creating the Insane Goblin Posse

Here is my post describing everything that went into creating this blood bowl team.  Hope you enjoy and are inspired.  Try making a display base or put extra effort into the fluff of your team and translate that to the models & paint job and you will feel great about your accomplishment.

INSPIRATION
The initial inspiration for doing a goblin team came from (misreading) the Blingtoof 2012 rules pack, which included a free goblin shaman.  Originally I thought that you got one every game and was unwilling to give my opponent such a large advantage.  Finding out on the day of the tournament that it was once during the tournament definitely kinda sucked since I thought I read the rules pack very closely - but oh well!

Now I wanted to win a set of silver winners dice to go along with my gold winners dice from being Best Fouler last year (especially since it was my suggestion to make the winners dice different colours for each year).  So I figured the only way to guarantee that when playing goblins was to go for Best Team (aka Best Appearance) and since there are a number of very skilled painters in the Canadian tournament scene I had to pull out all the stops to pull this off!

Then my inspiration for the ICP/juggalo theme came because the Zlurpcast hosts had committed to attending, and I knew they would appreciate the theme and might bag me a couple easy votes for Best Team.  Unfortunately due to reasons beyond their control they found out very late they were unable to attend.  Damn you Goodyear!!

I had already won the Neomics goblin team at last years inaugural Blingtoof so I purchased some goblins from Gaspez Arts to supplement these models.  Whenever I plan a team I always aim to have every model I could ever want to play with sorted.  I felt ok leaving a few of the 16 goblins for later as well as a model for Ripper since I didn't plan to bring him to Blingtoof (I did cut base holes for them though).

I will mention right now I am really unimpressed with the Gaspez goblins.  The detail is pretty weak and the molds/pieces are too fidgety and too many.  Also several models had defects.  Its been explained to me that it's due to the drum size for their molds but honestly I would never recommend these goblins to anyone - they are just too annoying to put together and it took a lot of painting on details to make them look as good as the pics on their website.  Although I do have to say their customer service was quite good.  Sent some free models with a large purchase and when some pieces broke they replaced them quickly without hesistation.


PLANNING
I knew I need to have an awesome display base to help win this trophy and as I researched ICP, it became clear that a concert with a "dark carnival" slant would be very appropriate.  Especially as the goblin secret weapons (including pogoer) fit very very well into the dark carnival theme of ICP's albums.  I did lots of research and built up a set of names and numbers for the goblins models I was planning to use.  I've detailed out this below, but first I wanted to speak about the display itself.

I was thinking about what I could use as the display base - how to texture it, and while browsing around a FLGS (meeplemart.com) I found some zuzzy mats which were quite small (about 11"x14") and pretty cheap so I picked one up to play around with.  The owner mentioned how difficult it would be to cut the latex properly - suggesting folding it from behind and using a pair of scissors.  I am really confident that my method was better.  There happens to be a kind of artist commune near my house that has lots of specialized tools like mills, etc. and some of my friends had done some laser cutting there.  So I started asking questions about using it on latex which I was assured works quite well so I signed up for the laser cutting course and duly planned out where all the models were to stand.  I also built a stage out of bamboo sticks which turned out to be infinitely more difficult to laser cut properly than the latex.

L-R: Guts on the Ceiling, Jake Jeckel, Night of the Axe

* The chainsaws (looneys) seemed to fit perfect with the "Carnival of Carnage", the first album.  I eventually selected two song names from that album to be the names of the looneys.  Night of the Axe worked well for Gaspez' axe murderer looking looney, while "Guts on the Ceiling" made sense for the Neomics looney whose chainsaw is pointing straight up.  For their #'s I used the album and the song number.  (ie. 1-9 and 1-7 respectively).  I put them with Jake Jeckel figuring they are looneys and could be juggling their chainsaws while he juggles bombs.

Ringmaster

* Gaspez' "il Mago" miniature was perfect to represent "Ringmaster" - the second album.  He simply got the #2.  I ended up creating a small podium for him to stand on near the middle of the stage.  It would have been nice to create an actual stand for him to be behind but with how short goblins are it just would've looked silly. I used some black felt cloth to cover the foamcore.

Riddlebox

* The Neomics "spring shoes" pogoer seemed a perfect "Riddlebox" (the third album) character - especially bouncing out of a jack in the box.  Eventually when I realized that Riddlebox is also a song on the album, I selected the name "Three Rings" for the Gaspez "stilts" pogoer and gave them the #'s 3-2 and 3-8 respectively.  "Riddlebox" is the "ticket taker" standing near the entrance, and "Three Rings" is fighting "Bizaar" (see below).

Great Milenko conversion

Milenko in Fortune Teller booth

* For the fourth album - "The Great Milenko" I purchased the snake charmer Gaspez goblin and used his head to replace the head of the "Superman" neomics goblin.  I then glued a small bird that I was fortunate to get from a friend @mrkevinstewart which I think is from some privateer press miniature.  Finally I just used a piece of wire as his wand.  Also the model had a defect where his left ear was missing, I used the "V" base letter and liquid green stuff to replace it, which worked surprisingly well.  I would like to try and add additional freehand to his turban when I get the time.  I also thought he would be cool as the "cashier" to get into the concert/carnival and at the same time kinda look like those old automated fortune tellers, so I built a little booth on the display to put him behind out of popsicle sticks, with a bit of the same felt cloth over the top. He simply got the #4.

Jack Jeckel

* Bombardiers were perfectly suited for the fifth album "The Amazing Jeckel Brothers" (Jack Jeckel/Jake Jeckel - two variant editions, just album art AFAIK) the brothers are juggling balls of fire, with one (evil - Jack) attempting to make the balls drop and another (good - Jake) attempting to keep juggling.  The Gaspez bombardier is a juggler and I selected him to be Jake - he was placed with the two looneys (see photo above), which meant the Neomics bombardier will be Jack (and I painted his molotov cocktails as Faygo bottles). Since these were two variant "editions" I selected the numbers 5e1 and 5e2 - imagining the numbers spoken phonetically.

* The sixth album had two discs, so I definitely was using two goblins for it.  The discs were called Shangri-La (disc 1) and Hells Pit (disc 2)  They didn't really seem to fit the fanatics at all, so instead I selected two normal goblins whose pose seemed suitable.  For Shangri-La I selected the Neomics goblin who seems to be pretending to be an airplane and figured he could be about to stage-dive into the mosh pit.  For Hells Pit I selected the Neomics goblin who was ducking - figuring he could be right underneath Shangri-La on the display board but also someone condemned to hell would probably curl up into a ball.  Similarly to the bombardiers I numbered them 6d1 and 6d2, again imagining the numbers spoken phonetically.

* After the 6th album, that was the end of the dark carnival cards theme.  Doing other research I found out the number 17 was important to ICP as that was the number of albums they sold off their first run.  So since the numbering of the albums was quite messed up by the multiple editions and discs, I decided then that I would number the trolls 7 and 10.  Originally I was thinking to paint the numbers on their backs in letters, but to spell "TEN" wrong (TEEN) so that when viewed from behind the stage it would say seventeen.  Unfortunately one of the trolls isn't wearing a jacket so it didn't seem to make sense - although I may revisit it and just use their pants.

* Before the 6th dark carnival album, ICP put out a couple albums that weren't really a part of the dark carnival theme called Bizaar and Bizzar.  I thought that the names were very suitable for the fanatics so I decided to use them as their names but just gave them the #'s 8 & 9 since they didn't fit into the previous numbering scheme and having other albums #'d six-something would be confusing.  I decided to build a "striker" (aka the test your strength game) for the Neomics goblin (who I use as Fungus).

Three Rings vs. Bizaar

Meanwhile for Bizaar (the rostered fanatic) I was using the Gaspez tightrope walker, and I had this idea to give the stick he was holding some weights on the end and he would look a bit like the old american gladiators joust game.  My friend Eric gave me the idea to mount him and "Three Rings" on some stools, which worked out very well.

no caption required

* Originally I was planning to have a single goblin named "Bang Pow Boom" and #'d 11 for that album - however further research showed it had several album covers (one blue, one green and one red) as well as an "Extreme" edition.  For now I have 3 goblins, one named "Bang" in red (#11R), one named "Pow" in green (#11G) and one named "Boom" in blue (#11B) - as I fill in the other 8 goblins I need for the mosh pit I am definitely considering doing a "Bang Pow Boom" goblin in the colours of the extreme edition.

* The 12th album is called "Mighty Death Pop" and I thought about splitting it up as well - however the album just has one cover so instead I purchased the Snid Vicious goblin with giant spiked boots and used him as #12.  His pose is very brutal so I placed him near Hells Pit in the mosh pit so there's a couple reasons for that poor guy to be cowering in fear.

Mike E, DJ Chops, cheerleader

To add to this, I have a few sideline figures.  The Gaspez "boss" is my leader reroll and is named "Mike E" after their producer, the Gaspez "apothecary" is obviously my apothecary and is named "DJ Chops".  I also used a goblin cheerleader as my FAME marker and put her near the DJ as a "groupie".

I used the Gaspez squigs as my bribes - the thinking being they eat the ref and a new one has to come on the field.  I put them beneath the apothecary/DJ desk (which I made by using some shelf liner on a piece of foamcore) on the stage and used leftover bits from the Gaspez snake charmer as the body parts they are snacking on.

reroll, wizard  & generic counters

The Gaspez cannon/fusilier act as reroll counters (as do usually the Faygo barrels - though I purposely left them blank on the base in case they need to be used for something else) while the Gaspez goblin with a "rocket hat??" is my wizard (goblin shaman) token.

before

The two Gaspez goblins on unicycles became my Turn and Score counters - I envisioned them riding along a track to mark the turn/score.  So for that reason I contacted my friend Axtlinge about helping me to create a custom dugout that I would attach to the display base and I built some magnetized ramps to allow them to ride off the stage onto the dugout.  That's why I had Axtlinge rotate the stage texture so when they are positioned riding along the dugout tracks it makes sense.  Also why I painted the description (ie. turn/score) on the side that faces the field to help identify them.

after

unbelievably awesome dugout

Axtlinge did an incredible job with the dugout - it really adds a ton of character to the team and I can't thank him enough.  He was full of suggestions and advice and I really am not sure if I would have done anywhere near as good a job without his help.  The dugout itself uses the texture from photos of the latex zuzzy mat and the bamboo sticks stage to very closely mimic the actual display itself.  Axt had tons of great ideas about the actual design but also took my direction extremely well meaning that I always felt in control of the outcome.  I especially liked that he took my doodles that I copied from the impact weather dice and coloured them and used them as the weather marker - brilliant!  His placement of the scatter template within the stripes of the KO tent was pure genius!

Finally I got Carl who deals with the laser cutter at Site3 to cut out a "hatchet man" logo in acrylic to be my weather marker.  This ensured I had something very fitting to go on the stage and really help bring the theme together.  I also want to thank Carl & Hillary at Site3 who helped me with the laser cutter.


Feel free to hit me up with questions in the comments.  Instead of posting the WIP pics in this post, I am planning to upload them to a google+ post and just share that link (to preempt any requests for WIP pics :p ;) )

Blingtoof's Gitbash 2012 - result = Best Team + no spoon!

I'll apologize right now, I meant to tweet lots of pictures and stuff over the weekend but I forgot my phone on Saturday so didn't really have easy access to twitter or taking pictures.  So my game recaps are going to be brief since I have no pics or any tweets to spark my memory.  I will be doing another post about the actual team and display base, etc. later on.  For now a huge huge thanks to Axtlinge from Merry Mayhem News for creating the custom dugout for me, as well as providing a ton of advice and inspiration.  Also thanks to Carl and Hillary @ Site3 for their assistance with the laser cutter, and Jason from The Printing House (branch 63) for help printing the dugout.  Here is a link to the NAF thread for this tournament.

Insane Goblin Posse - aka the gobblugalosch

I went all out to try to win Best Team with a goblin team with an ICP/Juggalo theme.  This was sparked in two ways.  One was that I misread the rules and didn't realize the goblin shaman lightning bolt everyone gets was only 1 per tournament.  I thought it was 1 per game and for that reason really felt I had to take goblins.  To find out I only had one sucked!!  I picked the theme because originally the zlurpcast guys were supposed to come, and they love juggalos! Unfortunately they weren't able to make it but I did such a good job with the team it didn't matter.  So I won the Best Team award and was successful in my goal of getting another set of winners dice.  First year they were gold and I had tossed Chris (the T.O.) a suggestion to make next years silver (guessing next years will be bronze - after that who knows!) So I've got a set of gold blingtoof dice as well as now a set of silver.  I'll be trying to get a pair of those, so we'll see what award I go for next year.

Best Team Award

The team I took was;
Troll - block
Troll - stand firm
Bomber - hail mary pass
Fanatic - mighty blow
Fungus the Loon
Looney - dodge
Pogoer - sure feet
8 goblins
3 rerolls
2 bribes
1 assistant coach
1 cheerleader

Game 1: 0-1 loss to Dave's Skaven
I was really pleased with this game, holding Skaven to 1 touchdown was a good result.  I don't really remember a lot of what happened since it was the first game and was still nursing a bit of a hangover from Friday night's festivities. Except I seem to recall a goblin getting eaten.  I also remember I didn't get to use the bomber very much since I didn't start with him on the pitch.  I definitely won the coin toss and elected to receive, but if I recall correctly Fungus danced around his skaven instead of hitting them a lot on that first drive and I wasn't able to make enough inroads to score.  He duly nipped around behind my team and stalled out til late for his TD and I think I ate my goblin trying to OTT.

Game 2: 0-4 loss to Kevin's Orcs
I made a mistake in the first turn of this game that really lost any momentum I could've gotten.  Kevin rolled a blitz on his first kick off, but tripped going for it to get the ball.  I surrounded his down player and did everything up to the foul and picking up the ball/handing it off to my bomber.  I should have just tried the foul first since I had a bunch of assists and it was his tackle blitzer.  Instead I went for the ball since if I got ejected he was just going to grab it and score.  But that happened anyways and I didn't get to foul his guy!  He scored on turn 2 and I had to spend 2 bribes and then had to use all my secret weapons on the next drive anyways.  Went downhill from there.

Game 3: 2-1 win over Pete's Goblins
Pete made a mistake in his first turn, going with Fungus first (he basically copied my roster) and he ended up hitting my troll meaning he only got 2 dice and he rolled skull/both down.  He failed his loner and lost Fungus + turned over.  I capitalized heavily, getting the ball, knocking down a troll, chainsawing a goblin and then used my goblin shaman to hit his other troll.  I scored with about 3 turns left for him but he was already doing a good job taking on my trolls, he killed one but thankfully it regenerated.  Start of second half he kicks to me and I have the bomber sit in the back and wait for an opportune moment after he flooded forwards, to run my pogoer deep into his end and I hail mary passed the ball at the end of a turn, landing near the end zone and just had to wait a turn to run up, pick it up and score.  Now 2-0 up I am out of bribes and I was  running out of players (2 ejected for fouling, all 4 secret weapons gone and he kept KO'ing my trolls).  By the end of the game he had cleared me off the pitch to walk in his touchdown, but it was too late for him to try for another so I got the win and he got fouling points.  This win basically saved me from the wooden spoon and simultaneously gave the spoon to Pete.

Game 4: 0-4 loss to Eric's High Elves
Eric is a big ICP fan and so obviously was a huge fan of my team. Eric won the coin toss and chose to receive.  I think he scored on turn 2, so first bribe gone to keep the looney around.  I just couldn't catch up to Eric in this game and he had 3 of his 4 TDs in the first half.  Eric kept a very thematic viewpoint during the tournament - in that High Elves would hate having a goblin on their team and they would never want him involved if possible and they would hope he would die.  So he gave his goblin stupid skills like break tackle for a double, etc. and he also didn't really foul a lot - so of course the one foul that worked for him all tournament was a casualty against me - LOL!

Game 5: 1-2 loss to Rod's Chaos
This was a heart breaker.  It was very back and forth as he got pieces ejected for fouling and we were both causing lots of KO's.  He won the coin toss and everytually scored in the first half, thankfully a number of KO's came back so I was able to save my bomber for the second half - although he did KO my pogoer who didn't come back, but thankfully I got Sure Feet on another goblin as the skill up before this game so I used him in place of the pogo'er, and managed to get him deep into Rod's half before hail mary passing the ball.  My fanatic and fungus both were on for the same drive and they totally destroyed Rod's team.  I made an EXTREMELY annoying and crucial error forgetting that on my turn 7 in the second half, Rod still had two turns.  I thought we each had one turn so I scored thinking I was the only team able to score in one turn.  I was right but I was wrong about how many turns he had, and with each only having 5 players it was easy for him to just walk in the touchdown after changing weather had the ball bounce out of bounds for a touchback.  My goblin was safe on turn 7 so if I had just been happy with the tie, I would have gotten it - but that mistake basically gifted him the win.

In terms of great things happening in game over the weekend the best were;
1. I never had a bribe fail.
2. I never had my HMP bomber fumble.
3. I never had Fungus go down as a result of a block (that I did, ie. double/triple skulls or both down)

Which leads me to believe I did a pretty decent job with Fungus AND I was extremely lucky with bribes and bombs!  Although the bombs almost never did any damage.

ps. my fouling points record from last year is intact.  116 points and this years winner of best fouler was Rod with 76.  40 points more, not sure if anyone will break that record :)

dual posted on Merry Mayhem News

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.

Most CAS

Rising Star (complete w shit eating grin)

dual posted on Merry Mayhem News

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 Merry Mayhem News

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

NAF trophy

dual posted at Merry Mayhem News

mini painted for others...

Well it has been a long while since I have posted anything "hobby" wise - but my motivation has been sparked by a new project which is in the works.  While it hasn't yet gotten to "total spare time consumption" levels yet, I have been trying to put an hour or so into it at every opportunity.  Due to some factors involved, a full hour isn't always possible or the hour isn't completely filled up as I wait for things like glue & paint to dry.  Therefore to keep myself in the "hot seat" I have also been doing little bits and pieces of a fig I've been painting for arabianknight over at weeblokes.  You can see it in primered condition in this post.

He is now complete, here are a bunch of pics, sorry for one being blurry.

front

left

back

right

I've used a variety of techniques on him, the tartan shorts were done primarily with washes.  The rifle was P3 coal black with a very very light drybrushing of P3 pig iron.  The ammo was undercoated with P3 bootstrap leather before a coat of Vallejo whatever the tin colour is called, before a light wash of soft tone from army painter.  Skin was GW dwarf flesh with strong tone wash, with dwarf flesh re-applied and P3 midlund flesh as highlight.  His crazy hair had some red and blue lines followed by a couple washes with GW thraka green.

Hope you like him Sam!

My project is the main goal over the next few months, but next up on the docket of miniatures to be painted for others is a skaven warplock enginseer type fig for hakomike @ constantly risking obscurity in return for the beautifully painted harlequin he did for my spire brats gang!

NaBBLe becomes HoBBLe (league season 2)

This past weekend was the playoffs of a local leagues second season.  The league has been renamed from NaBBLe to HoBBLe to be a little fluffier with it's location (Toronto ie. Hogtown).  You may remember that I walked away as champion of season 1 with my dark elf team the Karond Kar Raiders - and due to that they spent a season touring the olde worlde.  I brought a slann team for season 2 (my jawbreakers aka the googlies)

It was a pretty rough season!  The commish came up with the idea of playing a game vs. "the piggies" who were a bunch of halfings in order to build up some SPP.  Unfortunately for me, since slann don't have any piece that starts with block - I could only take them down on POWs or have to take a chance on having my own armour broken.  Dave played the piggies vs. me and he CAS'd all 3 of my catchers, including killing one outright!!  My first few games I basically took insane beatdowns including one game where I was on the receiving end of 7 CAS.

For all that though, I still managed to do really well with them.  I finished the league in 5th place - 2 points out of contention for the playoffs, which considering I was consistently;
a) having to replace dead/injured players (6 deaths, 2 MV busts, 2 MNG)
b) playing with a minimum of 1 journeyman every game
c) having between 300-650!! worth of inducements each game
I felt pretty good about my final record of 5W/1D/4L which is better than .500 - I'm not sure what the tiebreaker was between myself and Nicco - it could have been TD's scored (not diff, he beat me there) or it could have been head to head as I won our game.

So on Sunday we got together for the playoffs and anyone not playing in the playoffs got a "grudge match".  With identical records Nicco and I matched up again and while the game was close in terms of scoring (might've been different if his zombie didn't intercept a pass!!) he tore my team up pretty bad, killing outright my AG5/Guard blitzer as well as my ST4/mighty blow linefrog. Taking the grudge match into account I came out at exactly .500 which is still pretty impressive.

Originally I had planned to bring a new team next season as a number of people were planning to start new teams - however instead of just 1 game vs. the piggies - the plan is to have a small 1 day 3 game tournament to build up SPP for your team.  Unfortunately for me, it's scheduled for the day after my wedding so if I want to live to see season 3 I'm sure I will be missing it.  That gives me two options, 1) bring back the dark elves or 2) continue with the slann.  At first I thought nearly everyone was bringing a new team and that would make it pretty douchey to bring a tooled up team back, but now it seems that at least 4-5 coaches might bring their same teams from season 2 back so we'll play it by ear!

Zlurpeebowl VIII - result = 38/60

#WHUTUPSHUN

Sorry for how long this has taken me to put together - have been super busy lately and I wanted to really give a summary of the whole weekend because Xtreme (@XtremeBBer) really put a proper "weekend" of fun together.

pre-party

The canucks made excellent time driving down to Naptown, I think we arrived around 5ish.  Checked in at the lake house which turned out to be plenty big enough for 8 guys (they mentioned we might be cramped but the closets were big enough to hold our an air mattress - and Alex (@alexmatusiak) did sleep in the closet hoping for a bit of quiet, though it didn't work out that way as Hickling stayed up watching one of the american pie movies.

So once we dropped our stuff off, we headed over to Xtreme's place which was about a 20 minute drive.  Got there and Hickling immediately dove into a game of the BB team manager, while the rest of us hung around waiting for our beer to get cold.  Thankfully Sol and the mad dawgs showed up with a cooler and shared the wealth.  This party was a huge blast, everyone just hanging out and drinking, we all played silly games like rat ogre bowl (which Alex won) and space bowl (which Alex's team won - even despite my terrible efforts as the hive mind)

spacebowl broodlord vs. sergeant - that's me pointing!

hive mind high five! me, alex, randroid, sarge

DAY 1


Game 1 vs. Jeff (@ZootSuitJeff) 2-0 win

Jeff was one of the 'mericans crashing with the canucks at the little lake house we rented.  Appropriate we got to play each other!  Jeff brought a FTLOTG (and was eventual FTLOTG champion) counts as lizardmen team (no Saurus!) that was comprised of a giant robot for the kroxigor and a bunch of tiny robots for the skinks.  Very cool looking team.

game 1

In the first half I won the coin toss and chose to kick.  I used Boomer right away hoping it would force Jeff to try to score early.  Didn't work out that way and Boomer didn't have much effect as his skinks were so spread out - but I did manage to nip the ball and score late in the half.  Second half Jeff played a brilliant drive that very nearly succeeded in scoring down one flank, but fortune wasn't with him and he lost possession late (bit hazy now but I think it was a failed dodge or gfi) and even though I was planning to _not_ win by a lot (an early big win will have you playing stronger opponents sooner!) in the end I just tried to make a late scoring drive and ended up scoring a second touchdown without even using a reroll.  Should've saved some of that luck for later games!

Game 2 vs. Al 1-0 win

Al was _originally_ going to crash with us, but fortunately a cancellation let him stay in the house with the other mad dawgs whose team he was on, and was travelling with.  I'm sure that was nicer in the end for him.  Al also did a great job with the grill saturday night at the live after zlurp party.  He was the second lizardmen team I played, although he did have saurii (sp?).

game 2

Again I kicked to Al and used Boomer immediately.  Boomer had a much better impact in this game - I think it frustrated Al quite a bit.  The game was definitely a learning experience for Al, I'm not sure he was very familiar with the dangers of frenzy.  I warned him about being near the sidelines but I think the second hit threw him for a loop.  Fortunately for him the crowd only KO'd his tackle saurus.  Quite a back and forth game, where I managed to pull out a 1-0 win.  I think it wasn't until the second half that I scored but don't quote me on that, after the pre-party at Xtreme's Friday night the games from day one are tough to recall!

At the same time, Alex and Jonny P were playing right next to us, here's Jonny's #1 absolute favourite pic from the entire weekend.  Alex's Krox looming over his blitzer (or linewoman or whatever, ther're all blodgers - who cares!!)

NOM NOM

Game 3 vs. Tom 1-2 loss

Angry Tom! Septuple Burger Buddy Award winner! THE Tomcat Rummery.

I have played Tom twice before, and with a win and a draw under my belt I figured a bit of smack talk was in order.  He got his revenge in this game but the look on his face was priceless!!  Tom is part of the mad dawgs crew and ended up winning Zlurpeebowl!  He came in 2nd for the RPS tournament, but he cheated me by waiting to see what I chose first! ;)  He was also the 3rd lizardmen team in a row I faced. 

game 3

Made my first big mistake of the day here.  I won the coin toss and should have kicked, instead I chose to receive hoping to really cash in on Boomer, but it ended up costing me as Boomer caused a couple turnovers with fumbles.  AV7 started to cost me as well.  This was a very fun game as Tom and I traded smack talk the whole time.  Unfortunately as he was generally doing well (and there were young children nearby) didn't manage to drag out a proper Angry Tom performance but it was still a blast.  We both scored in the first half, and then in the second I couldn't hold him as the casualties started to mount.

guessing I just insulted Tom in this pic

waiting for retaliation??

Game 4 vs. Ezzard 1-2 loss

Ezzard is another American who crashed with us, so throughout day 1 I basically played people I've been connected to somehow, with Tom the only one I'd previously played - that's always nice! I felt for the poor guy, his allergies were going crazy and I am usually the same, but my allergies didn't bother me at all in the States, weird!

game 4

YAY not playing lizardmen! BOO playing guardspam dwarves! Double BOO, he took Boomer too so neither can use him!!  Made another huge mistake in choosing to kick to him, that's what I wanted to do if I had Boomer, so once I lost Boomer I should have immediately realized that would be suicide.  AND it was.  I think Ezzard got like 7 casualties against me but I still managed to score a TD and I think if I had received it could've been a different game.  Not surprised I made this mistake though as by game 4 of day 1 your mental fortitude is really what is tested the most.  Ezzard won 2-1 and he ended up winning Most Casualties (you're welcome!)

live after zlurp party

Well this was a BLAST.  Definitely the highlight of the weekend, if you have listened to Episode 36 of Zlurpcast you have already heard all the best stuff.  I missed hearing Hickling's interview live as I was scarfing down food, but I joined the crowd just as Jeff was doing his "Go For It". It's always a blast chatting with Main Guy and Other Guy, and I had fun doing my own "Go For It" - especially because Jonny just wouldn't give up until I got a skill roll and (as it had all night) giving away SPP just bugs Bryan!  I'm sure if you are reading this you've listened, but as a recap I started as an Orc blitzer and with a few "correct" answers ended up with 6SPP and took Mighty Blow as my first skill, time to crack a few skulls!

mustard vs. ketchup!

There were tons of games and such going on, so much that it was impossible to follow everything that was happening.  I think we called it quits sometime around 1am to head back to the lake house for a bit of sleep before the second day.  Thankfully for us, our location was much closer to the venue than everyone else, so we were able to sleep in quite a bit even though we had to be all packed up before we left.  The folks at Indy Lakes were super nice (if you are ever there, say hi to James for me!) and I wouldn't hesitate to go back even though it's mainly for fishing, it was just overall super convenient.  Next year will probably try to do a bit more planning so we can just eat breakfast there, since we really barely used the facilities - it even had laundry!

DAY 2

Game 5 vs. Josh 0-1 loss

Josh was part of the OWFUL crew, and was the guy who told the hilarious Jake Lloyd selling weed story on Zlurpcast Episode 36.  A really great guy and we had a super epic game.  This was easily my most fun game of the tournament - which always says a lot when you lose!

game 5

I chose to receive and used Boomer and right away was super pumped as the kickoff result was "Get the Ref!" giving me a bribe to attempt to keep Boomer around for both drives!!  KICK ASS I thought.  Boomer really tore into Josh's orcs, mostly just knocking them down - however did get the odd KO here and there.  In the end, I should have just tried to dodge away on my turn 8 with a reroll to score, but instead I tried to blitz his player off and had to burn the reroll on a gfi in the process.  Then the blitz didn't knock his player down so I had to dodge anyways (stupid!) and of course I failed.  So we went in at halftime with no score.  To make matters worse I rolled a 1 for my bribe, so I didn't get to keep Boomer.  NOOOOOOoooooooo.  Fought tooth and nail to keep Josh from scoring, but he managed to score on the last turn of the game, where he failed his catch roll from a hand off and the game literally came down to a single 3+ roll.  He made it and deservedly won the game 1-0.

Game 6 GRUDGE MATCH vs. (@GDubToThaFeetUp) aka Jonny P (@jp4media) 1-1 draw

A man needing no introduction.  If you don't know who Jonny P is - I don't understand why you have read this far through this post!  Looks pretty soft in this pic eh???

game 6 vs. "soft" jonny

"I put dump off in dis bag" - your face says it all main guy

Another pretty epic game, though mostly for Jonny!  Boomer again was a force to be reckoned with since Jonny's entire amazon team were blodgers!  Really helped to knock his team down, though I gotta say I also rolled a fair amount of open POWs as well on my drive.  I scored late but didn't really do enough damage to Jonny's team.  

Second half JP made a nice push and tied the game up, then after kicking to me again - all of a sudden he started breaking armour like nobody's business around turn 5-6 and in two turns he had KO'd 3-4 and CAS'd another 2-3.  It was brutal!! In the end I had like 2 players on the pitch, and all I could do was draw his players close, then run up the field and throw it as far as was safe to do and pray to not fumble.  I managed it and JP couldn't manage to score with his chance so the game ended 1-1.

check out the beating I took!

GRUDGE....REMAINS

Awards

The "Eh" Team did pretty well overall..  in fact much better than anyone (even Xtreme) thought because after the fact I determined that we actually should have won "Best Team"!!! This was mainly due to the bonuses from Alex winning best appearance for his lizardmen team (this was what Bryan forgot) and for Hickling being on a top table in the final round.  At the event it went to the Legion of Boom from Wisconsin - so we will actually be co-champions.  Waiting to hear from Xtreme about possible prizes and I know we are getting certificates!  There's a blurb about this in Zlurpcast Episode 36 which is pretty funny!

Hickling ended up with 3rd place.  If he won his last game he would have won the tournament.  He was the only player to beat Tom (who won, going 5-1) - the results list shows him in 4th, but basically the top 2 tables in the last round make up who places 1-4th, so even though Petre won his last game (the last American who stayed with us at the lake house) and leapfrogged him, Mark still took 3rd.  As you can see he spent a lot of time on the top tables!  PS. This is the Mark they called "Chops" on Zlurpcast Episode 36.

hick vs taylor 1.0

hick vs. solarflare

hick vs. rodney

Here's my recording of the awards ceremony. Also you can check out the results thread on the zlurpeebowl forum.


All in all this was probably the most amazing blood bowl tournament experience I've had.  I know The "Eh" Team will be back!!

dual posted on Merry Mayhem News