London Grand Tournament 2022 - Blood Bowl

LGT'22 - Blood Bowl

Preamble

I had been to a London Grand Tournament before back in 2018 and frankly the experience put me completely off going again. We had all been jammed in to the Olympic Stadium (used by West Ham) conference areas along with sardine-like Warhammer 40K players. It had been hot, stuffy, and far too much of a personal bubble breach even before Covid was a thing! I don't want to be disrespectful to any Tournament Organiser and their hard work, but for me it wasn't a great experience on a whole number of levels.

This time around however I had found out that the Beast (no, not the big dude off 'The Chase'!) aka Justin Easby was going to be organising the tournament... and if the 'Beast from the Beast' tournament was anything to go by, it should be well run and well supported... and it was!

The venue this time was another stadium... the Lee Valley Athletics Stadium. But instead of being on the outside areas, the bulk of the nerd-fest would take place within the ring of the blue & white running track.

As you can see, us Blood Bowlers were just a couple of banks of tables in the top corner, well away from all those rather salty Warhammer 40K players (don't mention 'Artillery' & 'Crews'!) 😆. 

There were all sorts of games going on, with lots of people talking under lights to a camera, live streaming, video recording and live streaming of games etc. The event had a lot of digital presence, particularly as I gather it was rather a big deal for the 40K community. I saw several vloggers, YouTube and pay-wall channel hobby 'celebrities' and even 'two-thin-coats' Duncan! But there was also Clash of Kings, Warmaster, 30K, Star Wars, AoS and other games going on too.

On the Saturday we arrived and parked up in a pretty big (and free!) car park and wandered in... watching the columns of gamers arrive with their lovingly prepared boxes of miniatures in hand.

I managed to grab another video of everyone fully into their games in the main arena... Can you spot yourself?

And for those without the willpower to play a video, here's a quick panoramic shot showing the upper balcony area with other game systems going on:

Panoramic view of the stadium inside

The Blood Bowl tournament

The rules: There were 4 tiers of races, and depending on the tier, a set number of skills could be chosen on day one and day two. Coaches allowed to spend up to 1,150,000 gold on their teams, with 11 rostered players required before Star Players could be hired. Interestingly, if the same Star Player was hired, he, she, or it, would only play one half before switching to the other side in the second half. What's more, each round had a randomised roll on a pre-kick off event performed by the TO - These were 1: Pouring rain, 2: +1 to Crown Injury, 3: No effect, 4: Hard pitch with +1 to non-block injuries, 5: Blizzard and 6: Sweltering Heat. However, Game 6 would be Perfect Blood Bowl weather.

I'm not a great fan of Star Players in the 2020 2nd Season. They are too cheap and do too much too well, but on the other hand if every tournament ruled them out then there wouldn't be much of a chance to put your lovingly painted Star miniatures on the field, and there are a lot of people that like them, so I went with the flow on this one!

My team - Humans & Griff

I had already been working on a project to convert and paint the Human team from the 2016 1st season boxed set into a Boba Fett / Mandalorian style team. I had posted them in a couple of groups in Facebook and they had been well received, so I threw them into the painting competition (not even close to winning though - quite rightly given the competition!).

You probably saw my Griff model in the opening picture up above - I didn't change him in any way... he's a Star Player after all, and a bit of a loner (quite literally!). However, armed with a set of heads/helmets kindly printed by my good pal LastTimeLord I converted and painted the human team as follows:

The Armourer - Halfling and Thrower

Mandalorian Human Linemen

Boba Fett Human Blitzers

Roster

As you can see, I went with the following roster: 4 Blitzers, 5 Linemen, 1 Thrower, 1 Halfling, 3x Rerolls and 2x Cheerleaders... and of course, Griff.

For those of you interested in the Star Wars themed team, I still have an Ogre Boba Fett, 4x original Mandalorian Catchers, a Boba Fett Halfling and a Mandalorian Halfling still to paint... so watch out for updates!

My skill choices were a Blitzer with stacked Mighty Blow and Tackle, and another with Guard, a Block Thrower, and a Sneaky Git Halfling. My reasoning was I needed a sweeper/hitter to take out the more agile threats (that usually came with thinner armour), and a Sneaky Git to put the boot in to reduce the opposition threat when blocks were thrown with the Guard assists. It was also the first time I had got to use my new skill rings from the BlackOrcDown kickstarter!

And after a random draw, it was on to Game One...

Day One, Game One vs Tuckersteel's Khorne & Hakflem

1st coach pic of the day - cheesy grin time

Liam had brought his Khorne & Hakflem to play. The pre-kick off roll was BLIZZARD! This was going to put pay to any long throws to Griff (only quick and short throws could be made in the thick snow) and rushing was going to be 3+ not 2+, making Griff's sure feet even more important! I rolled more fans but lost the kick choice which resulted in me kicking.

That's a lot of Frenzy and Strength 4! I hope that Mandolorian armour holds firm!

Both team set up, but Nuffle clearly had other ideas about the weather as Changing Weather was rolled... and it changed to... Pouring Rain! Excellent! That should put all those agility 3+ chaos-loving players needing a 50-50 for ball handling!... But they had Hakflem, who was far more agile...

Doh!, the Khorne gathered up the ball and slowly laboured up the field, with very little to report in the first two turns. That was until turn 2/2 when my Sneaky Git Halfling fouled a prone Bloodseeker... Double 6!... well, that's fine, I thought... he can't get sent off... But then I rolled double 1 on the injury... Gah!...I decided to Argue the Call with the referee... I was sooooooo glad to see that 6 pop up! Phew!!

With all that Frenzy on the pitch it wasn't long before a Human Blitzer was thrust into the crowd by a crafty chain push in turn 2/3. The battle continued but it was getting tight for both teams, and Liam decided enough was enough and sent Hakflem down the right hand side and make a Rush to score. 0-1 (0-0).

However, Griff came to the rescue as he had the ball just 7 squares away from the end zone by turn 7/7, after a Khorngor had been KO'd. Fortunately we secured the equaliser by turn 8/8. 1-1 (0-0).

The second half began with 2 of the Khorne players in the KO box. Weirdly, upon the kick, Liam rolled Changing Weather... but it just changed to Pouring Rain... Oh well.

I spotted that Hakflem had been left unprotected in the middle of the pitch, so we were lucky enough to clear away the Line of Scrimmage and get a blitz on to him... and the stacked MB/Tackle Blitzer hurt Hakflem. 1-1 (1-0), but importantly it was 11 vs 9! But the Khorne team retaliated and killed a Human Blitzer in turn 1/1. - 10 vs 9.

From there it was a case of Griff making the pick up on the Left Hand Side field edge (phew!) and then making our way in a controlled push to score in turn 6/5. 2-1 (1-1) 

I forget what exactly happened here, but from memory, the Khorne team failed to collect the kick, and Griff sprinted through, picked up the ball and legged it to the end zone to put the nail in the coffin and win 3-1 (1-1).

...And lunch. 

Gifts

Justin came around during game one and handed out Bear scratches block and D6 dice, as well as a small wooden dice cup and cork matt (supported by BlackOrc Down). There was also a 3D printed Star Player from ShePrints3D and a nice dug out.

Justin 'Beast' Easby hands out gifts

Game Two vs EnglishDemon's Chaos Dwarves & Bomber Dribblesnot

Everyone is very good a pulling weird faces...

Alistair was fielding his proxy-Pokemon Chaos Dwarves & Bomber Dribblesnot team. I have my thoughts on proxy teams in general, especially when there are perfectly good actual Blood Bowl miniatures to chose from both Games Workshop and independent suppliers. In general I don't like facing Lego men, Carebears, Ghostbusters or whatever... It's just another thing to think about when your brain is already tired at a tournament. However, Alistair's proxies were pretty obvious. The four-legged dragons were Bull Centaurs, the small round white things were Chaos Dwarves, and the Hob Goblins were the Smurf things... and and there was a Minotaur big guy in there (which I admit I forgot was a Minotaur at one point!) and a unique mini for the Star Player. The only problem we really had was that the small Chaos Dwarf proxies had a habit of rolling and looking pretty similar both prone or stunned. But hey, whatever floats your boat I guess! Had it been an Undead or Necromantic team or some other race with a lot of positions then I perhaps might have felt more annoyed... but I wasn't really here.

Pokemon Chaos Dwarves line up

The TO weather table indicated it was Astrogranite +1 to non-block injuries, and I won the kick off roll and elected to receive the kick. For the second game in a row, we rolled Changing Weather - changing it to Perfect Blood Bowl weather.

By the way, after the success of the first game my 3x Touchdowns propelled me to table 1. I don't often manage this, so had to mark the occasion! It could only going get worse from here!!

Nothing much happened in my first turn other than Griff picking up the ball but the Chaos Dwarf first turn saw the dragon Minotaur injure a human lineman (0-1)... and then Bomber Dribblesnot rolled a 1 on his bomb throw and failed his loner roll. This proned 2x dwarves and the bomber himself. Another ineffective turn for me followed up by the Chaos Dwarves KOing another lineman. We were losing players quickly! And then in turn 3/3 Bomber Dribblesnot makes up for his earlier error and lands a bomb straight on Griff (who fails to catch the bomb) and the ball is loose... and a hobgoblin runs in, GFI, picks up the ball, and GFI one last time. Griff chases after him but fails a 3+ dodge (in Tackle) and loner fails too. To try and compound my misery, Alistair fouls my prone Thrower and knocks him out, but gets sent off for his troubles... and I am left with 7 men on the pitch.

Things were getting desperate by turn 5/4, and my human Blitzer tried a blitz on the ball carrier... 4+ dodge, 3+ dodge, 2x GFI... skull... reroll... skull. GAH!... and then by turn 7/7 a Bull Centaur injures a Blitzer (0-2). 

However, never rule out Griff... He gets up, dodges through the Minotaur tackle zone, deep in my half, and 2 dice hits the hob goblin ball carrier... the ball scatters and Griff picks up. The Minotaur is enraged and surfs Griff (reserves), but the ball can't be recovered, and the half ends 0-0 (0-2).

The second half begins with my Thrower recovering from a KO, but 2x linemen stay out. The Chaos Dwarf kick off leads to Cheering Fans and Greasy Kleats (-MA) is put on a Chaos Dwarf.... and the ball lands next to the crowd on the right hand side... and in turn one, the Chaos Dwarves fail to pick up the ball and it bounces into the crowd, and is subsequently thrown back in to the middle of the pitch.Griff runs in and picks it up but it's risky and a Chaos Dwarf makes like an elf and dodges away to blitz (with an assist), splats and the ball is spilt. But there are no more moves to pick up the ball, so Griff gets up, blitzes, picks up the ball and tries to get to safety. This was all in the first two turns!

This time a Bull Centaur dodges away like an elf and blitzes Griff... Push... phew! Griff doesn't hang around any longer and runs in to score, 1-0 (0-2) in turn 3/3.

I just have to hold off the Chaos Dwarves for 5 turns! ... gulp.

But then on kick off a Blitz! is rolled and Griff positions himself under the ball... and catches it! I then spend all those turns holding on to the ball... and the game finishes with a lucky win for me, 1-0 (0-2).

Game Three vs BartK's Chaos Dwarves & Hakflem

Here come the dice!...

Oh great, Chaos Dwarves again... but with Hakflem this time. Clearly I hadn't done as well as others in the bonus points department as I went from table 1 to table 2 despite two wins. Turned out Hakflems were running rampant everywhere and scoring freely!

Hakflem & the Chaos Dwarves... not a band I'd heard of!

The TO weather roll was Sweltering Heat! Ouch. I had less fans than Bart but won the kick off... and this time I chose to kick, just for some variation. The kick off result was Cheering Fans that turned out to be Trapdoor.

Turn 0/1 saw Hakflem pick up the ball, and in my turn my MB Blitzer hurt a Guard Chaos Dwarf (1-0). Then the game sort of stagnated as Bart was denied any forward momentum and simply loitered around half way, too far even for Hakflem to score from. In turn 3/3 my Sneaky Git Halfling fouled a prone Bull Centaur and rolled double 6 on the armour, but failed to injure it. Turn 4/4 still had a fight in the centre and we fouled the prone BC again and stunned it. Turn 5 was much the same and fouled the same BC but was sent off after another stun.

Turn 6/6 and Hakflem started to move into position, and by turn 7/7 Hakflem had been chain pushed backwards needing to GFI to score. The defence was fairly easily pushed aside and Hakflem simply made his GFIs and scored. 0-1 (1-0). 

Turn 8/8 saw Sweltering Heat affected 3x players on each team, and the 2nd half began with Hakflem off the pitch (but safe to come on next drive). However the Chaos Dwarves got a Blitz! on kick off. We managed to knock out a Chaos Dwarf in turn 1/0, making it 8 vs 7, and Griff had the ball. The Chaos Dwarves pushed around the flanks with Bull Centaurs to pressure Griff, who then dodged away from one BC to blitz the other, stunning him. By turn 3/2 Griff was pushing up the side and away from the Bull Centaur. Bart saw his BC fail a dodge and Griff ran up to the right hand corner. By turn 6/5 the humans were running around the back line, KOing a Chaos Dwarf in turn 7/6. A hobgoblin tried a desperate blitz on Griff and dodged successfully only to see him fail a GFI for the blitz, and with no rerolls left for the Chaos Dwarf side, he face planted. We scored in turn 8/7 to equalise 1-1 (2-1)... and the game drew to a close as a Bull Centaur failed a pick up in turn 8/8.

So, Day One saw me finish on 2/1/0, with TDs of 4-2 and Cas of (3-4). Pretty pleased with that!

Day Two, Game Four vs Taurean_Beast's Khemri

The TO - Taurean_Beast

Clearly I was making slow ebbing away from the leaders, progressing away from table 1, this time playing on table 3. And after Sweltering Heat from last game it of course had to be Pouring Rain! Justin had more fans for this match, and he also won the kick off and decided that I should kick. We set up... and High Kick was rolled!

Tomb Guardians loom over the human sacrifices...

This allowed the Tomb Guardians to get stuck into my line of scrimmage... and they started my KOing a Human Lineman. The ball was kicked deep into the Khemri field, and in the Pouring Rain I was quite happy about that... I had taken two more Guards on my Blitzers and a Kick on a lineman... and this helped obviously with the kick. I pressed down the wings to apply pressure on what I hoped would be a fumbling Khemri Thrower... but Justin was pleased to easily pass the 5+ pickup... and the march down the field commenced. Griff was blitzed by a Tackle Khemri blitzer and was stunned! (phew!).

By turn 2/2 I had knocked over two Tomb Guardians and it turned into a 4 vs 4 fight around the ball carrier. Unfortunately for me the prone Griff was neatly chain pushed off the field into the Reserves box (again, Phew!). After pushing up the right hand side the Khemri reverted to the centre of the field around the half way line.

We blitzed and hurt a skeleton (who regen'd) (1-0), but I only had one reroll left after a failed dodge in turn 6. By turn 7/7 the Khemri thrower was 7 squares away from the end zone and I had two players marking him. Unfortunately for me a blitz and 2x GFIs later and they scored. 0-1 (1-0).

However in my last turn I flattened a Guard Tomb Guardian and hurt him, and the bonus was he failed to regenerate. (2-0)... and the half ended.

The second half began and I at least had Griff back on the field. The Khemri kicked deep into my field. We hurt another skeleton on the LoS and this time he failed to regenerate (3-0). But the sweeter news was that Griff picked up in the rain. By turn 2 Griff was running up the right wing, and by turn 3/2 my Human MB Blitzer hurt another Guard Tomb Guardian. (4-0), but the Khemri retaliated by hurting a human lineman. (4-1). 

I took the decision to press my numerical advantage, especially with 2x TGs off the field, so Griff scored in turn 4/3. 1-1 (4-1). 

The next drive began with a Pitch Invasion with two players stunned and the ball was in the left hand corner of the Khemri back field. I think at that point Justin went into defensive mode, especially with Griff on the pitch and lacking the numbers to drive up the field. With that in mind virtually his whole team retreated to cover the ball. 

We pressed in as hard as we could, but the turns were ticking away, and the ball was still heavily guarded in the corer by turn 7/6. 

Action shot somewhere around turn 6 or 7.

We had to try something desperate, and it needed some Griff magic.

With a reroll safely or two safely in hand I made a couple of blocks to try and make an easier path to the ball carrier in the corner for Griff to Blitz him, as there was a chance because the carrier was in the end zone next to the crowd! He made 3 or 4 dodges and threw a two dice uphill blitz ... and the ball was off the field! 

The ball was thrown diagonally back in by the crowd, and landed on the square occupied by the already activated Human Thrower. I wasn't clear on the rules here, so it was lucky to have the Tournament Organiser as my opponent! 😃 

I couldn't chose not to catch the ball, so rolled the dice... 5... caught it... At this point I asked if I could reroll it was Justin was adamant I could not reroll a successful catch. I did ask if he was sure about this as it was rather important... if the ball spilled I had two players that could run in, pick up and score (theoretically). But the decision had been made and the game ended 1-1 (4-1).

In the usual post round post-mortem with other players I asked about this and everyone seemed to think I could use a team reroll to try to fail the catch. So... I rolled a dice with a couple of people watching... rolled a 5 again! So that put a chance of a win to bed (not that it mattered by that stage!).

Game Five vs Aargan's Khorne

Aargan is keen to get stuck in!

I stayed on table 3! A Khorne adversary for the second time in the tournament, but this time it was against EnglishDemon's son Rai - which probably explains another Pokemon team! The game began in Perfect Weather, we had more fans and we won the kick off and decided to receive... all good then!

Human Lineman: "Anyone got a Pokemon Ball??"

The Khorne kicked deep into my half, but as usual Griff was on sweeper duty. We started nicely, with my Sneaky Git halfling fouling and KOing a Bloodseeker (by the way, I still get confused by some of the player names and newer terminology - so apologies if I get mixed up!). However, this KO was swiftly punished when the Bloodspawn Big Guy blitzed and hurt my MB/Tackle Blitzer... ouch! I was sure to miss that offensive threat of the Mighty Blow, Block and MA7 player. I should have protected him more!

Rerolls were being used up quickly, and it wasn't long before I had another Blitzer off the pitch... this time from a surfing... unsurprising with this much Frenzy on the pitch. However, by turn 5/4 I felt obliged to score as things weren't under my control and there was no stalling that was looking safe... 1-0 (0-1).

A Time Out on the kick rolled the turns forward (good news for me!)... but that didn't stop the Khorne inflicting more misery on me by hurting a third Blitzer (Guard) in turn 8.

The second half began with me kicking a High Kick which a Khornegor failed to catch and it sat right on the sideline. Rai was getting more and more agitated as he endeavoured to snuff Griff, making his feelings very clear about him... but he wasn't successful... That didn't stop him hurting the 4th Blitzer in turn 2/3 and then effectively stalled from there on as I tried in vain to prevent the equaliser. Rai was more than happy with a draw and racking up casualties, so the game ended 1-1 (0-5).

Game Six vs EnglishDemon's Chaos Dwarves & Bomber Dribblesnot

EnglishDemon... again!

Justin, the TO, announced that due to the group of players higher up the standings were likely to face previous opponents again, and as it turned out I was facing Alistair's, which was fine as Alistair was a really nice guy. He was however, looking forward to the rematch and seeking revenge for the loss. I had barely got away with the win last time around, so I wasn't looking forward to Alistair implementing all he had learnt from playing me last time!

We had the same fans... and the weather for game 6 was announced by the TO to be Perfect Weather as per the rules for game 6. We lost the kick off roll and I was nominated to kick... so I was going to get beaten up!

However, Alistair's first turn simply proned human players without any damage. On the flip side, my Human Mighty Blow Blitzer, recovering from his injuries from last match, got a blitz assisted block on the Minotaur and hurt him! Awesome!! (1-0)... but it fell apart from there as a failed rerolled block by a Human Lineman knocked himself out... and the retribution was quick from the Chaos Dwarves as they managed to KO both my Sneaky Git Halfling as well as another Human Lineman... it was 8 vs 10... and still 6 turns to go!... ouch!

We did put up a bit of resistance though. Griff managed to successfully blitz the ball carrier and picked up the ball on the right wing in turn 2/2 but another Human Lineman was injured in turn 2/3 and by turn 3/3 I started moving 6 players vs 10!

Griff was surrounded in turn 4/4 and couldn't dodge his way out... The Chaos Dwarves had the ball. The set about stalling and hurting everything possible... My Mighty Blow Blitzer was fouled and hurt (and the offender sent off for his troubles) and the CD's scored in turn 7/8. 0-1 (1-2). 

Two Human Lineman stayed KO'd on the turn 8/8 kick off, but the Sneaky Git Halfling and importantly Griff came back. Nothing else to report for turn 8 though.

For the 2nd half, the other two Lineman also recovered from their Knock Outs... so we had a chance!

Unfortunately for me, Bomber Dribblesnot was allowed to stay on the pitch as Alistair successfully Argued the Call. Greasey Kleats on kick off. We managed to blitz the Bomber with 3 dice... but only proned him. We then fouled him. No armour break. Lucky git!

My Human Thrower ended up picking up the ball in my endzone... I needed those Sure Hands! and we spent two turns getting the ball towards the half way line, and the ball was switched out to Griff in turn 3/2. Unfortunately Griff's game turned to crap this drive... he failed a 3+ dodge on the half way line in turn 4/3. Then the Bomber KO'd himself. Then in turn 5/4 Griff failed another dodge.

However, we somehow managed to keep possession of the ball and get it to Griff. He was in striking distance of the end zone, but was marked by a Chaos Dwarf and Hob Goblin. The best play was to 1 dice blitz the Chaos Dwarf and dodge away from the Hob Goblin for a 3+ 2+ to score. I was out of rerolls. So, with a sense of a possible Star Player hero moment, I rolled the block dice...

Skull.

Wait!, Griff has the Consummate Professional skill... I can reroll one dice! Alistair groaned.

Rerolled.

Skull.

S*#*!

My run of undefeated games came crashing down and Alistair had his revenge, despite the barracking from his own son who needed him not to win to finish above him... and the game finished 0-1 (0-3)

Results

Prizes, awards and a raffle...

Congratulations to BartK on the win! I think I was the only coach to deny him a win, but the last game (grrrr Griff!) cost me 3 places, but I finished 12th which wasn't bad considering the coaches I faced and the bash they brought! (30pts for a win, 15pts for a draw, 2pts for loss, 2 Bonus points per TD (max 3) and 1 Bonus point per Cas (max 3).

I don't know about the other awards for sure as they aren't showing up on NAF yet.

Thanks to Justin and all the sponsors for putting on a good tournament. I think Justin himself will be looking to squeeze out star player access for next time around. Probably wise!

Thank you to all my opponents and everyone for making it a good event. Until next time!