The Eagles Crash Back to Earth

After a win in my second game of the league season, my Slann team crashed in their third game.  This game was very much like the first as it was against a developed team which even though I outnumbered them had almost 400K more team value.  I told my wife before I left that my opponent moves faster, hits harder, and handles the ball better so it was going to be a tough game.

Innsmouth Eagles Stand Tall

In their second League game my Slann Team, The Innsmouth Eagles, were able to pull off the win.  It was a better matchup than my first game which was against an experienced Norse team.  This week I faced a rookie roster Pro Elf team.  I totally failed my fans roll and ended up at +2 FAME disadvantage which was exasperated by a card the opponent drew giving him essentially +3 FAME on kickoff table rolls.  Luckily only 1 event came up where this mattered and no pitch invasions.

Innsmouth Eagles Fail to Soar

We had the opening week of the local Blood Bowl League and my Slann team did not come out very well.  I had never played Slann before and while I have a ton of miniatures I am not a great coach so it was a 2-1 loss.  One of the better coaches(Came in Second at Zlurpee with Slann) was watching over my shoulder and I am pretty sure laughing to himself about what I was doing.

Blood Bowl: Chaos Dwarves Retrospective

I finished my second season with my Chaos Dwarf Team Black Death recently.  Made the playoffs again after only losing one game due to a bunch of ties but lost again to the player who had beaten me recently.  Overall pretty successful as I am not a great player regardless of how big my collection is and my league has regular tournament players who go to many events a year around the midwest.  One time I was randomly reading a blog post about an event and saw that the winner and runner up where both in my league.  When I sent out a league email congratulating them on their success, another player commented what about him for 4th place which I did not know since I did not see him in any pictures.

I Hate Wizards

My second season with the Chaos Dwarves in the local Blood Bowl league is going well.  I am at the top of the table with 3 wins and 2 ties but certainly still need some more points in my last 3 games against some stiff competition to make the playoffs.  In my most recent 3 games I have been giving up serious inducements which has seen the deployment of the dreaded wizard against my slow and plodding rushing attack.  All wizards have been successful in knocking down my ball carrier (including giving my top scorer -1 AV yesterday) but only one has stopped my drives.  That one was the first fireball, I was hit by and has forced me to be thoughtful in my placements since.  I am not a fast scorer so single lost drive will generally cost me the game.  I certainly still need a lot of work on my offensive and defense game plans.

Black Death Prepares for Season Two

The Blood Bowl league is about to start the next season and I am bring back my Chaos Dwarf team, Black Death, for another go.  I went 2-3-2 in the regular season and made the final playoff spot by 3 way tie breaker.  First round of the playoffs was a draw game that never got finished(long story) where I advanced to the finals to lose the game 2-1 to Khemri.  The defining moment of the game was at the end of the first half where the Khemri player needed like every ball handling skill to sure hands a ball, the pass a long pass, and then had the inaccurate pass scatter back onto the one player likely to score.  Due to the skills and such the success rate was like 15% for the play so not so impossible but enough that getting that outcome really tilts the balance for the rest of the game.

My current team has 3 Guard Dwarves, 1 Might Blow Dwarf, 2 Unskilled Dwarves, 1 Bull Centaur with Block and Dodge, 1 with Block and Break Tackle, 1 Kick Hobby, My Scoring Hobby with Sure Hands and Block, 2 Unskilled Hobbies, and a Standfirm Minotaur.  My team value is pretty high now at like 1630 so no more players or purchases.

The league has an interesting mix this season with Khemri, Nurgle, Pro Elf, High Elf, Norse, Slann, and 2 Skaven teams.  A lot of lower armor teams though so hopefully I can put some pain on them as they will probably be able to score on me pretty easy.  Time to work on my defense.

Blood Bowl: Blogger vs Blogger Grudge Match

Tonight Black Death takes on HakoMikes Skalf's Stonecutters to see who are the meanest and ugliest dwarves in the league.  Ofcourse it is not really a grudge match since Mike is is a great guy but it will be a very uphill match for the Death down 500K in team value to this veteran team.

Blood Bowl: Black Death at Legends of the Thrall

Welcome to Moonday Night Blood Bowl, I am Mik Terrorco and this is my partner Run Grinden.  What do be have in store for ours fans tonight, Run?

We have a great match up of the Black Death visiting the Legends of the Thrall.  I have been really impressed with what I have seen out of the Legends this season.  Most people will tell you that the vampire is an unreliable player and their enthralled human minions are not much better than a hobgoblin but I think it really comes down to coaching.  Legends has a great coach who knows how to keep his vampires focused on the game and not the thralls or spectators.  The Legends have signed Wilhelm Cheney for the game to bring a little more speed and punch with Marisa Hematomei out this week.  He might be able to make some short work of a few dwarves with those claws.

Oozing with Confidence at Black Death

Welcome back for another Blood Bowl game here on Cabalvision, I am Slow Ruck and my partner is Toy Axman.  Looks like we have a lovely day for some Blood Bowl today, Toy.  Unfortunately those gathering on the pitch are not so picturesque.  Lets send it down to our side line report Stab Allover for the info.

......

Are you there Stab?

.......

Stab, What are doing up here?

I am not going down there.  I have not been doing this job this long to get infected with some nasty disease so you can hirer someone prettier.  I am staying right here.

Ok then, Toy, what do we have today?

Alfheimr Aethernaughts at Black Death

Good evening folks and welcome to the first game of the Blood Bowl II season, I am Slow Ruck and this is my partner Toy Axman. Toy, what can we look forward to tonight.

Slow, we have a classic match up of strength vs skill as the chaos dwarves of Black Death face off against the lovely lady elves of Alfheimr Aethernaughts. Both are new comers to the upper divisions and we are hoping for a great match.

BlockEm Blood Bowl League Game 2

Due to some scheduling issues, I ended up playing my second game for the Blood Bowl league I recently joined about a week early.  The planned order was adjusted to allow me to player another player who was going to miss the next league night so my chaos dwarves arrived for battle against another fresh start team of Nurgle Plague carriers.  I received the opening kick off and got to work trying to progress the ball down the field.

BlockEm Blood Bowl League Game 1

So I got my first game in last night for the new season of the local Blood Bowl League.  This season there are 8 coaches so we are doing a round robin with a game every two weeks for the regular season.  Teams in the league have to stop playing after three seasons so their are a lot of new teams in the league.

Blood League Season 3 Game 4

Finally got my next blood bowl league game in. I only have time for about 1 hobby game every 2 weeks and I had that 40K Apoc game that took up a whole Sunday so this was delayed a bit from the schedule. I picked up a 3-0 win but I cannot really say that I know how to play my Chaos team an better. I essentially got lucky when in Turn 2 my Dark Elf opponent failed a 2+ dodge roll on a player with dodge skill. This left him poorly positioned to defend again my pounding which gave me the multiple man advantage through the rest of the game. My armor breaking dice where on fire and tore through his AV8 like nothing. After having almost no luck with casualities this season I got them all in this game. He ended up with 2 permanently injured players which pretty much makes his already battered team not worth much. He has 2 positionals that should be cut and another 2 that are questionable for long term development.

I have now got my team value back to where I started since I lost 150K last game when my minotaur was killed. Ofcourse other teams are now 200-300K more valuable than mine so I will get inducements through the rest of the season probably.

Blood Bowl League After 3 Games

Well I have been playing my Chaos team in our league now for 3 games and it has been total failure for me. I have 2 losses and 1 tie. Only been able to generate 2 touchdowns and like 2 Casualties and just lost my Minotaur to death at the hands of a necromancer team. I am also rolling 1's for my winnings which means while the top team had like 180K in cash earning already I have made 70K. I made some mistakes in not just getting pretty much everyone block with my skill choices in our special team creation and how I am trying to play the team. I even tried twice to make the pointless Turn 8 passes to get 1 SPP for a player to get a skill missed both passes.

I am also the only player in the league with no player faster than 6 move. Every other team has at least 3 players with 7+ move and most have 8 move player. We have a Dark Elf team(Many Move 7 Players), High elf Team( Move 7 Blitzers, Move 8 Catchers), Lizardman (Move 8 Skinks), and Necromancer (Move 8 Weres, Move 7 Ghouls one has +1 MA anyway). Only the necromantic team has players slower than mine but he also has ones much faster. I am finding myself totally out moved and if I cannot bash anyone which seems to be how it has been I have trouble moving the ball.

I will continue the struggle and maybe I will get lucky and get a few CAS in a game and make a few touchdowns to get some more skills. Maybe by the end of the season I will have some idea how to play the game with Chaos.

Blood Bowl League Season 3: Roster Builds

We are starting preparations for the third season of our tiny local blood bowl league. One player is keeping his team since he played through a 0-7 season and now has several players with 2 skill increases including a S4 A4 Blodger while everyone else is making a new team. You might ask why we would all be making a new team. Two people have played their teams for both the first two seasons and are ready for a change while myself I just like to play my huge number of different teams.

You might think that throwing away all that player advancement is a waste but our commish decided on special team creation rules. First make a legal 1M starting roster, then add 400K of additional stuff just like during play. You can even buy 6 SPP = Normal skill for 20K once for each player. This is nice since it allows skills on hard to skill up players right from the start at the expense of no chance for stat increases or doubles.

The 1M plus 400K leads to new teams with 90% the team value of the continuing team. We did something similar last time with 350K where the first and last place teams in the regular season were the new teams. T

I think you can make some pretty brutal rosters with these rules. What can you guys come up with these rules? Currently the other players are thinking Dark Elves, Wood Elves, Necromantic, and Lizardmen. I field most teams (no amazon, vampire, chaos dwarf, or orge) so what should I take.

Blood Bowl League: Finals

Our little blood bowl league finished up the season recently. The league is small enough (4 coaches this season) to have a fixed schedule of playing every other coach twice. I finished the regular season 4-1-1 with a lose in my first game of the season against the Norse team and a tie vs the Nurgle Team in our second meeting. This made me the top seed in the playoffs with the Norse team at a 4-2 record, Nurgle at 3-2-1 and the Dark Elves at 0-6. The Dark elf team really ran into multiple problems. He was a pretty new player trying to get the hang of a tough team. He first played both the Norse and Nurgle teams and tried to bash them then having learned that did not work to well against them avoided bashing my skaven. By the end of the season he was starting to get the hang of the team but the low winnings and no fan factor improvements kept him down.

Since their are only 4 coaches everyone made the play offs. I as top seed was matched with the bottom seed. I won the close game 3-2 thanks to a timely blitz result on the kick off table allowing me to score on the opening kick off of the second half to him.

I then faced the Nurgle team in the finals. I was pretty sure I was going to lose this game since the other coach is a better player than I am and his Nurgle team has a lot more advancement than mine. The pivotal moment was probably the opening kickoff where he rolled a perfect defense allowing him to rearrange his frontline. All of my carefully arranged 2D blocks were removed and he tentacled up my gutter runner. I got some gutter runners free into the back field but his tackle mightly blow beastman were always able to get them down. I sent them out to piece mail and they were cut down.

He turned me over at like turn 6 but did not get the ball into the endzone so fist half was 0-0. Second half was a 8 turn slugfest were I did manage to dislodge the ball but did not recover it. He scored on turn 8 so I had to try the 1 turn score to win. Do to all the disturbng presences I tried the long bomb over them to a side stepping gutter runner who had made it to the endzone but the pass was intercepted. I would have missed the pass anyway. Should have done the short pass before the pushing probably to manage the risk between the runner and the thrower but I had used my reroll for the turn on a dodge to do some of the pushes. So I lost 0-1.

The next season will probably start after the holidays and we are getting some new coaches so we are discussing how to restart. Since I have so many teams I will probably try a new team but will not decide which until I hear what the rules will be and what the other teams are so I can be something no one else is.

Quick Update

Not much going on with the hobby things right now. Had a gaming filled long weekend? Well for me with 2 league blood bowl games in.

First on was against the Norse team that beat me the first week. They were a little weak after getting taken down a peg by the Nurgle team the game before and I was constantly breaking armor in the game. Got a 3-1 win even though I made many mistake mainly because anytime he needed to roll a die to score it and its reroll would fail. I did finally get a lasting injury with my Dirty Player linerat getting a niggling injury.

The second game was against the nasty Nurgle team which has a team value like 300K above mine. Got the protective 2 babes and 2 apothecaries since I did not have the 340K for Headsplitter again. Game was a 1-1 tie but it might have well be a loss for me since I made only 20K to his 60K and picked up a -1 MA on my guard blitzer. He pretty much knocked me around all game but in the first half just could not bring down my ball carrier so I scored on like an 8 turn drive with skaven. Second half he scored on a 4 turn drive. I almost scored in the 8th turn with a desperation play but it did not go my way.

Also picked up space hulk but I have not even got a chance to assemble the figures yet. When I was not playing Blood Bowl I pretty much was playing with my daughter all weekend since I have the Blood Bowl Tourney next weekend. Still not sure what team to bring.

Blood Bowl League: Skaven Team Advancement

So I have 3 league games under my belt and now it is time to look at how my rats are advancing. Since I was new coming into the league, I got to start players with a normal skill for 20,000 and this gave them 6 SPP to start. This did not allow for a roll on the table so I did not take the option with players most likely to get SPP on their own. Players that started with a skill and 6 SPP are labeled with a *.

Blitzer: Guard (13)*
Blitzer: Grab (10)*
Thrower: Leader (7)*
Thrower: (0)
Gutter Runner: Block (9)
Gutter Runner: (5)
Gutter Runner: Wrestle (12)
Gutter Runner: Strip Ball (8)
Lineman: Kick (6)*
Lineman: Block (6)*
Lineman: Block (6)*
Lineman: Wrestle (6)*
Lineman: Wrestle (6)*
Lineman: Dirty Player (6)*
Rat Ogre: Break Tackle (6)

So I have manage to get 4 skills in my three games with 1 gutter runner ready to get one with a completion in the next game. He will be getting Block baring a special advancement or doubles. I know very boring. Two players are getting close to their second skills. The gutter runner might get dauntless or another strip ball. The blitzer might get Mighty Blow. Not really sure. This is not bad but the problem is that the primary scorers on the opponents teams are up at like 30+ SPP meaning they have picked up 3 skills. They are getting tough to take down.

I can see how lineman can be hard to advance. None have yet to pick up a single new star player point since they are mainly used as line of scrimmage bait.

My roster is also almost full with space for just one more linerat. He will be drafted after the next match then it will just be about saving money for replacements and more reroll my 3+1 for leader have been working pretty well especially with the occasion illegal procedure called on me.

Blood Bowl League: Game 3

"Hello and welcome to Blood Bowl Tonight on Cabalvision, your number one stop for all the best on the pitch action. I am your host Sknock Van Pelt. Our lead story is a match between the sinister dark elves of the Gate Gladiators and the twisted ratmen of the Darkthunder Deviants where something unusual appeared to be going on."
"We take you now live to Orkin Andrews on site"

"Thanks Sknock. The Deviants were really able to take it to the Gladiators today. On their opening drive, the ratmen were able to send several of the elves to the bench for the rest of the game. Exploiting this ratpower advantage the Deviants were able to get a quick score. The Gladiators then responded on the ensuing drive to break through the Deviants line with some fancy footwork and a quick pass. Unfortunately, the player in question could not match the speed of the deviants who brought him down. The rats then recovered the ball for another score. Up two nil the Deviants look in good shape to take control of the match early.”

“It was soon noticed that the elves were playing very unelf like. Missing quick passes, tripping over their own feet, failing to grab the ball in the open pitch, all seemed like very un-elven maneuvers. The Gladiator fan heavy crowd got a little angry after the third score for the Deviants and stormed the pitch on the next kick off. They took down almost half of the Deviants which appear to open the field up for Gladiators, who would have the man advantage for the remainder of the drive, but time was short and the elves continued to barely be able to walk straight. So at half time the game was 3-0 for the Deviants.”

“Whatever was wrong with the Gladiators could not be shaken off in the second half when the Deviants were able to recover their kick off to the Gladiators and score making it 4-0. The stupor only deepened as on the next kick off to the Gladiators, the Deviants got the drop on them with the first hits, putting pressure on the ball before the Gladiators even seemed to know it was kicked. While Gladiators recovered the ball, a missed pass caused all hope to be lost. Both sides fans rushed to be the first to get back underground and even the coaches stopped paying attention to the action. “

"Back to you, Sknock"

"Thanks for the report, Orkin. Looks like the Deviants might have slipped something into the Gladiators water cooler."

That pretty much sums up the game. Some lucky blocks initially to knock the dark elves to about 8-9 players the whole game coupled with just the worst luck on the dark elves. Anytime a 2+ was need to do anything the die would come 1 for him. I had my own problems with my Rat Ogre not even wanting to blitz but nothing like his horrible luck.

Blood Bowl League Game 2

I got my second league game in this week. It was against Matt who is the commish and reigning league champion. He is a very good player who goes to tournaments and does well. He has a pretty valuable Nurgle Team(1,710,000) Half Dead, All Rank. With my rat orge and a line rat out I was way down in team value with over 580,000 in inducements. I got 2 Traveling Apothacaries and called in Freebooter Headsplitter to cover the gap. Taking a Freebooter is risky since they can get your MVP and will such a sort season each MVP is pretty valuable.

Headsplitter is a monster of a Rat Orge. He does not have Wild Animal, Really Stupid, or Bone Head so he is a dependable player. Sure he is still a loner but you do not have to worry about wasting your blizt or leave your rat orge on the ground as he fails to standup for the 2 time in a row. With strenght of 6 and Agility of 3 he can hit hard but still has a standard chance to dodge out of a tackle zone to get the blitz into the cage. With him I was able to open holes to the third level of the Nurgle defense.

The critical drive of the game came in the second half. Deviants are up 2-1 with the ball in the hands of my thrower. Due to the 5 Disturbing presences in the middle of the field I was forced to throw long passes and bombs over the top of the defense. I will have to think more about this since the recievers have 4 agility and no free reroll while the thrower has 3 and a free reroll. It might be better to let the reciever feel some presences and get the shorter pass.

I had lined up a long pass with both the receiver(in the endzone) and the thrower clear of presences. I throw the pass and a Nurgle warrior intercepts it on a 6. We rolled the die to see if the pass would have been on target and it was so I would have scored the clincher. Now Nurgle starts moving up the field. I knock the ball loose twice but on the 8 down of the second half I am scrampling to stop them from scoring. It is desperate on both sides. I try to dodge a Blitzer out of the tentacles of the Beast of Nurgle. He is trying to get over to support a lineman blocking the only nurgle player who can get to the end zone. He breaks free but then fails his dodge roll and the reroll. My turn is over. The nurgle team then just needs to knock over 1 linerat and complete a hand off to a Rotter for the tie. Linerat goes down but the hand off is dropped. Game Over

Deviants get the 2-1 win but as luck would have it, Headsplitter gets my MVP. He deserved it though since he had like 4 Casualties(Most of them Regenerated) and was at one point drawing attention of all 4 nurgle warriors during the end of the critical drive. Unfortanutely the MVP is probably worth more than the win but at should be noted that only 2 skaven(Block Linerat and Gutter runner who has 3 touchdowns) will miss the next game and no major injuries or deaths to the Deviants. The Deviants were able to kill 1 rotter though.

Next Time Dark Elves. This will be a very different game. Another Agility team instead of a bashy team. Interesting.