Orion Cup 2017 - result = 2nd place, lost 1st on tiebreakers (2/12)

Saturday June 24th I participated in a 4 game, 1 day, turncoat style blood bowl tournament in Toronto, ON.

For this years Orion Cup - Stimme decided to steal the turncoat style from a Belgian tournament and use it here. Basically it meant you had to play using your opponents team for rounds 2 and 4.

I chose to take Chaos Pact, and I borrowed a team from Stimme the organizer.
Simply because I would only need to play 2 games with them! :)
I was hoping to get a few other teams knocked off the 24 list, unfortunately played teams I've already used a lot :(

My roster was all 6 positionals, 6 marauders, 3 rerolls and 3 FF.
I gave Block to Ogre, Juggernaut on Minotaur, Dodge on Dark Elf, Wrestle on Skaven and Sure Hands on 1 of the marauders.

Game 1 - 1-1 draw vs. Brent (Me = Chaos Pact, Him = Orc)

This was Brent's first NAF tournament, he played Orcs.  (Block on Troll and 2 BOBs)
Pretty much a text book first half.  I even got a CAS against a BOB with Block and KO'd some other orcs, while he couldn't break my armour.  Finished HT up 1-0 not down any players at all.

Then in the second half my big guys and lack of block screwed me. I'd already managed to turn him over and get the ball with the Dark Elf, but the Ogre failed bonehead, and I turned over on a skull/both down or both down/both down by marauder even using a reroll.  Just needed a push to make dodging the Elf away reasonable. (3+, 3+, 2+ with dodge) rather than (4+, 4+, 3+ ,2+).

It let Brent grab the ball and even though he failed a pass action to score, I turned over on a 2 die block with reroll again and then he picked it up and walked it in.  I had 2 turns to score, but was only able to get the skaven within scoring range (I threw the goblin without the ball, unfortunately he scattered back towards the LOS and couldn't land in a tackle zone - perhaps a mistake, could have waited and thrown him last turn, but he was so aggressively positioned I knew if I had 2 guys deep, I'd be able to have a good opportunity to score)


Game 2 - 2-1 win vs. Scott (Me = his Orcs, Him = my Chaos Pact)

I was worried this tournament was taking a downward turn at the start of this game.  Scott's troll (who I was controlling) was very very stupid.  His blodging blitzer failed a dodge 2nd turn of the game & KO'd himself (never to return).  Scott then managed a single die blitz on my ball carrier, picked up the ball and scored in his second turn of the game (after kicking to me).

Then he kicked to me again, and the ball went right off to the sidelines, I surrounded it and failed a sure hands pick up, and it squirted to the worst possible square.  He blitzed a guy off and went and picked it up and ran off!!  Luckily for me, he tried a pass or hand off and it failed and it let me get ahold of the ball again.  After that I played more cautiously than I think I ever have and just ground upfield to tie at half time, then took the entirety of the second half to score a second.

WHEW

Game 3 - 3-0 win vs. Robert (Me = Chaos Pact, Him = Skaven)

So back to Chaos Pact.  Robert really liked using his speed to re-deploy every turn, I was planning to slow grind anyways so it was very challenging to just keep maneuvering my cage around while freeing up my ball carrier all the time.  He never tried anything too risky, just put a tackle zone on him by blitzing a bit of the cage free - however he did leave his gutter runners too vulnerable. Anytime I had a block available that would free my ball carrier, I used that to give me a chance to blitz his gutters with either the Mino or Ogre and they spent a lot of the game in the KO box.  Scored turn 8 in the first half.

Second half, he made an aggressive push down my left hand flank, but probably set himself up for failure by leaving nobody in the backfield or around where he was planning to make a pass action. He fumbled the pass and from there I swooped in and even though I couldn't blitz his thrower off the ball, I had the area secured and then ran in with the Sure Hands marauder and grabbed the ball and dodged away.  Back to the same pattern as earlier, I kept moving my cage around in whatever way let me throw a non critical blitz with a big guy against a key player - by this time both his blitzers were out of the game, so he struggled to even safely blitz the corner away any time his Rat Ogre rolled Wild Animal (2-3 times in second half).  I scored on my turn 7.

Then rolled a blitz on the next kickoff.  I blitzed a hole and ran a marauder up and based his thrower. Ran a big guy around his LOS and tied them up.  Then he failed his first block of his turn 8, so I blitzed my guy in his end free and got him the ball and he ran it in for a bit of icing on the cake!

Game 4 - 2-1 win vs. Tim (Me = his Slann, Him = my Chaos Pact)

Game 4 and I'm undefeated - now I get to use Slann which I'd played a ton of leading up to Amorical Cup - so I was fairly confident I could at least leverage the team I had to play to my advantage. Unfortunately I felt Tim's roster left something to be desired - he took Block on both catchers where I'd really rather have had Dodge.  It cost me twice early in the game, and I had to just eat dirt right after taking the ball away from him the second time because I knew I would need the last reroll I had later on for something more important.

So we went back and forth - quite a bit of failures, however they only counted against me!  He had two CAS very early and each half caused at least 3 KOs.  His AV dice were FIRE!!!  There wasn't much I could do when needing to save that reroll for something impactful, so he ended up beating me up before handing off and taking off with his skaven.  I did manage to blitz him but rolled both down and I chose not to reroll it.  He could either choose wrestle and have a chance to pick up the ball freely next turn or take the both down and roll the dice.  He chose wrestle and then even though he did a bunch of risky stuff first, he still stood up, grabbed the ball and scored.

So he kicked to me and I ran a loose formation up the right flank.  He got a bunch of guys fronting up and protecting behind leap range so it looked tough, but I lucked out with knocking his player down and was able to run up, leap over and dodge away to score a tying touchdown - needing that reroll so it was worth it!!

Alex caught me off guard this time

Second half he kicked to me again and I just held the ball deep and let him press.  Then around the middle of the half, while I was still pretty safe, I ran a blitzer deep in his end and did two GFI to get well within scoring range.  He based him and felt that was enough and kept pushing, and then he got slanned!  I leaped and dodged my other blitzer over his LOS, and blitzed that player off my other blitzer.  Then ran and leaped my catcher into range to make a pass action, caught the ball and ran it in to score.

I kicked to him again and he failed to get the ball very far forward, so I managed to seriously tie it up and kept 2-3 tackle zones on the ball all the time - he popped it whenever I got ahold of it, but luckily it always stayed in my tackle zones so by the end of the game, I'd held him off and finished the tournament undefeated!


Unfortunately for me, even though I was tied for first place on points - I lost out to the opponent strength tiebreaker to Grant - so I finished in 2nd place.
His opponents finished 3rd, 4th, 5th & 10th whereas mine finished 5th, 8th, 9th & 10th.

Grant also poked some fun at the photo of me receiving my award :D

Also a big congrats to Grant and Alex who both completed the 24! They have played a NAF tournament with all 24 rosters! Well done you fogeys!

NAF partners for lyfe!

No more TT until Brewhouse Bash III in Waterloo - July 22nd/23rd unless the next season of our HoBBLe league starts up before then.  Any guesses as to what race I'll be playing at Brewhouse?

Deadzone Marauders - 4 more figures complete

Most of the base coating for these figures was done last year, but finally towards February of this year I began having an itch to paint again so I got them finished up. This represents 5 painting points (2 for the captain, 1 for each of the others) the captain has some significant highlights compared to the commandos, and the sniper has some extra detailing to make his cloak look like it was selected to match my deadzone terrain (unlike their generic strike team camouflage)

Commando Captain

I had to add a piece of terrain snipped off a door underneath his right foot to keep him balanced on the clear base.  The dullcote didn't seem to do as good a job on these guys I may try to protect the clear base and give them another spritz.

Commando with 2 guns

Love this guys head with the skull plate, the two guns do nothing in game terms he just looks bad ass. He's got long sleeves so not much skin, but I stuck with doing highlights using yellow directly on the goblin green skin and it works great IMO.

Commando

Gave this guy a simple head swap so he doesn't quite match the last one done using this body.

Goblin Sniper

Do like these guys, they are potentially powerful in the game but very unreliable due to their poor shooting skill.  Was pretty happy with how the cloak came out so it looks like he equipped himself for my terrain.

Between the last four and these four I have enough for a legit strike team while adding a few things like extra ammo, etc.  I will probably continue to try and paint up more of these guys in batches of four until they are all finished rather than switching gears to other factions.  I have another commando, another mawbeast, some more snipers and the pyro still to go.  Was planning to try and pick up an old AoBR ork warboss from the old GW 40K box since I like it better than the marauder warlord figure.

Got my FOLDIO!

Well it took a bit longer due to shipping to Canada being slower through USPS - but finally it has arrived and I love it! A very cool portable lightbox that folds together and uses magnets to hold it's shape and a thin LED strip to provide the light. It has multiple background colours too!

Here are just a couple teaser pics. I have begun taking some nicer photos of my figures and updating old posts using them. Check out the links below for some updated piccys!

My spyrers page and the eversor model I might use counts as with them :)
http://gwpertinent.blogspot.com/2007/01/spyrers.html
http://gwpertinent.blogspot.com/2009/09/eversor-1pp.html

The warhammer quest characters page and specifically the warrior priest post.
http://gwpertinent.blogspot.com/2007/01/warhammer-quest.html
http://gwpertinent.blogspot.com/2009/07/warhammer-quest-character-2.html

Some earlier posts from this year have some additional piccys.
http://gwpertinent.blogspot.com/2014/01/novamarines-terminators.html
http://gwpertinent.blogspot.com/2014/04/whq-baddies.html

deadzone "rainmaker" ripper suit

Finally got back into the groove on this guy. Missing the shoulder gun during assembly really annoyed me about the whole thing. There is lots of fiddly details but I kept it pretty tabletop so left a lot of that detail to "come out in the wash" (hahaha).

view from right

I used the nihilakh oxide technical paint to give the tin weapons a verdigris look,which I particularly like on these hulking monstrosities. I combined that with the same coal black + drybrush silver for his weapons. I stole the red/yellow/green power bar for his laser weapon from someone I saw online.

view from left

I also decided to spread around the resin scenery that comes with the plague stage 2As. Why are they the only one's to get some? It definitely will tie in with my scenery.

WHQ baddies

In between other projects I've been getting some models fixed up that I got from various trades as warhammer quest bad guys. Here are a couple shamans I've done recently. They were both already painted when I received them - I did some minor touch ups where the pewter had shown through.

You can't really tell but I also had a go at some special bases that are similar to the one's I've always used, but I mixed some Agrellan Earth technical paints and painted some lightning effects under the base so it would seem like they are using some magical power and it's cracking the earth open.

04/24/2014 EDIT
Some FOLDIO lightbox pics

second marauder commando

Just a quick one today to show off the second marauder I've finished. That's half of the first four figures I've put together. I hope this camo scheme works well on the ripper suit. Tried to keep the palette very limited.

I would also love some suggestions for paint scheme for the mawbeast I've assembled in this post. I decided instead of using some green stuff to cover up the miscast bomb, I cut the bomb part off anyways since they haven't made a bomb-less mawbeast yet.

mantic deadzone figures - quick review of assembly, quality, mold lines & flash

After getting started on the deadzone terrain, I put the plague faction on the shelf since my plans for painting them involve staining methods and will benefit greatly from a batch approach. Don't quite have the cycles for that at the moment - so I've decided to have a quick go at the marauders since I will probably use a more standard paint method for them and therefore doing a few pieces at at time should not cause a great variation in their appearance.

Lots of rumblings online about the quality of the figures and the difficulty of working with the restic material. Here are my thoughts and a bunch of pics. There is a good degree of detail on the figures - they look really good painted up and that after all is the end goal. Getting there is the issue.  A quick caveat that it seems some factions/figures are better/worse than others - so expect some variation.

First up lets have a look at a couple commandos.  I think there are 3 poses (only 2 in these pics), and I don't really see much capability for converting these particular figures amongst themselves for variation. Perhaps if you include the flame thrower guy you could do a bit of mixing with the model that has both arms attached to the weapon. The running commando is 4 pieces and had a fair amount of mold lines all over - including right through his face?!?!  Definitely a strange one.  The commando at attention was probably the best of these four figures for mold lines.  Easiest to clean areas and some cunningly concealed (practically the opposite of the running figure)

running commando - see where his arm was glued I felt needed some filler

running commando - strange that they have a mold line running through his face

commando at attention - some filler required for his right arm socket

Next up is the mawbeast - or chainsaw dog as some people are calling it. It's funny I dislike GWs cartoony orcs in their fantasy game, but always found it suited the rogue trader universe (aka pre grim-dark) quite well. The above orcs are very reminiscent and this guy fits right in.  The detail is not as nice as on the orcs - his chainsaw tongue's "teeth" aren't very crisp and neither are his feet/toes. I found he required a lot of filling between where the two pieces go together. This may just be me, but I found the gap between the bomb belt and his hindquarters to be very obvious and didn't like it, so I've used a couple rounds of liquid green stuff to fill it. He also has a LOT of mold lines and some like around the tail are easy to clean and some on his legs and feet are very difficult and will probably require further cleaning after a coat of primer. Also you'll notice his bomb is actually miscast I am going to have to sculpt some extra fur over it to cover the blemish (third pic) which is probably not that much difficult from finecast (which when it sucks - it SUCKS)

mawbeast - look at all the mold lines I've had trouble cleaning on his legs

mawbeast - this shows more mold lines and the huge gap between pieces

mawbeast - a huge chunk of the bomb is missing behind his fur

Finally we come to one of the rippers. I would have included a goblin sniper in this review, but both of mine's rifles bent quite badly due to a lack of packaging/protection in my shipment. I would put the ripper between the commandos and the mawbeast. His legs had quite a bit of mold lines and were difficult to remove without damaging the details. Both arms required some minor filler to look good, but this was due to the ability to choose which arms to use with which ripper, giving you the ability for some variety which is nice. His fingers also had tons of flash which was difficult to remove and the mold lines on his head ran all the way around his jaw. I think they tried to conceal it via his mouth line but in my eyes it failed.

ripper - filler was required between both arms & body, see mold lines too

ripper - filler was required between both arms & body

ripper - flashing on legs was minute, but difficult to remove without damage

I fully understand why folks are annoyed.  It is a lot of work to do a GOOD job of cleaning up the figures - if you are someone who doesn't usually bother removing mold lines or only cares to remove one's that will be obvious once painted then these figures are extremely good value. For anyone like me who prefers to do a really good job the amount of effort does add up and reduces the value somewhat since I would still rate it much tougher to clean than plastic, or even metal depending on the metal sculpt.  Still for the price they are good value and I'm looking forward to painting these guys up.

(MFP) must finish project #1 - finally complete!

FINALLY finished.  Almost three years in the finishing I've got my blood bowl orc team complete. Earlier in December I finished up the reroll counters, the score counter was previously painted and I got it based at the same time and now I've finished the turn counter.

turn marker

I do want to paint the rims of the rest of the team black, so I can fix up their base numbers and add some coloured lines to make the positionals more explicit and to match these bases better.  In the new year I will take some updated team photos.

(MFP) must finish project #1 - 4 down, 1 to go!!

Just a quick one today - finishing up this project dates back to 2010!!  In February of that year, I posted about the figures to finish up - then a bit later I got the snotling score counter painted (but not based). Later in April just before the Challenge of Q'ermitt that year I had painted up 2 more each of blitzers and blockers as well as 3 star players and an apothecary.

I recently received a PM on the talkfantasyfootball forums and one of the members liked my orc team and offered me some free resin cast counters (orcy block dice) he had leftover.  Since those were the counters I couldn't figure out - I was happy to accept and now I have managed to get a quick paint job on them.

orcy block dice counters

Includes 3 reroll counters and a counter I will use for a leader reroll.  I have also gotten the snotling based and begun painting the turn counter - which will "finish" off this project once and for all (I may update the numbers/lettering on the bases at some point in the future)

I'm still gunning for my 2013 painting points goal - other than the counters I have a skaven engineer for hakomike nearly complete, a minotaur for my WHQ baddies nearly complete and 6 novamarines terminators I am going to attempt to finish over the holidays.

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

CCKO 2012 - result = biggest dissapointment!!

The rules pack gave you 1,100TV to build your team, with each player only allowed 1 additional skill to start and every skill can only be used once.  I brought Orcs since I was a little tired of playing my Undead (even though they would probably be a better team based on the rules pack). My overall plan was to try and stay under the radar - win my games but not by much.  Between my ST4 blitzer and my Blodging blitzer I was hoping I would always have a ball carrier very tough to take down depending on what skills my opponent had.  After the third game was a skills draft, with two of each upgrade (ST, AG, etc.) and skill available - with last place picking first.

Blitzer +ST

Blitzer w Guard

Blitzer w Dodge

Blitzer

Black Orc w Block

Black Orc w Stand Firm

Black Orc

Black Orc

Thrower w Leader

Line Orc

Goblin w Sneaky Git

---

Game 1 vs. Craig (Humans - 7th + Most Improved) 2-1 win
Funny how it goes, I hadn't played in a blood bowl tournament since the Blingtoof - where Craig was my last opponent, now he's my first opponent at the CCKO.  He brought the shadowforge bunny team but played them as humans.  For the first couple turns I kept thinking they were amazons.  He chose to receive after winning the coin toss, and I decided to pressure him very aggresively hoping for some early KO's/Casualties to get the numbers advantage.  This meant giving him an opportunity to really get out of range and score an early touchdown - which he dutifully took.  I did enough to force him to score on his turn 3, and then he rolled a Riot kick off result, which basically gave me 7 turns to grind to a first turn tying touchdown.  Throughout I managed to block & foul off 4-5 of his bunnies to get that numbers advantage.  I made sure to stall right the way to turn 8.

Second half I received, and Craig rolled all his KO's back.  He had 1 extra player in his build so we were just about even on numbers, but I managed to do a good job of cage-ing down to the end zone for a turn 8 score, all the while still getting 4-5 of Craigs players off the field.  He had his turn 8, and fortunately for me (and my setup) he failed to roll a riot and was unable to score again.  I think Craig hated my Sneaky Git goblin the most.

Game 2 vs. Stephan (Orcs - 18th + Special Mention: No CAS Against) 1-0 win
Another funny one.  Friday evening while chilling at one of the ottawa guys - Stephan and I nearly convinced each other to take duplicate rosters!!  I am glad I convinced him to bring all 4 black orcs (Glenn convinced him to take at least 3) and I am also glad he convinced me to switch my skills from blitzers to black orcs (blitzers are already pretty useful!) and then further glad he convinced me to switch my dirty player line orc to a sneaky git goblin.  That extra 10K + one black orc skill gave me Dodge for a blitzer, which was unlikely to be available in the skills draft.  It meant my goblin would remain on the pitch even if I rolled doubles but armour didn't break.  In the end Stephan ditched all but the black orc changes and kept his roster pretty different from mine.

Again I lost the coin toss and kicked to Stephan.  Unfortunately though he left an opening to hit his ball carrier pretty early and I took full advantage with my ST4 blitzer.  I ended up scoring around turn 6-7 and the rest of the match was pretty much a shoving contest - even were we did knock opposing players over there was only 2 KOs the entire game.  Stephan did give me a scare knocking the ball loose but I managed to recover and I threw the ball downfield leaving him with an opportunity for a passing score which unfortunately for him - didn't go off.  Kept this win under the radar too at 1-0.

Game 3 vs. Leathan (Chaos Dwarves - 6th) 1-0 win
Possibly my proudest moment of the tournament.  Leathan is a very strong player and I tend to not do well against chaos dwarves (those damn bull centaurs are freakin annoying!!) Thankfully he didn't have a minotaur.  This game my ST4 blitzer really proved his worth.  I lost the kick off again and Leathan had the ball in a bull centaurs hands.  He had my blitzer tied up, but elsewhere he rolled double skulls and (can't remember) either chose not to reroll or he rerolled to double skulls.  It seems Leathan has a tendancy to poor luck against me when it's 1-1 (he's owned me 3-0 but in deathbowl format - after looking up my NAF stats I see both games I've played him at CCKO I've won..  something in the water I guess!!)

I took a chance and once I had done the few safe moves I had, blitzed with the ST4 blitzer (requiring a dodge) and got a single dice block against the BC which turned up open star (schweeeeeet!) and this is where I can really tell my play is improving.  Instead of trying to pick up the ball with the blitzer (which after such a sweet blitz, I usually would have) I left him as a tackle zone next to the ball, and then used the rest of my team to get behind his line of scrimmage and picked it up with a different player.  Managed to stall out the first half and score late.  He had a long shot chance to score with a chain push (not beyond his abilities!!) but I rolled Perfect Defence on the kick off and got to screw up that chance for him.

Second half I just held the ball deep in my end zone, stalling him where possible and late on threw the ball into his end - again giving him a chance to score, but definitely making it more difficult by forcing him to roll many more dice than a blitz on my ball carrier would have.  I even dodged a black orc out of a tackle zone to tie up his bull centaur (something I should have learned from, because I should have tried a similar move later in the tournament).  Held on for my second win vs. Leathan out of two standard games (whaaaaaa?)

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After game three there is a skills draft.  In their game three, my next two opponents - Alex and Glenn - tied their match 1-1 so going into the skills draft I was in FIRST PLACE and got to pick skills DEAD LAST.  I got a nice little ovation for being in first place at the time (but by the end of the tournament if there had been a "biggest dissapointment" trophy I would have won it!)

I knew I would be playing Alex and Glenn (both Norse) - so my number 1 skill had to be wrestle.  Other selections I was hoping for were Stand Firm or Fend for a black orc, dirty player for the goblin, and hail mary pass for my thrower (just to be able to guaranteed get the ball out of my end).  I got Wrestle (was amazed Alex had the pick before me and he got dodge - how was dodge still available after 19 people had picked?!?!) and put it on a black orc.  Second pick I got Fend for the other skillless black orc, third pick I got my Dirty Player, fourth pick I had to scramble to choose since my selections were taken - in the end it was between Catch or Diving Catch for my blodging blitzer.  In the end I selected Catch because you can reroll a hand off as well (later in the tournament, Diving Catch would have helped - but I still think I made the right choice)

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Game 4 vs. Alex (Norse - 2nd + Best Defence) 0-2 loss
Definitely my worst performance of the tournament.  Can't blame anything - dice were not terrible, just down to poor decision making.  4th game of the day, it was very late by the time it started.  Alex made several mistakes too - also due to fatigue I am sure.  The best way to beat Norse is to start winning the numbers game, they are basically faster/more vulnerable dwarves so it's key to get some early KOs/CAS.  Strange how the one match that I won the kick off, I lost.  Alex kicked to me and I pressured his players very hard - going for some early damage.  He snuck a couple through and put pressure on my thrower.  Here's where I made my mistake, I tried to block (or blitz, can't remember) his player off my thrower but could only push him.  Then - instead of forcing him to block me down and then pickup the ball, I tried to dodge away with my thrower (I wanted to get the ball in the hands of my ST4 blitzer) and failed my dodge with a team reroll to boot.  This allowed Alex to simply free up a player, pick up the ball and stroll into the end zone.

I was pretty dissapointed with myself, the rest of the first half didn't accomplish much, but in the second half I had to kick to Alex and he took his time to score not leaving me with much chance at a consolation TD, let alone to tie it up.  Alex is pretty new but is already a very very strong player - he was the eventual second place winner so I don't feel too bad about losing to him - but have definitely decided from now on, caffeine is required before a 4th game in one day!!

Game 5 vs. Glenn (Norse - 1st) 2-3 loss
This one was a total heartbreaker and probably a tie for my proudest moment at the tournament.  Glenn is something of a legend in Canadian blood bowl.  His living room has a coffee table that is a beautiful blood bowl pitch the likes of which you have never seen (it's glass over an entire stadium, filled with figures and with an etched glass field) and is littered with the stacks of trophies he has won over the years.  A really great guy, this was my first time ever playing him (he works at a bar, so unfortunately finds it tough to make most tournaments due to weekends being his major bread winning time).  I knew I was in for a tough match - again against a Norse team, which may have been the best team suited to the rules pack for this tournament.

Started very aggressively again, in a near copy of my first game vs. Craig - I caused some pain but gave up a very early TD.  For the remainder of the second half I stalled/held out, until finally on the last turn, managed a long pass TD score without even requiring a reroll!!  Unfortunately he rolled back all his KOs, and he started with 12 players so we were pretty even in the numbers game for the second half.  He as well as Craig really hated my little goblin sneaky git/dirty player!

In the second half, he managed to blitz my ball carrier who I was trying to keep out of harms reach and score another quick TD.  I pulled the same hijinx again and stalled until very late and made a long pass to score my second thrown TD of the game (with ORCS?!?!?) and here's where heartbreak happened.  He had two turns left to score, I rolled a Riot on the kick off and unfortunately for me, it gave him an extra turn to score, which I made very difficult but he dutifully did.  Later a buddy pointed out I should have tried to dodge out my black orc to make his passing play more difficult, it's difficult though when everyone is watching your game and with all the excitement.  I was literally a 50/50 die roll (the Riot result) away from tying Glenn on my very first game playing him - but well played to him for a good win and a really really fun and exciting game.

Game 6 vs. Ryan (Undead - 4th) 0-2 loss
After that demoralizing loss, I was happy to play any race other than Norse.  I came up against Ryan's Undead - he was close to 3rd and also to Most Casualties but ended up in 4th place.  It kinda sucked for him to come up against an Orc team when he needed casualties.  My goblin also was ejected on his first foul for double 5's which lost him the one AV7 guy he could beat up on.  I wanted to try something very similar to the games vs. Craig and Glenn - basically trying to destroy Ryan's ghouls early and force him to score early so I could grind out a 2-1 win.  Unfortunately for me, after killing a ghoul early - my dice just completely turned on me.  Lots of failed Go For It's and Dodges all over the place - if you remember last years CCKO, you know the dice have a big F-U on the 1's.  Well in this game I got the middle finger a lot.  Ryan played really well and stalled on his scores enough that I didn't really have enough time to grind - and while pushing to try to tie it up I kept giving up turnovers.

I did make one big mistake though, I didn't read his team sheet closely enough - I thought he had no tackle and my blodger would be very tough to take down - but he did have tackle and didn't have a problem all game destroying that blitzer.  Fair play to Ryan though, he played pretty well - though I managed to nullify the effect his mummies had on the game, after I killed that first ghoul he protected them very well and definitely earned the win. 

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So overall, I won my first 3 games, then lost my next 3.  1 loss I felt was due to the dice, and 1 loss was a real heartbreaker - but considering I lost to 1st, 2nd, and 4th place - I was very happy with my performance.  I really wanna win this tournament at some point though - this year they instituted red CCKO dice for the champion - where the F-U is on the SIX!!

dual posted on Merry Mayhem News

Orclahoma Bowl 2012

Just wanted to bring to your attention a new Blood Bowl tournament happening in Oklahoma next January.  I met the tournament organizers Scott (@fatfinley on twitter) and Steve (@kilowog2814) at the Chaos Cup this year.  Very chill couple of guys who are involved with a podcast called Couch Pirate Radio (check out their recent Jam Session for some rather delayed Chaos Cup review!).

This will be their first tournament and from what I gathered the first blood bowl tournament ever in Oklahoma, so even though unfortunately it's a little far for me to attend, I wanted to support them by purchasing some dice and pimping their shit!  Check out the wicked website Scott has put together at www.orclahomabowl.com!

Everywhere should have a blood bowl tournament within reasonable travel distance, so if you are in the area - get out there and support these guys.  The tournament is only TEN BUCKS if you pre-register and is only a 1 day tournament so it's pretty accessible even for coaches new to the blood bowl tournament scene.  The Chaos Cup was the first tournament for these guys but from checking out the rule pack they have clearly learned a lot and Orclahoma Bowl looks like it's going to be a blast!!

Some really cool points about the rules pack for Orclahoma Bowl

• Love the weather combinations (obviously a homage to the local weather) I also always like seeing ALL tables being similarly affected by the weather.
• Any team being able to buy greenskin star players is pretty thematic, I also like the highlander rule that could see teams counting on certain powerful star players being down a player if they come up against another team doing the same (I see this happening possibly with Ripper, a S6 troll without Really Stupid is a great thing!)
• Save the Crom!

Finally, here's a pic of the cool dice!

Lakeside Cup 2010, Result = I Suck!

Lakeside Cup is a team tournament (East vs. West) held in Cobourg, ON.  It's TV125 where only two players can have more than one skill (Captain & Asst. Captain) and the Captain gets Leader for free and a new upgrade after every game.

My roster was; Ripper, Blitzer w Dodge/Frenzy/Leader (C), Blitzer w Guard/Stand Firm (A), 4x Black Orcs w Block, Orc w Block, Orc w Wrestle, Goblin, 1 Reroll.

DAY 1 (Or - "1 out of 4 is pretty bad")

Game 1 vs. Mark H
Mark had a nicely painted Chaos Dwarf team, including a Minotaur with Claw, 2 Bull Centaurs, 6 CD Blockers. The game started really well for me, I had 3 casualties by the middle of the first half.  I managed to score, but unfortunately I couldn't capitalize any more than that and in the second half, Mark just started owning me, I think for something like 5 or 6 turns in a row he would knock a player out.  By the last few turns of the game I had 3 black orcs and a goblin left on the pitch.  I had faint hopes of holding out for a draw, but his damn Bull Centaur scooped up the ball and ran in it on the last turn for a second TD.  Loss #1.

Game 2 vs. Matt C
This game was against another Orc team.  Matt had a regular troll who spent much of the game being stupid, but it couldn't make up for the fact he surrounded Ripper the first time he was knocked down and fouled him out of the first half (knocked out)  I played pretty well and had earned myself a chance to tie up the game late in the second half, only to have my captain drop an accurate pass on the last turn of the game. Loss #2.

Game 3 vs. Dan C
Dan had combined his mini's from his Khemri and Necromantic teams to bring a vanilla undead team.  This game got off on the wrong foot for me when I decided to try kicking to him when I won the coin toss and I rolled "Throw a Rock" as the kickoff result.  Guess who spent most of the first half knocked out before turn one...  RIPPER! Yay!  Dan immediately knocked out a black orc with his first hit and it just went downhill from there.  Dan mentioned (I think after his second or third touchdown) that every time I rolled the block dice, at least one of them was a skull.  Yea, that kinda game.  Still I find Dan one of the most fun guys to play and I voted him Best Sportsmanship or whatever the Lakeside equivalent is called.  Loss #3.

Game 4 vs. Colin
Colin's wretched Nurgle team.  Anyone who actually reads these will know he DESTROYED me at the Golden Sweetbun.  After some atrocious luck in my earlier games - the luck reversed and I managed to cage my way slowly downfield.  He did enough to slow me down quite a lot which meant I had to rush it near the end of the half.  Then I shot myself in the foot by rushing it and skulling a single die block with my only guy in position to score. BONE-HEAD!  At this point I figured I'd earned my fourth loss.  It was going to take a mistake on Colin's part to give me any chance.  Well a mistake was made, he had burned his reroll and did a "Go For It" with his ball carrier...  and rolled a one.  Probably the turning point of the game (except maybe his block with his captain that he skulled and casualtied himself) regardless I got a few casualties in as I picked up the ball and ran it downfield.  He did keep knocking my ball carrier down but I managed to complete a handoff in the last turn of the game to win it 1-0.  Win #1 - YAY!


DAY 2 (Or - "I can't believe I still lost!")

Game 5 vs. Adam J
Probably the highlight of the tournament for everyone but me.  I was SMOKING Adam in this game.  It seemed I couldn't NOT injure his guys.  Failed to score in the first half, but for most of the game he had 5 or less players on the pitch to my near full team (I think I had one guy KO'd or Casualty).  However the big moment was in the last turn of the game.  Adam had one guy left on the pitch (his captain) who had side step.  He had a tackle zone on my ball carrier so I had to surround him before trying to push him off, otherwise he would just get a tackle zone back on the ball carrier.  I had a choice of using my captain with frenzy to push him off or using a line orc with a "Go For It" to be able to blitz.  I picked the frenzy guy which ended up losing (it was a tie but I have to count this as a loss!) me the game.  All I could get was a push which meant I had to hit him again.  Another push meant he got a tackle zone on the guy with the ball again.  I had managed to save my reroll so all I had to do was make a successful 3+ dodge out to score and win the game.  1, reroll, ONE.  ARRRRRGGGHHH!!!!!  Ours was the last game being played so EVERYONE got to watch me screw-up.  My own team-mates were even giving Adam advice (thanks Ben! Winner of the Jackass award..  Hell yea I voted for him!). Tie #1.

Still this game will live forever in memory as possibly the funniest game I've ever played.
Damn you Jones! I'll get you yet!

Game 6 vs. Pat
A game against Pat and his dwarves.  After the last game I didn't really have much to play for (not to take anything away from Pat, he played a really solid game and just crunched my team into the dirt) Didn't stop the bad luck from continuing with a couple single die = skull and 2 die = double skull rolls on my part.  I don't really remember much of this game as after Game 5 I started drinking quite heavily!! Loss #4.

A really really fun tournament hosted by Peter and his wonderful wife Tammy.  They fed and housed us all weekend and it was nice to not have to travel anywhere to play our games.  The team format was extremely fun and generated a lot of laughs and  good times.

(MFP) must finish project #1 - 8 to the good!

Put a healthy dent into my (MFP) must finish project #1. 8 guys completed, leaving the turn & score counters to complete (score counter is painted, not based) as well as I need to figure out some reroll counters. Maybe some squigs will do. I can't check this one off completely - and there's every possibility that since this is enough to bring to the tournament mentioned below, this may be as far as I take this project this year - but I am glad to have made some progress and the team is infinitely more usable now.
This was sparked by the Challenge of Q'ermitt, 2010 - not wanting to bring the same team as last time and with little time - beefing up my Orc team was the best bet. The star players are "nice to have", and though it will be nice to have a painted apothecary (the 40k ork painboy) - the 2 extra each of blitzers & black orcs was mandatory for this team to have any chance.

Week 13: Tristan - Orcs (blood bowl)

Well I've had a bit of a break over March, but I'm hoping here's a spark to start my paint-fu up again. I participated in my first blood bowl tournament in March, and another is coming up at the end of April. Having used my undead team last time I wanted to use something different. This didn't leave me very long to get a team fully painted - so I decided to finish up as many pieces as I can for my Orc team - funny enough coinciding with the last item I painted for this blog - the snotling score counter. So far I've gotten 8 more pieces painted, still have a turn counter and need to make some reroll counters - but I definitely needed the two extra black orcs & blitzers.

MFP (must finish project) #1

Getting the last few orcs & tokens completed for my blood bowl team. I finally got 2 old school ork goff boyz to use as blitzers alongside a couple warhammer black orcs. I have a third ork goff who I'm converting to be a chainsaw wielding star player. Varag still needs to be painted and I plan to use the extra armoured goff to be Greaser Geargrinder, an older star player (I have it and just in case they bring him back ;) ). I also have an apothecary, an older musician to be my turn counter and a little snotling to be my score counter.

I need some ideas for what to use as reroll counters. I have a couple older orcs with spears or standards who I could use - they would be on a 25mm base which is the right size for the standard reroll square. What do you think?

Any other special models you think I need to complete the Badlandz Deff Ramz?

WHFB escalation league @ HSG - week 6

Yesterday was another round in Heavy Support Games' WHFB escalation league. I missed last week so this was my only chance at 1,250 points. I took two units of 20 night goblin archers with fanatics (one led by black orc big boss, the other by a night goblin shaman), a unit of 20 orcs with choppas/shields, two units of wolf riders (one had a big boss with a 1 hit wonda), a unit of 3 trolls and 2 spear chukkas.

I was a little delayed finishing up painting my wargs, so I got the buy for the first round.

The second round I played against Shawn with his dwarves. It started quite well with my fanatics ripping through his clansmen unit and my wolf riders getting into position to charge his war machines when animosity got the better of me (I should've waaaagh'd) and finishing them off just took too long. Meanwhile his bolt thrower was regularly destroying guys as did my own fanatics. His longbeards worked their way around the woods and eventually was able to charge my squabbling orc unit. It took him a couple turns but they destroyed the orcs and overran into one of the spear chukkas. Unfortunately for me he saved his thane and standard bearer from the fanatic decimated unit so I didn't get many victory points. His hatred also helped him to ensure he routed anyone who got into combat with his longbeards. A loss for me.

The third round I played against George again - who is always great fun to play and possibly my favourite opponent from the escalation league. He kept his hydra hidden from my spear chukkas and used his two dark rider units to suck out my fanatics early. Those units were quickly decimated and it hemmed my army into my half of the board for the early parts of the game (which might have actually helped me). My wolf riders routed one unit of his crossbowmen, and my spear chukkas panicked the other. It took a few turns of dancing around but he finally decided to charge my trolls with his hydra. Unfortunately for him I managed to regenerate every wound his hydra and beastmasters managed to cause, and after a few turns of him passing his break tests I finally broke the hydra and it was destroyed. Meanwhile my orcs and a unit of wolf riders were keeping his executioners and two sorceresses busy. He managed to get off a couple black horrors which decimated those units but crucially he couldn't finish off the orcs. At the end of the game I'd destroyed a lot of his army (2 dark rider units, 2 crossbow units, and his hydra) and had two table quarters, to his one table quarter and one destroyed wolf rider unit, one reduced wolf rider unit, one reduced orc unit and a reduced night goblin unit. My first official win of the league - hurrah!!

WHFB escalation league @ HSG - week 4

I altered up my army a bit for this past Sunday's WHFB escalation league @ Heavy Support Games. I removed all the fluff from the night goblin archers unit and used a black orc big boss to lead them (simply a fanatic delivery system). I also mixed up my wolf riders, using two units of 12 both with bows and spears.

First game was against Nathaniel and his High Elves. He's using the new Mantic Games elves and they look great. He had a unit of seaguard, 2 bolt throwers and a mage on dragon. He forgot about my fanatics, so mistakenly moved his dragon too close. Between them and my spear chukkas his mage & dragon were dead by turn 2. Even with this great lead my army managed to fail me miserably, squabbling at the wrong time and failing fear tests to charge elves. I realized later that because my spear chukkas have 4 crew it might be possible for them to claim table quarters (which would have turned the loss into a draw) but a fun game regardless. Well done to Nathaniel for hanging in there.

Second game I got the buy, meaning I get full score as there was an odd number of opponents. Only thing to say about this was I'm upset I forgot I brought paints and I just sat around watching games.

Third game was against George with his Dark Elves; dark riders, cold one riders, 2 crossbow units, a bolt thrower and a mage. Started well, using my waaagh to get just close enough to release my fanatics at his cold one riders - pretty well decimating the unit. The tides swung back and forth all game, both our mages miscast (his twice, killing his mage), my wolf riders fleeing from charges and then just running off the board, my spear chukkas did well again this game. In the end he had more victory points, but not by enough to secure a win. My second draw!

I will soldier on and get that win! Next week is 1,250 points. Got some list making to do.