COSH Bowl V & Tomb Guardians - Howlingriffon wins

COSH Bowl V

There haven't been many tournaments I've attended in 2021 for obvious reasons, but COSH Bowl V (Clacton on Sea Hammerblow Bowl) is one I'm always happy to attend as there are usually plenty of friendly faces and it is well run. The event was held once again at 4TK Gaming (which I've been to plenty of times now!) with joint hosts scs.sam and Myrmedon coordinating and this time playing on the day.

Rules

The COSH V tournament was four games long, and using 2020 edition rules, the Team Value was 1,150,000GP and you could select up to 6x skills, one of which can be a secondary skill the rest must be primary, with 1x skill per player and you could only take a maximum of four of any skill. Importantly, there were no Star Players allowed, except for Stunty teams. Stunty teams could take 1x Star Player after they have rostered 11 players. Stunty teams were defined as: Goblins, Halflings, Snotlings and Ogres. A Stunty team that did not roster a Star Player could spend an additional 50,000GP on their team. Turns out, the attraction of a Star Player on a Stunty team was the way to go!, but more on that later.

...So, what did this handsome b@st@rd take?...

Roster

I wasn't so much about picking a tournament winning Blood Bowl team, but instead, fielding a team to scratch off one of the 24 races, but probably more importantly was to play a team I had painted way back in the first lockdown of 2020... and that was Tomb Guardians (aka Khemri). For those that don't know, the team is based on an Egyptian ancient dead theme... think 'sand, pyramids and mummified monsters' and you've got the idea. My miniatures are from GamesMiniatures.

I had 4x Tomb Guardians with 2x Mighty Blow, 1x Guard and 1x Block (secondary). The only other skilled players were the Anointed Blitzers with 1x Tackle and 1x Guard. I had 13 players, 3x Rerolls and 1x Cheerleader and 1x Assistant Coach. 

Game One vs Daniel's (aka Larkin2012) Undead

Smile through the painful finger break...

I'd played Daniel on FUMBBL a few times now in the Lockdown Blockdown League, but this was the first time we had faced off on table top. I'd already taken the cellophane off my Undead pitch (yes! - managed to use it at last!) and was eager to crack on. It had been an early start to get to the venue for me, so I was still a little tired, but was happy to see I won the roll off and decided to receive. 

I detect Necromancy!

It was all about turn 1. I managed to kill a Guard Mummy which then failed to regenerate! But in Daniel's turn 1 his Block Mummy kills one of my Mighty Blow Tomb Guardians... but it regenerates! Phew!

It was a tough first half with a Ghoul killing a Anointed Thrower and a Zombie (re)killed by the other Mighty Blow Tomb Guardian... I was having to watch out for those fast Block/Dodge Ghouls as the Khemri just did have the speed to match. But we managed to get over the line to score in turn 8/7.

Despite failing all his KO rolls in turn 8/8 Daniel managed to pull 3 straight 6's out of the bag to begin the second half  with a Ghoul and Wight returning to the field. It was another hard fought drive with some swinging turns, and Daniel started to get desperate with turns running out and me starting to win the fight with numbers in the middle of the park. Daniel's skill-less Ghoul ran down the left flank with the ball in hand in range of my Tackle Blitzer and just one GFI away from my Guard Blitzer to mark him. It was either a 1 in 6 fail with a single Blitz, or a 1 in 6 fail with a GFI to then get 2x Block dice with a Tackler... I tried the GFI... 1'd. Fail... and Daniel ran in for the score 1-1.

Unfortunately, 3 turns are not usually enough for Khemri to score against a well organised defence and the game ended 1-1, (3-3 casualties).

Game Two vs Australopithecus's (aka Dan) Imperial Nobility

Sam: "Austr... Australop... Oh I give up!"

Well, I hadn't lost game 1, so I could still 'submarine' my way to a win if I did well in all my remaining 3 games. This time I was up against Dan's Imperial Nobility. Notice I'm saying "Dan" and not Australopitecus (an erect ancestor of modern humans... let's not go there!). It was so funny hearing Sam trying to announce the rounds!

Kill the living!

I decided to receive after winning the Kick Off in a blizzard!!! We're not used to snow... we exist in the desert!! Fortunately I wasn't expecting to do much passing or GFI's as I planned to stomp my way up the pitch.

Mass brawling breaks out...

Dan's Ogre didn't start the game well, Boneheading twice in a row, but he did make an early RIP against one of my Skeletons to win a Spot Prize (some dice). Another half highlight was me trying a foul and getting sent off for my trouble. Other than that it was a fairly uneventful drive where I scored in turn 8/7 to go 1-0 up. I had been lucky with sending both Block/Dodge Blitzers off the field with splats but they both came back for the 2nd half.

I had started to thin the ranks of the Imperial Nobility humans again but the play had become quite spread out. We managed to sack the ball carrier deep in my half, and despite some strong defensive play the ball came to rest in my endzone, marked by two players. We tried to foul the prone Sure Hands human with 3 assists but failed and got sent off. Unfortunately for me, some high rolling dice by Dan led to a blitz and dodges in TZ's, a pick up in TZ' and GFI's (in a blizzard to score!). 1-1. I was gutted. I had done all I could to defend, and it the foul had simply resulted in a stun I would have won. Hey ho. Obviously Dan was delighted and so he should be as he pulled that result out of the fire! The game ended 1-1 (3-2 casualties).

Game Three vs fatyn's (aka Wil) Elven Union (aka Pro Elves)

"Yes, I'm elves and we are considerably more cunning than you!"

After the gutting last turn equaliser my heart sank again when I found I was facing Wil's Elven Union. These guys were loaded with Block/Dodge & SideStep, and lots of speed... and I had 1x Tackler!

Mistakes were made in the Tomb Guardian defence...

Wil won the Kick Off and elected to kick to me. He also got Pro on a Blitzer via a Prayers to Nuffle roll. The kick went very deep... so deep it scattered in to the bottom right hand corner. I had set up too centrally and made the mistake of consolidating centrally and only bringing a Blitzer and both Throwers in the back field. The elves took out my meagre wing defence and swarmed around to flank me...

...which were compounded by this deep kick first half...

Despite picking up the ball (Sure Hands hadn't let me down so far!...) my bad positioning despite the Guard Blitzer led to the Elves getting the ball. However he felt compelled to score on turn 4/4 as pressure was being applied. 0-1

So we reset and I tried again. Wil got another Prayers to Nuffle roll, but this time it was Mighty Blow on a Blitzer. However, we couldn't make get enough Elves off the pitch and they adopted the classic elven zig zag defensive line, and we just couldn't get close enough in the remaining turns.

My luckiest play involved these guys!

I have to be honest I was pretty annoyed with myself and fed up by this stage. I was on my way to a loss, with the Elves 0-1 up and with plenty of numbers to play keep ball at the back of the field until they were ready to launch past me for an easy 0-2 win that all seemed to be based on 2+ rolls. 

However, my block started to count with the KO box starting to fill up, and Wil had to go deep into his own half to play 'keep-ball'. The wall of Khemri pressed up the field, but despite some counter measures, Wil managed to get the ball past me and go into my half. By this stage though, the Elves had used up their rerolls on a number of dice failures, and when he rolled a double skulls he had nothing left and this left the ball carrier exposed. I quickly managed to get the ball loose, run in, pick it up with a thrower, GFI twice, make an accurate short pass and then the other Anointed Thrower caught it and ran in for an equalising Touch Down! The game therefore ended on 1-1 (1-0 casualties).

Game Four vs metavanadate's (aka Ed) Khorne

Ed and his very grassy board...

After a post match chat with Wil where we both agreed my defence vs elves was pants, I moved on to play Ed's new 2020 rules Khorne team, represented by some other Chaos (Nurgle) miniatures (which was perfectly fine). The Khorne Bloodspawn was terrifying with his Claw/Mighty Blow/Block combination especially when you throw in Frenzy into the mix. Supported by a number of Strength 4 Guard warriors, it was going to be a tough battle...

Khorne vs Khemri, OK!

...Made even tougher as Ed elected to receive the kick off... and proceeded to mince to Skeletons (which both regenerated!) by turn 1/2. However, all that Frenzy everywhere and some dodgy rolling meant Ed had used his 3 rerolls by turn 2/3.

Ball grabbed out of the scrum... now run away!

However, an early and quick surge down my right flank by the speedy Two-Headed Khorngor, supported by a blitzing Bloodspawn meant my end zone was threatened. Fortunately my Blitzers came to the rescue as I freed them up and dashed back to mark and then blitz the ball carrier. The half then (quite literally) descended into chaos as the Khorngor continually threatened to get the ball back as the Khemri failed to secure it.

Eventually numbers started to go in my favour, and a fortunate Blitzer made off with the ball and his team mates protected him as best as they could. Just to rub an excess of salt into Ed's wounds, we not only kept the ball safe but also killed the Bloodspawn!! 0-0.

Excellent dug outs and scoreboard

We made good ground in the second half, thinning out numbers further mainly through KOs, despite losing a Tomb Guardian to a foul in turn 1/1 (fouler sent off). The Anointed Throwers failed to pick up the ball, but eventually sorted themselves out in turn 2/1 and then it was just about managing the pitch and scoring late to secure a 1-0 win which Ed was too spread out to stop. The game ended 1-0 (2-2 casualties). 

Results

WINNER! - A proud moment for Darren AKA Howling...griff...on - see what I did there?!

Congratulations to my good pal Darren. He is well liked by everyone and has long deserved this first tournament win, and he did it in some style... with Ogres!!

COSH Bowl V - RESULTS

Darren's trophy haul... actually had most TD's too!!!

Best Painted award went to PinballGeorge...

...for his 'Best Painted' Halflings

Someone has to come last - thedukester

PinballGeorge again with Most Casualties (well, 2nd most - 18x)

Most TD's (er, well, joint 2nd most - 7x) - JimmyJazz

Flamingo Stance! - 3rd place... one of the hosts - Sam

2nd place... Hang on, another host... FIX!!! - Courtney who got most TD's and Casualties

Thanks to Sam & Courtney for a well run tournament, to Tom and his spot prizes, all my opponents and to new & old friends for making this a fun event! See you next time.