I freaking love teams tournaments. I know in the past ive been painted into a corner as a proponent of the ASC and against the ATC. This is not the case. I love them both. The ASC was just a brainchild of others I wanted to make happen, and the ATC is a concept I have encouraged to flourish alongside the ASC. I think we have the perfect bloody scenario right now.
I am disappointed there was no QLD representation, I am VERY disappointed there were no South Aussies (that’s 2 of these tournaments you folks have missed), and a little disappointed there were no Sandgropers (but I understand the difficulty here, and I think we will all have to pull together to make the ASC 3 in WA a success).
So 2 years ago SLOBB sent 2 teams to the inaugural ATC in Canberra. Myself, Tribal, Grumpsh and Redcard with Lizards, Undead, Dwarves, and Norse and D_Arquebus, Doubleskulls, Mathfuric and Vimes with Dwarves, Skaven, don’t know and don’t know. He he. The Bone Idlers slipped up in game 1 falling to WA. The Lazy Lumps also lost to the buggers. It was only a slip up by them against the ACT team and then a loss to Carnage that opened the door. This tournament SLOBB enjoyed a crushing defeat of Carnage by the Bone Idlers (I think it was 2 wins 2 draws but may have been bigger), and a draw by the Lazy Lumps (2 Wins 2 Losses). Luck played its part and the 2 SLOBB teams didn’t play each other so weren’t able to cannibalize each other and ended up finishing 1 and 2 with Carnage in 3rd giving NSW Blood Bowl a clean sweep.
Cue this past weekend. Down to 3 players per team and the league missing some fine coaches from our ranks, SLOBB again sent 2 teams to defend our title. Myself, D_Arquebus and Redcard of the Bone Idlers running Lizardmen, Skaven and Dwarves. Lolvenom, Mathfuric and NFA of the Lazy Lumps running Norse, Dark Elves and Dwarves. I don’t know too much of their results other than to say one of the highlights of the SLOBB squad for this weekend was the immense effort of our Painter extraordinaire NFA, who pulled out his best tournament performance ever, following up 2 losses and a draw on day 1 with 3 big wins on day 2. We had planned to go hardcore and planned to get together to nut out team rosters and have some practice games.. but it never happened. Hutchie felt like taking Skaven so that was locked in. I originally wanted an elf team to try and farm skills and had decided on Darkies. Knowing that Mathfuric was running them and that they might then become popular combined with the decision of a runner or an assassin in my roster (which annoyed me) I was left weighing up whether to be boring and take my Wood Elves. A few days before the tournament I looked and saw that my ideal build worked in this format, but I was just so sick of them. Hindsight a team of woodies with 2 cards would have been very nice indeed. I settled on Lizardmen. I had played them at the last tournament and had finally had some success with them (notably against Dwarves… Thomsys no less). I figured they were a team that didn’t need skills and were balanced enough to help us out when it came to match up time to potentially protect our Skaven team. Had I taken woodies there may have been some dilemma’s that may have called into question my captaincy and whether I was playing selfishly or not. Redcard was easy going of course. He said he fancied playing Undead, I said that sounds fine (until I realised he’d made a stupid team with Seteckh) so I said take Dwarves they are your best team and will help us at match up time. Again a 2 cards Undead team might have made all the difference in hindsight.
I spent Friday drinking at all these godly expensive bars, while Mathfuric’s colon churned before unleashing hell on his roommates (thankfully not me) that night. We watched the Tahs game at the Bells… and stumbled in to bed after some games of Dixit and about half a bottle of rum.
Saturday came and my disastrous decision to forget my jumper looked like it would cruel me and ultimately us. Blood Bowl outside in Melbourne… Grumpsh you flaming idiot. I struggled through my first game before Bishop saved me with the jumper off his own back.
But on to the Blood Bowl. We drew the 3 sheets to the wind mob. Charger with his standard Darkies, Greyhound with his standard lizards and name escapes me with race escapes me
We won the toss and led with our Dwarves. I then had to decide on Darkies or Lizards for my own Lizards. I opted to play the rudest man in Blood Bowl… AKA Charger (Gil’s wife coined this moniker with Timmy in the room at the same time). This was one of those shit games for me, I got diced pretty badly but managed to come back for a draw. A good result. Hutchie was struggling early but he too turned the tide and was able to take the win. Redcard won his match up as well. 2 wins 1 draw, a reasonable start. I of course only got 1 skill (something that would plague me all tournament) and took Block on a Saurus.
Game 2 and the match everyone wanted to see was on early. Bone Idlers Vs the Carnage Club. With the same races no less. Sangraal approached me and said his team fancied a race off. I said I would think about it (gamesmanship at its finest here folks). I won the toss again and led with Redcard once again. Bill and his Dwarves called them out and the Gnome was sent out. At this point I was thinking of playing the coaches rather than the teams themselves. I have a less than stellar record against gnome while Thomsy is a bit of a bogey for Hutch. I decided it was better to be a man than a mouse and prepared myself for the Gnome. He had 1 extra Block Saurus.I felt lots of people checking on how this titanic battle was going… it was really cool, and is one of the things I love about this teams stuff. Brad and Bill played out a typical 1-1 draw, with a few moments of concern for Brad as I understand it. Thomsy and Hutch were back and forth but the impression I got was that Thomsy could only pinch a draw and not a win. So it was all down to yours truly. My dice in this game were average, nothing special. But Gnome didn’t get his usual dice so he fell apart. He scored early, but never got any of my players off the field (I sent 2 off my own off for fouling), I controlled the ball, had a few moments with the ball on the ground on the sideline where I fouled and didn’t break armour and got sent off (and he was marking the ball) which left gnome with a 3+ pickup to break away and go into the sheds at 1-0. Thankfully he failed and I equalized at the half. I again controlled the ball while Gnome got frustrated and punched it in for the winning score that won the tie for the Bone Idlers as Hutch and Thomsy had drawn…. Yee haw… feeling on top of the world…. The Blood Bowl world anyway. I had a huge 2 skills from this game… Blocking up my Krox and another Saurus.
Game 3 was against the Geelong team but with all sorts of ring ins including Kyle (great to see you by the way). They sent out Annachie with Humans, We threw Brad at them. I sent myself in and got matched up against Kyle with Dwarves…eergh. Leaving Hutchie against the greenhorn with greenskins. Brad and I got smashed off the park. Brad snuck a draw, while I was down 1-0 at the break and was forced to score way too early in the second. I basically got saved by my pit trap and some solid defence and with Hutchies comfortable win we had swept the day. 3 matches 3 wins, and sitting proudly on top of the table…
To Be continued…..
