball again, and run it up the pitch to score. There's a couple of turns left before the half time whistle, during which the orcs finally manage to get a handful of rats off the pitch, both KOs and a couple of injuries, but there's just not enough time to really do anything.

After the restart, all the KO'd orcs have woken up, but the Moonz have to wrest the ball away from the significantly more skilled Rattatatz, a feat that proves too tough despite yet another fumbled pass. Another score, another lineup. Despite receiving, there are only 4 or 5 turns left on the clock, and so the orcs have to move relatively quickly to get up the pitch, and the skaven are just too agile at slowing the cage down. Somewhere in the middle there's yet another freeing of the ball, and another fumbled pass, and sooner rather than later the orcs succumb to just trying to beat down the rats rather than push for a risky consolation touchdown.

Final score: Rattatatz 2 - 0 Da Blu Moonz

While I did feel quite crushed during the game, as it frequently felt like it was out of my control, on reflection the main problem was just there was such a difference in development between the teams. The Skaven were covered in Dodge, Sidestep and boosted stats, while the Orcs had only a single Tackle between them, plus Block on the ball-carrying Throwers and some Mighty Blow on the Blitzers and a single Black Orc.

All in all, I'm actually surprised I made it out with as low a scoreline as I did, and if mrpier had been a little luckier with those passes, or tried more running rather than throwing, I might have taken a much worse beating.

[President Weasel]

A trick that might help you when playing against skaven teams is to tell the opposing player that if he puts any gutter runner anywhere near you, you'll break it. It's hard to do when they're usually blodgy sidesteppers, but they only have strength 2 so 2 assists on a str3 player will get you 3 dice to try to get the elusive pow. When you do get one down, ignore the ball and stamp on its face.

This ought to reign in the swashbuckling, gunners everywhere, skaven play that orcs find so hard to deal with - change the equation from "how do I get the ball" to "how do I keep my three remaining precious gutter runners safe".

[JayTee]

The Dead Comic Society (Khemri - Me) vs. Dead Can-Can (Undead - Mr Dragon)

0 - 1

All I can say is I got totally fucked by the dice. By halfway into the first drive Dragon had handed out 5 KOs and a Badly Hurt (Not regen-ed) and I'd failed to do anything in return, so despite some heroics (A dodge, 1D blitz, successful pickup and 2 GFIs from a Blitz-Ra) the first half ground its way down to a 0-0 draw.

Then the sweltering heat kicks in and both teams lose 1 player, only 2 of my KOs wake up, and I'm left fielding 9 players including my backup-backup-backup skeleton who's less-than-useless. The weather changes back to Blizzard, removing my chances of Dragon rolling 11 1s for Sweltering Heat and the inevitable happens. Thanks to yet more KOs, another BH (Not regen-ed), and being seemingly made of Adamantium Dragon was able to stall with the ball by the touchline until the last possible moment.

An impossible 1TTD is the only way I can salvage a draw, but a Riot puts the clock back a turn giving me 2 turns to score which is just about possible thanks to some lucky positions and a useful kick. The Thro-ra makes the pickup, successfully passes to a Blitz-Ra who amazingly catches the ball, runs up the field...

FUCKING NUFFLE

Snake-eyes on the GFI. Sigh. Utterly, utterly miserable.

Blood Bowl is a stupid game.

On the bright side no permanent injuries, a Tomb Guardian got level 3, and MVP makes my crapass backup-backup-backup Skeleton slightly less crapass as he's level 2. That's 6 out of the last 7 MVPs that have landed on my bench skeletons. Great...

[Everblue]

Division K - Doomdark's Revenge 1-1 Death Vengeance of Doom

A close fought draw, with the chaos team falling agonisingly short of snatching a last minute win. Full report on my blog in due course, but since I got another skill level on a chaos warrior I would be most extremeliest grateful for a validation in due course (fingers crossed for another ST5!).

[somanyrobots]

Dentharial and I played our match this morning with only 10 TV separating us. The Lycanthropes received the kick, and started off caging up the left side, avoiding the orcs' 5-man LoS. The orcs didn't close down very quickly (with that massive LoS pinned by its three zombie opponents), and my ball carrier was able to make it quite far upfield, within scoring distance. But he was brought down, and the ball picked up by an orcish thrower. A few quick necro blocks got the thrower surrounded, though, and Dentharial decided to declare ELFBAAAAALLL. His thrower dodged away and made a medium pass (which the catcher dropped). I got some players onto the ball, and a ghoul picked it up; but I'd lost a lot of field position, and the ball was now adjacent to lots of big, bashy orcs. Orcs who promptly knocked it loose and surrounded the ball themselves. Da Blu Moonz eventually picked it up, but the carrier wound up next to some necros; he failed his dodge, died, and was APO'd to MNG. At which point another orc picked it up, but now had three necros marking him. He too failed his dodge, dropped the ball, and one of my ghouls recovered, running it in for a turn 8 TD. 1-0.

The orcs collected the ball handily in the second half, and set up for a center-field cage. But my attackers pushed in the corners, and a lucky block cut one of Dentharial's turns short, letting me surround and bring down the ball carrier. The ball then bounced over to some orcs, who picked it up again; but failed to dodge away, and lost it again. This was early in Dentharial's turn, before he'd stood up his downed orcs, which gave my necros a cakewalk knocking down all the rest. Another short turn let me get more hits in, recover the ball, hand it to a werewolf, and score again, 2-0.

With two turns left, I had good enough luck to roll a Blitz! Sent a ghoul, WW, and wight screaming upfield to get the ball. Dentharial responded in elfy fashion by picking up the ball effortlessly, passing it away, and charging up the other side of the field. I'd actually emptied my backfield enough that there was a real risk of the orcs' pulling off a two-turner; but then I knocked down the ball carrier, and it got picked up by a black orc instead. Who then failed his handoff, denying Dentharial his chance. I managed an extremely complicated series of knockdowns, to try for my own ELFBAAALL turn-16 touchdown; but it was not to be.

Da Blu Moonz 0 - 2 Lucky Lycanthropes.

An excellent match! Good fun all around, and a thrilling game thanks to the constant back-and-forth (and up-and-down) of the ball. My thanks to Dentharial, who was great fun as an opponent.

[Zenohero]

A trick that might help you when playing against skaven teams is to tell the opposing player that if he puts any gutter runner anywhere near you, you'll break it. It's hard to do when they're usually blodgy sidesteppers, but they only have strength 2 so 2 assists on a str3 player will get you 3 dice to try to get the elusive pow. When you do get one down, ignore the ball and stamp on its face.

This ought to reign in the swashbuckling, gunners everywhere, skaven play that orcs find so hard to deal with - change the equation from "how do I get the ball" to "how do I keep my three remaining precious gutter runners safe".

As a skaven player, I find this true and utterly offensive. So what if they are fast moving bastards, that gives you no right to discriminate against our lovely and deadly lineman who deserve your undivided attention :D

[chadsexington]

As a skaven player, I find this true and utterly offensive. So what if they are fast moving bastards, that gives you no right to discriminate against our lovely and deadly lineman who deserve your undivided attention :D

I found the best luck was to focus on every rat on the pitch

[smaug81]

Div B: Irrelevant Illnesses (Nur, me) 1 - 2 Masquerade Ballers (Elf, The Brain)

Welp, The Brain just elfed out a last minute win in typical prancing pansy fashion. After a fairly conservative first half in which he avoided the usual high speed play in favor of a slower running game, he used his final two turns of the match for a disturbingly easy TD in spite of a Pestigor heroically intercepting his first attempt at the game winning pass. And this in spite of his team having been reduced to 4 players on the pitch during my preceding second half drive, as well. Sadly, too many of those were KOs and too few were real injuries. And after all the effort I went to for the tie, too.

Oh well. On the bright side, my last remaining unskilled Warrior finally got MVP and his first skill. 'Twas a fun match, and well played on both sides, I think. I just lack the means to deal with blodgestepping bastards. All in good time. . .

[The Brain]

To be honest, I never expected that last play to work. When the pass was intercepted I thought that was it. My blitzers are far and away my star players. Their sidestepping blodge ways have pulled me through on a number of occasions now. I'm also really pleased to come away from this match with no injuries worth talking about. The point where six of my players were sleeping soundly on the sidelines was frustrating but lets me go into my next match with more than 11 players. That's the first time in the six or so months I've been playing in the DoD that I'll be able to have any subs. Smaug was a delight to play against and took the last minute elfy play with good humour. Now it's time to face Huttons Horrible Humans!

[somanyrobots]

A trick that might help you when playing against skaven teams is to tell the opposing player that if he puts any gutter runner anywhere near you, you'll break it.

I may try this against mrpier's team next match, given his frightening TV and Dentharial's wild-eyed warnings about slippery rat-demons. My rookie werewolf pricks up his ears at the thought of sharpening his fangs on some rat-bones.

[smaug81]

My blitzers are far and away my star players. Their sidestepping blodge ways have pulled me through on a number of occasions now.

Those blitzers really are incredibly annoying. The three catchers with Guard were nothing to sneeze at, either, although at least somewhat easier to clear away. One of these days I may have to try a team with more agility access, just so I can experience some of that myself.

[Kapouille]

After 16 skill rolls, I finally rolled my first double : Moss Shrubless, Treeman, gained block! Yay!

[President Weasel]

I may try this against mrpier's team next match, given his frightening TV and Dentharial's wild-eyed warnings about slippery rat-demons. My rookie werewolf pricks up his ears at the thought of sharpening his fangs on some rat-bones.

You definitely want to try to isolate one of them and get two assists then; if you're planning to put frenzy and no block up against block, you'll want three dice.

[Wolfenswan]

I could also lend you one of my WElfs, they smash like MB+C+PO against skaven for some reason (just ask Mr. Weasel)

[mrpier]

I may try this against mrpier's team next match, given his frightening TV and Dentharial's wild-eyed warnings about slippery rat-demons. My rookie werewolf pricks up his ears at the thought of sharpening his fangs on some rat-bones.

Rookie werewolf you say? Interesting, I'll make a note of that. If I have a full team next match, maybe I can afford a couple of fouls. :-p

[The Brain]

The three catchers with Guard were nothing to sneeze at, either, although at least somewhat easier to clear away.

I'm planning to turn them into sidestepping blodge bastards too if they ever get that far. I still haven't had ANY stat ups yet which makes me think they have all been taken by some other Elf team. Not naming names or anything.

[Gorm]

Got my rematch in vs Zoraster tonight. His halflings managed to beat my skaven 2-1, but i did get three level ups from it so its not all bad. A dead rat ogre though :(. Didnt bother trying to apoth him, i might buy another one at some point might not.

[Kapouille]

A dead rat ogre though :(.

So you finally decided to buy one... And he's gone :P

[Gorm]

Yea he survived about 3 games i think. Totally not worth it.