STABB VII (2018)

STABB VII - 2018 was the latest incarnation of a weekend-long Blood Bowl tournament at a proven venue in St Albans, Hertfordshire.

And my word, the proven track record of the majority of attendees made this tournament the strongest competition of the year. With Besters, kfoged, Lycos, vmcat and purplegoo in attendance (along with wilzif organising) their w/d/l records speak for themselves!:

Highlights of the weekend

• Purplegoo came along for just the Saturday and won all three of his matches - we joked that he might win the tournament without turning up on Sunday!! Fortunately this didn't happen.
• Introducing my colleague and friend - Hordemaster - to his first NAF tournament, after he cut his teeth on runner up at the Games Workshop run Full Beard Cup.
• Stu2's and Hordemaster's 2.5 hour epic game - someone might need to clarify how long it actually took!
• Heff having a melt down against his dice vs Hordemaster.
• Wil being systematically banished from each successive table he visited as he seemingly brought one of the coaches bad luck.
• The bemused look on the faces of the regulars as grown-ups played board games.
• Me joking that I didn't want to be drawn against Hordemaster in case he beat me!

The Team

I decided to use the same models that I took to Weagle Bowl, except this time they would be Humans instead of Amazons.

Day One

Game One - WIN! - TDs 1-0, Cas 2-0

I've faced Billydee (Geoff) a number of times at the Welwyn Wargamers club as well as a couple of times before in previous STABBs. He brought his Amazons this time. A special mention is deserved for Geoff - This was his 24th tournament with the 24th race... He earned is 24 NAF patch for this. Well done!! His record would have been much better had he been able to stick to one race for a while and get experienced with them, but taking a different race to each tournament prevents this.

This was a tight game and it took a last gasp effort to secure the victory.

Game Two - LOSS! - TDs 1-2, Cas 2-6

Purplegoo (Phil) has 28 tournament wins to his name and can probably beat most coaches with just half a halfling team!! This was the 4th time we've faced each other, and it had taken either insane luck on my part of a disaster for Phil for me to win. Unfortunately for me, this wasn't one of those games! Phil just took my humans apart with his Norse. Every block felt like it led to a KO or injury. Phil pretty much controlled the game as I sat back with a good number of turns left and just let the prospect of a loss wash over me.

Game Three - LOSS! - TDs 0-2, Cas 0-4

Lycos (Dave) has only won 22 tournaments. Grief! For some reason Dave rolled 10's on his dice when all he needed was 7 or more (with his Mighty Blow Khemri mummies). In return, all I did was tickle him, even his AV7 players. It was a Lycos dice fest and I was just the sacrificial lamb watching my own doom spelt out before me.

After coming up against 2 parts of Team England on Day One and getting my bottom handed back to me in a gift-wrapped presentation boxed set of misery I wasn't feeling too good about my choice of race for this tournament. Would Day Two be any better?

Day Two

Game Four - WIN! - TDs 3-0, Cas 0-2

Oh NOOOO! - It happened. I was facing a possibility that Daniel, friend and colleague, new to the tabletop scene (although experienced online on Cyanide's Blood Bowl 2), Hordemaster (Daniel) was the other extreme of my opponents in Day One, with his first outing for his freshly painted Orcs. Fortunately my luck returned and I could do no wrong, even scoring a salt-in-the-wound 3rd Touch Down. That would prevent and sledging in the office for sure!, but Daniel played perfectly well and didn't deserve that big a scoreline.

Game Five - DRAW - TDs 1-1, Cas 1-1

Good grief, Khemri again. This was a slog of a game, but my experience of playing Dave's Khemri on day one helped me play much better in this game against Barney. 

Game Six - DRAW - TDs 1-1, Cas 1-1

And the final game of the weekend was against Mr_Frodo (Andrew) - one of my two team mates at this years Europen in Cardiff this year. Andrew had brought his Lizardmen, and the multiple Str4 players and zippy little Skinks had to be managed carefully. In the end, neither team could get an advantage and we finished another tough game with a draw.

End game

Well, we finished mid-table, and deservedly so, but day one stuffed me... and my opponents missed out on having to face Purplegoo on Day Two. That being said Wil and HowlingGriffon stepped in on Day Two - neither are easy opposition either.

Results
Winner - Stu2 (7741) Chaos Pact

Runner up - Besters (5131) Nurgle's Rotters

Most Touchdowns - YogiBedlamBear (20617) Chaos Pact

Most Casualties - vmcat (1621) Undead

Stunty Cup - Firebreather (83) Goblins

Best Painted - wotfudboy (16184) Humans

Third Place - Lycos (2870) Khemri

Best STABB miniature - Firebreather (83) Goblins

Most STABBY - howlinggriffon (3709) Orc

I did come away with a keepsake of the day... Wil kindly distributes the trophies around so the maximum number of people leave with a trophy. He chose my team for Best Painted... I think mainly because better painted teams had already won something! Still, I'll take it! :)

Just needed to note all this down... it's not been a thrilling read... mainly because I waited too long after I had played the games and can't remember many things of note, sorry! I'll do better next time!