Spiked Shoe Cup - result = fake news trophy winner (2/14)

This past Saturday I traveled out to Kitchener/Waterloo region again to support my buddy Grant who took over running the Blingtoof/Foul Frenzy tournament that was scheduled for Hamilton on the same day, but the T.O. canceled it for fear of low turnout. It was renamed to the Spiked Shoe Cup for this years iteration.

Grant recruited a lot of his new league mates, and several guys showed up from London as well and we ended up with 14 participants which is quite a good turnout.  We played at the Watchtower Restaurant which is an awesome fantasy/sci-fi themed pub.  He also made super thematic trophies using kids shoes with little spikes attached and spray painted appropriate colours.

For a 3 game tournament I took another new race that I wasn't super keen on - I didn't really enjoy the build - I found it difficult to make any roster I thought would be fun. So I took high elves, to get an elf team that at least got 5 skills. Also be aware every roster needed to have at least 1 goblin on it.

My roster was a thrower, 2 blitzers (frenzy & tackle), 2 catchers (block & wrestle), 5 lineelves, 3 goblins (1 guard), and 3 rerolls.


Game 1: 3-1 win vs. Devon (Orcs)

vs. Devons Orcs

This was Devon's 3rd tournament and he was talking about winning at 3rd spoon (clearly since he named his team the Doomspoons!).  Despite that, he performed very well going 1-1-1 and finishing 7th which is top half!

He played a very strict cage game on his first drive - but he left one corner against a player of mine, so I was able to leverage the guard goblin's ability to dodge anywhere on a 3+ with reroll to get 2 dice against his corner and follow that up with a 2 dice against his ball carrier - knocking the ball free but unable to pick it up.

He then decided he wanted to throw a goblin for a touchdown.  I managed to convince him he wanted to try and throw the goblin without moving, so he didn't need to land perfectly in the end zone to score - and he pulled it off!  His blitzer picked up the ball and handed it off, and the troll moved over and tossed the goblin in a perfect spot and he casually landed and ran it in.  1-0 to the Doomspoons!

With only a few turns to score I ran 2 linemen up the sideline to form a half cage, and put my block catcher inside the cage.  He marked part and lined up some tackle zones so I couldn't just run it in then tried to blitz the rear lineman, but failed something (GFI or hit can't remember).  Then I blitzed his blitzer onto the sidelines and surfed him before scoring.  Tie game.

Second half he kicked to me, and rolled a pitch invasion.  He knocked down 7 of my 11 players.  I knocked down 0 of his.  It ruined a crowd surf I had lined up but fortunately for me, his kick was a touchback so my thrower got the ball.  He got a 1 dice blitz against him in his next turn, but I managed to keep the ball and just ran off and threw a pass to score a 2nd touchdown.  2-1 to the high elves!

Then I got lucky with the kick and rolled a blitz.  I got a blitz on the goblin near the ball and had a tackle zone where it landed.  He got ahold of it, but didn't have enough resources to secure it and I managed to get ahold of it and had screened off the back from his guys on the LOS.  I held it til my turn 8 and scored. 3-1 to the high elves!! He had an opportunity for TTM OTT but where he placed his goblins and where the kick landed scuppered that.

Round 1

Game 2: 1-0 win vs. Aaron (Norse)

vs. Aarons Norse.  My T16.

I'm pretty sure this was Aaron's first tournament.  His roster was a bit unconventional (his 3 skills were pro, dump off and accurate - meanwhile his ulfwereners had no block, he took no berserkers) so all his frenzy had no block skill.  That definitely burned him a bit during our game.

This was a super intense game even though we didn't do much in terms of casualties, fouls, etc.  Neither of us could string more than a turn of success together all game.

Back and forth for 31 turns.  First 3 turns of both halves my first dice roll failed.  Both times I blitzed and needed a GFI, that failed.  Succeeded the reroll just to roll double skulls on the hit.  This was the second game my high elf thrower fumbled two passes.

Finally in my turn 16, the ball is on the ground and has 2 tackle zones on it.  I chain-pushed to get it to be just 1, but in doing so blocked my line to the end zone with my catcher!  I had to stand up and dodge my other catcher out of the way first before I picked it up (3+), 2 dodges (2+, 2+), and 2 GFI (with no rerolls for anything) to score the winning touchdown.

Round 2

Game 3: 1-1 draw vs. Ted (Skaven)

vs. Teds Skaven

Also Ted's first tournament.  He also showed off an Arsenal jersey to counter my Chelsea shirt when we started to play - so there was a good edge to the match from the get go.

We had sweltering heat all match long, so we swapped having drives with the man advantage.  I would say he was too cavalier with his gutter runners - a bit better dice and he could have been in serious trouble.  I probably got 5 or so what I would term "free" hits with my tackle or frenzy blitzer.  Of course I didn't cause a casualty all game.

He was also really fortunate with his rat ogre - who only rolled wild animal twice - and twice he received a hand off or picked up the ball on a 5.  I took him down the first time with a 2 die uphill with my wrestle catcher, getting both down and defender stumbles.  The second time it was on a blitz where he knocked my player down and just decided to try a pick up.  I had to surround him completely to force a dodge when he tried to score which fortunately he failed (and for the first time all tournament, a big guy failed his loner to reroll something against me!!!)

After a scoreless first half, I managed to score in the second, and then recover the ball after I got a perfect defence result on the kick off.  I was then a long bomb away from locking up the game.  No 5's for me though, for the third game in a row my thrower managed to fumble a second pass in a single game (only on a 1 thanks to Safe Throw) and he recovered it and got a gutter free.  I then failed a dodge trying to blitz him, so he ran it in to score on his turn 16.  

I had a chance at OTT, he rolled a blitz result - but actually made my life easier by adding guys to the LOS.  Unfortunately I rolled skull/both down with my frenzy catcher and followed that with double skull on my chain pushes to see the game end at 1-1.

Round 3

So I finished in second place behind Grant (3 wins) with 2 wins and a draw.

Due to him running the tournament, Grant didn't want to accept the first place trophy so that's why you see me accepting it here.  I keep listing him as the winner and he keeps listing me as the winner.

First Place?  FAKE NEWS

All in all a fun day at Watchtower Restaurant.  Check them out if you are in the area and they are running a Blood Bowl league if you have an interest in that too.

Brewhouse Bowl III: three sheets to the wind - result = 1st place (again!) (1/14)

Just got back from Kitchener this past weekend to participate in Brewhouse Bowl III.

Astute readers (who've been running on fumes for years until my recent burst of blog motivation) may recall that I built Grant a Brewhouse Bash board and was duly rewarded with the karma required to come out on top in its inaugural year.

Well - two fantastic things came about in year three.

The first being that my constant nagging was rewarded with Grant building a simply FANTASTIC Brewhouse Bash board of his own.

Bonus marks if you can identify what the base is.

The second being that I won the tournament outright again - this time the first time I've ever used a race, and that race being Vampires!  Now a HUGE caveat is the build was very generous to Vampires, with them being bundled into the same tier as Stunties.  So I had a very strong roster which I was extremely happy with.  Big thanks to delevus, Gaixo and L3athalK for their tips and advice.

My roster was;
3 Vampires - 1) Block / Dodge 2) Block / Pro 3) Dodge / Leader
Wilhelm Chaney
11x Thralls - 1) Wrestle 2) Guard
3 Rerolls
3 Fan Factor

Game 1: 1-0 win vs. delevus (goblins)

• Stupid & Skulling trolls (and Grak) made it very tough for him to compete.
• Lost subsequent Brewhouse round

Game 2: 2-1 win vs. tlawson (dark elves)

• Very aggressive so he scored early, and I replied with a TD.
• He threw lots of skull/push.
• I intercepted a pass on a 6 in second half to get the ball for the win.
• WON subsequent Brewhouse round - gaining Jump Up on my Guard Thrall.

Game 3: 3-2 win vs. hammer16 (wood elves)

• He ran out of rerolls quick and then failed a handoff.  After I recovered it he hit me with strip ball, but a lucky scatter kept it in my hands.  All his rerolls were gone by turn 5 of first half.
• I got a blitz to screw up his OTT attempt at end of first half.
• I only rolled 2 bloodlusts we can remember all game.
• Lost subsequent Brewhouse round

Game 4: 1-1 draw vs. Stimme (halflings)

• Scored with Chaney in first half - did a good job avoiding his trees/Grak for the most part but he still CASd a Vamp who didn't regen early on.
• Got a blitz and messed it up resulted in touchback - he took off but even with six players I knocked ball loose and scooped it up and ran off with it.
• I made a mistake and could have done a lot better to wrap up a win.  Failed a GFI with Chaney when I could have tied up his treeman with a spare thrall. Went from potentially 2-0 to a 1-1.
• Only game where the CAS really started to mount up.  I think at one point I had 5 in the KO bin and 4 in the CAS box.
• He tied with Kick Team Mate using Grak/Crumbleberry - glad those rules are changing!!
• Lost subsequent Brewhouse round

Game 5: 2-1 win vs. Da5id (nurgle)

• Scored mid-late in first half with a thrall after gazing his marking player.  Got lucky on the handoff to that thrall because I forgot about disturbing presence and failed and needed a 5+ on the reroll and got it.
• Stopped him scoring in first, he scored a 2 turn TD with no reroll using a pass action to his pestigor.
• Got a blitz and couldn't get ahold of the ball, but took out Grotty when he threw him to try and get away and didn't move far enough.
• Very nervy turn 16 touchdown.  He dodged 2 bloaters to get a blitz on a blodge Vamp and got the open pow, but Vamp returned the favour and knocked ball loose and picked it up to score.

Got another cool brew themed trophy plus the usual NAF shield.

All in all a fantastic weekend.  Now Grant and I are tied again for NAF shields and winning a shield the first time you use a race (3 total shields, 2 first time with a race each) - unfortunately for Grant he's played as all 24 races so he can't win any more first time playing the race :)

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

custom Brewhouse Bash board

Currently I am in Waterloo to participate in a brand new blood bowl tournament called Brewhouse Bowl - check out the NAF forum thread if you are interested.  The basic premise is they cannot afford the fees to bring the teams to play - so they offer free booze instead.

Thus - after the first three matches players from the teams participate in an old GW mini game called Brewhouse Bash - the rules for which can be found here. The winner of the bash game will get a small boost to their blood bowl team going forwards.

The TO (grant85) is a top notch guy, very supportive of everyone else's tournaments, engaged and involved in; recruitment, setup/clean up, etc.  I had suggested to him to build a custom Brewhouse Bash board - he just didn't have the cycles to devote to it.  So wanting to do something cool for him I decided to have a go - I wanted this to be a surprise hence this is a scheduled post for that weekend.

So first up I did this design diagram so I knew what I had to build, based on the board section graphics in the PDF.

design diagram

I got some MDF from the home depot and got them to cut it to a size that would fit in a standard picture frame I bought at walmart.  The MDF will give it a bit more strength because the rest is just built from cardboard, popsicle sticks and some odds and ends.  You can see here how I did the grid and used hot glue to stick the stones and walls down.

draw grid

mark spaces for features

glue down squares for stones

two rows of double thickness card for walls

Once that was done - I sprayed it with grey primer, lined the gaps with black by hand and then gave it a couple coats using a textured spray paint from Krylon.  This gave it a great stone texture and was infinitely easier than using sand or flock. Then I glued in inside the picture frame.

sprayed grey + lined black between stones

sprayed with Krylon Make-it-Stone textured spray paint

paint gaps black and glued into picture frame

In between while stuff was drying I was building all the features that weren't stone tiles or the walls.  Some loose boxes I just cut squares of double thick card and glued cereal packet to the outside.  The fermenter used floral water tube caps and some straws along with some water effects. All the wooden stuff was build with popsicle sticks, I tried to give it some height without being fully 3D.  Finally I did the bbq after finding a good video about painting hot coals, I used a couple 40k biker bases glued together to make the metal "tub" part and followed the tutorial for painting.

glued thin card to squares cut from double thickness cardboard

made this fermentor from the caps off floral water tubes

larger features like the tables, etc. got square outlines

how the toilets were put together.

here the table is stained with a couple coats of seraphim sepia

toilets stained

the bar

booze crates - I used a different stain colour

the completed stairs/balcony

made the bbq with a couple 40k biker bases

As it was finished I would glue the pieces in - once everything was done and had a day to fully dry I gave it a nice heavy coat of gloss varnish and then a quick light shot of dullcote (that stuff is expensive!) I wasn't planning to but the gloss was very high.

all done!

I'm gonna give myself 40 painting points for this, it was a quite involved "terrain" style project - very happy with how it came out and I hope to apply some ideas I got to more terrain.  Hope you like it Grant!