Weagle Bowl 2019 & Chaos Renegades

Digging deeply into the Brownie points I have with the Mrs (obviously going into arrears), I left her at home with an unenviable mix of housework and my daughter's sleepover friend to contend with... I was away playing with little painted miniatures for the second weekend in a row! I was on the road by 7am on a sleepy Saturday morning to make the 2 hour trip to Ipswich (why do I do this to myself!).

It was only my second only visit to the land of tractor boys and allegedly questionable genetics. Last time I visited I managed to foil SCS Sam's attempt in winning his 3rd consecutive Weagle Bowl with an epic dicing with my Amazons. I thought it would be rude not to attend again in 2019 despite the long journey on the bumpy part of M25/A12.

However, the rule-set strongly favoured tier one races. The pot was 1.1 million gold, 4 games, with only 1 skill to add ahead of the 2nd and then subsequent games (totalling 3 skills). It was clear that this was going to be a dwarf fest. As it was, 4 out of 10 participants were indeed Dwarves, and the organisers vowed to shake things up a bit for 2020. I hadn't managed to paint up another team to whittle down the 24 races painted/played, so I was going to have to field a team I had already used. On the NAF site I only had 2 teams below the 150 ranking... Goblins and Chaos Pact. Playing with the rosters it was clear I couldn't make a bashy Goblin team (ie 3 trolls and 2 ball&chains). I tried therefore to conjure a Chaos Pact (now known as Chaos Renegades) team using LittleArmyDesigner.com

Having pretty much failed at CamDub with a 3 big guy roster, I decided to take just the Ogre and Minotaur and leave the Troll at home. I instead hired the services of Lewdgrip Whiparm. I was sure I had an unpainted model some where in the cupboard from a crowdfunded team. I found him and hastily painted him up using (nearly) all Contrast Paints which I had been recently experimenting with.

Having arrived at the Scout Hut venue (nice and bright and airy - pleasant venue) we got ready to play on the original sized (25mm) GW Blood Bowl boards... unfortunately the tables were a couple of inches shy of the required width to fully home the boards... and more than a few times the edges of the board got caught and tipped a few models up!

The draw was announced...

Warning!- Some of these photo's contain cheesy grins and grizzly stares!

Game One - SCS Sam's Undead - Lost 1-2, (3,4)

And so it was foretold... First up was Sam, who was keen to exact revenge on me. I got the +Fame and won the kick off roll and decided to receive. Sam rolled a Blitz! on kick off and I was already on the defensive but managed to score first. Sam managed to equalise in the second half after catching a high kick and immediately looking for defensive weaknesses (of which there were plenty) and I was preparing to hold on for the draw.

However, it was an odd game, full of 'events'. For example, at one point I had 6 Knock Out rolls... 1 succeeded... eventually I had 3 successes from 9 attempts. I failed 4 consecutive dodge 3+ dodge rolls). There were 2 dead linemen from Mummy blocks. Sam passed all his regeneration rolls, but he also rolled consecutive double skulls. He also noted that until T16 I had not used a reroll - That's not to say I didn't have an occasion to use them... but instead I was always saving these precious things for more important failures.
To seal the game Sam managed to make the dodges to get two blitz dice on my ball carrier who then spilled the ball where Sam needed a 3+ dodge 3+ pick up and 2x GFI which of course he managed without a reroll being touched.
I think a draw would have been a fair result, but Nuffle had been looking after Sam this game, and he probably deserved to be the eventual tournament winner! (Congrats Sam!)... Next time Gadget!!

But then, once the game was finished, a spectator mentioned about Lewdgrip being updated in a Spike magazine... he cost 10k more but had dodge!! Sam then spotted this and said, "yes, that's right!"... Doh! I scratched off the 10k fans and updated the roster so Lewgrip was 160k and his skill. In hindsight Lewdgrip didn't fail any initial dodges himself that would have needed the skill to be used, but I suspect it would have made a difference to how I tactically used him. Oh well.

Game Two - Mr Frodo's Amazons - Lost 1-2 (1-1)

Aha, we meet again! I had a 2/3/0 record vs Andrew, but I knew I was in trouble here. His team came with 5 blodgers and the Agility 5 leaping/dodging queen that is Roxanna Darknail... I didn't even have block! I was expecting to take Claw on my Mino, but that's pointless against Amazons, so I decided to take Tackle on my Skaven lineman instead. I got +Fame again and won the kick off and received for the second game in a row!

Game highlights included Roxanna getting the Minotaur surfed off the pitch using 2 dice uphill Frenzy successfully. However, despite escaping Lewdrips tentacles, she died by failing to dodge away from the Skaven's tacklezone fairly early on in the game. This was the pinnacle of success for me. Needless to say, nothing else went my way really while Andrew picked me apart, got the ball and scored in turn 8. With Andrew receiving in the second half I had to commit to pressuring him, but the inevitable 3 dice block fail from the Ogre and not being able to hurt any of the Amazons until T15/16 meant Andrew scored quite comfortably leaving me with a one turn touch down chance. The pick up was made by Lewdgrip with a GFI to hand off to the Goblin. The Ogre deftly picked him up and launched him down the pitch. The goblin scattered closer to the end zone and landed on a (previously rolled to the scatter) 6. He made his dodges and scored! 1-2 but end of game. Nothing I could really do as Andrew countered everything I did and outplayed me.

We broke for lunch, while I mentally licked my wounds... returning to the same bakery that I visited that morning for breakfast... sadly the Chilli Con Carne was nowhere near as good as the breakfast roll I'd had.

Game Three - Myrmidon's Ogres - Draw 1-1 (2-5)

Had I decided to bring Goblins then Courtney would have had a contender for the Stunty Cup, but I didn't so he got the trophy for having the balls to bring them to this dwarf fest.

I had a solid start to the game and managed to score and hold off the Ogres to be 1-0 up at the end of the first half... but at a cost - the Ogres were making mincemeat of my Renegade linemen. To compound matters two of my players killed themselves in dodges. My Skaven lineman now had block/tackle to try and counter the titchy Snotlings, however despite many armour breaks I simply couldn't stop rolling 3s and 4's on injury rolls... only managing to hurt 2 of the little gits all game! I started the second half with 9 players while Courtney had 11 plus reserves.

Looks bad... but it got worse!

The Ogres pummelled their way up the field (I'm sure there were some successful Throw Team Mates along the way with the Strong Arm Ogre too) and scored despite some desperate defending.
I lined up 4 players to receive, with Lewdgrip in the backfield waiting in anticipation for the ball... which went deep... so deep it scattered into the end zone... and then the Ogres rolled a Blitz! Uh Oh!... A successful TTM, but the offending Snotling scattered away from the ball. Lewdgrip managed to dodge away and pick up the ball. The Snotling needed a 3 dice uphill blitz to free the ball into and hope it fell in range of the other Snotling. Fortunately for me, a skull made an appearance on the block dice and the draw was safe... but only just!

Game Four - Cass's Dwarves - Win 2-0 (4-1)

I came into this game on a low. I was on 0/1/2 and had not had a good day with the dice. Cass was a fairly new coach from the Weagle gaming club, and he had brought his dwarves to the party. For the third game I won both the Fame and Kick Off rolls!

I finally chose Claw for my Minotaur who then proceeded to not need the claw by killing both Troll Slayers, one of them using double 6 for armour followed by double 6 for injury. In fact my dice couldn't stop rolling 6's at one point much to my surprise and Cass's despair. The Blue Ice Pacters managed to score both halves and inflict for casualties on the Dwarves. Cass played a solid game but could do nothing to stop his poor dice and my angry ones! Cass eventually 'won' the wooden spoon for his efforts... Whether he plays Blood Bowl again after that experience remains to be seen!

Results
SCS Sam won, Cass got the Wooden Spoon, Myrmidon won both the Stunty Cup and Most Casualties, and Vulture Squadron (aka Fosters!?!? - someone couldn't read some handwriting) denied Besters to the most TD's. Besters came an honourable second place. I was hoping I might get a look in for best painted, but Unsullied's superb dwarf team (cursed Dwarves) won the Best Painted.

It was a good event, although the organisers did seem more interested in their Warhammer Fantasy Battle game than the actual Blood Bowl... probably understandable! Needless to say, the mission of getting the Chaos Renegades above 150 failed... I started on 147.3 ... I'm guessing I'll be in the 130's now (Edit - Actually 145.09)

Oh well. Next up will be CamDub in November... I better make contact with Purplegoo! :) I won't be taking Pact that's for sure!