Zlurpeebowl IX - result = Best Appearance + no spoon! (33/40)

Well Zlurpeebowl IX is done and dusted and for me, it was mission accomplished!  Our team also did really well and I'm sure the Eh Team was close to the top of best team again (we also got our trophies from last year - thanks Xtreme!!) and bar my nearly catastrophic blunder early on in our road trip down (I'm the moron who forgot to bring his passport and cost us several additional hours of driving) pretty much the entire trip was a huge success! We ended up at Xtremes a bit late Friday night, but did manage to get some Deathroller Racing in and hang out a bit.

This year I decided to bring my Insane Goblin Posse and aim for a Best Appearance award. Since I wouldn't likely be challenging for top tables with a goblin team, I chose to also use a FTLOTG roster (Zlurpeebowl does not use the usual stunty rosters - instead there are even more handicapped rosters who challenge for a "For the Love of the Game" cup) since this would gain the Eh Team an additional team point.

Here is the list I took - I was really happy with everything except I think I would swap jump up on the Looney for a simple dodge.  Usually when the chainsaw goes down - his armour is broken.  Stopping him from going down as frequently would have been preferable, since I barely got the chance to use jump up.
Bombardier - hail mary pass
Fanatic - mighty blow
Fungus the Loon
Looney - jump up/leap
Pogoer - jump up/sure feet
3 Goblins - side step
5 Goblins
3 Rerolls
3 Bribes

Game 1 vs Dan 0-5 loss
I had never really met Dan before, but I remembered him from zlurpeebowl last year - he won some dancing contest and when I brought it up he said he'd been practicing for this year! Dan brought a dark elf team which comprised of; witch w wrestle, 3x blitzer w dodge, blitzer w guard, 5x lineman w block, 2x linemen

This game was quite rough for me.  For the first few turns, I turned over nearly immediately.  I did manage to stun a lineman with the Looney, but this is how my dugout looked after two turns.

OUCH!

and it didn't get much better - the one shining light of the game was his witch elf managed to trip herself dodging and I managed to take her out with my Fanatic - woohoo!!  This tournament was all about the little things!  Here's how my dugout looked at the end of the game - I did manage to avoid having to look up the rules for what happens when you get tabled!

one goblin left alive!

Game 2 vs. Mike 2-0 win
Mike also brought a cheaters list - though very different from my list.  I recall him playing at Chaos Cup when I was there in 2011.  Mikes list had; fanatic w guard & mighty blow, looney, pogoer & 4x goblins w sure hands, 9x goblins. He said straight away he came to lose five games!  I found out later he managed a win vs. a lizardmen team where his fanatic and chainsaw destroyed the poor girls kroxigor & saurus.

an early scare!

Mike gave me an early scare when after receiving - I couldn't pick up the football, then he managed to waltz into two tackle zones, pick it up and dodge away!  I had to completely block his route to the end zone to ensure he wouldn't just dice his way into the end zone.  Fortunately for me it seems it wouldn't have mattered as he failed his first attempt to dodge away anyways.  The rest of the first half I tried to cause more attrition but failed - though I did score at the end of the half.  Luckily for me in the second half, my bombardier pulled off an epic toss that hit and killed outright his pogoer carrying the ball.  Regardless of the daunting casualties I took, I applied as much pressure as possible and managed to score a second touchdown late in the game.

Game 3 vs Anthony (@KhorneliusPraxx) 1-2 loss
Anthony had to wake up at 4am and drive for several hours to arrive to play at the tournament.  I was truly frightened when I saw his list.  He only had 5 saurus and no kroxigor so he could afford 4 rerolls, but every saurus had block and three of them had mighty blow.  One of his skinks also had sure hands.

goblin side stepping cage!

Pretty sure I had Anthony sweating it out big time.  He scored on turn 4 and I managed a very epic goblin cage which saw me make a mistake giving him a chance for a 1 die block instead of 2 die uphill - but fortunately for me, he rolled a skull - allowing me to tie it up at half time.  For the second half, things could have gone very differently if I had chosen to reroll my blitz on the first turn where I rolled double skulls.  I chose to keep the reroll, and it resulted in a goblin death.  Then his first block resulted in another goblin death.  It put me under the cosh a bit, but if it wasn't for a failed dodge with reroll I still could have scored a second touchdown and I still nearly held on for the draw.  Anthony managed to score a touchdown on the last turn of the game (my Looney and Pogoer knocking down his ball carrier twice in the interim) but he pulled it out!

Game 4 vs Brian (@B_C_Harmon) 0-1 loss
Brian is a great buddy of mine since he roomed with me at Chaos Cup in 2011, but unfortunately we have not ever had a chance to play a game - so this was our first! Again it was scary to have to play a dwarf team with my goblins that did not even have trolls!  Brian was having a pretty crappy tournament from what he told me.  Not only that but he had a very VERY strong list; runner w block, runner w dodge, 2x troll slayers, 2x blitzers w guard, 5x blockers w guard.

amazing first half!!

Brian also got a really big scare! I won the coin toss and chose to receive - and for the first game my Fanatics were pretty epic - smacking his dwarves around - killing one in the first turn.  My Bombardier also managed to kill another dwarf.  Throughout the first turn I dragged his dwarves all over and spread him out.  Eventually I had about 6 goblins within scoring range and most of his dwarves too far away to be involved.  So it was time to hail mary pass the ball down the field.  The best Brian could do was get a single tackle zone on the ball, and tie up my other goblins.  Unfortunately for me, my Pogoer failed a dodge with reroll - and in two turns I was unable to get a chance to pick up the ball.  In the second half Brians luck began to turn and he pulled off a quite standard dwarf grind to win the game, I managed a blitz on his ball carrier but my chainsaw didn't break his armour - but again I was happy to have had him sweating.

Game 5 vs Josh (@Aldis_Snow) tied 1-1
I played Josh and his orcs at zlurpeebowl last year and he pulled off an epic last turn 1-0 win.  This year I pulled something close to the reverse this year.  This is the first time I've gotten a result other than a loss against any team other than goblins - woohoo! Josh had a pretty standard looking orc list; 4x black orcs w block, 3x blitzer w guard, blitzer w dodge, thrower w block.

greenskin vs. greenskin

A lot of the details of this game are eluding me now - probably due to the amount of alcohol imbibed Saturday night.  From the photo I've taken I must have won the coin toss, and I can see that neither Fanatics are on the pitch anymore and I'm slowly remembering rolling skull/both down for each of them.  You can see that the ball has been hail mary passed down to his end, but I know that he stopped me from scoring - and I remember him needing 4 GFIs with his thrower to attempt to score and failing one of them, leaving us with no score at half time.  In the second half he scored about midway through and I had about 6 goblins left, including my Pogoer.  I had an opportunity to score with my pogoer and again he let me down, failing his dodge with reroll after picking up the ball in 2 tackle zones.  So in the final turn with no rerolls, I decided instead of just going for it with the pogoer again - I dodged 3 goblins into the end zone next to the ball so that if I failed to pick up the ball and was fortunate with the scatter I might get a chance of catching the ball in the end zone.  In the end, I was fortunate enough to not worry as my Pogoer finally redeemed himself by picking up the ball in 2 tackle zones and dodging out successfully to score the fourth and final touchdown of the tournament for me.

Game 6 vs Sarge 0-2 loss
Sarge won best sportsman at zlurpeebowl last year and for the first time ever the repeat was pulled off - he won it again this year.  Gearing up to zlurpeebowl I inquired about playing him in the grudge match (an excellent convention and one I plan to implement at the Canadian Open) - Sarge also played a FTLOTG roster which was based on khemri without any tomb guardians; 2x blitz-ras w tackle, 2x throw-ras w block, 2 skeletons w tackle, 10 skeletons & 7 fan factor.

FTLOTG vs. FTLOTG

This game didn't go well from me from the start.  I did get to receive but with all his fan factor, Sarge won +2 FAME.  Then within 4 turns I had burned all my rerolls on kickbacks and fumbled bombs.  Then in the fourth turn I fumbled a bomb again which exploded and stunned my Bombardier.  Sarge got some tackle zones on the ball and while I had a couple chances to hail mary it away from trouble - the lack of rerolls was telling and Sarge managed to score.  In the second half I managed several chances to blitz his ball carrier - and was successful once, but he was very cagey with his positioning and it meant too many dice (generally without rerolls as kick offs usually resulted in me losing rerolls or Sarge winning rerolls) and Sarge finished the game scoring a second time - congratulations to him!!

As usual - Bryan, Jonny and I took our usual photo!

natzlurpim v3.0

best appearance!

I managed to win the Best Appearance award I had been gunning for, while Dave (@doomington) & Alex (@alexmatusiak) managed to finish in 4th and 5th place respectively (although the trophies for 1st - 4th are determined by tournament points among the 4 players on the 2 top tables - which Alex and Dave did not play on in final round.) but both finished with very impressive final records of 4/1/1 - and Tyler (@tkohlmetz) tied for most touchdowns but lost out on tiebreakers.  Excellent results for the Eh Team!

You can also check out the results thread here on the zlurpeebowl forums.

dual posted on Merry Mayhem News