SAWBBowl 3 & Chaos Chosen

In the sleepy village of Sutton Benger something was stirring in the Village Hall... SAWBBowl 3 was gearing up for it's grand finale. At 6.15am on a bright Saturday morning coach Wotfudboy, bleary eyed started his ~2 hour drive to what he thought was Swindon, but actually felt somewhere more towards Bristol! (I really should check these things!)...

Despite Google Maps sending me down one too many B-Road for my liking (after a local road closure) I arrived in good order for registration and a bit of a chat with other coaches (some names I recommended from the FUMBBL sawbbl league I've played in). For £15 for NAF members it was a pretty good bargain of a day out... lots of prizes, good airy venue, tasty lunch and a few familiar faces. The SAWBBowl tournament had apparently been started to encourage Blood Bowl in the local area, and Glowworm felt that it had achieved its objective and was calling time on this event... He was right... 49 coaches turned up!

I had just about rush-painted my 3rd edition Chaos team in time for the event. I had even dabbled on eBay and tracked down an old star or two, but I didn't paint them up... mainly because of time and also because I knew my roster wouldn't accommodate them.

The ruleset was fairly typical... "Once you have purchased your team you get 6 free skills, 5 Normal (non-double) and 1 Double skill, these can be given to players of your choice, 1 skill per player with the following exception you can “trade” the double skill for 2 single skills which must be given to the player numbered 4 on your roster, this player cannot be a star and must be St4 or less. Only 2 instances of an additional skill can be chosen." ... but, like many tournaments these days there was something a little unique to separate this one out from the others... there was "a modified weather table, there is no weather!! all games start with perfect weather, if a kickoff result is a 7 then the organiser should be called, both coaches roll a D6+ FAME, the winner (highest) gets a random card supplied by the organiser." Throughout the day, shouts of "WEATHER!" echoed around the hall!

After a long "short introduction" the contained fire safety instructions accompanied by plenty of banter, we had the round 1 draw... and the games began!

I was uncertain about my roster but eventually went with 1 Mino (claw), 2x Chaos Warriors (Guard), 2 Chaos Warriors (Block) and a SureHands/Tackle combo beastman who would act as my ball carrier and sweeper.

(lunchmoney's picture!) - Good shot of the hall from the stage.

Game One vs Discodavo's Humans - 1-1 Draw! (1-3 cas)

Dave was one of the PS4 Blood Bowl 2 crew... plenty of gaming time online, but not a table top match to his name. I shoke his hand - I was honoured to be his first tabletop adversary! I chose to receive and have a pop at his humans...

The first half couldn't have gone too much better really. I scored in turn 8 after KOing 2 blitzers, a catcher and a lineman, and killing his leader player... He still had The Mighty Zug and a Ogre with Block, and they were a considerable threat, but with numbers down and only 1 reroll, I was feeling confident. However, all that was to change...
For Disco's successfully recovered ALL of his KO's for turn 8. I was inwardly disappointed of course, but, I tried to collect my thoughts. I popped my Minotaur into the reserves box to keep him safe from any T8 thrown rocks, and set up to defend. Very sensible. Not much happened in turn 8, but Dave went to get a drink. When he came back I pretty much left my players as the were...

...but I made a horrible mistake! We had already rolled dice (and therefore it was too late!) when I realised that I had left my claw Minotaur in the reserves box! Somehow I had to contain Zug and the Ogre and a full compliment of humans with my main threat sat grazing on the sidelines. Zug and the others went to work, breaking chaos armour at whim. I had done just about everything I could to contain the humans and stop the drive, but Dave's dice were very reliable indeed and the game ended 1-1, with 1-3 casualties in favour of Dave. I think that stupid mistake cost me the win, but Dave played a solid game and deserved to draw. Oh well... live and learn.

Oh, and special thanks to Thor87 for the use of his board... the tables were a few inches short of being deep enough to support my mat board... and even the jigsaw and cardboard boards were always in danger of being caught/knocked, which a few coaches did across the day.

Game One vs 7ables's Necromantic - 2-1 Win! (x-x cas) 

Next up was this really lovely Spanish (I think!) guy hailing from Cardiff! 7able elected to kick first half which I thought was different... but that's how 7able approached games... he said himself he liked to play a little bit different and go for the more risky plays. I managed to score i turn 7 (it was too risky to delay any further).

I thought I had done enough i my set up and subsequent turn to prevent an equaliser. Little did I know that I was sooooo wrong. 7able's ghoul had already picked up the ball in turn 7, ran him up to the line in turn 8, made a 4+ pass to his blodging werewolf (stood by the sidelines in 2 tackle zones - one guard CW and my tackle beastman) by rolling a 6. The wolf promptly caught the ball by rolling another 6 after requiring a 5+. He then Blitzed the beastman... pushes... frenzy kicked in... push/skull... reroll... double POW!... and in he cantered for a turn 8 equaliser. Ouch!
I could only applaud while secretly wishing the dark gods to crush the offending wolf for his luck!
The second half was a very close affair. I had managed to sack the ball carrier, but there was a tonne of dice being rolled in the final third of the pitch. My ball carrier got taken down, but the ball scattered amongst hi surrounding team mates, and after about 4 failed attempts, one of the beastman made a 4+ and caught the ball with glee. He trotted in for the winning TD knowing that he would be well rewarded by the gods for his efforts. Good game, but squeaky bum time for the win! Had my luck returned?...

...no... definitely not...

Game Three vs Heff's Dark Elves - 0-1 Loss (0-0 cas)!

This game could only be described as utter-utter-elfy-bull-excrement... I had faced Heff before at Bunker Bowl and Cakebowl, and had come off the winner... but not this time. 2x Blitzers had dodge, 2x Witch Elves had Block... and I had one blockless tackler. I predicted from the outset that this wasn't going to go well!

Heff was sporting the Dark Elves that Thor87 had painted up for him so well. First half Heff chose to receive. Despite my best attempts, and a few quickly burnt rerolls on Heff's behalf I simply couldn't stop the score. 0-1. 
The second half saw one of my Guard Chaos Warriors snake a GFI trying to mark some elves. He fell over, armour broke, and died. The Minotaur regularly broke armour, but elves seems to be quite resilient. Heff's runner took himself off the pitch. However the play of the game was Heff's Witch Elf making dodge after dodge into multiple tackle zones and rolling not one but 2x -2db blocks. The ball scattered in to the crowd, and after going diagonally several times, eventually went back up the field 9 squares to the foot of my Chaos Warrior and his blodging blitzer! After easily picking up the ball, and after several hits later, all pushes, the blitzer stood smugly and held the ball aloft taunting the warrior. The game finished 0-1, with me cursing those blasted elves!

And to finish...

The Trophies

 Some of the prizes

Thor87 threw in a painted team for the best newcomer too!

The final table

As you can see DiscoDavo went on to finish 4th (not bad for his first tournament!) and picked up the special Glowworm award AND a painted team from Thor87, with Heff finishing 14th. I started on 150 ranking and finished on 149.81... Not a great return for the effort! :) ... but All in all a good day despite a silly mistake and some rollercoaster luck. As always, Glowworm and his happy helpers made the day for everyone. I can thoroughly recommend any of his tournaments.

The winners
Winner, after a recount, DrDeath
Runner Up, Fisher
Third, Twelthman
Glowworm and best newcomer, Discodavo
Most TD, Yogi
Most CAS, Thor

Spoon, Chillydog

It was also nice to put a face(s) to the voice(s) of the Anything But a One podcast... Twelthman and Nightwing and Nazgob were all there... I even got a ABaO dice! shown below (and being carefully guarded!