Good day of Blood Bowl in IncomGaming in Cheltenham at Auld World Masters, run this year by Thor and FatboySlimming.  It’s a quirky tournament where you start with 4-7 skills and then lose one per round, replacing it with a Niggle.  Orcs were tier 2, so I saw a good opportunity to get them up to double figures of NAF games.  There were also “sponsorships”, where you chose completions, casualties or fouls and get bonus points if you achieved a certain number each round.  I went for fouls so included a few goblins in my roster.

Also in the roster were the two custom stars – one halfling and one orc who played a half for each side.

First up was AngryHobbit’s cool Khemri team.  A deep kick and a blitz result on my kick off made life difficult for him from the beginning, and I went in 1-0, only for sweltering heat to remove a couple of my players for the second half.  I found it quite tricky to get out of my half, and made a bit of a rubbish mistake which left my ball carrier in trouble.  It should have ended up OK, except for a board related error where I miscounted the number of squares his player was from the endzone.  Because the dark elf pitch doesn’t have an endzone marked!

Anyway, I’m over it now.  Only managed two armour breaking fouls in this game though, so my bonus points were gone before they arrived.  1-1 draw.

The orcs were angry now, and were presented with some Amazons to take it out on, courtesy of BethansDad.  It was a battering, and I ended up winning 4-1.

Next up was Cornish, using Dwarves with a Deathroller and going big on Mighty Blow, though only one left by this stage.  His defence was pretty solid, and it was left to the Deathroller to roll a one on a GFI to leave a gap for me to score in my turn 7.  His drive stalled a little, and the lack of guard hurt, so it ended up a 2-0 win.

The halfling star, Jobo Hairyfoot, had scored in all 3 games for me now, so I had high hopes for game 4.  I was pretty sure that 3-1-0 and no sponsorship bonuses were not going to be enough to win the tournament, but Star of the Car was still up for grabs, so when I faced a coach I hadn’t met before using an all Linemen Norse team I was feeling pretty happy (there was a prize for “best all lineman team”).  Unfortunately I played a little loose  and was punished with a double both down, reroll double both down (1 in 81) which left me out of position on defence.

He rode his luck a little, though did have 5 rerolls with which to do it, so that helped!  I did a classic play involving many dice rolls and chain pushing to get a one die blitz on the ball carrier, and the skull was not a huge surprise.  He score in turn 6.

As I pushed for the 3 turn score, things went bad with him tagging the ball carrier and having a player in range to score.  My blitzer chose this moment to double skull, and I went in 2-0 down.  Sad times.

On my drive I tried to score quickly, but some solid defence meant that turn 5 was the earliest I could, and despite causing 4 casualties in ONE TURN he was still setting up with 10 players for his final drive.  It was pretty tense, including a crowd surf by Jobo, but it wasn’t to be and I lost 2-1.  It was TheRake’s 6th NAF tournament, and I would be surprised if his first shield was long in coming.

So I finished 2-1-1, and as most touchdowns was scored by the tournament winner, my 8 TDs were enough to get me the prize.  Not Star of the Car though, which went to Alex (Dementor), along with best U16.

It was a good day, congrats to the Bubba double of Loki and Heartsbane taking 1 and 2, and to all the winners including Oscen who took best backstory (I came 4th… out of 4).

I made a new thing!  Designed to keep track of a weekend’s tournament play – one of the picture on the left, and six and the picture on the right, with a blank page on the back.  Feel free to edit for own use, as long as you don’t become a millionaire on the back of it…

Tournament Record – Editable word version

 PDF version, ready to print

It’s been a busy one – just seeing how many different aspects of the hobby I can fit into one weekend!

• Double header of SAWBBL league games on Saturday morning at the marvellous new Firestorm Games in Swindon, spending some quality time with Alex!  A draw and a loss, sadly, but lots of fun.
• Game on Fumbbl using teams in practice for the Bubba tournament in March – my Khorne against Twelfman’s Orcs.  Managed to get the Bloodthirster to catch the ball but didn’t manage to go on to score!
• Helped out a US tournament using Exscore to run their tournament using Eurobowl rules.
• Painting my latest team, a Kislev team using Harlequin Troupe miniatures.
• Listening to various podcasts, Fumbbl and the World Cup, with the latter talking about my Tableau stats – good to hear them being used.
• Pleased to see my 2018 BB stats review being shared.
• Did some more work on adapting the Orc side of the BB16 board into a 7s pitch.
• Undercoated the Blitz Bowl teams  – hoping to get them painted up soon.

I think that’s everything – what other forms of BB could I have added?

Another Eurobowl in the bag – Scotland cap number 5, 10 years after cap number 1!  A great weekend, with only the Blood Bowl performances being disappointing.  The Wales team did a brilliant job at the SWALEC stadium, home of Glamorgan cricket club, which was a fantastic venue with a free-flowing bar, superb AV equipment and a lovely atmosphere throughout with plenty of space to socialise.  I’d taken the kids along in the first ever all-U16 Europen team, and they had a superbly enjoyable weekend as well.

Game 1 was against a league mate, Raging82, the Ireland team captain, my necro against his lizards.  With a tackle wight and sharpened claws, I was fairly happy with the racial match up, but sadly I only managed a single casualty all day, and it wasn’t in this game!  The game was captured on the YouTube channel for Beer and Blood Bowl, so I might watch back once the dust has settled.  It started well with a failed skink pickup, and if my blodge ghoul had made the 4+ pickup in my turn it would have been a very different game.  Instead, it bounced to a skink…

I had other chances – a two dice block to free a wight to blitz the ball carrier failed, as did a GFI to surf late in the half, but I went in 1-0 down.  Facing a full team of 11 I would have been happy with a draw, but Nuffle messed with me when my flesh golem caught the ball.  Made the rookie error of thinking 8 turns would be enough to wander up the pitch, and at this point the lizards started leaving the pitch, but in turn 7 the golem got bogged down within range of the endzone and it all went wrong.  Kudos to Dan for starting his captaincy with a win for himself and the team, as we went down 4.5 to 3.5.  In the new scoring system, 0 points.  This will be a recurring theme.

Game 2 was against Austria, Lewdgrip’s Chaos Pact.  Managed a fair amount of pressure on his drive, but his Dark Elf squirmed free and squeaked over the line in turn 6, giving me 3 turns to score back.  Sadly, it was a deep kick, and I messed up my strategy, pushing too hard for the equaliser at the half.  This did not go well, and a failed ghoul dodge meant I went in 2-0 down.  On my drive I scored in 2, and then popped the ball loose, but he recovered it again.  And then nonsense, as I managed a long pass after some serious shenanigans to pull it back to 2-2.  Sadly, another 4.5 – 3.5 loss, and still 0 points.

Game 3 v Hungary, this time against Nelkor’s unconventional Wood Elves – 2 wardancers and 10 linemen!  I managed my first casualty of the day in this game, but as he also ran out of space in the KO box I shouldn’t moan too much.  A 2-0 win, and a first round win for Scotland.

I had a quiet evening with the kids, though I understand the Cardiff night life played host to a good number of Blood Bowlers, making the most of the clocks going back and the fairly late Sunday finish.

Game 4 was Norway, Straume’s Dark Elves, who I had faced at the NAF Championship.  I left an early half chance involving a 4+ dodge into the cage, which worked, but I should have been able to recover, only to be mashed by a 1 in 81 failure.  Shouldn’t have made the mistake, and deserved to lose 1-0 against a great player.  Sadly, another 4.5 – 3.5 loss.

Game 5 v newcomers Greece, to whom I had leant an Orc team, but luckily I wasn’t facing them as that would have been confusing.  A more conventional Wood Elf team than previously in the hands of Cana, and ended up on stream again.  Game started well, killing the strip wardancer in the first couple of turns, and I thought I’d done enough to stop the score, only for the elfs to do the elfy thing in turn 8.   Plenty of carnage on my drive, but again mostly KOs, so when the captain’s orders came through to push for the win I was sceptical, and pleased when they were reversed a minute later.  I walked it in on my turn 8, and was happy to rely on my golems to stop the one-turner.  Made another mistake though, as I had forgotten about his frenzy wardancer, and I’d set a player up two squares back from the line instead of 3.  He took full advantage, pushed him into his own half, and then used him to get the two squares that his catcher needed.  3 unprotected GFIs later and I’d lost.  Not a trick I’d seen before, but was kicking myself about it.  Worth a watch!  We won the round, but hosting rights were beyond us at this stage, being fought over between Finland and Malta.

Final game and I was on bottom table for I think the first time in my Eurobowl history, facing Quetzal of Belgium’s undead.  Managed a 1-0 win, to put the seal on his rubbish results weekend, which culminated in him rolling two lots of triple both downs.  Scotland won the round, putting us on 3-0-3 for the weekend, and midtable again.

Results wise, congratulations to England after one of their tightest Eurobowl wins, and a huge well done to the Scottish Europen team who managed third.  The Sann Clan got a round win against Beer and Blood Bowl, plus a handful of decent individual results, including contributing 10 casualties to Wobert’s most casualties trophy!

I’d decided before this tournament to hang up my Eurobowl boots as there is enough strength in depth resident in Scotland and taking part in Scottish tournaments to be able to pick two Eurobowl teams, so it’s healthier for Scottish Blood Bowl to have plenty of opportunities to qualify without taking up a wild card pick.  If ever the team end up with only 7 willing to travel, then I’ll expect a call, but that doesn’t seem like a likely situation any time soon, so I’ll be supporting from the sidelines in future, and probably heading up a Sann Clan team in the Europen, depending on the cost of heading to Poland in 2020 and Malta in 2021!

I was really pleased for the organisers, Hawca and Dapiranha, plus others, pulling off a triumphant weekend.  Very glad personally that the scoring software I wrote survived the weekend, and that I was able to contribute in a small way to the success of the tournament.  Next up is to get registered for the World Cup, in which I’ll be playing and probably not having to do anything to do with the organisation, which was an enjoyable experience in Portugal and I looking forward to experiencing it again!

My attempts at finding a clear way to stream continue!  I now have a green screen style dice roller, which allows me to superimpose the dice on the board, which is pretty cool…

This is me rolling yet another 1 when my minotaur attempts to blitz, and slumping over the table, as part of my SAWBBL league game.  But the latest problem is that by getting enough light on the dice box to make it show up on the board, the rest of the table is plunged into darkness.  Boo!

There was a separate issue that neither player could see the dice very well, which for me detracted from the enjoyment of the game.  And I like using a dice cup!  Which comes to the nub of the issue, which is that when playing the game the enjoyment of the two players has to be paramount, and I haven’t yet managed to figure out how to stream really well without reducing this.  Apart from having a third party to do the filming, as the Waterbowl chaps have shown very well in their partnership with Element Games.

All of this of course is not to diminish the fab streaming from Raging82, the Beer and Blood Bowl guys, and others, but I’m on a quest to make tabletop BB as viewer friendly as electronic BB can be, and I’m not there yet…