Kent Team Champs'24 & Khorne

Mission Codename: Kent Team Championships 2024

Away Mission Description: Team Redshirts to beam down to Canterbury, UK to do battle with 29 other 4-person teams. Yes, that's right ensign, that's 120 coaches battling it out on the Blood Bowl field. 

Team: Captain Howlinggriffon (Imperial Nobility), Ensign Mr_Frodo (Norse), Ensign SCS_Sam (Vampires), Ensign Wotfudboy (Khorne).

Tournament Details: No Stars, 4x unique races within the team, 1,150k GP to spend, 6x Tiers and 1 Day to achieve Mission Objectives.

When & Where: 2nd March 2024, Kent County Cricket Club, Spitfire Ground, Old Dover Road, Canterbury, UK

The Room: The Harris Suite.

                                            

Roster: Khorne

My thinking was to have one Bloodseeker with Guard to help reduce the risk of getting into Frenzy trouble and using up those precious rerolls too quickly. The other Guard choice was on a Khorngor (or Khornedog as I call them!) so he could run along with the ball carrier. Speaking of which, I figured Sure Hands on a Lineman, combined with his 6 movement would reduce the chances of Gutter Runners, Slann Catchers or Wardancers with Strip Ball creating havoc during my offensive drives... and maybe even offer me a chance to secure a spilt ball when defending. The Tackler Khorngor was a sweeper for all those elves and stunties which would cause a threat to my end zone too. Lastly, I had to go for Block for my Bloodspawn. Hopefully, with Frenzy, Claw and Mighty Blow he would be causing the most carnage!... how disappointed I would be!

Background: I'd not coached Khorne before, and I had only recently completed painting the team. The idea was that we were treating it as a fun event, with little expectation of match winning success. Turns out, I delivered the last part, whilst my team mates had other ideas! 😄

The Bloodfudboys - my newly painted Khorne squad

Round One (Table 28): vs Dragon (Bowl) Slayers - [Finished 6th / 30]

Opponent: king_ghidra (Norse) - [Finished 54th / 120]

It was going to a sticky first match as there was lots and lots of Frenzy on the pitch with Ulfs and Berserkers. 

Getting ready to Norse around

I won the kick off result and chose to receive after getting more fans and perfect weather. On kick off, Phillip received Blessed State and assigned Pro to his blodging Valkyrie for the match.

Receiving - and preparing for lots of blocking! - Watch out for the Beer Boar!!

It wasn't a great beginning to the day... Turn 1 saw me double skull, and then again in turn 2... so both rerolls went early as they were early blocks.

It was quite a centre-field heavy game, with the Norse-special of one dice blocking really hindered my team, and they just weren't having the luck. Just when we got within a chance of scoring though, another double skull stopped us completely. 

The Norse in response had a solid 2nd half and the Khorne. We traded a casualty (although mine was hurting a Bear Boar - and there was another one waiting in the dug out!), but we couldn't repel the Norse invasion into our half. 

...and the game finished 0-1 (1-2)... and I was down to 100th position after round 1 and the Redshirts were 19th!

Elsewhere in the Team vs Team action, Mr_Frodo beat Master_Wigins 3-1 (3-2), Howlinggriffon drew with GingerB 2-2 (4-1), and SCS.Sam lost to Bondy 1-2 (3-1). So a round LOSS for the Redshirts. 

Round Two (Table 40): vs DBL Upstarts - [Finished 24th / 30]

Opponent: Cyritz (Snotlings) - [Finished 74th / 120]

After our first round team loss, we descended the "stairs of shame" to the lower floor. The Upstarts team were waiting for us, all adorned with some pretty loud shirts for the event, and the Snotlings were here to party!

Loud shirt, small team!

I won the kick off result and chose to receive. After the ball was kicked Andy brought in just 5 Riotous Rookies. I was hoping for a quick score to get that bomber and Wagon off the pitch, or at least use up one of the many bribes they had.

In fact, the bomber was a constant threat, with some lucky rolls saving me from some carnage at a couple of points. We tried heading up the right wing, and also apply pressure to the bomber. We even engineered a blitz on him from the Bloodspawn, but despite Block & Mighty Blow, all we did was stun the little git!

The Snotling reserves!!!

After scoring, we battled to defend our lines, only to watch a long list of dice rolls including a Snotling/ball pick up, gfi to a Snotling by the Troll, a success with Always Hungry and Really Stupid and then a successful forward pass by the Strong Arm Trained Troll, a landing and a score! 

We then had the job of pressing the Snotling team in the 2nd half, and we managed to do enough to get the ball back off them (after a failed 2nd go with TTM by the Strong Arm Troll). 

After a lot of screening we managed to get to the last phase of turns. A Snotling, marked by a cage of Khorne players had the opportunity of a 3 dice uphill block (with reroll) against my Sure Hands lineman. Fortunately, Nuffle decided in my favour and a skull saw the little guy off the field and I scored the winner! 2-1 (2-2). It had been a cracking game... and those Snotlings were tough!! - Just two casualties inflicted!

Elsewhere, the rest of the Redshirts also won with a clean sweep - a round WIN. Mr_Frodo with a 1-0 (6-2) win, Howlinggriffon with a 2-0 (4-3) win, and SCS.Sam with a 2-1 (4-1) win.

Round Three (Table 20): vs BBL Bees - [Finished 17th / 30]

Opponent: halfabrain (Undead) - [Finished 37th / 120]

And so we ascended the "stairway to triumph"... to face BBL Bees...

Game face! 'Dead' pan?

After a bit of a boost from last round I won the kick off result and chose to receive - I don't normally win this many kick off rolls...

The blodging Ghoul danced through my line, rolling a number of 4+ and 3+ dodges, making 2x Rushes and single-dice splatting my ball carrier, broke his armour and stunned him. I couldn't get the ball, but brought players back to cover as best as I could. With a pickup and hand off to the blodging Ghoul, he ran down the pitch. I got 2 players back to mark him and then blitzed with a lineman... 1st GFI 1'd... rerolled, success, blocked, double pushes, 2nd GFI (with Frenzy) 1'd, last reroll, success, blocked... double pushes!! Agghhhh!!! The Ghoul then dodged away and scored... 0-1. The half fizzled out as I failed to make enough progress up the pitch, but I did cause some KO's.

Unfortunately for me, the 2nd half didn't start much better, with the Ghouls making another perfect pickup and hand off, scoring quickly, with my defence turning to 1's and skulls. 0-2.

However, I pushed and managed to score a quick TD, thinking it to be a consolation. However, a kick off event led to halfabrain having the D3 max players stunned, including a Mummy, and we had in theory a few turns to press our advantage... but the damned annoying blodging Ghoul ran to the ball, picking it up with ease and ran away with it... and I couldn't pursue with enough pace... and had there been another turn or two, he threatened to score another. I finished the last turn sacking the ball carrier, but it was in my half and too far to get the ball up the field with rerolls gone.

The match finished 1-2 (3-0) and I must admit, I felt a bit deflated as I thought Nuffle had too much of an effect on the game. But those Ghouls... good grief! 😄

Fortunately for me, the rest of the team carried me, as they all got wins - a round WIN. Mr_Frodo (now on 3 wins!) won 2-0 (5-1), Howlinggriffon won 1-0 (5-0) and SCS.Sam won 3-1 (3-2). 

Round Four: vs Sann Bean Fan Club - [Finished 12th / 30]

Opponent: Sawyerbean (Necromantic) - [Finished 98th / 120]

We stayed upstairs with our last round win, and came face to face with Mike Davies (aka Sann0638) and his SawBBL crew.

The tournament organiser had placed the Redshirts ahead of the Sann Bean team in the seedings and said something like "we're coming for you, Redshirts!". Well... they got their shot...

Twitter wars... or trek...

Mike even bated us on Twitter! 😄

Cheeeeeeese! - Necrothumbs up!

I won the kick off result and chose to receive. But a tie on Officious Ref randomly chose my Big Guy to go face down (and a zombie)... and I sweated on avoiding the 1 and not having my Bloodspawn being sent off before we even started the drive! Fortunately for me he stayed on the pitch... this was to prove crucial, but not for the reasons you may think!!

The details have become a little hazy now as I come to write this... I'd given up on note-taking by match one, so please excuse!

We managed to bash our way up the field, despite the Wraiths (or Little-Sheets) appearing far more foul than they should on too many occasions for my liking! But as we got closer, the Necromantic team managed to whack the ball carrier... only for the ball to bounce around several thousand times, only to be caught on a 6 by the Bloodspawn. That left us with one turn to get him to score a TD, and he hadn't exactly been shy in rolling ones so far that day! With a bit of positioning I was able to give him optimum chance of making it through, and with a sense of dread, he ran in for a TD! No casualties, but a touch down to his name... he was either going to be a hero or a laughing stock back in the warp!!

The second half was all about maintaining our lines and we managed to gradually wittle away at the Necromantic attack, with the KO box filling up... and eventually got the ball, and managed to score a second TD. The game finished 2-0 (1-0)... and I finished the day on 2/0/2 (7-4), 59th overall out of 122 coaches... so very average as you would expect with those scores.

Team Redshirts got a round WIN with the following results: Mr_Frodo drew with Sann0638 1-1 (4-3) (tales of this game are still being told!), Howlinggriffon won 1-0 (2-0), and SCS.Sam drew 1-1 (0-4). And of course, the moral victory too! 😘

Final Standings:

...and the winners are...

Teamendous were declared the winners on the day and gleefully accepted their prizes, but later, following some naughty gremlins in the calculations, the tournament organisers later declared a joint winner between Teamendous and Tackle Zone. It happens.

Final Team Standings

Team Redshirts managed a podium place, despite my efforts to bring the average down... with Mr_Frodo and Howlinggriffon doing especially well.

Selfie time! - Team Redshirts - Proud to get a podium finish!

Thanks to Stewbacca and the other organisers and refs for making it a really well run event.

We got some nice swag too! Having a Discord channel worked well for the event, the lunch was good (NAF Champs take note!) and the venue was quite cool! Overall, a successful away mission!