Red Trophy V - Middle for Diddle!

August 22, 2021

Red Trophy V - Middle for Diddle!

The battle for Tom's Red Trophy begins...

Preamble - My last foray out into the real world and along to a Blood Bowl table top tournament was about 18 months ago. Certainly the last time I went to Tom aka 'Nonumber's' store in High Wycombe was back in December 2019. Since then, Games Workshop have released Season 2 of Blood Bowl with some significant, and many less significant changes to the game and the tournament scene has been a riot of social media posts as new coaches have their take on the changes.

I may only touch on some of that here, but this weekend's games at Red Trophy V are my very first with the Season 2 (2020) rules, so I have very little to go on in order to make any overly insightful thoughts.

Anyway, on to the weekend report...

A panoramic shot of Tom's superb store. Lots of dice rolling...

Hopefully managed to get a shot of everyone in various states of agony!

Okay, let's address the first point. I took Dwarves. There. I said it.

Older image of my team... I used just one Troll Slayer though.

Yes, I was "that guy"... but I like to think that I could at least in part justify why I brought the race that some consider to be overpowered, broken and frankly horrible to play against. My reasoning was that as this was my first tabletop tournament in one and a half years AND the game had different rules, skills, tables etc, I figured I would just reduce the variables and the stress and take a team I know well and hasn't changed hardly at all.

The tournament format was adjusted slightly shortly before the event began to basically reduce Star Player availability that many see as impacting on team variety at tournaments. It allowed for 1.2 million gold team value and 8 Primary Skills OR 5 Primary Skills and 2 Secondary Skills, which could be stacked. My Dwarf team consisted of 13* players (*1x Troll Slayer, 2x Runners with Block, 2x Blitzers with Guard, 2x Mighty Blow Linemen, 2x Guard Linemen, and 4x unskilled Linemen), 4x ReRolls and 1 Dedicated Fan.

Day One

Game One vs Getzabye's Goblins - 2-0 WIN - (7-0 Cas)

Thumbs up from Barry despite drawing Dwarves in round one!

I have to say that I was only mildly pleased when I drew Goblins in round one... I still have recurring nightmares of a leaping goblin chainsaw killing my dwarves and winning the game back at a STABB tournament some time ago! However, things went far better here.

We followed the very slightly different beginning to the game as per Season 2 rules, with Perfect Weather and Barry winning the dice off and deciding to kick to me. He fielded a Block ball and chain, a chainsaw, a hooligan and two Trolls, with one having Block & Guard and the other with just Guard and Hakflem (who had such a quiet game I forgot to mention him!!).

An action shot a turn each into the mayhem

I managed to pick up the ball with not too much fuss after having positioned my team ready for possible Throw Team Mate action and other antics. By turn 2/1 I managed to block and KO the Str7 ball and chain which was a result! Turn 3/2 was also nice when I hurt the chainsaw and a goblin died too. Things had begun well. I scored in turn 8/7, to make it 1-0.

Despite some valiant attempts by Barry and those cursed Trolls, between my blocks and his own failed dodges (and subsequent armour breaks), a crowd push and other such lemming-like willingness to get themselves hurt, the Goblins succumbed to a 2-0 beating with 7-0 casualties... although I had rolled far too high throughout the game and I had a feeling I might have used up lots of luck far too early... I was right as well!

Game Two vs douglowe's Khemri - 0-1 LOSS - (1-4 Cas)

"Hello there..."

I somehow managed to forget to take a picture of the set up at the start, so here's another action shot. We managed to roll Pouring Rain and kick to me after winning the kick off. Doug had employed the services of a Halfling Chef, but the Dwarves were only distracted enough to give up 1x ReRoll.

Things didn't go well at all in this game. We lost a Guard dwarf lineman early on from a simple block from a Tomb Guardian. We did manage to permanently send a skeleton to his sandy grave as revenge but that was it for the rest of the game. The bearded fellows simply couldn't break skeleton armour, and if we did, it resulted in 8, and with Thick Skull (just like the Dwarves of course) we couldn't shift any Khemri off the pitch.

Turn 6/5 saw my Troll Slayer attempt a blitz on a Tomb Guardian with two guard assists, fail the Dauntless roll, roll a skull, ReRoll, skull... armour break, Double 6 on injury. Infuriating! Doug followed up in turn 6/6 by rolling pretty much the same dice on a Mighty Blow lineman too.

My drive ended scoreless and we began the second half with 10 players each. At this point of course it changed from Pouring Rain (the bane of Tomb Guardians) to Very Sunny... Dammit! I wasn't worried about either team looking to pass, but the ever-present threat of a Khemri needing 5+ to pick up the ball disappearing was a hammer blow to our chances. The Chef stole away 2x ReRolls this time too.

Many will enjoy this picture a little too much! :)

Turn 3/2 saw Doug injure a Dwarf runner, and eventually numbers told for the Khemri as they swamped the Dwarven defenders and scored in turn 8/7 for a 1-0 win despite some desperate plays from me to stop it.

Doug turned out to be the tournament winner, and frankly it wasn't surprising as he coached his team well, made full use of any openings and rolled some pretty good dice too!

Game Three vs Hellboy_'s Undead - 0-0 DRAW - (5-2 Cas)

Double thumbs up for cheesiness

Hellboy_ (ask Stephen) won the kick off roll and allowed me to receive... spotting a theme here! The Undead rolled a Solid Defence and nullified my initial line of scrummage blocking, and for much of the first half the game was a fist fight in the middle of the park. Some early exchanges saw a Guard Dwarf lineman KO'd followed by an injury to a Wight who subsequently regenerated.

The Dwarves begin to move up the field vs pumpkin Zombies, demon Ghouls and headless Wights

By turn 6/5 I managed to hurt a Ghoul, but I just couldn't make inroads through the Undead defence, and I suffered the indignity of losing a Guard Dwarf Blitzer in turn 8/8.

The second half didn't begin very well either with Officious Ref being rolled on kick off and my Troll Slayer got sent off, so I was down to 10 players before anyone had moved!

I did manage to get a number of Undead off the pitch and this made things tougher for the swift moving Ghouls to make a successful gambit for the end zone, but I just couldn't get the ball early enough to counter attack and the game finished in a draw.

Day One Summary - I managed to finish day one on 1/1/1 and (13-6 casualties). I can't grumble too much. There were clearly some very hotly contested games, especially in matches 2 and 3, but I just didn't have that little bit of luck to break defences. Should I have gone more Guard and less Mighty Blow? I suspect it might have led to having more upright Dwarves in 32 turns. But hey, I played the eventual winner and the 5th placed team (out of 26) on day one... but in contrast to that, Dwarves should beat Stunty teams nine times out of ten, so swings and roundabouts! As for new 2020 format rules, I don't think anything really was affected. None of the teams I faced were really about throwing, and I didn't really face anything that had changed much - Tomb Guardian throwers have Thick Skull now... that's about it!

Day Two

Game Four vs Mr_Frodo's Snotlings - 2-0 WIN - (4-0 Cas)

Readers of this blog may have noticed that Mr_Frodo, Howlinggriffon and I tend to end up not only at the same 'local' tournaments, but frequently play each other too! This time was no different.

Andrew came armed with fearsome Morg'n'Thorg and two Guard/Brawler** Trolls (**reroll one both down dice) as well as Fungus Flingas (bombadiers) and a Stilty Runna and Pump Wagons.

I won the kick off roll and received in Perfect Weather. Following 'Cheering Fans' on kick off I gave my Troll Slayer Knuckledusters. I managed to hurt a Pump Wagon in turn 1 following the use of a Re-Roll which was obviously a bonus for me. The stunties tried to counter, but with a fouler being sent off, and numbers growing thin, the Dwarves scored in turn 8/7... but they made us roll dice to do it even in the last turn... and even when you have rerolls in hand it still makes you nervous!

Argue the call rolled a 1 on the remaining Pump Wagon and the coach was sent to the stands and a Flinga also sent off.

The second half was hard for the Snotlings, but there were hysterical bomb-throwing antics with Snotlings catching each others bombs, and throwing them at Dwarves who then successfully threw it away... some mad dice rolling (and much reading of rulebooks!).

The game quickly finished with a very short break for lunch. I think our friendship remains after that game! :) Although I suspect I will get a lot more grief if I take Dwarves again in the future as they are just Stunty bullies!! Morg'n'Thorg was an absolute beast, laying out any Dwarf foolish enough to get in his way, and we weathered quite a lot of his +2 MB... but his throwing ability with a built in reroll was also good too. Fortunately for me Andrew's Snotlings hadn't learnt how to land upright!!

Game Five vs JuJuu's Orcs - 0-1 LOSS - (2-1 Cas)

JuJuu is very happy Black Orcs are MA 5 now!

The game started in Sweltering Heat and I won the kick off roll and received. I'm starting to think this is a bad choice! We also got a Bribe each.

This was another scrum of a game. We tried shifting the ball left and right but the orcs, boosted by having 4x movement 5 black orcs were able to shift just as fast (or indeed faster) in response to the Dwarf attack.

Taken before it all went wrong for the Troll and the Dwarves!

We did manage to KO the Troll in turn 3/2, but a snake-eyes roll of 1 GFI 1 to get a Guard Dwarf Blitzer into an assisting position and this left my ball carrier open to a blitz. However, we rode our luck with rerolled pushes and both downs on the ball carrier. However, things were getting desperate, and in turn 5/4 the runner failed a rerolled dodge and the ball was loose. I'd used all four rerolls by turn 5 too!

However, we weren't done yet and managed to recover the ball in turn 6/5 with some desperately dodging Dwarves. Unfortunately the Green skins sensed a chance and the greater movement of 4x Orc Blitzers and their 6 movement meant they picked up the ball on a 3+ without reroll and made the one push they needed to score in turn 7/7.

There were some angry Dwarves on the field now and the Troll Slayer fouled the prone Troll in a fit of rage, permanently killing him. The Slayer (appropriately named) was sent off but the Bribe persuaded the ref to let him remain on the field.

However Sweltering Heat stayed in play, with only 1 orc player being affected on each drive and 3x Dwarves being sent off to the bench to cool down. So the second half began with a Troll Slayer, Runner and Lineman being on the bench.

We did manage to pressure the Orcs and they retreated further and further back into their half, just desperately holding on to the ball. We KO'd a couple of orc linemen and killed a goblin (excellent Squig miniatures), but it wasn't enough. We made a couple of desperate moves to get a 1 dice blitz (following a 5+ dodge) on the ball carrier but it resulted in a Push, and a happy Orc coach! We also noticed that JuJuu hadn't needed to roll a single Animosity roll all game... but Orcs are about the running game, and with no thrower on the pitch it wasn't really much of an issue as the Blitzers did all the ball handling.

It was a tough game to lose after we had fought so hard, just being undone by a key moment, but it was an enjoyable and jovial game despite the result. As a wise man once said "That's Blood Bowl!" :)

Game Six vs Atlas04's Undead - 1-1 DRAW - (5-3 Cas)

The universal symbol for "call us both a cab outta here!"

Again, we won the kick off roll and received. Perhaps I should have spotted by now that receiving in the first turn wasn't the best idea, but hey... I thought something might change!

The ball lands on the head of the Troll Slayer... up close and personal with the Mummies!

Atlas04 managed to reorganise 6 of his team with a solid defence which scuppered things a bit. The ball landed on the Troll Slayer's hairdo and bounced back behind him... a bit too close to the Undead for my liking.

From here on in, I have to say, I wasn't expecting the blocking success I got in the first half! We managed to KO a Mummy and RIP a skeleton in the first couple of turns. In fact we inflicted 5 injuries on the Undead in the first half, but unfortunately for me, 4 of the 5 regenerated! This meant that the opening drive went very well. We did leave ourselves open too many times to the Undead, but some unsuccessful 1 dice blitz dice meant we held onto the ball.

The second half was a different matter as the Undead opened with a dead dwarf lineman. We also managed to snake a GFI later on to put pressure on the Undead and they managed to safely deliver the ball to the end zone. It was a tough game, but I think a draw was probably a fair result.

Day Two Summary - Another day of 1/1/1 results leaving me on 2/2/2 for the weekend literally finishing 13th out of 26 - as average as you get... definitely middle for diddle. I 'only' got wins against my Stunty adversaries and otherwise struggled against the bashier teams. I'm out of practise for sure, and my opponents played well, but I could have used a bit more help from the dice in key moments. Still, and enjoyable weekend. I didn't face anything that new with Season 2 rules. I saw 'Brawler' work once and the new 'Stunty Injury Table' did come into play with 'Stunty' no longer adding one to injury in the old way.

I don't want to seem like a fan-boy but Tom's store was a good venue for the event with good sized tables, access to the town centre, and plenty to browse on the shelves in spare moments. I also like the fact it's only half an hour or so away from me!

It was also nice to catch up with familiar faces and previous opponents. I was also pleased everyone respected me wearing my mask, with some people wearing theirs and others offering to wear theirs too when playing me. I left it up to them. There was hand gel available and the door was open for fresh air so I hope everyone remains safe and healthy.

Winners

These are not the official photos of the winners, but I just had to steal a few snaps of my own for this blog. I might get a few of these wrong so please forgive me! Please fill me in on the right things in the comments!!