Semi-final vs Skaven

Rodders - a top bloke if ever there was one

Tonight's game was up against Rodders and his Skaven team.  He only managed to get eight of his ten games in this season but, even so, he was leading the league with seven wins and one draw (his draw was against me).  His team was awesome, especially his gutter runners - one had a Big Hand, another had Block and Dauntless, one was AG5 with Sure Hands and the last with Block and Strip Ball.  Add into the mix a Guard blitzer and a rat ogre with Juggernaut, Guard and Claws and you had a quite fearsome team.

I received the kick to start with and I started punching his players - a tactic which was especially ineffective over the course of the game as all I could do was knock players out.  His rat ogre managed to injure my Claw blocker but he wasn't a great loss.  With Rodders being plagued by rolls of 1, I managed to score in my turn 7 leaving Rodders two turns to score.  I could have tried stalling but I didn't want to be silly - I would rather score and force Rodders to try to equalise than try to stall and give him a chance to stop me.  On the restart, and after some fantastic blocking and pushing, he'd managed to get his AG5 gutter runner two spaces into my half without moving him.  Once he did so, he was one space away from the end zone - but he managed to fail to catch the ball when it was thrown to him.  It left me a chance to get my Break Tackle/Tackle bull centaur to blitz him but I could only push him to the side of the ball - in his last turn Rodders just move him into the tackle zone and picked it up without a thought.  The half ended 1-1.

At this point, I was pretty sure Rodders was going to win.  Kicking to him meant he could control the game and score whenever he wanted.  I set up fairly aggressively and rolled a blitz!  I immediately sent my minotaur after his rat ogre but the best I could do was to stun him.  My rookie bull centaur couldn't get close to his ball carrier and before I knew it, Rodders had got the ball in a fairly safe position and was looking like he would score as all my players were in his half and his player with the ball was half way into mine!  My Break Tacle/Tackle bull centaur saved the day but sprinting back and blitzing the ball carrier, managing to pick up the ball as he did so.  Rodders kept on at me though and I put my centaur in a really daft position when his Dauntless gutter runner could easily have crowd pushed him.  Luckily for me, he was out of rerolls by this point and the runner failed his Dauntless roll.  One of the dice came up with a skull...  With my bull centaur able to get clear, Rodders did keep on trying to get him but he was running out of players by this point.  I scored in the last turn of the game to make it a 2-1 win to the chaos dwarfs.  It was a brilliant game against someone who I know is a much better coach that I am - I was obviously pleased to win but I think Rodders probably deserved it more after his fantastic season.  His only loss was this game tonight.

What this means is that I've made it to the final of CBBBL VI!

The other semi-final was played on Saturday - Sherwin (nWo) and Paul (Score Score Quick Quick) fought it out and Paul won that 2-1.   Sherwin did brilliantly with his chaos pact team when you consider they are a team which is rated somewhere between tier 2 and 3.

Paul and I chatted after tonight's game and we've scheduled the final for next Wednesday.  My Chaos Dwarfs against more Skaven!  It seems fitting that we are playing each other at the end of the season seeing as we played each other at the start of it too.  This will be my first time reaching the final - not so for Paul as he won CBBBL I with his Dark Elf team.  It's going to be a good game whatever happens!