COSH - 3 player Team Tournament & Chaos Dwarves

In July, word reached Team Redshirts HQ that a mighty gathering of the great, the good and the damn right dirty Blood Bowl coaches was going to take place. The arena was to be 4TK in Colchester where much blood, sweat and middle-aged man tears had been shed in tournaments past... but this time COSH had a twist... this was to be a 3 player Team Tournament.

Skipper Howlinggriffon issued his orders to coaches Mr_Frodo and Wotfudboy, and Team Redshirts rode again.

There were some mighty coaches coming from far and wide... if you count far and wide as an hour or two away by motorised chariot. Each team declared themselves, coughing up their entry fee and signing the waiver so the organisers could not be held responsible for any mental or physical harm inflicted on the attendees.

COSH A-Team included the organisers myrmedon, scs.sam and Joe.
Alpharest Alphas included mark_b, ackredies and fiskey07.
Block and Roll included unsullied, gethyn and tomgreen.
Hebbl stunties included littlespoon, madeofwelsh and bigashw.
CooperWinterEwles included paulwinter, erikpitysthefool and shearov.
Goof Troop included tank15, chucklehead and touchdown.
Vulture's Squadron included vulturesquadron, besters and goldfish.
Obi Wan, Kenobi Nil included ruffntumble, monkeyrage and narcoleptic_wizard.
BRGA Boyz on Tour included tweetyrawdon, jimmy_jazz and James Turner.
Team W included petew, thomasw and purplegoo.
Team Friendless included itchen, larkin2012 and fatyn.

I had been painting a Chaos Dwarf team at the time, put together from a number of different of manufacturers. I was asked on the day which ones, and I got around to checking it out (see below). You might notice a theme from the pictures below that I don't particularly like Chaos Dwarves with big hats and curly beards. I much prefer them to look a little more Chaos like with 'T' slit helmets and horns...

The Dwarves are from Meiko, Willy Miniatures and Gaspez Arts. The Hobgoblins are from the Vollmarian team by Rolljordan. The Minotaur is from Hungry Troll's Plaguefields team.

Armed with a set of yellow NAF block dice (thanks DukeTyrion!) and some black COSH dice from a previous year we uttered our prayers to Nuffle and started game one...

Well... some of us did. Others were late having mistaken the M11 for the A12 and others with car trouble (it had been a frosty morning!)... this meant round one started late for a few teams as the stragglers eventually made it to the venue.
Sadly Sam's tournament gift never made it to the tournament despite some stressful phone calls etc - Always feel sorry for tournament organisers... I don't think people really get how much pressure they are under on the day!

Anyway...


Team Match-up One vs team 'Block and Roll' 

My opponent 'tomgreen' brought Humans - Win 3-0 (4-1 cas)

In the first round of most (if not all) tournaments you get a randomised opponent. Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for Thomas, I came up against a young lad who hadn't had much experience at tournaments. It didn't start too well for him either as I not only won over the fans (+1 fame) but also received. The chaos dwarves then set about punching the humans as often as possible... and at their meagre height they seemed to go for the 'low hanging fruit' of the humans nether regions. However, I had mixed fortunes with my claw-adorned Minotaur who's first block was a both down & skull. Fortunately my decision to use a re-roll paid off and I passed the loner test. This time I stunned the Ogre. Later in the game however my Minotaur did pretty much the same thing, this time double skulls, rerolled, loner passed... ending in one very very dead Ogre! By the end of the first half I was 1-0 up (& 2-0 cas).
The second half began with Thomas trying a ballsy dodging move through my lines, but spilled the ball. I covered the area, picked up the ball and ran as fast as I could down the other end for a score. After going 2-0 up I was able to pressurise the humans, sack the ball carrier and score a third. With casualties mounting and disillusionment setting in, there wasn't much the humans could do. Fair play to Thomas for taking the loss in good spirits.
As for my team mates, Mr_Frodo made short work (no pun intended) of unsullied's halflings as his Trees rooted and the dwarves tore through the halflings. In contrast, Howlinggriffon got the sternest test of the team going up against gethyn's Lizardman team featuring an all-block Saurus & Krox and a surehands skink. Darren suffered a defeat but did well on bonus points, losing 1-2 (4-1 cas).

Team Match-up Two vs team 'Vulture's Squadron' 

My opponent 'Vulture Squadron' brought Necromantic - Win 1-0 (2-0 cas)

Ouch -This was not only going to be a very tough game, but as readers of my Camdub blog post may remember, Vulture Squadron was out for revenge in a big way! His roster featured the typical werewolves sporting the Claw/Mighty Blow & Claw/Block combos... something my armour feared.
Jack had the fans on his side (+1 fame) and opted to receive, but I rolled Blitz! on the kick off which helped turn the tables a bit. I managed to hold Jack off from scoring in the first half, but both of our armour seemed to hold fast, or more to the point, our skins were thick as injuries were few and far between.
The second half saw a werewolf fail a dodge and die. By turn 8-7 I scored for a 1-0 lead, and three of his knockouts were too scared to set foot on the pitch again making the chances of a one-turn score much more remote with only 7 necromantic players available. Another win, but very close, and I had the much better luck overall. Fortunately the next time Jack and I meet will be in York at the UKTC as team mates!
As for my current team mates, Howlinggriffon played his nemesis Besters and his high elves. Even though Darren kicked to him, he smashed the elves in the first half and was powerless to stop the dwarves scoring. However, all of Jim's KOs came back and he had a full team again. Despite smashing more elves, some desperate elvish defence ended with a free ball, and some mad dice later ended in an equaliser, Jim apologising, Darren slapping his forehead and a result of 1-1 (4-1 cas). Unfortunately, Mr_Frodo faired even worse against goldfish in a chaos dwarf mirror match. Andrew's Minotaur blitzed his opposite number, swung, missed, and killed himself! goldfish's own Minotaur then gleefully cleaved one of Mr_Frodo's bull centaurs in half, and then continued to pummel the rest. I think we all needed a breath of fresh air after that round!

Team Match-up Three vs 'Team Friendless' 

My opponent 'fatyn' brought Elven Union - Win 2-1 (6-0 cas)

After trying to compose ourselves, we settled in for our 3rd match against itchen, fatyn and larkin2012. I was up against fatyn's (aka Wil) Elven Union (aka Pro Elves). Although fatyn hasn't got the longest of NAF tournament matches under his belt, I am reliably informed that he is a very experienced online Blood Bowl player (Cyanide)... and it certainly shone through during our match. I had the fans on my side (+1 fame - which so far had done nothing for me!). However, Wil got to decide in whether to kick or receive, and with the typical confidence of high agility and high movement teams, decided to kick to me... and boy that kick went deep into my half... right into the middle of the end zone! Fortunately for me he didn't roll a Blitz! I managed to defend deep, but of course as is always the way in these situations, my surehands hobgoblin let himself down and butterfingered the pick up, which then scattered in the crowd, and flew straight back over his head and landed in the tackle zone of two of his team mates. This drew the elves in as the smelt blood. However we eventually managed to gather the ball and cage our way up the field for a 1-0 score in turn 8/7 despite being sacked once. The elves had one dead blodging blitzer and 1 dead guard lineman. The kick off for turn 8/8 resulted in a 'Change of Weather'... and at this point Wil reminded us that it had been raining... this would have effected some of the pick ups in game... Eek. It was both our fault, and it was too late now. I profusely apologised, genuinely! We had both forgotten.
The elves set up for the second half with the ball being kicked very short to the Line of Scrimmage... and it was a Blitz! The dwarves pushed up, covered wide and set a hobgoblin ready for a catch. However, getting the ball wasn't in the hobgoblin's repertoire today and he dropped it... scattering over the line. Wil presented it to his remaining blitzer. The elves made short work of equalising (after being pressurised by the dwarves!). This however left me with plenty of turns to slaughter my way up the field and run in a winning touch down. We sped through the turns (as Sam was looking to get the round wrapped up).
As far as the other team matches were concerned, Darren went up against his league mate Daniel and his humans which just melted away under the dwarven hooves leading to a 2-0 win (5-1 cas). Mr_Frodo faced Itchen's Ogres and the snotlings. Whilst uttering curses to Nuffle, Andrew witnessed his suicidal Minotaur try to kill cleave the Ogres with his claw, but he ended face down... a situation a single unassisted snotling couldn't resist... the boot went in... the Minotaur died... again. Despite this, Andrew scored... but a Snotling sailed over the chaos dwarf's heads, landed on a 5+, dodged through Tackle and equalised in turn 8/8. The game had no more scores, only 1 dead snotling and plenty of hurt dwarves.

Team Match-up Four vs team 'Alpharest Alphas'

My opponent 'fiskey07' brought Humans - Draw 1-1 (3-1 cas)

I was riding high coming into the final game on 3 straight wins... but these guys were clearly no mugs... and I was up against a dangerous necromantic team again, but this time coached by fiskey07 (aka Ben). I got the fans on my side again (+1 fame), but Ben received. However the game started with a pitch invasion... Yay, I thought, his players would go down stunned on a 5+ and mine would only go down on a 6+... the odds were in my favour! Oh no, Nuffle wasn't having that - 3 of my players went down while only 2 necromantic bit the dust.
Despite this, we defended really well and looked well positioned to stop the drive, especially with 2 necromantic players KO'd including a guard-golem. However, Nuffle stepped in again, and a simple low risk dwarf block against a zombie to free up 2 other players early on in the move resulted in two skulls... rerolled... two skulls! <insert expletive here>
This opened up the pitch to the fast moving necros who scored in turn 7/8. The golem came back, but the rest of the turn was uneventful.
The second half was a bitterly fought drive (on the pitch anyway - still good humoured between the coaches!). However, it began with yet another pitch invasion... and yet again the +Fame did nothing for me as I got stunned more than Ben's team. Despite this, I managed to win the fight and equalise... so much som I scored with a few turns to try and put pressure on them and try and go for the win... but only after consulting the skipper! Unfortunately I couldn't down a golem to free up players to make the necessary and more comfortable blitz. Instead I had to go try a 3+ dodge and single dice blitz and hope the ball scattered both off the pitch and then down the field. Sadly the rerolled hit resulted in the same push back... so no miracle score this time.

Results
The sun-visor-adorned Team W were overall winners, and their team member Purplegoo unsurprisingly won the individual coaching award too. Congratulations!
However, Team Redshirts had some glory too with our captain, Howlinggriffon winning the 'Most Casualties' award.

Team Results; 
We also managed to grab 4th place too!

Individual Results;
I also managed to come second overall too!! I suspect that even if I had won my last game Phil would still have won on bonus points! Ah well! :)

Thanks to both Sam and myrmedon for being such good hosts and overcoming the adversities faced on the day. Also thanks to all my opponents for the nerding fun. I'm looking forward to this event next year! I hope it's as good. For my part, that's 16 races done of the 24. Got to keep going!