Mirror Mirror

My Goblins have finally gotten in another league game after two months - this Round 5 game was against my buddy Luke and his Goblin team, Grottingham Forest.  Both of our teams were very close in TV with only 10K difference between them.  This mirror match was going to be interesting!

"Let's do this!"

Fouling Griffons - Goblin

2 x Trolls (1 x Guard, 1 x ST6)

1 x Pogoer

1 x Fanatic

1 x Looney

1 x Bombardier

7 x Goblins

4 x Rerolls

1 x Apothecary

Grottingham Forest - Goblin

2 x Trolls

1 x Pogoer

1 x Fanatic

1 x Looney

8 x Goblins (1 x AG4, 2 x Catch)

4 x Rerolls

1 x Apothecary

Luke won the toss and he started punching the trolls on the LOS - but early on he tried a blitz with his Looney on my ST6 troll and rolled a kickback on the Chainsaw roll which meant he knocked himself out.  This gave me a chance to start attacking his players early than I thought I would and I managed to blitz the ball carrier with the now freed up ST6 troll.  I moved all my players away from his Fanatic and swamped the ball which meant I manage to break through his lines and get the jump on him.  I got some lucky punches and knocked out a few of his players and my own Looney started to get in on the action by chainsawing any goblins he could get near.  Luke was down on players fairly soon and I started heading towards his endzone but stalled out to try to keep my chainsaw on the field (as I would be forced to bring on either my Fanatic or Bombardier otherwise...)  By the end of the first half he only had two players left on the field as I went 1-0 up.

For the 2nd half Luke was reduced to 8 players vs my 11 and those numbers were reduced again as my Fanatic started swinging and knocking people over.  I got hold of the ball and moved up field and then tried throwing a bomb with my Bombardier.  His first attempt landed on an opposing goblin who failed to catch it which stunned him.  His 2nd bomb pass knocked out my own Fanatic and stunned another of my own goblins.  After that he was left to mark players!  I went 2-0 up around turn 4 and set up for Luke to receive.  Luke tried for a one-turn touchdown but the hand off attempt to a goblin near a troll failed - and after some cheeky blitzing one of my goblins ran in and picked up the ball in two tackle zones and scampered off with it.  Despite his best efforts, Luke couldn't stop him and I went 3-0 up in my turn 8 of the 2nd half.  For Luke's final turn, I set up my players so that he had a easier chance to get a consolation touchdown and it worked perfectly for him which was handy as he was totally out of rerolls.  The game ended 3-1.

My Looney had been punched by a troll and took a -1 MV injury so I sacked him and bought a replacement with my winnings.  I also bought another goblin to help try to keep the secret weapon goblins from needing to be fielded at inopportune times.

A Box of Sorrows

It's been a couple of months since my last tabletop game with my Undead team but they finally got back onto the pitch with a game vs my friend Erik and his Pro Elf team, The Lament Configuration.  I totally forgot to take a picture before the game started but, as Erik was borrowing my team, I'll put up a picture of my Pro Elf team instead.

The Lament Configuration - Away Strip

Erik last played against some Orcs so he was missing a few players on MNG's so he had needed to bring in some Journeymen to make up the numbers.  We rolled to see who would start the game and Erik won; he elected to receive so at least he could try to get a touchdown while he still had eleven players on the field.

It started well enough for him, as my team proved unable to cause any casualties (which then continued throughout the whole game) but were only good out stunning or knocking out players.  Erik got himself in a bit of a sticky situation with a Blitzer and a Catcher on the sideline which I surrounded.  Erik managed to throw the ball out of the mass of my players which led to him scoring - but not before I had pushed both of them into the crowd which caused a -1 MA on the Blitzer and a niggle on the Catcher.

1-0 up and Erik was defending with eight players vs my eleven.  I retrieved the ball and managed to do some hand offs to allow me to push up the field whilst bashing any elves in sight.  I continued to beat up his players and get them off the pitch into the knocked out box and scored on my turn eight to make it 1-1.

Erik had even less players on the field as he kicked off for the 2nd half and my Undead continued their proven tactic of knocking people out.  Erik also helped by dodging his players out of the way and watching them knock themselves out as they failed.  It was around this point that my Dirty Player zombie decided to get in on the action as the Undead started gang-fouling the few remaining players.  His boot went right through the head of one poor Elf catcher and killed him dead - which then gave me a free zombie.  By the time the end of the game was approaching, there was only one elf player left on the field and he was face down as my ghoul strolled over the line to make the score 2-1.

Erik started his final turn with just four players on the field - and his players were so woozy they were unable even to make a simple completion.

After the game, only one of my players had gained a skill.  It was the ghoul who had scored two touchdowns and also gotten the MVP award.  He now has Block.  This will be handy as my next game is against the Orc team Erik played previously!

A Win's A Win

After a bye round in Round 4, I was due to be playing against a Chaos Dwarf team in Round 5.  Unfortunately the chap coaching that team has dropped out of the league :(

It means that I win a game as he forfeits and I get 2 x MVP and 2 x Winnings - but it's a lot less fun.

One of the MVP rolls went to one of my Wights so I've given him the Mighty Blow skill to help do some damage.  Fingers crossed I will get another game in with these guys before the end of the year!

Fouling Griffons - now painted!

Last weekend I took my Goblin team to the Cambridge Double Trouble III tournament.  I had been painting them solidly in an effort to get them all ready and managed it with a couple of days to spare.  At least now I can use them in the league knowing they're all painted :)

The Fouling Griffons at the Griffondome

Fouling Griffons - Team Photo

Trolls

Dice for the dice god. Double skulls for his throne!

My second round game with my Goblin team in the Championship had to be abandoned as my opponent Tom was having a nightmare getting time to get to the club to play it.  The delay was slowing down the rest of the league so we decided to call it a 0-0 draw with no SPPs, money or fan factor changes just to get things ticking along.

This meant that my third round game was ready to be played, this one being against my buddy Rid with his Khorne team.  Just to explain a bit about his team, the Khorne team was first featured on the Cyanide PC game and a lot of people want to use in on tabletop format.  Although they are not a BBRC approved team as far as NAF tournaments go, I thought it wouldn't hurt for them to be allowed in our club league, especially as Rid had bought a team on a Kickstarter.

"Let's ROOOOCK!"

Rid had had a rough couple of first games so he was using a couple of journeyman Pit Fighters.  Our rosters, both 1.1 mil TV, were :

Fouling Griffons - Goblin

2 x Trolls
1 x Pogoer
1 x Fanatic
1 x Looney
1 x Bombardier
8 x Goblins
4 x Rerolls
1 x Apothecary

AFC Goretide - Daemons of Khorne

1 x Bloodthirster
2 x Khorne Heralds
1 x Bloodletter Daemon
5 x Pit Fighters
2 x Journeyman Pit Fighters
2 x Rerolls
1 x Apothecary

I received the ball and immediately tried to clear a path to get a blitz on Rid's Bloodthirster.  That thing is dangerous with ST5, Horns, Frenzy, Juggernaut and Claws...  I sent in one of my Trolls to hit him and he rolled a both down result.  Nooooo!  The Troll failed spectacularly in trying to make the Loner roll so he burned a reroll and the two titans went down, the Bloodthirster knocking out the Troll in the process.  The rest of the first half looked like it was going to continue along this rather bruising path - he turned me over and he scored in Turn 6 which forced me to bring out some of my secret weapons.  At this point, Rid had used up both his rerolls and the Khorne team started failing dice rolls.  I guess it should be of little surprise when you think of the team theme but he really did roll a lot of Attacker Down and Both Down results.  Not great for a team with no Block skills by default.  Thanks to Rid's team self imploding, my Pogoer got a chance to grab the ball and bounce off into the end zone to equalise.

In the 2nd half my Troll woke up enough from the KO result to amble back onto the pitch and we set up for Rid to receive the ball although he only had nine players on the field.  Rid collected the ball from the kick off and moved down the field - but left a small chance for one of my Trolls to make a couple of GFI to blitz the ball carrier.  He did just that and smashed the player to the sideline - the ball scattering off field and being thrown back into Rid's half of the field.  Then it was a footrace to get to the ball!  One of my Goblins got lucky and dodged away from a marker, picked up the ball and scored to make the game a 2-1 win for my Goblins!  We also managed to get a 4-3 result on casualties too which was great.

My two Trolls gained skills, one getting Guard and the other getting +1 Strength which was most welcome.  My Looney had suffered a -1 Strength injury though so he got the sack and I bought a replacement Looney with my winnings.

Come on, you elves! You wanna live forever?

These games just keep getting harder!  Round 3 and my Undead team were facing my buddy Shane and his Wood Elf team "Project XIII".  Shane is a Blood Bowl veteran known as Rodders in the BB community; he's a NAF Regional Tournament Organiser, ran the excellent Carrot Crunch BB tournaments and is probably the best coach I play against regularly - so I knew I had my work cut out with this one.

"This is my game face.  Be very afraid."

He'd lost his first game vs Chaos Dwarves and won his second game vs Lizardmen and his players had a few more skills than mine already.  He had a MV9 Wardancer and Catcher, another Wardancer with Strip Ball and a Catcher with Block.  My only hope was to just keep swinging and pray that I could outnumber him enough to outscore him.

The Lords of Midnight - Undead

2 x Mummies (one with Guard)

2 x Wights

3 x Ghouls

5 x Zombies

3 x Rerolls

Project XIII - Wood Elf

2 x Wardancers (one with MV9, one with Strip Ball)
2 x Catchers (one with MV9, one with Block)
1 x Thrower
4 x Linemen
2 x Journeymen
1 x Reroll

We both rolled the same amount of fans so neither of us got FAME. Shane won the toss and elected to kick first which would give me a chance to start swinging straight away.  Unfortunately Shane then managed to roll a Blitz which gave him a perfect opportunity to swarm into my backfield and crowd the ball.  He even managed to catch the ball that was kicked!  All I could do was get back and try a desperate one dice blitz on the Wardancer with the ball - which knocked him down and a Ghoul managed to collect the ball.  In the next turn, Rodders dodged out some players and hit the Ghoul with his Strip Ball Wardancer which sent the ball flying.  Whilst he was trying to clear a way for him to get to pick up the ball, he pushed a zombie onto the ball which made it scatter - which duly landed in the lap of the Ghoul who had taken it off the Wardancer!  Rodders later splatted the Ghoul and got the ball away to score.

All this time, my Mummys were doing there best to smash up his team - something that carried on throughout the game!  Despite their best efforts they couldn't do anything other than cause a MNG on a Journeyman - they just kept Badly Hurting players.  Shane was down to nine players when he kicked off again but this time he rolled a High Kick and one of my Ghouls caught the ball as it landed.   Lots more smashing occurred and I was lucky to knock out both Wardancers in the same turn.  The Ghoul scored at the end of turn 8 to make it 1-1.  Rodders set up to receive with just four players in his final turn of the half - which ended up with a Catcher failing a dodge and knocking himself out.

In the second half, I was kicking to Shane and he still only had four players!  Despite this, he managed to run a catcher deep into my half after giving him the ball.  I surround the Catcher with my own players and blitzed him - and after a reroll I was still only able to push him.  It was all too easy for the Catcher to score in the next turn after my dice fail.  2-1 to Rodders!  He set up again, still with just four players left although one was the Strip Ball Wardancer.  I started moving the ball upfield after the kick and Shane did some razzle dazzle to blitz the ball carrier with two dice against - but both were POWs!  Down went the Ghoul and the ball scattered into two tackle zones.  Still not enough to worry a Catcher though as he waltzed though tackle zones like they weren't there and then picked up the ball!  My dice started working here as one of my Ghouls knocked out the cursed Wardancer, then a Wight blitzed the Catcher to take him down and release the ball.  It was then I started fouling the Catcher as much as I could as he was just so annoying!  A Ghoul retrieved the ball and headed upfield - and despite Rodders best efforts I scored in the final turn to make it 2-2.  Rodders was left with just one player on the field but had escaped any injuries apart from a MNG on a Journeyman.

Despite causing five casualties, only one of my players had done well enough to warrant gaining a skill - one of my Zombies who had caused a casualty and gotten MVP.  I have given him the Dirty Player skill so he can be more effective at fouling.

My Undead are on a bye for Round four so the next time I use them they will be taking on Chaos Dwarves.  Until then, it will be the Goblins playing who will be facing Ogres!

WIP Goblin

I need to get this goblin team painted ASAP as I really don't like using unpainted miniatures when I game.  I also want to use them in a tournament in October so I need to get cracking for that if nothing else.  So the goblins are now back onto the paint station and I've done some test minis to work out how I'm going to paint them and what colours will go where.  Here's a WIP of one of them.

"I'm open!  I'm open!"

Now I kinda know what I'm doing, I'll crack on with the rest!

An Evening With Nuffle

I had two games lined up for yesterday evening which was a little ambitious of me.  The first was my initial Championship game for my Fouling Griffons goblin team vs a human team and the second was a Round 2 game for my undead against a Nurgle team.

"ST7 ball & chain you say?"

My goblins were facing my mate Dave's human team, The Marvellous Avengers.  His team is really nice - they've been painted so that the models look like Marvel Avengers members.  Unfortunately I had to field my WIP goblins who've only had a basecoat on the skin.  I will endeavour to get some more done on them before their next game!

Our rosters were as below :

Fouling Griffons - Goblin

2 x Trolls
1 x Pogoer
1 x Fanatic
1 x Looney
1 x Bombardier
8 x Goblins
4 x Rerolls

The Marvellous Avengers - Human

1 x Ogre
4 x Blitzers
1 x Thrower
1 x Catcher
4 x Linemen
2 x Rerolls

We drew on the FAME roll but I won the toss so I elected to receive the kick-off.  Dave obligingly lined three linemen up on the LOS and, upon my setup, I placed the Fanatic in front of them.  I left the Looney and Bombardier off the pitch to save them for the 2nd half.  The Bombardier did some pushy shovey stuff as he did but, as this was my first tabletop game using goblins, I made a mistake on how the ball and & chain works as I was throwing block dice to see what happened to already prone players (something I will remember in future!).  At one point he managed to throw a triple skulls so he wasted one of my rerolls fairly early on.  Dave's team took a bit of a smacking to start with but he managed to work out a blitz on my Pogoer who went KO and also managed to cause a MNG on a troll by fouling him.  It was all downhill from there!  Dave turned me over and managed to score on turn 6 which meant I had to bring on my remaining secret weapons - disaster!  On the last two turns I sent my Looney after Dave's Catcher and Thrower but just managed to stun them.  The Bombardier only threw one bomb in a desperate effort to stop Dave scoring again - and it was laser guided causing his ogre to fall over and to knock out a blitzer.  For the second half, I just had one troll and six goblins on the field so there wasn't a lot I could do to stop Dave scoring again.  In the end, the game did finish 2-0 which was probably a fair result.  I will miss the troll for the next game for sure!

After that tough game I was rewarded by yet another tough game!  I put the goblins away and got out my undead to play Sherwin's Nurgle team, Gorerotted.

"Are you sure you don't just want to concede now?"

Sherwin is a very good Blood Bowl coach despite ignoring the game and playing Warmachine solidly all last year.  He's won the league a couple of times so I was expecting a tough match.  Not as tough as it ended up being though...

Our rosters were as below :

The Lords of Midnight - Undead

2 x Mummies (one with Guard)

2 x Wights

3 x Ghouls

4 x Zombies

3 x Rerolls

Gorerotted - Nurgle

1 x Beast of Nurgle
4 x Nurgle Warrior
1 x Pestigor (Block)
5 x Rotters
2 x Rerolls

I received the ball to start with and the ball bounced into the hands of a ghoul which was rather handy.  I had to work to make a hole through his rather whiffy defence (Sherwin had to spend the whole game reminding me to roll for disturbing presence by saying "UGLY! each time I forgot") and managed to get a ghoul through to go 1-0 up.  It was at this point that Sherwin's dice went on fire!  POW!  Badly hurt ghoul.  POW!  Serious injury on a wight (thankfully regen'd), etc.  His team smashed me apart.  I managed to stop him equalising in the first half but I couldn't do a lot to stop him in the 2nd half apart from keeping him to a 1-1 draw.  Miraculously, none of my players were seriously hurt so I still have a full team for the next game.  I was going to buy a ghoul but after two games I only have 60k winnings so I think I will buy another zombie so I have a spare man for fouling purposes.

Two really hard games - I think the rest of the season is going to be exactly the same for both my teams!

Let's Get Ready To RUMBLE!!!

It's go time!  As I said in my last post, my first game of the season for my Undead team was a game against my mate Andrew and his Orc team.  Andrew is as much of a Blood Bowl addict as I am; of all the people in the Chelmsford Bunker, it's he who goes to most of the local tournaments with me.  He won the league last season so it was a good way to get things started.  Our team lineups were :

Lords of Midnight - Undead

2 x Mummies

2 x Wights

3 x Ghouls

4 x Zombies

3 x Rerolls

Da New Ork Giants - Orcs

4 x Blitzers
4 x Black Orc Blockers

1 x Thrower

1 x Troll

1 x Lineman

2 x Rerolls

"Nuffle's blessing upon this game!"

Andrew won the FAME roll but I won the toss so I elected to receive the ball.  I kept my three Ghouls in the backfield to collect the ball and started trying to punch a hole through the solid wall of Orcs but it was pretty ineffective.  Most of the half was spent trying to make a clear way through them but Andrew was canny and kept some players back.  As the turns ticked over, I had to force a break through his lines which results on my ball carrier getting knocked over.  Andrew surrounded the ball and I was left trying to silly tactics in the last turns to try to recover but those, rather expectedly, failed.  We ended the half 0-0 and with me having a knocked out Zombie.

For the 2nd half, I lined up three Zombies to take the punches at the LOS and kept the other players back a couple of squares ready to adapt to what Andrew threw at me - which was a shitload of orc fists!  One of his Black Orcs caused a Badly Hurt casualty on one of the Zombies which was regenerated to put me down to nine players whilst his Thrower recovered the ball and hid in a cage.  I threw some blocks and tried my best to defend as well as I could which was tricky being men down.  I did manage to push his Troll away from the cage though which meant he would be less inclined to move him in case he went Really Stupid.  It was around this time that Andrew ran out of rerolls - just at the point when one of his Black Orcs tried a two-die block against one of my Mummys.  The skull and both down result saw my Mummy on the floor and his Black Orc receiving a Niggling Injury. Andrew responded in the next turn by causing another casualty, this time one of my Wights who was badly hurt but who also Regenerated.  As the turns got closer to the end of the game, Andrew was under pressure to push forward but a one-die blitz on one of my Ghouls saw another skull result and I had my chance to block some players out of the way and hit the Thrower with a one-dice blitz which knocked him down and sent the ball flying.  Unfortunately for me the scatter saw the ball land in the middle of his players so there was no chance I would be able to get a player away to score so I just aimed to cause him problems with scoring himself.  The game ended a rather hard fought 0-0 draw!

Both of us had our fan factor go up and I earned 40K winnings whilst Andrew only got 20K even after adding the 10K for getting the FAME.  I got very lucky with my MVP roll though as it went to the Mummy who had caused the casualty on the Black Orc!  He rolled a normal skill so I have given him Guard for the next game.

For my next game for the Undead will be taking on the Nurgle team being coached by Sherwin the club President, but my next game will be the first outing for my Goblin team against some Humans in the Championship division.  I suspect that will be an entirely different type of game!

"The orc pain train is coming!  Choo-choo!"

CBBBL VIII starts this week!

The waiting is over - the division draws have been made and the matches start this week!

The Lords of Midnight have been drawn first against my buddy Andrew's Orc team - Da New Ork Giants.  I'll be playing that game tomorrow evening so I'll post up some pictures and do a match report.  I have made a change to my roster for the start of the season - I will be using :

2 x Mummies

2 x Wights

3 x Ghouls

4x Zombies

3 x Rerolls

My Goblin team is still sitting on my paint station so I have a bit of work to do on those before they are ready for their first game.  They have been drawn against a Human team called The Marvellous Avengers.  I'm aiming to play that next week.

It's all kicking off!

Warm up games - Undead vs Wood Elf + Goblins vs Ogres

On 5th August I had two warm up games against my friend Barry - one using decent teams and another using rather less decent teams...

The first games was Undead vs Wood Elves and it was a real beast of a game.  The Wardancers were unstoppable in the first half and Barry soon took the lead.  My Undead then started doing some damage and the lack of elf players started taking its toll.  I equalised in the 2nd half and Barry had to defend hard to stop me from going on to score again.  The game was a real battle and ended a fair 1-1 result.

Game two saw us using our stunty teams, Goblins vs Ogres.  This game was an absolute polar opposite of the previous game with both sides doing their best to out-chump the other.  It was crazy, hilarious and we were both laughing our heads off at the uselessness of our players.  The game again finished 1-1 but it was great fun.  It was the first time I've used Goblins in a tabletop game and I'm looking forward to using them in the Championship division.  They won't win many games but they will amuse.

Warm-up game : Undead vs Dark Elves

I had a quick warm-up game last Wednesday against my buddy Tom's Dark Elves vs my Undead team.  I'm still playing around with the roster I'm going to be using for the league but I am currently using :

2 x Mummies
2 x Wights
2 x Ghouls
5 x Zombies
3 x Rerolls
30K in the Treasury

Tom's Dark Elves was set up with this roster :

4 x Blitzers
7 x Linemen
2 x Rerolls
10K in the Treasury

Tom did have some terrible dice rolls during the game and I managed to take out quite a few of his players so the game ended a rather encouraging 3-1 to the Undead.

Two teams enter. One man leaves.

This is going to be a micro-blog for two of my Blood Bowl teams in a new season of Blood Bowl at my wargaming club.  I have created a blog like this a couple of times before and it was good fun - even if no-one else reads it, it can act as a chart of the highs and lows as the team works their way through the season.  In a change from how the league was set out last year, we are now running two divisions; the Premier Division (for seasoned Blood Bowl coaches) and the Championship Division (for rookie coaches and pros using stunty teams).  I'm going to be using Undead in the Premier Division and Goblins in the Championship; Their team names are the Lords of Midnight and, of course, the Fouling Griffons (which is a play on words of my NAF name of Howlinggriffon). I chose to use Undead simply because I haven't used them in a league before and I only painted them recently for the NAF Championship.  I chose Goblins as I really do need to try a different stunty team from my beloved Halflings.  It will also give me motivation to paint my new Willy Miniatures team I bought at the end of last year.

The league I play in is called CBBBL (The Chelmsford Bunker Blood Bowl League). I am the league commissioner and I also run the website that hosts the software for the league (the OBBLM software which is just great).  The link to it is http://www.cbbbl.co.uk/ so you can see all the results on there.

After all the league games are played, the top four coaches in each division will go on to the play-offs to decide who the CBBBL VIII champion will be - and get their team name engraved on the league plaque.  The league starts on 3rd September 2015 so I've got a bit of time to get some practice games in before it all kicks off.  I can play around with the team lineups before this date too so I may change things around before then.

I have painted most of my Undead team although I do have some extra zombies and skeletons to paint as well as a few star players.  My Goblins are still being prepped for painting but I'll add pictures as soon as I get them done.

Mummies

Wights

Ghouls

Zombies

Lords of Midnight - Undead team