Leap is an underrated skill

I haven't talked about Blood Bowl in ages.

Our FLGS runs leagues. The first one, I took halflings because I love them and because I didn't want to scare off new players by thrashing them. Some of the other experienced players didn't have such qualms, and the league (being run by one of them rather than the staff) had the "play as many games as you like" format that meant someone like me, with too many hobbies and too little energy, quickly feel behind on star player points and stopped having fun. There was no encouragement for me to play the minimum-expected number of games, so I stopped bothering, and wasn't the only one. Eventually, we reset.

This time, I took norse - a team I'd not used before, to again not be too scary for beginners, but one with a bit more resilience than halflings. Minimum game requirement was enforced and people were chased where they fell behind. Everyone was to play each other once in an official league format, and you had a fortnight for each game. You could also play up to one "training match" a fortnight - no fans, so no winnings and no MVP, but other SPP's were available, and of course injuries applied... The problem we had then was that people kept dropping out, and new people joined, until there were so many people there was no way you could play everyone, so people started dropping out again... I was pretty near the top when we called it, despite having played fewer games than some (and only one training game).

A new league season starts soon. It was made clear you should only sign up if you could commit to one game (and an optional training game) a fortnight, so initially I said no. Divisions were drawn up with the people who confirmed. Everything was about to start and... someone dropped out.

I've stepped in. Husbit's trying to organise this one and the person who'd dropped out was in the division that was already a player short, so he was left frustrated at the thought of having to set everything up again. The divisions format means I'll play 4 games in my division, then a further 2 games to decide final rankings (I think). 6 games at a game a fortnight I can probably manage.

I'm taking wood elves, because I love them. I feel a bit guilty because they're playing Blood Bowl on easy mode (now watch them all die first game and never recover...), but I haven't played them in ages and miss them. And I know a few tricks.

Zombie Halfling Cup

Years ago, a friend of ours wanting to get into Blood Bowl organised the Zombie Halfling Cup mini tournament. I think there were 6 of us playing in it, maybe 8. I took wood elves and Husbit had undead, the teams we're probably best with. It was clear pretty much from the beginning that it was between the two of us for the cup: for each of us, the only game we didn't win was the draw against each other. There was a play-off between us for the final.

 

I like leap. In tournament play, I usually go down the classic route of giving the double skill (if there is one) as guard on a wardancer, strip ball on the other, then using leap to smash the cage and get the ball. I also find it handy for those blitzes - leaping over the line of scrimmage to be under the ball in your opponent's half before they've had a turn has satisfaction written all over it. So I usually give leap to at least one catcher as well. 

 

Husbit had mocked me throughout the Zombie Halfling Cup tournament for this, saying it was a risky skill and I'd have been better with block.

 

The final wasn't looking good for me. We were drawing, going into my final turn, but I only had 2 players left, both catchers. One was in range of the end zone and could score, but the one with the ball was sat in the wrong end zone, all 5 of the squares around him occupied by ghouls and rotting corpses. No re-rolls left (this was back in the day when I took rerolls to tournaments), and I think I was out of range to pass anyway. It was a draw, at the least, and probably a win to the undead, who had a turn to crowd me, retrieve the ball, and score. Husbit moved the last of his players into place, and looked at me, satisfied he'd done enough.

 

I leant forward, heart pounding. Looking him straight in the eye, I picked up a d6 and declared my action: "leap".

 

His face fell as the die did. It bounced. A success! I dodged from that square and ran as close to my other player as I could. Pass. Catch - fumble! But it's a catcher, so a built in reroll to score and flee to the other end. Touchdown.

 

Undead can get a one turn touchdown to equalise, but not easily and not today.

 

I won. 

 

No one mocks me for leap anymore.

 

 

If I were a Blood Bowl character...

Yesterday was the annual Bubba Bowl Blood Bowl tournament in Bristol. I didn't make it, but wanted to play with this year's concept: bring yourself as a player!

The idea was to take a normal character from the team you were bringing, then spend to raise the players value up to 150k, based on you.

Husbit took Undead and designed himself as a caffeine-addicted zombie. To replicate the caffiene-high, the zombie has 2 movement increases and Jump Up, and 'Needs Coffee' (a flavour-reskin of 'Really Stupid'), as well as both Dirty Player and Sneaky Git. He had great time and ended 9th out of 32, which he was pleased with.

I've been trying to think about what I'd do. A quick check shows a regular skill adds 20k, a double skill 30k and a stat increase 40k. My first thought was a Wood Elf Wardancer, with my aerial acrobatics, but they start at 120k and I wasn't sure what 1 skill I'd want to add.

 

Dark Elves also looked fun, but I couldn't decide between a Witch Elf and an Assassin so moved onto Elves (what will be 'Elf Union' with the new GW release and currently often colloquially known as 'Pro Elves'). I really can't run (if my knees don't go, my hips will: yay for hypermobility!) so ruled out the catchers, and while I'm not bad at catching and throwing (I used to be a demon fielder when we played rounders and cricket at school, though I couldn't hit the ball), I figured I'd go with a blitzer rather than a thrower. They come with stat line move 7, strength 3, agility 4, armour 8 and skills block and side step at a cost of 110k. I added dodge and jump up to reach the full 150. I kinda like that, but when it comes to Blood Bowl teams, my true love lies with the Halflings.

And halflings, with their little legs, work really well for my inability to run. Their basic stats are: move 5, strength 2, agility 3, armour 6, skills right stuff, stunty and dodge at a cost of 30k.

I'm stronger than that, so first thing is a strength increase, then to reflect the acrobatics I added jump up and side step - and a skill I'm calling 'innocent smile' but which is really 'sneaky git'. I learnt very early in life that if you smile and look innocent, you can get away with a lot, so I figure that's a great way of getting the ref to not realise you actually kicked the guy lying at your feet...

And at 140k, that's me!

 

 What about you? What would you look like as a Blood Bowl player?

Luck

A quick aside re bendiness: the physio wanted me to see a rheumatologist, which I'm very lucky work will pay for, but from a GP referral, not my physio. So I had to see my GP, who sent me for blood tests - I've ended up having three lots. She also put me on amitriptyline, which, now I've been off it for most of a week, I have to admit did reduce pain and improved how much I slept and took away my IBS but at too high a cost: I fet drugged and dopey all the time and couldn't think and had splitting headaches and nearly told my project manager to fuck off because I couldn't remember how to politely point out I was busy and now was not a good time for small talk. I also had really vivid dreams, which I'm never sure whether to put as positive or negative effect. Anyway, she let me come off after a fortnight so it's been out of my system nearly a week. I feel so much better and I am in a writing mood.

I want to talk about luck.

I trained as a maths teacher (although never went into teaching for a long list of reasons that protected me from the horrible realisation I wasn't emotionally strong enough to go into the profession I most admired), and remember being asked by one of the people training us if we believed in luck. I was the only one who said yes. Cue surprised looks, until I explained it depends how you define "luck": they were defining it in the superstitious sense, whilst I was using it as shorthand for startling coincidence or a statistically unlikely streak of events. 

It makes sense to me to use it this way: I know that you can roll a d20 three times in a row and get a 20 each time (and stick your crossbow bolt right through the big bad's head for an auto kill in the first round of combat - paragraph 8 of Absalom), or reach 40 on an exploding d6 (and find a replacement for that monofilament whip the bad guys took off you earlier). The laws of probability demonstrate that someone, somewhere in space and time is going to roll a balanced d6 and get a 6 every single time - hell, in an infinite universe, there'll be a planet somewhere whose laws of probability look very different to our own because the 6 will come up every time. 

I also know that, short of using weighted dice or learning to trick roll (which apparently isn't particularly great anyway), there's not really anything you can do to manipulate the chances of getting the result you want: lucky underwear might give you the confidence to approach that new friend, but it's not going magic the dice into doing what you want, so is manipulating luck the realm of superpowers?

It's certainly a very cool superpower, one I'd love. Control over chaos and entropy would be incredibly powerful and could stand in for most other powers - in fact, could be used to increase your chance of having any other power consistent with the rules of the universe you occupy. It's a power I'd be interested to explore in a supers game one day.

In fiction, I've only come across this idea a few times: the character Misadventure in City of Heroes (how I miss that game!) and Aornis Hades (spoilers in link), from Lost in a Good Book. Interesting that both are villains - maybe it's too much of a deux ex to give to the protagonist, but is interesting for them to overcome. Supporting this, the only times I can think of heroes having access to extreme luck is for short periods, such as the luck virus in Red Dwarf, or Felix Felicis in the Harry Potter series.

You can manipulate luck, and black cats and ladders have nothing to do with it. I'm thinking about Blood Bowl, where a good tactic is to force your opponent to rely on luck. You can buy rerolls and use up to one a turn to reroll a failed attempt (or if a ball is bouncing around and the wrong one of your players catches it, a successful attempt), and many skills you give players give them built in rerolls for certain types of skills, that can be use the same way. So when I take halflings to a tournament, I tend not to bother taking rerolls of my own (playing without rerolls takes practice but is worthwhile) and instead take an inducement called the halfling chef, who has the opportunity to remove up to 3 rerolls from your opponent and give up to 3 to you in each half (roll 3d6 during the first kick off of each half, and each 4+ is a reroll given to you and a reroll taken from them - it used to be a stolen reroll, so if you rolled 3 and they only had 2, you only got 2. I prefer the new way!) Immediately, you've manipulated things to fall in your favour, as the likelihood is your opponent is used to relying on those rerolls so their play style will be affected (one reason why learning to play without rerolls is so useful). You can also position your players to force your opponent to make the highest number of dice rolls you can - particularly if you can manipulate it so the types of rolls aren't favourable to them: halflings dodge everywhere on a 3 with a built-in reroll, so forcing them to dodge is less frightening for them than forcing them to block opponents, where their low strength means they'll probably be rolling two dice with the opponent choosing which outcome applies.

You can do it in roleplay games, too, playing to push odds in your favour. You might struggle to hurt a dragon, but creating a dragonbane net may at least snarl it up enough to make it easier not to die in the attempt. Lords of Gossamer and Shadow takes this further, removing the element of luck altogether and encouraging the players to find ways of bringing the odds into their favour.

In real life, we can't remove the element of chance so easily, but we can still stack the odds in our favour, or find the odds stacked towards us by chance. Research has shown that wealthy people are more likely to become more wealthy not because they are greater risk takers but because they have the money to take those risks. My intelligence, creativity and appearance are all quirks of genetics that have nonetheless given me benefits in life, along with being born into a loving, inquisitive family (although that may be tied to the afore mentioned genetic quirks). It spirals too: I got a job I love by the luck of intelligence and knowing the right person (my brother, in this case), but being in a job I love and am good at has helped me gain confidence in my abilities so that I am better able to take opportunities that arise: now I've found a path I'm happy on, I'm manipulating things to keep the luck that got me there flowing.

Optimism and pessimism also come into play. I'm generally considered an optimistic person: for instance, I feel very lucky to have a job with insurance that will cover the cost of me seeing a rheumatologist; I don't feel unlucky to have been born with a condition that requires the visit, or if I do, I do so by focusing on the parts of the condition that I like having - the suppleness, the youthful appearance, the high pain threshold - and still consider myself fortunate. My younger sister is a better example: some of her friends think she's very unlucky because bad things always happen to her but I think she's very lucky because sh's always fine. (She shared that opinion until the parachute accident: she accepts she's lucky to be alive, but the dislocated shoulder had long term repercussions on her career.) My anecdotal experience suggests being optimistic doesn't come from having good luck, but rather the perception of being lucky comes from being optimistic.

Luck is the way random chance falls. You can manipulate it, but never completely eliminate it. It affects you in ways beyond your control but the most important part of whether you are lucky or not is how you see the world.

Bubba Bowl 2016

Bubba Bowl 2016. Over a week ago now. Need to get back into the habit of writing these up sooner. At least I have notes, albeit minimal - and I did take some photos!

There were plenty of new people there, and many more I've only seen maybe once or twice before and, whilst I love seeing my friends, it's always great to meet new members of the community.

There was a 'High Elf' challenge being undertaken by members of the Bubba League because (at least in our local tournament circuit) they're rarely seen as a team. So they got a ridiculous glittery baton and a crown, and the highest placed High Elf at the start of each round had to wear/hold this for their next round, with it being awarded to the highest placed High Elf coach at the end of the day. I was unaware of this, and took Strictly Come Wardancing (the Wood Elf line up that saw me to second place at Cake in 2014) because Husbit wanted to take Halflings. Bubba has higher points available but fewer skills, so I bought an actual reroll (and felt dirty), meaning I didn't need to take leader. No doubles skills allowed unless you're stunty, so I took tackle instead of guard on one wardancer, and strip ball as usual on the other, leaving two line elves to pick up dodge.

Game 1, vs Cornish with Goblins

Exciting match up for me; less exciting for him, and exarcebated by the fact that I'm a much more experienced player than he. Oh, and 2 blitzes falling in my favour, with a dead chainsaw after the first... He did, at least, win fame and kick off, but it didn't help him much. Even with Jordell KO'd for most of the first half, I managed to get the ball off him and score leaving him one turn to equalise. I'd also, by luck rather than judgement, got him down to 11 players so, whilst his fanatic succeeded in using his only bribe, it had to play and wouldn't be on the pitch for the second half.

 

The second blitz, where Jordell caught the ball in his half...

Ripper ran in, but it took a goblin to knock Jordell down... so another elf had to retrieve the ball for that score.

One of his trolls choosing a crucial moment to double skull helped, as did my line elf managing to pick up a ball in 4 tackle zones...

As I said, he was an inexperienced player and that definitely helped me. He'd started the game mentioning he was worried he'd forget he'd given the fanatic grab and that the trolls, with really stupid, needed babysitters, so I did my best to remember to remind him, and the highlight of the game, for me, was actually that he didn't hate the game despite it being very one-sided. We played more slowly than I'm used to, but this didn't make me tetchy like it can because he used that time to be social and friendly, and he noticed me trying to make the game fun for him even as I thrashed him, and thanked me for it, and that really made my day.

Final score: TD 4-0, CAS 2-3 (although the crowd and a failed dodge killed another 2 of his goblins).

Game 2, vs Nightwing with High Elves

 

Nightwing was highest placed High Elf at this point. See the pretty sceptre!

He'd taken Eldril Sidewinder and Soaren Hightower: I've faced Eldril before so gunned for him, even risking sending off as I fouled him with line elves, and the crowd were on my side as they ripped him to pieces for me. In response, he fouled Jordell to death at the end of the first half, which ended 2-0 to me after a bit of bad luck prevented my third TD (and left Jordell on the floor for that aforementioned foul). He pulled it back in the second half, so turn 16 was poised, two all. He considered a quick blitz but instead lined his guys up to increase the number of dice I'd need to roll. Ball with a wardancer, who needed her built-in reroll for dodging through tackle zones so I switched to leap and failed, leaving us on a draw.

Final score: TD 2-2, CAS 1-0 (and the crowd killed Eldril, and he killed my Jordell on a foul)

Game 3, vs Hobnail with Skaven

I faced Hobnail before and we were trying to remember the match up - he thought it was an Amazon off as we both had Roxanna, but I think I had Dark Elves. He comfortably thrashed me by being the better player, but I've learnt a lot since then and was pretty sure I could give him more of a challenge, although I still hate facing skaven.

The game started off well, with me winning kick off and electing to receive. Scooped up the ball and went to throw it to Jordell, but my thrower wasn't happy - her pass skill turned from fumble to inaccurate and it flew off the pitch. Did I say it started well? I meant badly! 

 

Photo courtesy of Hobnail, right after the ball landed at his feet.

The scatter landed the ball at the feet of his gutter runners, who proceeded to scoop it up and run to the opposite side of the pitch. Strip ball got it loose, but it had taken all my effort to achieve that and I couldn't grab it up. Fortunately for me, he decided to start his next turn with an easy block with the rat ogre. Who double both downed. And died. This made it a lot easier to retrieve the ball, and a few more dead rats meant it became a lot easier for me to control the pitch. Luck was on my side for sure (another blitz helped), but I definitely played better than the previous time we faced each other.

Final score: TD 3-0, CAS 3-4 (and a failed skaven dodge) - and I'm in the lead for most TD, which I still haven't achieved, with 9. Several people on 7 or 8, though, so I need to fight in my next match...

Game 4, vs 20phoenix with Skaven

More Skaven! I was feeling a bit more confident about such a match after my previous game and I managed to score quickly, but this turned out to be hubris: the pride before a fall as elves fell left, right and centre.

It wasn't pretty

I started the second half with 2 line elves and all 3 wardancers on the pitch, which gave me a false hope of maybe at least a draw, but my lack of players meant I was taking risks and managed to kill or at least KO more. He was also a slow player of the non-chatty kind, which is a good way of making me lose concentration and take more risks.

This was my first game against a wizard, and whilst it vexed me intensely that I couldn't break his armour yet he was killing all my players seemingly at a glance, he did play well and as he needed to: if the dice had been more even, I like to think I might have won because Strictly Come Wardancing is a powerful team, but I couldn't say for sure. I'll admit, however, that it took him noticing how miserable I was feeling and apologising for something beyond his control - the dice - before I started enjoying the game again! Which makes me feel petty, but the feeling interested me too, because we do this, apologise for the dice, and I've always felt silly for doing it when it's been me to my opponent, but it really did make me feel better so maybe I should feel less silly about it next time.

Final score: TD 1-2 (farewell, most TD), CAS 0-5 (ouch) (and Jordell died on a foul, and 2 elves died on dodges, and the rest were KO'd - I think I had one, maybe 2 players on the pitch when he finally scored his second TD).

Final placings:

Well, I didn't get most TD, and actually would have been hard-pressed to get it even if I'd beaten 20phoenix, as SFisher came from behind to take it with 13 TD, having scored an impressive 6 in his final game. I came 8th of 34, Husbit (Lunchmoney) came somewhere near the bottom, 20phoenix came second, but the overall winner and winner of the High Elf challenge was NAF president, Sann0638.

Happy Blood Bowl everyone! My next tournament is probably Crumb, but I'll try to write up a few more from last year before then (if I can find my notes).

More dice!

One of my colleagues may have discovered I own quite a lot of dice. He may then have got himself more dice than he needed for Christmas, and decided the sensible thing to do would be to give the excess dice to me. This might mean I now have a drawer full of dice at work...

My dice collection has grown extensively since I last discussed it. I was pretty good with the dice my friend gave me: the prettiest have come home with me, and the rest are in my drawer waiting for me to find a use for them. Maybe by finding other people who want some, or maybe we can use them instead of cards for playing 'planning poker' now we've moved to an Agile/Scrum working method. Or maybe some other use entirely will arise.

 

And talking about dice is nice and easy because I don't need to worry about laws of narrative or telling a good story or anything else that, while enjoyable, involves more thinking than I have right now.

 

So, here's my complete Blood Bowl collection:

 

There's a griffin die you might just be able to see toward the top left - I thought I'd taken a better shot of it, but can't find it if I did. I must have picked this up by accident years ago and have been trying to track down it's owner since I found it in my collection. If anyone knows whose it is and can help me return it I'd be grateful!

 

My collection breaks down roughly as follows:

Blocking Dice

Nothing new here.

And these are from the Australian Open. I thought I had a set in a bone colour too, but it seems I was wrong. We've not actually been to the Australian Open: these were an ARBBL spot prize. I've met several Aussie players, though, between the 2 World Cups I've made it to, and if I ever make it to Aus/NZ, I'll definitely be looking to play some Blood Bowl while I'm there.

Misc Dice

Mostly d8's for scatters as explained before, also the injury dice. The d12 is useful at tournaments for determining which player on the pitch is affected by eg a thrown rock: the d16 is of less use because there's a max of 11 players and often at tournaments players aren't numbered, as most are resurrection rather than progression events. This one was a gift sent to make me smile.

 

NAF Dice

Also tokens. Dice for being a NAF member, tokens for making it to the NAF champs... Actually, the round one was for the Amsterdam World Cup. D16 for finding a numbered player on a full roster, eg for a thrown rock or to award MVP.

 

Halfling Dice

I talked about these before, but I still really like them. Halflings are a team I really enjoying playing with. I don't recommend them for a beginner, but they are fantastic if you're not expecting to win.

 

World Cup Dice

Given to me by various people at the Amsterdam and Lucca World Cups. There was another d6 which has progressed instead to my roleplay bag because - being a skull in a stetson for the 6 - it feels like a great Deadlands wild card die.

 

Local League Dice

Top photo includes Team Chaos (purple), Bubba Bowl (teddy bear), Exe-Bowl (black and gold), Chelmsford Bunker/Hawk'd dice (both from my friend Hawk), ARBBL (pumpkins), our own Exiles (black&white), and the Double Skulls podcast (luminous green). The bottom photo are Lutece dice - being French, they aren't particularly local, but I do have many of their dice so I wasn't sure where to include them. Was hoping to get to their tournament this year, but it clashes with a friend's wedding. Would like to one year, though - I hear good things, et j'aime l'opportunite de parler en Francais.

 

Traded Dice

I want to get some more Exiles dice made up, and some personal ones (with a Fern leaf or storm cloud symbol on the 6 - my NAF name being Tempest) so I can do more trades.

And on to the roleplay dice: 

 

I love my dice bag, a present from a friend at uni. The little pouch beneath it is the one that holds my haematite dice - you might be able to make them out in the picture, they're very small and a dark grey metal. The wooden frame encasing the felt flame is for rolling dice in: we did a £10 limit secret santa in our Pathfinder group, and this was hand made for me as I often sit at an angle that makes rolling dice on the table a bit awkward - and also because I'm anxious to use my haematite dice for fear of damaging them or the table. I'm thrilled with it.

 

I was surprised to realise that the entire extent of my percentile and d12 collections are those from sets. For percentiles, this is likely because I want the colour/style to match, or I'll just use two distinct d10's and roll one at a time or state which colour is tens and which units. For d12's, Husbit explained they're the least used dice: systems that use die type usually have 12 as a cap, so you'll have few if any stats that high, and whilst it is a damage die in D&D, he couldn't from the top of his head think of any weapon that used it.

 

I'm not sure how I've ended up with so many d4's and d8's, though. I mean, partly it's my work friend's fault because there were lots of pretty d4's and some pretty d8's (and no d12's at all, and only one percentile, with no matching d10), but I've still got more than I've ever had reason to use. I feel like I want to play a game that uses lots of d4's. Or maybe use them as a burglar deterrent...

 

 

NAF World Cup - Day Three

It'd been cold the previous nights whilst we waited for the coach, so I decided to take my Thundercats hoodie for that evening. I was struck with a powerful conviction that if I did so I would lose it, but decided to take the risk because I knew there was a lost and found on site and anyway, I'd had the same conviction that the plane would crash and we'd all die on the way out, and I'm pretty sure that didn't happen.

Of course, I did lose the hoodie and it didn't get handed in. I'm really hoping someone picked it up by accident and hasn't noticed yet, and that when they do they'll look on TFF or somewhere so I can be reunited with it. Although, if the hoodie was some metaphysical trade for surviving the plane ride, all I can say is 1) it was fair and 2) Death has great taste.

I miss my hoodie

That aside, day three was another fun day. I was by now exhausted and a little anxious to face another skaven team. My personal challenges were going well, with all the "really wants" complete. Would I be able to win a game today?

Really wants:

1) Score using Throw Team Mate (game 2)

2) Score by walking in with halflings (game 5)

3) Draw a game (games 5 and 6!)

4) Kill a big guy (fouled a Krox to death game 1. He apo'd it: fouled it to death again. Then trees killed ogres on blocks, and halflings killed others on fouls in game 6)

Nice to haves:

5) Kill a big guy with a fling on a block

6) Score with a tree

7) Win a game

My skills by this day were block on one tree, grab on the other, 4 side stepping halflings and 2 blocking halflings - though I was wishing for sneaky git or dirty player or even maybe mighty blow on a fling...

Game 7

vs Aurre of the Spanish Bastards (Spain) using skaven

(I was told we were against Spanish Bastards, but I saw what I thought was a different team in Spanish Bastard shirts later, so now I'm less sure...)

My luck, particularly when it came to casualty rolls, had been pretty in the tournament so far, whilst my opponent had suffered an excess of ones and skulls. That changed in the first half of this game. I took his rerolls, but with +2 fame to him he kept winning them back. Neither of us needed any until turn 7, when even with the reroll I failed a vital hand off. He then needed his to save from a double skull on a block he then realised he didn't need to have thrown - he still managed to get his third touch down of the half, though. Kick, it turns out, is a very evil skill and, hard as I tried, I couldn't get rid of the offending rat. With his interference, I needed extra GFI's to stand a chance at a one turn TD to end the first half - not that it mattered, because I failed the hand off with reroll again. Sigh.

The second half went better, with a thrown rock hitting his team and stunning a line rat despite him having the extra fame and he losing repeated blitzes with failed wild animal rolls on the rat ogre. Kick was still causing me problems, so Deeproot took his frustration out on the rat ogre, stunning it. Several flings piled in but couldn't do more. The flings and trees managed to up their damage in this second half, punching and fouling many rats (including the ogre) into the KO box before sauntering in to score.

Of the various KO'd rats, all but one blitzer returned to the pitch - this still gave me a numbers advantage because it was 2 dead flings vs 2 dead line rats and 1 dead gutter runner as well as the KO'd blitzer. The lay out of the pitch meant it was a pack of flings who went after the rat ogre... they surrounded him and blitzed for a 2 dice block... Broke armour... DEAD RAT OGRE!!! "At least, no more ones on blitz" said my sanguine opponent.

The rats managed to keep the ball from the flings by throwing it out of their range, denying either team an additional TD. Neither team did any more damage (althoguh a double skull from his blitzer gave me hope). My tree with block spent most of the game rooted... 

Considering I took such a thrashing on the score, this was an exceptionally fun game.

TD 1-3

CAS 4-2

sent off 0-0

stolen rerolls 5

Game 8

vs Kibit of Fun Factor Zento (Italy) using skaven

More bloody rats! I got fame this time, which was fortunate because the first kick off result was a pitch invasion. One fling fell, but so did 4 rats - including the ogre. The ball landed near the line of scrimmage, but my little guys couldn't pick up the ball even with the threat of gutter runners standing nearby. Fortunately, the rats couldn't manage it either. The ball bounced loose and lodged itself in Deeproot's branches - another chance at that elusive tree TD! Right up until the cheeky strip ball gutter runner smacked it free (I realised too late it should have been 3 dice my pick, not the 2 he rolled. Not that it'd likely have made the difference, but still frustrating as I wanted that TD).

I managed to KO his rat ogre but couldn't keep his team from scoring, and it came straight back to face the riot (I forget to mark whether we gained or lost turns here). So Deeproot shoved it into the crowd who finished it off. I don't think my opponent was best pleased about that, but if you're going to leave him in easy reach of a Deeproot blitz... The crowd also slaughtered the strip ball gutter runner - I guess they were as keen as I to see a tree score. That left 7 rats on the pitch for the final turn of the first half!

The halflings continued to punch their way through the rats, sending more and more to the casualty box whilst suffering a single KO (who took two attempts to come back, but that really didn't matter). This lead to an exciting turn 16: 2-3, with the ball convenient for a throw team mate score... Kick off result gave me a d6 to pick which of his 5 rats to hit with a rock... The throw was good... The scatter wasn't, landing one square too far back to draw level even with GFI's. 

Whilst I definitely got luckier when it came to injury, I deliberately created as many 3 dice blocks as possible to give myself that opportunity and I actually felt frustrated not to achieve a draw: again, I was the better player. I eased off a bit when I saw how the mounting casualties were upsetting him, but three strong players with mighty blow will do that if you leave your strength 3 players nearby, and strength two players are happy to take the risks if you make it easy to get the assists in.

Definitely helped my chances of being most violent halfling, though.

TD 2-3
CAS 6-0 (+2 crowd for me)
sent off 0-0
stolen rerolls 3

Game 9
vs Yeash of Victims (Germany) using Dragon Boxers (Norse)

Victims won the wooden spoon at Amsterdam and were the only team we faced at both events (I believe vice versa also). I was enjoying chatting to my opponent and reminiscing so much my notes are really shoddy for this game, which is a shame. His English was impeccable and he was very tolerant of my attempts to murder his language (I can count in German, say hello and thank you, that I hate milk (from mishearing Rammstein lyrics), that I speak a little German, and guinea pig. Very useful stuff). 

I chose to receive, but it didn't take long for the norse to get the ball from me. It ended up in the crowd and the flings recovered it, losing 2 flings in the process. The norse's guarding player demonstrated consistency in his dodge rolls until he eventually killed himself in the process... (apparently all his team had made a habit of failing dodges all weekend). The half ended 1-0 to the flings and my excitement levels were up. To try and keep him from evening the score in the second half, I had to rely on Deeproot's blitz... but he failed the go for it, failed the loner to reroll and for one heart-stopping moment I thought was going to be leaving the pitch for good... but fortunately was only stunned.

I took more casualties in this game than any other - more than I'd taken overall on day 2 - so I wasn't surprised he managed to pull the game back to a draw.

TD 1-1
CAS 0-6 (ouch! +1 failed dodge for me)  
sent off 0-0
stolen rerolls 3 


LOOOOOOOOT!

Big events are usually good for loot. Actually, small events can be great for extra dice too, but big events bring international goodies. 

We used to have loads of Exiles dice - black or white dice with our logo on the 6 - but these have all been given away, so Blocknroll made up custom bottle caps with our logo, that can be used as turn counters or score markers or rerolls or whatever. He did us each a set with all 9 of the Exiles who've played at World Cups, with an extra 9 of our own to give away. I may have accidentally given my copy of me away too, but never mind.

In return, we got a coin from the World Cup as well as the gorgeous pitch and a necromantic team, all from the organisers. From the second spanish team we faced, I received a die that, if you zoom in to the image, you may notice is the only one not showing its face. That's because it's a penis and, despite my use of language at times (blame Chrissie!) I'd like to keep at least the imagery SFW. They were giving away penis dice because one member was wearing a flag instead of trousers, and I can confirm from accidental viewing that there were no pants (I didn't know I had it in me to go so red over something so minor!)

The large patch came from a German team staying at our hotel. The 3 poker chips were from various representatives of Bubba. The black dice with red were from the event - I should have had one red on black and one black on red, but I prefer pairs so traded with Husbit. The red on yellow dice were from Team Chaos. The white on green were from Bonjino of Briganti (game 5). The white on black pair were from Gilles-Cacciari of the Linemen (game 1) and the standalone white on black is a skull in a stetson (though upside down it looked to me like a fling in a ring) I think was from one of my skaven opponents - I'm pretty sure it was Aurre (game 7) but it might have been game 6 or game 8. Really nice die that won't be remaining in my Blood Bowl collection but instead will be used as my 'wild card' die when we get back to Deadlands (probably in the new year).

We've been talking for a while about getting some Exiles patches made up and this has made me feel even more motivated to do so. I'd also like to make up some personal dice to give to opponents/trade, some with fern leaves on the 6 and some with a symbol for Tempest (I'm just not sure what; thundercloud with lightning poking through? mini tornado? any better idea?)


An amazing weekend, and we achieved our goal of finishing above Team Chaos. I may not have achieved a touch down with a tree or actually managed to win a match, but I came close a couple of times and I was the most violent halfling player. I'll definitely continue taking them to major events, and maybe I'll even manage to win a game one day.

Now, to plan the next one...


Adios, au revoir, farewell, ciao