COSH Bowl VII & Chaos Chosen

Just a write-up of a single-player 4-game Blood Bowl tournament hosted at 4TK in Colchester, and run by SCSSam and Myrmedon - COSH Bowl VII. 

Yes, that's me... Wotfudboy on his home ground!

It was also my first mandatory use of Tourplay... which seemingly I managed to fail to spot in the tournament rules... Fortunately Sam put me right for my roster submission, which, I think, looked like this:

Chaos Chosen roster

Chaos Chosen were marked as a tier 2 side... 

The team - Looking all fiery...

There were 13x Tier 1 teams, and just 6x Tier 2 teams, accompanied by 2x Tier 3 sides. These were classified as follows: 

• Tier 1: Amazon, Chaos Dwarf, Dark Elf, Dwarf, High Elf, Lizardmen, Norse, Orc, Shambling Undead, Skaven, Underworld Denizens, Wood Elf. 
• Tier 2: Black Orc, Chaos Chosen, Chaos Renegade, Elven Union, Human, Imperial Nobility, Khorne, Necromantic Horror, Nurgle, Old World Alliance, Slann, Tomb Kings, Vampire.
• Tier 3: Goblin, Halfling, Ogre, Snotling.

...and coaches submitted a good spread of races, which is always nice!

Good race distribution!

All the games below were played in Perfect Blood Bowl Weather... save me typing that each time! 😆

I've also added the Tourplay draws and results for each round so you can see how all the coaches faired... not just me!

Game One - Vs Joe Goreham's Undead

Joe mentioned it was his first table-top tournament, but clearly he had played a good few games either online or in local leagues. 

Joe's first tournament... Nice!

The Undead won the kick off roll and decided to receive... I managed to inflict an injury on a skeleton in turn 1, double 6 on injury and no regen. Turn 2 I managed to hurt a Mummy but he regenerated. I think at this point Joe was wondering about my dice, but from here, despite breaking armour regularly, I didn't do enough damage... peaking at some KOs.

I thought I had done enough to defend the Undead drive, but Joe's Ghoul pulled off a series of dodges that, put it simply, defied the odds... and they were 0-1 up (2-0 cas).

Let the pounding commence

The second half began with all the Undead KO's coming back (also after my turn 8/8)... and then the armour dice properly turned. Joe's commentary about my dice ceased as his dice proceeded to slice through AV10+ at whim... as you can see below... it was a horrific drive for me.

Ouch!

Safe to say that the Undead had a much easier time sacking my ball carrier and scoring to make it 0-2 (3-2). But after a perfectly friendly but frustrating game, the tournament was underway with a loss. 

We've all been there. We've toyed with the thought that this might be the day where the planets align and the dice behave and your opponents are bathed in the light of your strategic prowess... and then all the dreams come crashing down at the first hurdle. At this point, with any hopes of winning gone, it can actually be quite a liberating to just enjoy the rest of the games and try to have some genuine fun. 

First Round Draw/Results

Game Two - Vs Myrmedon's Humans

"You won't beat me today!"

I was up against Myrmedon for the 4th time...will I beat him this time, finally? Again, I lost the kick off and was kicking again! But good news... there was Time Out on kick off, which gave Courtney less time to score against me!

Classic Humans vs Chaos

After crowd-surfing a Human Blitzer early on, Courtney retaliated with a whimper, rolling consecutive double 1's on my armour after splatting my players. But then some magic happened... 

Turn 5/5 saw my defence swamp the ball carrier leaving him now where to go. The ball was hard against the touchline on my right wing. A single lineman was loose on the left wing (after a skulled block left him free). The Human Thrower launched a Long Bomb!... needing 5+. No interference... and the lineman caught it on a 6 (needing a 3). Myrmedon had taken the only option available to him and rolled against the odds... and I was 0-1 down (1-0 cas).

Turn 6/6 saw a Blitz! and Courtney moved 4 players into my half... and soon after, my ball carrier was blitzed and hurt! (1-1). And in his last turn, a one-dice block hurt another of my players. The half ended 0-1 (1-2). It felt like the game was going the same way as the last one... ouch!

Fortunately, my guys got their game together in the second half and we got ourselves up the other end to score late and equalise 1-1 (2-2). A well earned draw... but still haven't beaten Courtney. Turns out I was his highlight of the day, as he lost all his other games and finished with the wooden spoon! 

Second Round Draw/Results

Game Three - Vs VultureSquadron's Chaos Dwarves

So, we meet again...

A clash of the Chaos clans here... And the 4th time I've come up against Jack too. The game started with me kicking... I much prefer to receive in a bash game, but hey. 

The Dwarves brought their halfling armour...

After three or four turns of harmless shoving, armour finally broke with a significant hit from my Minotaur, hurting one of the two Bull Centaurs. It was heavy going as you would expect with these teams, but we managed to sack the hobgoblin ball carrier after lots of pressure, and make headway up the pitch and score, despite taking a beastman injury in the process. 1-0 (1-1). 

However, the most significant thing to happen was that not one but two Guard Chaos Dwarves remained KO'd for the second half, and with the Bull Centaur sitting in the injury box, there was heavier armour on my side than Jacks left on the pitch. 

It wasn't going to be easy though, as for the second game in a row Time Out was rolled on kick off, meaning I had fewer turns to score than normal... but score we did, as we made it across the line in turn 6/5 for a 2-0 (2-1) lead.

And any chance of a consolation TD for Jack went out the window as turn 6/6 was a Blitz! and with me racing up the pitch to put the pressure on, and hurting the lone potential ball carrier (3-1) we scored in turn 8/7 to make it 3-0 (3-1).

Third Round Draw/Results

Game Four - Vs Tweety's Dark Elves

Richard forgot to put the smiley faces on his thumbs!

The race I really was hoping not to face... Dark Elves... particularly as I didn't have any Tackle players... and there were too many blodging Dark Elf Blitzers for my liking! ... and I was kicking again!... and Officious Ref left a beastman prone (I think - notes are a bit yucky).

"I got Dodge, you got Tackle? No? Mwhahaha."

The game began quite roughly, with casualties inflicted to both sides, with 2-1 casualties by turn 4/4. Seemingly the excitement in the game went by the end of the first half as I managed to score 1-0 and the casualties were (2-3)... after some nasty DE fouling!

The second half was void of anything else as we traded KO's and defended the ball. The game fizzled out and finished 1-0 (2-3)...

Fourth Round Draw/Results

...and I finished the day on a 2-1-1.

Final Standings

Congratulations to Besters for (yet another) trophy! A flawless day for Jim. Special mention for fellow Redshirt Mr_Frodo finishing 4th... just a step away from the podium! Top 2 teams were Skaven, so I think speed and agility won the day.

The Trophies & Dice

Trophies & Dice galore

Thanks to Sam & Courtney for organising... and the dice!