Brewhouse Bowl - Result = 1st Place

As mentioned in previous post about the Brewhouse Bash board - I participated in the Brewhouse Bowl tournament last weekend. I will try to report on the bash rounds as well as the blood bowl rounds but the first bash rounds are hazy - mostly because I didn't win them :P

Grant wanted a pic as he was really happy with the bash board - here it is.  Hanging up in his house now since it's built into a picture frame :)

Glad you like it buddy.

The background: Prior to 2015 I made a pledge/bet with Grant (the tournament organizer) that we would both play Lizardmen until we won a tournament with them.  I have been lax in my tournament updates - I still owe one for CCKO 2015 in which Grant beat me in game 5 to secure the tournament win his first time ever playing Lizards.  When I manage to get that one written up I will link to it above.

So this would have been my second tournament with lizards - however I had already lost the pledge to Grant so I was considering a more thematic team (like Norse or Dwarves) in terms of the "boozing" fluff behind this tournament - however in the end after making dozens of rosters and each one had some funky tweak to it - I decided for probably the first time to just pick a single roster - submit it and play it without making changes leading up to the tournament.  To that end I fell back to the Lizardmen because even though the skill package was not super favourable to them - the build was obvious.

I took a Kroxigor, 6 Saurus, 5 Skinks, 3 Rerolls.  After the skills package I had;
2 Saurus w Block
2 Saurus w Guard
Saurus w Frenzy
Saurus w Tackle

DAY 1

Game 1 vs. Rod D 3-0 win

In game footage

 Rod brought an Orc roster with the chainsaw star player, his skills were below.
2 Block Black Orcs
2 Mighty Blow Black Orcs
Guard Troll
Leader Thrower

I lost the kick off and Rod chose to receive. His chainsaw player managed to stun a Saurus but next turn I KO'd him which essentially put him out of the game.  A strong defensive setup meant Rod had trouble pushing forward and I eventually put enough pressure on the ball to pop it free and managed to score on my turn 8.

In the second half I caged my way upfield until I sprung a Skink loose to score a second - Rod had a few turns to try and score a consolation but his Thrower chose a very inopportune moment to go butterfingers and he failed 4 pick up rolls (2 turns each w sure hands) and a Skink ran in, scooped up the ball and even though he got knocked over he stood up - grabbed it again and scored a third.

Bash Round 1 (vs. Rod D, Mark H, Greg S, Morgan)
So blurry. Mark H won a free Fan Factor.


Game 2 vs. Rolland C 2-0 win

I am attempting to mimic Grants standard tournament photo pose. Rolland unimpressed.

Rolland also brought an Orc roster with the chainsaw star player - he took different skills though. IIRC it was;
2 Block Black Orcs
Guard Black Orc
Guard Blitzer
Strip Ball Blitzer
Tackle Blitzer

I won the coin toss but elected to kick. As previously I managed to turnover the ball and score late in the first half. In the second half it was much tighter as Rolland was able to get the ball free but in the end I managed to recover it and cage far enough that I could score my second touchdown and secure the match.

Bash Round 2 (vs. Rolland C, ?, ?, Morgan?)
So so blurry.

Game 3 vs. Mark H 2-0 win

We're at the back - you can see my future 4th and 5th round opponents in front.

In game footage,

Mark brought a pretty standard Dwarf roster - skills were;
2 Block Runners
2 Guard Blockers
Mighty Blow Trollslayer
Stand Firm Trollslayer

He won the coin toss and elected to receive. This was the 3rd match of the first day and so my recollections are a little hazy. In the first half I managed to either KO or casualty one of his runners.  I think it was casualty because he never came back but Mark could have failed his recovery rolls too. The Lizardmens strength and speed were always going to be a tough ask for the Dwarves.  I did a great job protecting my Skinks as usual (I find that Lizardmen are so fast I can usually defend well enough without commiting any Skinks) Then once Mark was down a player I had a definite advantage. I think it took a pickup on last turn of first half for me to score.
In the second half I definitely feel Mark went too agressive in his defence. Once he pushed up too far - I was able to break a little hole and shoot my Skinks through an deep into his end. I stalled for a turn or two forcing him to apply some pressure before scoring my second - pretty much ensuring that I had the game in the bag.  He had a chance to score a consolation but it didn't come off so I finished the first day 3 and 0 with 8 touchdowns for and 0 against.


DAY 2

Bash Round 3 (vs. Matt V, Alex M, Tom R, Chris H and Grant H)

Even managed to win a bash round!

We started this beginning of day two instead of last thing day one so Grant had time to even out the participants to ensure every board got a "prize" - adding additional flavour to my bash round was Matt was the only other player with 3 wins, so we knew we were matched up the night before. We played on the same bash board (mine) and were basically duelling off to try and stop the other from getting the (much more favourable) third round prizes.

This was a crazy bash match, with everyone who died managing a 6 to ressurect to 1 wound.  It went back and forth across every player in the brewhouse but finally I managed to knock out the Kroxigor of my eventual fifth round opponent Tom and score a normal skill (some gamesmanship - ie. running away meant that our round finished last so other teams got the stat increase and double skill)

Matt said he was happy enough I only got a normal skill for my skink but I was VERY happy he didn't get anything at all!

Game 4 vs. Matt V 2-1 win

Can't tell where the game is - guessing early first half.

Genius move?

Deep in thought.

Matt brought a very strong Undead roster with Sinnedbad the stabbing/side stepping skeleton. He had been talking him up all tournament about how he was such a great piece simply due to the fact he has secret weapon and is expendable so I did everything I could to just ignore him - which worked a treat! Bar Sinnedbad it was a pretty standard Undead roster with skeletons selected over zombies and the skills package was;
2 Block Ghouls
2 Wrestle Ghouls
2 Guard Wights

Matt won the coin toss and elected to receive.  For the first half I tried to defend as stoutly as possible and get some hits on his skilled players (Ghouls and Wights) - I also made what I thought was going to be a crucial error by trying to foul a stunned wrestle ghoul with a Skink and 2 assists - but I ended up rolling double 1's for the injury roll, doing no additional damage and getting my Skink ejected. I was extremely fortunate that Matt just could not penetrate the AV7 of my Skinks until the very last turn of the game so I kept my numbers.  I was also fortunate that after that mistake I began to break his armour and casualtied a Ghoul, a Skeleton (no regen) and I believe KO'd one or two as well.  Matt still managed a great score near the end of the first half, I tried a rush score up the sideline with my Side-Step Skink but it didn't come off.

Second half I tried the same quick score hoping to then push on for the win - I ended up blowing all my rerolls first 3 turns without any of them working!!! At that point it became a case of "all I can do is try the simplest thing and hope my dice pull it off" - which worked! So I scored a touchdown in my turn four and then setup and kicked to Matt again - now desperately hoping for a draw.  He failed to pick up the ball but felt it was protected enough so he decided to keep his last reroll.  This turned out to be a crucial mistake as I opened up a small hole and removed all but one tackle zone from the ball. Then I just ran in a skink, picked up the ball and dodged back behind my line and closed up my cage. At this point Matt was the one starting to hope for a draw. In a crazy last couple turns he managed to knock down my Skink and the ball bounced to his Wight who caught it. He protected him as best he could but I still had a 1 die block against him with my Frenzy Saurus (needing to GFI) and lucked out getting a pow with the first block. Still had a tackle zone on the ball but my Skink just picked it up anyways and made the successful dodge out of tackle zones to score a winner. In Matts turn 16 he finally casualtied two Skinks to even up those numbers but it was too little too late.

Game 5 vs. Tom R 2-0 win

Tom was unhappy I'd already secured 1st Place.

Why is Alex staring at the wall?

Pretty pumped at this point.

Tom was very disappointed right from the off - due to the tiebreakers for the tournament and the fact he could only tie my # of points with a win, he basically had no chance of winning the tournament outright. He made his case for Head to Head being the first tiebreaker loudly and vehemently as is usual for Tom. It has become a common theme for US coaches to come up - catch up to the top Canadian coach in the final round and beat them but to lose on tiebreakers.  Thankfully in this case I made sure that wasn't really the result.

Tom brought Lizardmen also - I think he is preparing for the world cup (as now that I think about it - Matt must be as well??) - He didn't have a spare skink he took 4 rerolls instead.  I might consider his skills package riskier but I still think my roster build was better.  His skills were;
2 Block Saurus
2 Mighty Blow Saurus
Frenzy Saurus
Guard Kroxigor

I can't remember who won the coin toss but the result was the same as previous four games - I kicked allowing me to defend will full roster and work on turning over the ball. Tom in similar style to Mark H was too aggressive with his defending and his Skinks were well within blocking distance.  I managed to KO two of his Saurus as well once my d6 started heating up.  He did kill a Block Saurus outright in retaliation but I still managed to free up the ball and score - stalling until my turn eight to give him as few KO recovery rolls as possible.

Second half he was again very aggressive and it very nearly came off for him, but all it did was force me to commit my Skinks and I blitzed the ball free and surrounded it with 4 Skinks before picking it up and running off outside of his reach by tying up his Saurus and knocking his Skinks to the ground. I ran it in as soon as there was any pressure so I gave him a chance for a consolation but nothing transpired.

So - pretty much an outstanding weekend in terms of results. Not only did I get the sweet trophy pictured below but also tournament champion dice, the standard NAF champion trophy and some prize swag.

Second time I've won a tournament.

The coaches

Here are links to a couple albums of pics Grants pics * Ezzards pics