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!