4th game part II vs Dark Elves

Barry - yes, he's wearing a deputy sheriff badge.  Don't ask...

It had been arranged that I'd play against Harvey and his Orc team but we had to do some swap arounds at the club so that everyone could get a game in.  Due to this, my opponent was changed to Barry and his Dark Elf team.

Barry's team had a TV 200K higher than mine so I had some inducements coming.  I briefly considered a couple of extra rerolls - but I soon ditched that idea when I realised I could hire a mercenary minotaur for 180K.  If there's one thing that Elves fear, it's a minotaur!

So, minotaur now on the roster, we started the game with me receiving the ball.  Barry had given one of his Linemen the Kick skill which is bloody annoying - so after some ineffective Line Of Scrimmage punching, I sent the minotaur after the kicker - and the mino rolled a 1 for his wild animal.  Argh!  Bloody minotaurs!  In my next turn I tried it again and this time the mino charged straight at him, broke his armour and caused a MNG casualty.  Barry had an apothecary and opted to use it - and it worked for him as the 2nd result was a Badly Hurt.  The kicker took up his position on the reserves bench and waited for the next kick off...  As the game progressed, I had lots of problems trying to get through all the elves - near the end of the half, one of his blitzers dodged away and rolled a 1 - a reroll later, he rolled another 1.  Then fell dead on the spot.  Soon after, another blitzer got hit by the minotaur and he caused a badly hurt result on him.  Two casualties in one half - this minotaur was awesome all over again.  Despite this, I failed in scoring after eight turns and the half finished 0-0.  I had knocked out a lot of his players though and he only had four guys on the pitch.

For the second half, Barry got a few of his knocked out players back in the game but he was down to eight players against my eleven.  It didn't help when the kickoff was a blitz and my bull centaurs pounced forward to get tackle zones on the ball.  Despite this, Barry's elves seemed full of razzle dazzle and they were soon threatening to break though my dwarves and get ready to score.  I was lucky that the ball-carrying witch elf tried to emulate his dead blitzer, albeit without killing herself into the bargain.  After a bit of a scrum, one of my hobgobs got hold of the ball, ran forward and handed it off to a bull centaur who scored.  With only a turn each left, the game was pretty much over from there.

So - a 1-0 win but not many SPP's to share around the team.  One of my hobgobs got MVP and rolled a doubles skill - but I chose to give him Sure Hands as the most sensible option.  The scoring bull centaur got a skill to so he now has Block.  After the winnings were worked out, I had enough in my treasury to buy a full time minotaur and also hire a journeyman hobgob as a full timer.

I think my next game is up against Sherwin and his Chaos Pact team - but who can tell...

Score - 1-0 win

My team : 2 x bull centaurs, 6 x chaos dwarfs, 2 x hobgoblins, 1 x journeyman hobgoblins, 1 x mercenary minotaur, 2 x rerolls, apothecary
Barry's team : 4 x blitzers, 1 x witch elf, 7 x linemen, 2 x rerolls, apothecary

4th game - cancelled!

No game this Wednesday unfortunately.  My opponent had to cancel at the last minute as he had to work late so we've had to defer it to another day.

My next opponent is due to be Harvey and his Orc team.  He gave me my first warm up game before the season started and smashed my team up, winning 1-0 against me in the process.  I'm not looking forward to it - I'm not sure how much of a team I'll have left afterwards!

3rd game vs Skaven

That could have gone better...

First up, I forgot to take a pre kick-off shot so the pic above is from a game that Rodders and I played last season.  I won the kick-off and elected to receive - so Nobbla Blackwart was on the field although I kept him hidden behind a bull centaur in case of a blitz.  A few fairly ineffective blocks later, one of his linemen was prone so he fired up his chainsaw and, stunned him.  Great.  My hobgoblin then failed to pickup the ball which, as I thought it was in a safe place, elected to let it fumble, forgetting that Rodders had a big hand gutter runner...  Before I knew what had happened, his rat ogre had blitzed the chaos dwarf defender and his gutter runners swarmed me.  The rest of the half descended into me frantically backtracking my players in an effort to contain the skaven.  Nobbla was supremely ineffective - the best he did was to knock out the rat ogre and a gutter runner.  Fouling with him was useless - he rolled a kick-back when trying to hurt a prone gutter runner and stunned himself.  The half ended still at 0-0.

Rodders was receiving in the 2nd half but he only had six players to bring to the field - and when I rolled a "throw a rock" result at the kick-off, his rat ogre got stunned.  Even so, Rodders gave a supreme display of tactics and he'd scored within three turns!  Disaster!  By this time, one of my hobgoblins had been killed by the rat ogre and I was down to 10 players - Rodders with eight after some of his knocked out rats regained their senses.  I had to set about simply bludgeoning his players and trying to leave as few gaps as possible - but Rodders still was nipping his gutter runners around and causing me headaches.  I had to aim for a draw and try to contain them as best I could which, thankfully, I did.  Rodders' luck started failing and a gutter runner got a -1ST injury after failing a dodge - Rodders used his apothecary on him and it that rolled a dead result.  A hobgoblin scored on the last turn to equalise.

A 1-1 draw but a definite moral victory for Rodders I think.  My only solace is that I've played both skaven teams in the league now so at least they are out of the way!  After three games, I've not lost either so there's something...

Dwarves next.  Oh dear.

Score - 1-1 draw.

My team : 2 x bull centaurs, 6 x chaos dwarfs, 3 x hobgoblins, 2 x rerolls, apothecary

Rodders's team : 2 x blitzers, 4 x gutter runners, 1 x thrower, 3 x linemen, 1 x rat ogre, 2 x rerolls, apothecary

Star player - Nobbla Blackwart

I have my third league game tonight, this time against Rodders and his Skaven.  Rodders gave me a couple of warm-up games before the season started and in those I managed to get wins but it's a totally different matter when it's a game that counts!  This will be his second game of the league - but in his first game against Wood Elves, he had an outrageously great game.  He won 6-0 and caused 7-0 casualties!  Because of this, he's got three gutter runners with skills, one being Big Hand and even his rat ogre skilled up!  His team is going to be a tough challenge for sure!

Rodders team is so much better than mine that I'm going to get 130k of inducements - which, by happy happen-chance, is exactly the same amount of cash needed to hire Nobbla Blackwart, goblin star player and all-round chainsaw looney.  Chainsaws vs AV7 = a good time.  All I needed to do was find my model of him and get painting!

I got home from work last night around 19:00 and immediate dived into my lead pile.  I found the model and a spare 25mm base, had a quick bit of dinner and then got cracking on him.  I thought about trying a quick painting technique where you undercoat the model white, wash it with a black wash, let it dry and then drybrush white over the top again, then colour the different parts of the model with colour washes.  That works great for quick and easy shading but I didn't have time for the washes to dry.  So - it was back to just painting it although with only a basecoat and a main colour.  He didn't take as long as I had feared though - even with spray undercoating, basecoating and painting the main colours, he was done in under three hours.  I even had time to finish his base and give him a coat of matt varnish!

Looking at it now, I think I missed painting a knuckle-duster but I'll catch that at the weekend.  He's more than ready for action in tonight's game.  Whether he survives for longer that Rodders turn one is something else entirely!

2nd game vs Orcs

Anthony getting ready for my kick-off

After last week's draw against outnumbered Skaven, I really wasn't that confident knowing I was facing Anthony's Orcs.  They're so much lumpier and I was expecting to be totally out-muscled.

I was pretty lucky though as my first blitz of the game knocked out a black orc and they struggled to keep their shape after that.  Some sneaky manoeuvring allowed me to maximize my blocking and I managed to keep a lot of his players on the floor - and in the process I took out one lineorc and killed another.  After the first half, I'd managed to get the ball off his orcs and was threatening to score but the first half finished 0-0.

In the second half, I carried on with trying to focus on keeping his players tied up in tackle zones while I moved the ball forward.  Anthony wasn't having a lot of luck, rolling 1's when going for it and double-skulls a number of times - and that really helped me break out from the scrum and get a bull centaur clear with the ball.  I risked stalling for a few turns to help me manage the clock and scored in my turn seven.  I'd injured his thrower so Anthony was down to eight players - but he did his best to get a blitzer into position in my half ready for his last turn.  I surrounded him with every player I could which did the trick - Anthony managed to pick up the ball and throw it accurately to him but he couldn't catch it.  So - the first win for the Chaos Dwarfs and against a tough team too.  This is a crazy game!

Score - 1-0 win.

My team : 2 x bull centaurs, 6 x chaos dwarfs, 3 x hobgoblins, 2 x rerolls, apothecary

Anthony's team : 4 x blitzers, 4 x black orcs, 1 x thrower, 2 x linemen, 3 x rerolls