Went to Niagara Falls this weekend with some buddies for a blood bowl tournament. We drove up Friday night and we stayed at some cheap cabins on a campground. The tournament is a ressurection style, two team tournament, you pick a TV100 and TV110 team and they are randomly drawn into two pools. You get 1 skill roll before first game (applied to random player), and 3 before the next two games. You also roll to see if you win a warpstone token (3d6 - need a 13) which can be used (with varying results) as a reroll, bribe or bloodweiser babe (one off). There are a bunch of videos from the tournament to be found here.
Day 1 (aka day of "le woot")
Game 1 vs. Eric
Finally a chance at revenge! It was Eric's poor play that won me the wooden spoon at the Canadian Open - it was time to prove he's the true spoon gatherer of our group! It was my Undead vs his Humans, both at 100TV. One of my mummies had gotten guard and one of his linemen block. Eric chose to receive and I decided to just try to hammer his catchers. I only ended up causing two casualties - but first half I got the ball off him and scored and second half I stomped down the field. Decided against stall ball as I was up 3 players (my undead roster had 12 players) and the last few turns fizzled out. First time I've won my first match at a tournament - woo hoo!!
Game 2 vs. Tom
Time to get Rummery'd! Good old Tom (aka 3 time burger buddy award winner) was my opponent for the second game. We've played once before and tied so I was hoping to continue undefeated. This game was my Dark Elves (TV110) vs his Chaos Dwarves (TV100). Tom took a reroll as an inducement. I gave sure hands to a lineelf and I think he gave guard to a blocker. He also had a warpstone token (that he never wanted to use since they are so unstable). He won the coin toss and opted to receive. I racked up my first and only casualty of the game pretty quickly (a blocker at that - woot!). I also used my witch elves to full advantage pushing a couple of his guys into the crowd. I managed to stop him from scoring on his drive, get the ball and scored once in the first half. In the second half he kicked to me and I started working my way upfield. Then came his blunder where he forgot one of my star players was a runner. He gathered a bunch of assists to throw his blitz when I got to use my dump off skill and passed it successfully to another player before getting smashed. I managed to run the ball upfield and score again - leaving Tom with only a couple turns left. He ended up having to try his luck with the warpstone token on a failed pass(? i think, or maybe the catch) but it fizzled and had no effect. Two wins out of two! Best start to a tournament yet!
Game 3 vs. Greg (TO)
By this time I'm playing on the top table. Greg was one of the tournament organizers and they each played one team for three games to give us an even number of players. This game was my Undead vs. his Orcs. I don't remember his skills but my other mummy got guard and one ghoul got sure hands and another ghoul got block. A very tight game with low casualties ended as a 1-1 tie. I don't remember a lot of this game - I think because it was fairly un-spectacular. It was basically two grinding halves, with each team taking a turn and leaving too few turns for the other to score in the remainder of the half. Actually I do remember one other thing about this game. Both halves, first two turns my first block was a double-skull and Greg had stuff screw up early so neither of us ended up with rerolls beyond turn three of either half.
Game 4 vs. Charlie
Last game of day one. It was my Dark Elves vs his Orcs. He had three blitzers with guard and a black orc with block. I gave a witch elf block, a blitzer dodge and another blitzer kick. By this time everyone was making mistakes. Our game had a fair few - including me not remembering his first touchdown! How much did that suck when I thought I had the game in the bag when he scored on turn seven of the second half only to find out we tied!! To be fair Charlie played really well - focused on what was important and clawed himself back into this game. Next time I'm definitely having a coffee mid day though as I made a really boneheaded mistake (confusing my blitzer with kick with my lineman with sure hands) and I should have just copped to using a proper reroll. Charlie was a proper sport during the whole match and all smiles all the time. A great game vs. a great opponent and regardless of what my brain thought - he deserved a draw.
So end of the first day and I'm sitting on 3 points with 2 wins and 2 draws. I knew I was in for a tough second day - so when our nighttime shenanigans got rained out and we hit the hay early, I wasn't too dissapointed (Definitely would have changed my tune if I knew what I was in store for on day two)
Day 2 (aka day of "le waaaaaaaa")
Based on what I knew of the results and the standings, I was hoping to draw Matt first and play his Humans with my Undead. Then if that went well I expected to play Laurent (who won the tourney) with his Undead against my Dark Elves. Didn't work out that way and Laurent played Matt first.
Game 5 vs. Solomon
My Undead vs Sol's Dark Elves. Both my mummies got another skill and I chose stand firm for both. My skeleton got a skill and I gave him tackle. I won the coin toss and chose to receive. I built up a nice cage and left the ball downfield turn one (worked out since I failed the pickup!) Turn two I picked up the ball and got it to my ghoul with block and got him in the middle of my cage. Here's where it all started to go wrong. Sol's turn two he blitzes my wight and kills him outright! I even failed the regen roll so I basically spent nearly the whole game at 10 players max (got worse later) In the next couple turns Sol proceeded to bust into my cage, blitz the ball carrier and killed my skeleton outright (failed regen again!) while he was at it. Sol couldn't seem to roll worse than a KO, meanwhile I could not do more than stun an elf. He actually played stall ball against me as he would just run his cage around so I wouldn't get more than one blitz a turn. He scored a single touchdown in each half and just ran my Undead ragged. Totally demoralizing as I felt I'd played really well and with a bit of luck might have evened the numbers a bit. Wasn't to be, game ended with me having seven or eight guys on the pitch and he had ten.
Game 6 vs. Matt
Final game and I knew I was screwed - stuck playing Dwarves with my Dark Elves. There wasn't much I could do - for my skills unfortunately both runners ended up with skills. I gave one lineelf wrestle, I should have just given both runners wrestle too, but I thought a leader reroll would help and nerves of steel for maybe a sneaky play. I tried an early rush to try to get the jump on him, but unfortunately my blitzer couldn't make a 4+ catch even on a reroll after my successful dump-off so he picked up the ball and stomped me on his way to scoring. Matt caused so many injuries this game I lost count - and his chainsaw didn't even hurt me, it killed itself! This game just kinda sucked because I had no way to fight him with numbers and with all the tackle I couldn't just dodge away all the time. Next time I play Dark Elves I will definitely be taking Leap on a blitzer. I just couldn't bust into cages at all, but ended up throwing a lot of two dice, opponent picks blocks. If I'm going to be doing that anyways, might as well be on the ball carrier.
Overall this was a super fun tournament - I loved the two team format, the random skills and the special warpstone rules (tokens and some changes to kick off table) all combined to make it every game exciting. Next up - Deathbowl in October.
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