The Red Trophy II

Having bumped into Tom aka 'NoNumber' at his stand in Cardiff at the Europen and learning that he had opened a gaming store not far from me it was even better news to find out he was hosting a NAF registered Blood Bowl tournament.

For me it's great to be able to go to one day tournaments as it means an easier discussion with the Mrs, and less costs for overnight accommodation... but being so local to me this was hardly an issue.

Having readied my High Elves with just one day to spare for this tournament, I printed off my 1.1 million gold pieces roster. My 6 skill choices were; 4x Dodge catchers, 1x Tackle and 1x Strip Ball blitzers. Easy. However, I'd not played High Elves in a long time, and only on FUMBBL. I'd faced them a few times though... and remember their Thrower to be a real pain, armed with the usual Pass but extremely handy Safe Throw (if intercepted, roll agility [3+] to ignore & automatically hold on to a fumbled throw [not natural 1's]). I was hoping that the catchers would last long enough to score a touchdown or two and that I didn't roll too many ones - which are the natural enemy of any elf team.

I met up with my Europen team mates Howlingriffon and Mr Frodo and made our way to Tabletop Republic in High Wycombe. The photo above doesn't do the store justice at all. Tom has a great range of stock and is obviously full of enthusiasm that you need to do this for a living!

After having looked around the store and made some introductions to other coaches there (some of whom I'd played against at other tournaments, and one or two that I had played on FUMBBL) we got down to the draw.

Game One vs thor87's Khorne; 2-1 (3-1 cas's!) - WIN!

I'd only faced the amiable giant of a man thor87 once before at Cakebowl when his orcs and my dwarves ground out a 1-1 draw. This time he had another beautifully painted team, but Khorne this time. I was really proud of the paint job I had done on my elves, but compared to thor's miniatures it looked like I had slapped on paint with my fingers! Quite rightly he later won 'Best Painted'.

I'll say this from the start... I used up all my day's luck up in this one game, and thor took it very well indeed - where he was gracious I would have been growling under my breath. The Mighty Blow/Claw Bloodthirster rolled a number of wild animal failures, but when he did move he made a great deal of push backs/stumble rolls, and when he did finally manage a splat it didn't break armour! Later I managed to knock him out!!

I won the toss and decided to receive. Across the day I really wasn't sure whether to kick or receive. I decided in the end that if I won the toss I would receive. My thinking was that if I was more likely to score with a full team from the start. If I scored without too much damage then I should be able to defend the remaining turns in the first half with classic elf delay tactics which are all the more possible with AV8 in abundance in all but the catchers who, despite having AV7 had Dodge to partly protect them. If things went well, then I might be able to steal a 2nd TD in the second half. However with all those Horns and Frenzy I had to avoid the side areas for fear of being crowd-surfed.

The game vs thor started off well, with me inflicting a casualty first. After scoring and defending successfully, thor managed to equalise in the second half. However, there were just enough milliseconds in the closing moments of the match for me to roll 'significant' dice to grab a turn 16 win. thor87 was a complete gentleman.

Game Two vs Chaoshugs's Dwarves; 1-1 (0-3 cas's) - DRAW!

Next up was ECBBL's very own Chaoshugs and his Dwarves. Tough draw. Again, I won the toss and decided to receive first... but this time nothing worked. 1 dice blitzes were both downs and I rolled a weekend's compliment of 1's. In return, Chaoshugs beat me up wherever he could. I simply couldn't get past the dwarven defensive line. I can't remember if I scored in the first half... I think the dwarves scored on my drive and I scored in a few turns of luck in the second half on their drive... I could be wrong. I just know that it was a damned close game and I was happy I managed to squeeze a draw out of it bearing in mind my dice, where Chaoshugs was commenting on how poor they were. Again, if memory serves, in the closing stages of the match, Chaoshugs chain pushed a blitzer within 2 gfi's of the endzone and then ran in a blocker to both pick up the ball and try to throw it and only failed at this point. This was for the win, but to my relief the ball bounced harmlessly to the floor!

Quick lunch interval - Chaoshugs was kind enough to buy me a lemonade at Mad Squirrel's beer shop. We mulled over our match, had a good chat, enjoyed our beverages and then dashed back for...

Game Three vs Howlinggriffon's Dwarves; 1-1 (0-2 cas's) - DRAW!

Of course, if I go to enough tournaments with Darren and Andrew I am bound to face them at one point... and Darren had started the day as well as I had, so we had another face off. It was 3-0-2 to me to date, so this was Darren's chance to even things up. And frankly, with all those Guard dwarves, with a mighty blow thrown in for good measure, this one was going to be very tough... and it was.
I'd learnt from my mistakes vs Chaoshugs, and having received again, I managed to score. However, Darren ensured a draw with an equaliser.
Finishing round 3 on 1 win and 2 draws meant I presumed I was out of contention.

Game Four vs Skiductions's Lizards; 3-0 (2-5 cas's) - WIN!

I had to fail to win the coin toss eventually, but this seemed to play into my hands as I stole the ball from the lizards not once but twice in the first half and went in for a positive team talk at 2-0 up. Skiductions had done really well as a new tabletop coach to get high up on the leaderboard for game four and played a solid game. Unfortunately the catchers were on fire. In the second half I received and scored a third, but couldn't quite make it four as Skiductions saw through my plans. His lizards then set about venting their frustrations on me and inflicted some quick casualties... even the big Krox got in on the act with a turn 15 foul that ended in a 5th injured elf... sadly my retaliation turn 16 foul failed to hurt anyone.

Wrapping up...

I think the 3 touchdowns in the final game must have helped as a tie breaker as I finished 2nd which I really not even hoping for with rookie high elves. One thing I did notice was that I played a lot more risky Blood Bowl as everything felt like a desperate play. Seemingly I play better with my back to the wall and it made a pleasant change to play a true agile team for once.

I picked up a 2nd place trophy and a Transformers card game as my prize;

It was a well run tournament by Tom who had to deal with a last minute drop out and a coach who walked away after 2 games and still run his store! There was also controversy when MrFrodo was denied a chance to score with his Nurgle when time on his game was called. For me though it was a happy ending for my High Elves as I was expecting to do far far worse. Mission accomplished with 11 races now played... just 13+ to go... <gulp> for the NAF patch.

Thanks to Tom and each of my opponents for a fun tournament. It was great to meet up with friends and FUMBBL adversaries like Gritter too who deservedly won 1st place with his Lizardmen.

EDITORS NOTE: I'll pop a leaderboard and ranking stuff here when it appears on my NAF coach page / the TFF post... Tom's a busy man!