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

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

Insane Goblin Posse - aka the gobblugalosch

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

Best Team Award

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

dual posted on Merry Mayhem News

Deathbowl X - result = 5th/24 (without a win!)

Check out my preamble to Deathbowl X here.  I did make a last minute change to my roster, dropping Strong Arm on the troll and Catch/Sprint on the goblin to give the goblin Pro and +MV.  Thinking back upon it now I wish I hadn't of changed my roster as I was always failing the catch or the throw. Hindsight is 20/20 but I didn't even think of probabilities in terms of actual opportunities (ie. I wanted Pro to reroll the landing, however it would have been better to make the catch roll easier with a full Catch skill reroll rather than Pro, and Strong Arm would have meant a 2+ throw instead of 3+ - which would have given me more chances to attempt to land and I should have just worked on saving my rerolls for that instead.  Ah well - maybe this means I take the original roster next year!

Game 1: 1-1 tie 3-1 CAS

My direct opponent was Matt, playing High Elves. To my left was Manuel also playing Orcs and to my right was Leathan playing Wood Elves.

Started on table one, which at this point seemed a blessing but by the end of day one was a curse.  It's impossible to sit down at this table due to it's height so I spent all day standing!  In this match I quickly decided it was best to focus on Leathans wood elf linemen so I could get them down and get some casualties.  I got 2 pretty quickly but then had to wait a long time for my third.  Leathan has won Deathbowl the past 2 years running so I wanted to make sure he didn't get a good start.  Debatable whether that helped him get to 2nd by not playing at top table or not, but in any case, right near the end of the game I made sure to help Manuel by blitzing one of Matt's players off his black orc so he could score the tying TD vs. Leathan.

I ended up with 5 points from this match.  1 for tie, 2 for having most CAS on the table, 1 for having 3+ CAS and 1 for sharing most TDs.

Game 2: 0-2 loss 3-2 CAS

My direct opponent was Mark H playing Humans. To my left was Peter playing Dark Elves and to my right was Colin K playing Skaven.

I wasn't too surprised to still be on table one, since I got lots of bonus points.  Mark's team was well composed with a ST5 blitzer with juggernaught as well as a MV10 catcher.  He and Colin made a good team, nullifying myself and Pete throughout most of the match.  I was very unfortunate to end a great turn one (first blitz = CAS vs. Colin) by eating my goblin.  Mark was very fortunate to have the ball bounce right next to his thrower (from the crowd/wall twice) after Pete failed a Leap to score vs. Colin and was able to run in his first TD without any blocking required!  Both he (again!) and Colin managed to score throughout the second half, so in the dying parts of the game, in order to screw Colin out of 2 points for the win, I threw the ball in front of Pete's blitzer, giving him a walk in TD and resetting the board. At this point Colin had 2 turns and I was willing to throw a ball to him, to then return those points but screw Mark out of the bonus points for most TDs on the pitch, but not surprisingly Colin didn't trust me and tried to get the ball himself, failing the pickup.

I ended up with 3 points from this match, 2 for most CAS and 1 for having 3+ CAS

Game 3: 1-2 loss 4-2 CAS

My direct opponent was Rod playing Skaven. To my left was Mark H with his Humans and to my right was Alex G also playing Orcs.

OK, NOW I am surprised to still be on table one.  CAS is apparently the way to go for bonus points so I am likely going to alter my plan away from the Slaan next year.  In this game Rod was really unfortunate not to score a couple times, with his gutter runner either dropping an accurate pass or failing the last GFI to score.  I also lucked out that in the later stages of the first half, nobody realized how close my goblin was to Rod's endzone so with a simple hand off, I ran the ball in and scored without even so much as a dodge or GFI required.  At this point I thought I had a good chance of progressing to play on top table again on day two, however in the second half, trying to throw a goblin twice ended up giving Rod easy TDs and he took the game 2-1.  I had maybe 5 TTM attempts this game and only once did I even get to roll to land the goblin which failed.  4 unsuccessful catches.

I ended up with 3 points from this match, 2 for most CAS and 1 for having 3+ CAS

Game 4: 1-4 loss 4-2 CAS

My direct opponent was Leathan with his Wood Elves.  To my left was Matt with his High Elves and to my right was Peter with his Dark Elves.

Again in this match I wanted to make sure Leathan didn't do well as there was definite possibility of him winning the tournament for the third time if the top table drew a bunch or he got a bunch of bonus points.  As it was I think that first tie in the first match just kept him out of 1st place (whew). Which was good because during the match, Matt took offence to me blitzing his catchers who he setup behind my LoS and CAS'd then fouled 2 black orcs out of the game.  He also went for it early but unfortunately his blitzer who knocked the ball loose caught the bouncing ball, which gave the impetus to Leathan with a big gap Matt had created, and it was quickly 1-0 Leathan.  Pete early on tried to return the favour by throwing a ball right in front of my blitzer to screw Leathan but luck or perhaps karma meant my blitzer bobbled the pick up and saved Leathan from a TD.  Later on, Pete did help me get a TD but it was too little too late since Leathan had a 2nd already and Matt kept fouling me to death, causing a casualty against my troll and removing my OTT TTM option.  Right near the end of the game I got my 3rd CAS (+ a bonus 4th).

I ended up with 3 points from this match, 2 for most CAS and 1 for having 3+ CAS

So I ended up with 14 points which tied me for 4th place and put me in 5th on tiebreakers, without even winning a game and with only 1 tie!!  WOW, so that's taught me something.  Colin K ended up in 3rd behind Leathan so mission accomplished to keep the Keilars off top spot.  If Stephane had managed to tie Colin late in game 4 on top table (Rod stopped him by scoring first) I think there was a chance I could have squeaked into 3rd place, however thinking back now I am pretty sure that then Stephane would have gotten 3rd.  Still I was very close to the podium without a win which was quite the feat.

I ended up winning Most CAS with 14, and due to finishing 16th last year (was 6th in 2010 - but last year everyone was ready for my Slaan) and 5th this year I also won Rising Star.  All in all a great fun and successful tournament for me.

Most CAS

Rising Star (complete w shit eating grin)

dual posted on Merry Mayhem News

Deathbowl X - year of original six

So I am pretty pumped about this weekends trip to Ottawa for a special edition of the Deathbowl tournament. First off, Deathbowl is awesome fun, 4 teams/2 balls/1 pitch - you know it's madness.  Second, being year 10, instead of it being "year of" a single race, it is year of the original six.  So if you bring any team of; dark elves, dwarves, high elves, humans, orcs, or skaven you will get a boost.  You can check out more about this particular tournament at the NAF forum thread.

I was originally thinking of bringing my new dwarf team, however 1 significant rule change this year is max 3 upgrades per player.  There used to be no limits and super players were definitely in vogue.  Without a super dwarf runner or blitzer I don't like the thought of playing the dwarves.  I also want to be careful which tournaments I take them too now that they are Warpstone Cup 2012 champions!

I don't find the build very suited to my dark elves either.  They are too expensive, even with 1250TV I didn't like any roster I came up with.  That only leaves 1 of the original six that I have teams for left which are the orcs (I've been told even on top of the roster bonus, it will be very worth playing an original six team).  So I've been throwing together some orc rosters, an all rounder, one built for getting casualties, and one with a souped up troll and 3 souped up goblins for TTM attempts.

In each case I am taking the free reroll original six bonus (it's worth 60k vs. the other bonuses of 50k so it seems a no brainer)

All Rounder
4x Black Orc w block/guard
2x Blitzer w tackle
2x Blitzer w +MV/dodge/sure feet
2x Lineorc
Thrower w +AG/Leader

Most CAS
4x Black Orc w block/mighty blow
4x Blitzer w mighty blow
Lineorc w guard
Lineorc w dirty player
Thrower w +AG/Block/Dodge
1 Reroll

OTT TTM
Troll w pro/strong arm/break tackle
3x Goblin w +AG/+MV/sure feet
Blitzer w dodge
Thower w leader
6x Lineorc
3x Reroll

All of these were interesting, so I've been debating the pros/cons of each.  The All Rounder is pretty solid, the Most CAS would be a lot of fun, the OTT TTM list would be silly fun, but since it's a one trick pony I'd think that most opponents would be able to setup in such a way as to prevent the OTT with lots of tackle zones. I am pretty confident that a skaven team is going to come out on top this year.  They are nearly the perfect team for Deathbowl with their high movement and getting an extra free reroll is perfect for them.  Gutter Runners are scary good in this format.

So I've been seriously considering just going for Most CAS.  It is DEATHbowl after all and with all the extra players on the pitch, I could really just attempt to injure a ton of players every turn.  It does mean I probably won't win many matches, so yesterday I came up with a new roster which combines the Most CAS and OTT TTM in such a way that I think I can still take a run at the Most Casualties trophy and with a bit of luck pull out some ties/wins.

COMBO
Troll w pro/strong arm/break tackle
Goblin w catch/sprint/sure feet
1x Black Orc w block/guard
3x Black Orc w block/mighty blow
1x Blitzer w guard
3x Blitzer w mighty blow
Thrower w leader

Still 7 pieces with mighty blow, plus a troll/goblin/thrower combo with;
pickup reroll, hand-off reroll, 1 of really stupid/always hungry/no fumble PRO reroll, GFI reroll

I am pretty sold on this list.  Just enough silly to not be bored playing 4 Deathbowl games for CAS only, I am just debating where to put the guard skill.  I think mixing 1 Black Orc and 1 Blitzer is the right combo, but am open to comments.

dual posted on Merry Mayhem News