Dark Fire Bowl II & Vampires - St Albans
Background
I'd worked in St Albans for 8 years but hadn't been to this side of town before. I don't know how I missed out on Dark Fire Bowl I bearing in mind this is well-within my catchment area for a Blood Bowl tournament, but when I heard about this event I was excited to go somewhere new!
It was a Brucey-bonus that there were some familiar faces/names attending too. In addition to my Redshirt buddies, there were others from the CBBBL that I only ever see on the WhatsApp group they have (to which I am a guest member), but also Wil and Geoff that I knew from the Welwyn Wargamers club as well as others I have seen around at various tournaments.
The Venue - Dark Fire Cafe
The Dark Fire cafe has an excellent set up. Located on an industrial estate, downstairs there is a well-stocked (and well-served) cafe with a tasty menu. I didn't catch the chaps name, but a friendly staff member would come and take food and drink orders and deliver to the table when ready. In this day-and-age, a great source of income for any gaming venue. Also, there was a small hobby shop and retail area and tables for diners who good sit and enjoy a coffee and roll some dice on with friends on their favourite board game. I enjoyed a white chocolate blondie and later, a ham & cheese panini. Yum.
Upstairs was a nicely laid out gaming-table area in a modern building with plenty of windows that could be opened - again, a must for any gaming venue!
Excuse the hurriedly taken video, but that was a quick wiz-view of the gaming area.
The Tournament
As detailed here, this was a 3-match tournament with the usual price cap of 1,150,000 gold to spend. Further rules are here, but the core interest was the tiering:
Teams receive a skill package with which to buy upgrades. The number of skills received depends on the tier of the team as shown below:
Tier 2 - Skaven, Chaos Dwarf, Norse, Wood Elf
Tier 3 - Necromantic Horror, Tomb Kings, Humans, Khorne, High Elf, Vampires, Slann, Gnomes
Tier 4 - Black Orcs, Imperial Nobility, Old World Alliance, Elven Union, Chaos Chosen,
Chaos Renegades
Tier 5 - Snotlings, Halflings, Goblins, Ogres, Nurgle
Available skill upgrades also depend on tier, as follows:
Tier 2 - 5 primary + 1 secondary
Tier 3 - 6 primary + 1 secondary
Tier 4 - 6 primary + 2 secondary
Tier 5 - 6 primary + 2 secondary + 50k TV
Vampires
In order to further my long-standing "paint & coach" approach, I had recently painted the newer Games Workshop Vampire team, and as I had never coached them on table top before, I thought this was as good a time as any.
I had painted them with a nod to black & white hammer horror movies...
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| Vargheist - 3D printed non-GW version |
Roster & Tactics
I wasn't really sure what to bring. In the end I opted to include a Vargheist big guy (Strength 5, Frenzy & Claws) as I knew I was likely to come up against high-armoured bash teams, and the claws would help counter them, as well as take a little heat off my Thralls.
However, Blood Lust was going to be a factor. Both the Vargheist and the Vampire Blitzers had a Blood Lust of 3+ if they were not blocking or blitzing. I concluded that the Vargheist would be in contact with opposition players as much as possible, and if I had to blitz him in to contact occasionally then so be it. However, I could see the Vampire Blitzers being Re-Roll burners. Unless they blitzed, their Juggernaught skill wouldn't come into effect, so simple blocking would be risky. I decided to take just the one, and gave him Pro.
The other Vampires included 2x Throwers, both with Pro and 2x Runners with Dodge. The Pro on the Throwers would help reroll Blood Lust as well as Hypno-Gaze, picking up the ball and blocking/blizting. I could then save the rerolls for the runners who would need to catch and gfi, and the dodge would help them zip through the defensive lines and threaten the ball. I also took Kick on a Thrall to help me threaten the opponent when receiving.
Game One vs InKnights and his Nurgle
Ack, Nurgle! Not the first draw I was hoping for. This was the first time I has played Iain (nephew to Howlinggriffon), and part of the CBBBL community. I had to be nice to him as Uncle Darren was on-hand as the personal security should it be needed! 😁
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| Iain the |
We rolled the same fans and Perfect Weather, but I lost the Kick Off (as I did in all of the day's games!). We set up and Changing Weather was rolled on the kick off event, and the weather changed to "Very Sunny" which wasn't exactly going to effect a Nurgle passing game... but the Vampires suddenly felt very uncomfortable and applied extra factor 50 sunblock.
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| Too sunny for the Vampires... eek! |
After some eager line of scrimmage (los) blocking, the Block Bloaters made short work of the Thralls, but the Rotspawn injured one (0-1), and a Pestigor secured the ball. Deciding to threaten the back line I rolled (the first of many) snake-eyes for rushing one of my Runners.
In my second turn the Vargheist made his first casualty of the day, injuring a non-regening Pestigor (1-1), but a Vampire Thrower double one'd on a dodge... I should have used Pro but forgot and used a reroll instead!.. and later, that meant I had used up all of my 3 rerolls by turn 3. Turn 4 saw 1 a GFI with a runner again, who promptly KO'd herself, and turn 5 saw my Vargheist injured by the Rotspawn and fail his regen.
Iain strolled in for an easy touchdown in turn 8. 0-1 (1-2). A Vampire Thrower and 2x Vampire Runners failed to recover from their KO's, and nothing happened of note in my turn 8.
It was time for the second half and I was receiving... but I failed all three KO's again! Effectively it was game over. I tried to blitz into the Iain's half with my Blitzer, with the idea of the one remaining Thrower picking up and passing to him, but another series of 1's were rolled and the Nurgle line just launched themselves at the remaining Vampires.
We did manage to recover the ball and the Thrower made a long bomb pass to a Thrall, who caught it... after a great series of dice rolls, but that was one turn in a very bleak game... and the Nurgle team managed to shake free the limp defence and sack the Thrall, and marched up to score their second. The game finished 0-2 (1-2 - I think!).
Game Two vs Toby_b and his Lizardmen
Toby and I both had tough results in our opening games so were towards the bottom of the ladder. Toby mentioned it was his first tournament with Lizardmen on table top. We then rolled dice.
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| Can you kick a field goal between these thumbs? |
We both rolled 6's (ok, it's D3, so 3's) for fans and then both rolled 6's again for weather - A Blizzard!! I lost the kick off and the Lizardmen opted to receive.
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| Two teams - Not a drop of warm blood between them! |
By this stage I had ditched the tournament-gift Dark Fire dice and brought out the GW Vampire dice. That was a good move!
The game started with the usual pounding on the Thralls, but their weak armour held! The Skinks covered off the ball, despite butter-fingers failing to pick up once or twice. The Vampires pressured them by sweeping around the sides, but couldn't get near, and there were 3 turns each of frustrated progress.
Then the game changed. Turn 4/4 saw my Vampire Blitzer outright kill the enormous (and well painted!) Kroxigor (1-0). This understandably shook up the lizardmen, and their attack crumbled as we sacked the skink and the Vampire Runners did the rest with Hypno-Gaze and great agility coming into effect. By turn 5/5 it was 1-0 (1-0), and with a Blitz! it was 2-0 (1-0) by turn 6/6.
Turn 6/7 saw Cheering Fans result in Greasy Cleats (-ma) on a Saurus, and the Chameleon caught the ball, but they couldn't make much progress, and a desperate play on the sidelines failed and we were able to crowd-push a Skink and injure him (2-0) and the half ended.
The second half began with the Vampires receiving, still in a Blizzard! The Vargheist KO'd a Saurus, and with a lot of maneuvering, scored in turn 5/4 to make it 3-0, and both teams KO's came back. Cheering Fans in turn 5/5 saw a Skink get Pro, but neither he or his team could stop a series of Hypno-gazes and a successful sacking of the ball carrier to make it 4-0 (2-0), and that's how the game ended.
It has to be said, my dice rolls were totally amazing, and the contrast to the first game was stark. We were more careful using Pro, and only rerolls where absolutely necessary, whilst the Lizards failed to make their few Thrall armour breaks turn into casualties, and the Skink failure to ball handle really helped too.
Game Three vs Mazza and his Norse
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| Caption: Aggghh Vampires!! |
Mazza, another from the CBBBL crowd who I hadn't played before, brought his Norse to the table. We rolled dice after taking the obligatory cheesy photo. We had the same fans, Perfect Weather and I lost the Kick Off roll.
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| Vampire tactics... let's shuffle to the right! |
A Quick Snap saw Alex move 4 players one square, but the Norse didn't do too much with their first turn. The Vargheist then stepped up and KO'd the Yeti, with one Claw/Frenzy beast overcoming the other.
There were then 4 turns of nervousness from both players as they each tried to gain the advantage, but the game changed again when in turn 5/6 a Norse Blitzer used Jump Up to throw a single-dice block on a Thrall, Skulled, Re-Rolled, Skull, and injured himself! (1-0).
Getting agitated with the lack of beer-boars and therefore beer, the Norse went in for a foul on a prone Vampire Thrower and injured him, but was sent off in the process... and the Vampire regenerated. Numbers were on our side and we managed to steal the ball and score in turn 7/7 (1-1). All without any Hypno-Gaze being used... to which Alex wondered if I had forgotten about the skill. I hadn't... it just hadn't been needed so far.
The second half was mostly about the Vampires playing keep-ball, and after trading casualties (2-2) the Vampires score a second to make it 2-0 in turn 4/3.
The Norse pressed for a consolation TD and to try to give them a chance with a roll back of the clock, but a series of hypno-gazes, Pro rolls and dodges and finally a blitz and one more casualty allowed the Vampires to keep a clean sheet, and the game finished 2-0 (3-2).
Again, another game where Thrall armour breakage was low, and if they did, they were KO'd and came back! That helps massively!! In contrast, the Norse armour and dice weren't as strong.
Final Standings
By the looks of the screenshot of the final standings table I took below I finished joint 5th on total points out of 24 coaches, which wasn't a bad showing for the Vampires first outing.
UncleHank won with his Tomb Kings - Congratulations!
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| Final Standings |
The Prizes
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| Prizes - Always nice |
The prizes and trophies were handed out and everyone thanked Thomas (Chicken23) and his crew for a well run and fun tournament. Three games was nice on the brain and allowed people to chat, relax and eat lunch between rounds.
Thanks to everyone for a great tournament. Nice to catch up with some old faces and meet some new ones too!
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