10th Game vs Lizardmen

Bad hair day for Luke

The season is over (boo!) but I had a cracking game to finish it all off.  I was playing my old mate Luke with his Lizardman team and he's had a rough season with them so far; sauruses are always slow to skill up and he's had a lot of injured players to cope with.  As such, he was fielding a couple of journeyman skinks but had enough in inducements to take Silibili and a couple of Bloodweiser Babes.

Winning the toss, Luke elected to Kick and a got to work punching his players to make a hole so I could move forward.  I knocked a few of his players out during the drive but I couldn't protect my ball carrier enough to stall so I scored around turn five.  In my turn to kick, Luke's wall of sauruses and Silibi were formidable and he managed to break a skink free to get ready to equalise.  Thankfully my blitzing bull centaur knocked him over and some hobgoblin passing razzle dazzle soon saw my greenskinned sneaky gits charging towards to endzone.  I thought I'd done enough to get another touchdown but I had to blitz a saurus out of the way to do so and my other bull centaur rolled double skulls.  The hobgob was taken out in the subsequent turn and the half ended 1-0 to me.

In the second half, I'd injured one of Luke's journeymen and in return he's badly hurt my wrestle hobgoblin and a guard chaos dwarf blocker - Silibi had done then in in the final turn of the previous half.  Thankfully I'd bought a spare hobgoblin so I still have 11 players.  Luke received my kickoff and set off with a similar tactic that he'd done in the first half drive - but this time it worked perfectly and we were soon level at 1-1.  Those skinks are soooo fast... Luke kicked off again and this time my blocking was starting to take effect - his skinks weren't able to take the punishment my team was dealing and I tied up his sauruses with spare blockers while my bull centaur surged down the field.  Even the minotaur got in on the action by knocking out Silibi.  Struggling to backtrack, Luke had to try some 5+ dodges to try to get close to my centaur but I get tackle zone on them and they couldn't make the dice rolls the needed.  I stalled out and scored in my turn seven.  Luke's final turn was aimed at getting a completion for a skink on 5 SPP's (which is managed) and the game finished 2-1 to me.

So - 5 wins, 4 draws and only 1 loss is, I think, pretty good for a team which I've always struggled to get to grips with.  There's a slight chance they might even make the play-offs but I'm not going to tempt fate further by discussing it here...

Score - 2-1 win

My team : 2 x bull centaurs, 6 x chaos dwarfs, 4 x hobgoblins, 1 x minotaur, 3 x rerolls, apothecary

Luke's team : 5 x sauruses, 3 x skinks, 3 x journeyman skinks, Silibili, 4 x reroll, apothecary

9th Game vs Dwarfs

Thundercats are go

Game 9 saw me facing against the Araak-Frizko 69ers coached by my mate Erik.  Erik is a canny coach who's won the CBBBL previous using high elves but has doomed himself for a number of years thanks to his preference of playing ogres.  This season though, he's using dwarfs.

Dwarfs vs chaos dwarfs was never destined to be a high scoring match - and tonight's game proved to be just that.  It was a big punch up basically.  Tactical for sure but a big scrum.  Erik suffered a dead blocker and I suffered a bull centaur that would miss his next game.  We each scored a touchdown too - and I just about managed to stop him scoring again which meant we finished with a hard-fought draw.

With four wins, four draws and a loss, it isn't looking likely that I'll be making the playoffs this year.  The only way I could do it is if I manage a huge amount of touchdowns and casualties against my final opponent.  So - with one of my centaur missing the final game, I had to make a tough decision to fire him and use what was left of my winnings to buy a replacement rookie centaur.  I was left with 40K so I bought another hobgoblin to use up the last of my winnings.

One more game of the season left.  I don't think I'll make the play offs but I will still aim for a win!

Score - 1-1 draw

My team : 2 x bull centaurs, 6 x chaos dwarfs, 3 x hobgoblins, 1 x minotaur, 3 x rerolls, apothecary

Erik's team : 2 x blitzers, 2 x runners, 2 x troll slayers, 6 x linemen, Boomer Eziasson, 3 x reroll, apothecary

8th Game vs Wood Elves

Timelord of the Wood Elves

Things are getting tense now - the last few games of the season are always heated battles and I knew I was in for a difficult time in this game as I was facing against my mate Darren with his beloved Wood Elves.

Our teams were pretty evenly matched - Darren's team was 90K TV lower than mine so he got a Bloodweiser babe as an inducement.  We rolled for weather and the result was that it was very sunny - great for me as I didn't intend to be passing the ball anyway!  I won the toss so I asked Darren to kick off.  The one wood elf catcher in Darren's team had the kick skill so I spread out my hobgoblins so they at least had a chance of getting near the ball - but as it happened, I didn't need them too as Darren's deep kick placed it right next to the sidelines and the ball bounced off the side.  I gave it to a bull centaur and started the punching.  The first couple of blocks was ineffective - one elf lineman was knocked over and another pushed back.  It did mean I had room for my claw blocker to take a two-dice block on Darren's treeman though.  He broke his armour without even needing to use his claw and caused a stunned result on the tree.  Not a bad thing really as it meant that I could run away from it in the next turn!  With the treeman down, it meant I could push on forward and keep pressing Darren's team.  Despite this, Darren managed to get a one-dice block on my bull centaur which knocked him down and popped the ball free.  Luckily I managed to recover the ball in the next turn thanks to my Sure Hands hobgoblin and I scored in my last turn.  Darren's final turn just allowed him time to get a completion for one of his players on 5 SPP's.

For the second half, Darren was down to nine players - I'd pushed a catcher off the field in the first half and the crowd killed him.  Darren used his apothecary and the result was changed to a Miss Next Game.  I'd also caused a serious injury on a lineman, causing a -1 ST injury on him.  I set up with my least valuable blockers in the LOS as I knew one of them would be taking a treeman to the face soon.  I kicked the ball - and rolled a Blitz result!  I sent my bull centaurs forward, one of them blitzing another lineman to the ground in the process.  I also moved up all my remaining players but kept the hobgoblins back for defence.  That was a good thing as, before long, Darren's thrower had passed the ball to a wardancer who'd gotten through my defences.  Rather than blitz her with a blocker, I moved up a chaos dwarf and then blitzed her with my Wrestle hobgoblin - and he dragged her to the ground with him.  My nearby Sure Hands hobgoblin then jumped in and grabbed the ball!  That lucky reprieve meant that I could start pushing back up field and trying to defend against the wood elf attacks.  It worked - and my hobgoblin scored again in the last turn of the game.

A 2-0 win to me and a tough game.  I think luck helped though as I had fairly good dice and broke a lot of elven armour even though they weren't injured - just keeping them on the floor for a turn gave me the room to trundle towards the end zone.

Next game is due to be against a dwarf team with an AG4 runner.  A target for the minotaur if ever there was one...

Score - 2-0 win

My team : 2 x bull centaurs, 6 x chaos dwarfs, 3 x hobgoblins, 1 x minotaur, 2 x rerolls, apothecary

Darren's team : 2 x wardancers, 1 x thrower, 1 x catcher, 6 x linemen, 1 x treeman, 1 x reroll, apothecary

7th Game vs Orcs

H-Bomb

It's been over three weeks since my last game of Blood Bowl and I was starting to get withdrawal symptoms!  Tonight's game was against Harvey and his Orc team, Dulla's Cowboys.  He had a fairly standard setup with a scattering of skills so his team would easily out muscle mine - I was hoping to just survive the game without too many injuries!

The orcs received in the first half after a riot and there was a blizzard to add extra worry.  I didn't really want to get embroiled in a punchup with the orcs but that's how it happened - to try to stop the orcs caging up I had to send in my blockers to soak up the punishment while my minotaur did his best to move players around.  It was a pretty lumpy affair and both teams didn't move to much from the middle of the field.  Nothing of note happened during this half - players got knocked down and they got back up again and that was pretty much it...

In the second half the weather cleared up and changed into perfect Blood Bowl weather.  Despite the improved conditions, I couldn't get the back past Harvey's defensive line for much of the half,  By the time I did get past, he managed to dodge out a black orc and blitz the hobgoblin ball carrier which allowed an orc blitzer to try throwing the ball to the other side of the field.  I got some bodies around it to stop the orcs having a chance of scoring but I just couldn't get anyone to be able to pick it up and still be in range of scoring.

The game ended a 0-0 draw but no-one on either team was injured so that was something.  One of my dwarf blockers got MVP which gave him his first skill - and I rolled a double so he now has a claw!  There's three more games of the season left - hopefully I can get some more touchdowns in those!

Score - 0-0 draw

My team : 2 x bull centaurs, 6 x chaos dwarfs, 2 x hobgoblins, 1 x minotaur, 2 x rerolls, apothecary

Harvey's team : 4 x blitzers, 4 x black orcs, 1 x  thrower, 1 x linemen, 1 x troll, 3 x reroll, apothecary