Crumb Bowl 2014

Crumb is one of my favourite Blood Bowl Tournaments. It is designed for people who haven’t played in many tournaments to come along without being intimidating – and several of us more experienced attendees are on hand to help out those who are entirely new to the game. Glowworm manages to create a lovely atmosphere, friendly and welcoming, and the venue itself is open and airy.

As someone who’s been to many tournaments, I like to use the lower tier teams. I took Chaos Pact (‘Pactthetic Worms’) last year and did pretty badly with them. This year, I tried my hand at Goblins for the first time.

Naming my team is something I normally really struggle with, but as I normally stick with Halflings when I go stunty, this time it was pretty easy to settle on ‘The Green Flings’. Unfortunately, there was neither a printer or projector so no one saw team names. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll have another good name another day ;)

One of the things I like about Crumb and one of the reasons I went for Goblins is that Glow offers the SCHWING Award (apologies, I cannot remember the spelling) for the person who inflicts the most casualties-that-don’t-count-as-casualties – so causing a casualty with a stabbing weapon or fouling or a bomb or crowd-pushes or throwing a team mate (even if it’s your team mate who dies rather than an opposing player). Failed dodges and go-for-its still don’t count, but I think it’s a rather nice award. I was quite pleased to score four – two with a chainsaw, one from a foul and one by throwing the ball carrier into the ground… The winner of the award had eight, so he rather thrashed the rest of us!

Game One was against Loki (who ran Bubba Bowl a few weeks ago) bringing Underworld in the shape of ‘There’s No F in Gutter Runner’. Game started well – he had fame but I got kick-off and chose to receive. He set up carefully to protect his blitzers, troll & Morg from my chainsaw – who promptly ran forward and slew his thrower. Blood and guts flying everywhere, his only re-roll left the pitch. A positive start, but the fanatic and Fungus danced around for the entertainment of the tougher members of his team.

My inexperience with goblins shone through and Loki quickly dispatched the chainsaw and scored on turn seven, forcing the bribes. No chainsaw and I believe only one ball and chain made this an easier decision, but not enough goblins meant he had to play. One out of three bribes was successful. To be honest, Loki should have won by a lot more than he did! He just got very unlucky with armour rolls.

Final score: TD 1 or 2 to 0; CAS Lots to Less (both in favour of There’s No F in Gutter Runner)

Moral victory to the Green Flings with the successful slaughter of the thrower.

Game Two was against Mawph, someone I hadn’t played before. This was absolutely my most enjoyable game of the weekend, although I couldn’t say exactly why. He had Chaos: ‘Morghaar Vortex’. I don’t remember much of the game (I should probably start taking notes!), but not a one of my bribes was successful.

Final score: TD 2 or 3 to 1; CAS Some to Fewer (both in favour of Chaos)

Moral victory to the Green Flings for kicking the minotaur to death.

Game Three and my first new tournament player, Tordallen and his team, ‘Da Green Gits’. Time for some Goblin on Goblin violence!

And violence it certainly was, with fewer than a team’s worth of players left on the pitch at the end of the first half. He managed to kill one of my trolls very early and the regen failed, but he hadn’t taken any so it remained fairly even. The score ended 2-1 to him: I think I could have held it to a 1-1 draw if I had held my nerve and moved my goblin with the ball in one square to not be on the sideline and only given him one turn to get the winning score, but I didn’t and then I failed the dodges needed to slow/stop his pogo’er as it ran down for the win.

Final score: TD 2 to 1; CAS Many to Several (both in favour of Gobl… Da Green Gits)

The Green Flings cannot find a moral victory in this one.

Only 2 or 3 of my 9 bribes over the day were successful!

It was great to see some of the Caterham guys again as well as many of my usual Darling Lovelies.

See you at the NAF Champs! J