I had a game tonight against Rodders who was using his Skaven team. Rodders is the most experienced BB coach at my club - he's a NAF regional tournament organiser, has run the Carrot Crunch tournament in Sudbury for years and is a great guy to boot. I must admit, I didn't fancy my chances against him as he's a tough enough opponent even when he's not playing Skaven. Still - I'll never turn down a chance to play him as it's a great opportunity to test myself against a pro and learn something into the bargain.
The kick-off went my way and I chose to received, hoping to thin down the Skaven numbers before they had a chance to do anything - but my blocking was totally ineffective. The best I could do was push over a blitzer. To add insult to lack of injury, my hobgoblins fumbled the ball pickup. Feeble. Rodders had a host of gutter runners on his team and they swarmed forward whilst his rat ogre blitzed a hobgoblin, killing him instantly. Oh dear. This was not going well...
Somehow I managed to back track and get some players around the ball and the rest of the half descended into a punch up. Rodders was making canny blitzes in an attempt to pop the ball free and I was doing my best to cover his players and clear some off the field. I did manage to kill one of his linemen so at least we had even numbers. The rest of the turn played out and we were level a nil-nil.
For turn two I had ten players to his eight - but with the Skaven receiving I was sure they would score before I had a chance to blink. I kicked a touchback too which didn't help things. I was lucky though as Rodders started having bad dice rolls and his rats started failing actions. I managed to blitz his ball carrier and a hobgoblin grabbed the ball and headed up field. It was Rodders turn to back track this time - and to ensure that I had no option of ball-stalling, he half-die blitzed my hobgoblin with a gutter runner. He rolled a defender stumbles and a push - so I had to chose the push which forced my hobgob into the endzone to score. At least it allowed Rodders a few turns to equalise.
Another kick-off from me and I rolled a Perfect Defence, allowing me to reposition my players which really helped. Rodders had burned both his rerolls and I had superior numbers - so this really started to tell in the final turns. All my blocking and blitzing was taking a toll on his rats and, in the end, he just didn't have enough bodies on the field to stop a hobgoblin handing off to a bull centaur and having him score.
So - an unexpected 2-0 win to me in the end but I'm still not convinced on my ability to coach this team well. Maybe when they start getting some skills I may be more reliable on them but as a starting team, I'm still struggling. Still - a win's a win :)
Score - 2-0 win
My team : 2 x bull centaurs, 5 x chaos dwarfs, 4 x hobgoblins, 3 x rerolls
Rodders' team : 2 x blitzers, 4 x gutter runners, 1 x thrower, 3 x linemen, rat oger, 2 x rerolls
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