Canadian Open 2011 - Result: Top 50 percentile

As per usual at two day events, I had one pretty decent day and one less good day.  Day 1 even though it started with a win, didn't really go the way I wanted, whereas Day 2 also started with a win, but didn't degenerate into multiple losses.  I ended up in 6th place overall out of 12, 6th place for both TD's scored for and against, 2nd for CAS for, and 11th for CAS against (only the winner Laurent with his Skaven took more casualties than me!)

For this event you start with a legal "rookie" team.  Before game 1 you get 80k to spend on skills, I went with multiple block and piling on for my mummies, guard on a wight and sure hands on a ghoul.  I was very happy with these selections.

Day 1 (bad day)
Game 1 vs. Chris E (Ogres) 3-0 win

game 1

I was pretty jubilant getting matched up against Chris for my first game, figuring his snotlings would be casualty fodder for my "kill 'em dead" roster.  Unfortunately it didn't really go that way as Chris did better at killing his snotlings than I did! It began when he tried for a throw team-mate touchdown in his second turn and ended up killing the snotling he threw. I ended up winning 3-0 because I kept trying to score as quickly as possible to give his KO'd snotlings a chance to get back on the pitch.  Ended with my lowest amount of casualties for the whole tournament in this game when every other game was vs. mostly AV9 teams!

After game 1 Eric the organizer randomly determined everyone got 40k to use for their team. At this point I wasn't sure who I would be playing, so I opted for wrestle and tackle on each of my unskilled ghouls. This turned out to be a mistake, as I ended up playing dwarves twice - tackle being useless and my wrestle ghoul ended up off the pitch quite early in both games!  Thinking back I should've listened to Chris my first opponent and put wrestle on one of my zombies.  It also meant my other wight was unskilled for a majority of the tournament.

me prior to game 2

Game 2 vs. Rod D (Dwarves) 1-2 loss

game 2

This was a rematch of a trial game the night before as Rod crashed at my place Friday night.  I would definitely have preferred a similar result to the trial instead! (1-1 tie).  After overextending myself, he killed my wrestle ghoul on turn 2 and it went downhill from there! I was pretty happy with the result even though I was losing until after he scored the winning touchdown turn 7, on his turn 8 Rod casualtied 2 extra players to even up the casualties (these 2 also essentially won him Most CAS over me by 2, would've been a tie otherwise! Grrr!) Still I did manage 4 casualties against AV9! (Which I had done the night before too - Piling On mummies are scary!)

just after kick-off, Rod rolled quick snap!

was looking pretty good here - I overextended myself pretty soon after!

Game 3 vs. Rob P (Dwarves) 0-3 loss

game 3

This was essentially the same team I had just played! Wait not essentially - EXACTLY! We both managed 4 casualties each again, but Rob was much more brutal in terms of scoring and defence. Rob had a really up and down tournament, winning some games with great fortune (uh, long bomb with Dwarves?) and getting smoked equally in others (Laurent killed 2 of 3 and a stun on his first 3 hits vs. Rob).  Even though he beat me I still beat him to 6th place and the last spot in the top half of the players. Ha!

After game 3 Eric again randomly determined an additional 70k to spend on your team.  I gave block to my multiple block mummy and both mighty blow/piling on to my unskilled wight.  I was reasonably happy with these selections.

Day 2 (good day)
Game 4 vs. Alex W (Orcs) 1-0 win

game 4

Really? AV9 again? Alex is pretty new to blood bowl but is already a very challenging opponent.  Other than beating the snot out of each other (a 3-3 CAS game) there was a special weather table and we ended up playing on slippery ice meaning if you move >3 squares, after that models action is completed on a roll of 1 he will slide one square in the same direction as he was last moving, pushing anyone in that square another square over.  He pushed my ghoul back far enough I had to rely on sliding into the endzone to score in the first half and it didn't happen.  Then fortune smiled on me as his blitzer with the ball tried to blitz my wrestle ghoul off him, and proceeded to roll double "both down" (which would have resulted in his blitzer going down) so he rerolled only to get double skulls! Fortune began to smile on me, and I took full advantage.  In the end my ghoul had the ball deep in his end zone and I had to blitz into the end zone throwing a 2 dice, he picks block.  Worked out he chose a push and I dodged away and in for the late score.  It only left him two turns to equalize and his Orcs were just too slow.

Game 5 vs. Mark H. (Chaos Dwarves) 2-2 draw

game 5

Le sigh.  More AV9.  This is the third time I've played Mark's Chaos Dwarves, so far we each had 1 win each.  We very nearly played on the icy pitch again but thankfully my kickoff roll changed the weather.  Mark took his time pushing downfield in the first half and scored late enough I didn't really have much chance to equalize, much different to the second half where we both were just going for it.  I managed to score on turn 2 meaning the whole thing was up for grabs.  I couldn't stop Mark from scoring a second touchdown though with only 3 turns remaining, but once again I managed to score in two turns to end the game at 2-2, with each of us picking up 3 casualties each. Thus Mark and I remain tied overall (1 win, 1 loss, 3 ties) and I ended up pretty average for the tournament too. In doing so I also screwed Mark out of 3rd place which was just icing on the cake! ;)

So overall I am not too disappointed with my results. In the top half of the players has become pretty standard for me, and I think it comes down to scoring - often just a push by my opponent results in me failing to score. It's tough when I am forced to receive as I find it difficult to manage both causing casualties and scoring, if I can improve at scoring a little bit I think it will go a long way to making me better overall with the team.  I can't feel too aggrieved at losing out on Most Casualties as I spent the whole tournament trying to break AV9 and still came out 2nd!