London Grand Tournament 2018

May 29, 2018

London Grand Tournament 2018 - Blood Bowl

The London Grand Tournament, 19th/20th May 2018, was meant to be my consolation prize for not being able to attend the 2018 NAF Championships in Nottingham. Sadly, it wasn't exactly the best tournament I've ever been to.

The Blood Bowl organisers were asked to put something together to go along with the massive 40K, Age of Sigmar, Necromunda and other Games Workshops tournaments going on. However, the Blood Bowl pitches were spread across three areas amongst a lot of 40K gamers. We saw first hand the chopped up foam scenery that made such a fuss on the 40K chat rooms... it was pretty bad from where we were sat... and it wasn't exactly roomy either.

One highlight though was a pretty decent goody bag on entry;

Anyway, back to the Blood Bowl...
I brought my Dwarves - mainly because I didn't want to field my Undead or Necros, and I was saving my Dark Elves for CakeBowl.
I decided to go for a fairly competitive list... no Deathrollers or Star Players this time... 2x Slayers (Mighty Blow), 2x Blitzers (Guard), 2x Runners (Block) and 6x Blockers, 2x Rerolls, FF, Cheerleader and Assistant Coach.

Game One

Remembering to take a photo before we kicked off I was up against Tom Hayward's (mrhayward99) Chaos Pact/Renegades. What a first match... I got absolutely stuffed, mainly by a Claw/MB Minotaur that only rolled a one on turn 16. I only sustained 2 injuries, but there were enough stuns and KO's to put the game out of reach for me. Lost 0-2, 0-2 casualties.

Game Two

Next up was Chris Dyke's (ChrisDyke) skaven. The match started with a Blitz! against me... I was powerless as the ball landed a square away from the end zone, and the two headed skaven star player waltzed through tacklezones and scored. 0-1. However, I managed to beat my way to equalise by turn 8. Mercifully, Chris failed KO rolls, leaving his star out of the running.

For the majority of the match I was more than comfortable, but it only takes a turn or two and Gutter Runners can really stuff your game up and somehow they had the ball - I had to resort to a last ditch blitz, and handoff/pass to score in turn 16. A 2-1 win, and 2-0 casualties.

Game Three

You know when you've gone through sweat and tears to claw your way back to 1/0/1 and you're really hoping to save your tournament... and then you get Joe Haistock (Joemanji) as your next opponent... and you know you may as well pack up now and go home. Joe stepped up to fill in for odd numbers, bringing his Nurgle out to play. Despite some mad dice taking out some AV9 warriors, the Dwarves couldn't score and the Nurgle simply went back and forth along the LoS. Joe played for a draw, and despite some poor dice on his part came out with a moral victory - ie the draw 0-0 and 3-0 casualties.

I finished day one on 1/1/1 with 5-2 casualties.

Game Four

Next up were the Orcs of Dave Pagham (reximus). I went through their armour like a knife through butter, inflicting 4 injuries! I scored first half and defended like a demon in the 2nd half. There was nothing Dave could do. 1-0 win, 4-0 casualties.

Game Five - Final match

On a 2/1/1 record and on table 6 I knew I had a chance of finishing above average for the weekend, but up came my good pal Andrew Laing's (MrFrodo) dwarves... it was a Dwarf off with far too much Guard on show for anybody's liking! Turn one - I KILLED THE STR4 TROLLSLAYER STARPLAYER!! :) And that, dear reader was the highlight. It was a dull 1-1 draw from there on in, with 3-1 on casualties.

I finished 10th in the tournament 2/2/1 4-4 TDs, 12-3 cas's.

I felt sorry for Yogi as it was his first Tournament Organiser stint.... the venue/LGT organisers had doomed this from the start.

However, it was great to catch up with HowlingGriffon, MrFrodo and Myrmydon - it made the tournament much more enjoyable.