The Chernobyl Knights, my underworld team, made it to the championship game.
How I still don't know. Underworld is a pretty underdog team, and while I have figured out how to run them on defense, offense still leaves me head-scratching a bit. They are fast, but not fast enough to be a fast team. Without a lot of skills the passers aren't really going to be playing a dedicated passing game, and they don't have the durability to maintain a grind-game. They're opportunists at heart I think... which is why I feel I've been better at defense than offense. And probably explains why I managed to do well in this game.
My opponent was Mark, of the Southland Snakemen: a fierce coach and the only team to give me a loss this season, so my team was not going to underestimate them, but they were also seeking some payback.
The Lizardmen had 11 players: 4 skinks & full strength crew. 3 Saurus have block and 2 Skinks have sidestep.
The Knights had a couple goblin bench-warmers to pad their ranks, and induced Fezglitch to play for them.
My thrower has extra arms & leader, one blitzer has dodge and the other has the dreaded claw/mighty blow combo. I also have a rat kicker.
What do you call a Goblin with a skill? A theory.
Mark won the coin toss and elected to receive. I left Fez on the bench, knowing how fast skinks can be, and kicked shallow and got a blitz! Beautiful start. I badly hurt a skillless Saurus on my way to recover the ball, which I got. He marked up the thrower with the ball, but I dodged out, go for it and score.
It worked well the first time, so I kicked shallow to the other side of the field and rolled blitz again! Wow. Once is awesome. Twice is equal parts awesome and pained empathy for the opponent. I got the ball and scored in short order- he had too much strength and slippery skinks to run the clock. But I did manage to injure a skink and get a couple other knock outs. I also got my thrower knocked out.
I kicked again- he got his knockouts returned, I didn't. Skinks are fast. I tried to contain them, but couldn't prevent him from scoring. I had one last turn to do some hurt, but didn't get my thrower back and didn't hurt anyone.
The Half ended 2-1 Knights.
I got my thrower back, and put Fez on the field. Fez took center, facing the Krox & a block-Saurus and an empty square, the Troll angled off another Saurus. The ball is kicked deep and the fans cheer for the Snakemen. Ungrateful louts. ;) The troll pushes the Saurus into the empty square in front of Fez, who now can't miss.. in his moves he knocks down 2 saurus & stuns the krox, earning him a big target from the lizards! I managed to knock out 2 more players, but could see my chance to run out the clock wasn't secure, but halfway through the 2nd half if I have a 3-1 lead I should have the game so I just scored early. Plus, he'd just knocked out Fez, so my lizard magnet was gone! ;) I had an injured goblin too.. but that's easy to accept. He injured my star Blitzer, which isn't easy to accept, so I apotho'd him and he took the bench.
He made his knock out return rolls: that's 4 for 4. Might not have had good luck everywhere, but his players weren't willing to sit on the bench and watch, and for a team with just 11 players, that's good luck.
I kicked off to the Snakemen and it scattered mid-field. In short order 2 more goblins were injured. My lines were getting thin. I tried to hold him, but he's real good with those skinks. One skink had the ball and I dodged with my dodging blitzer and blitzed him... a dodging blitzer dodges and blitzes? As advertised, so no complaints there. He knocked the skink out but I couldn't get the ball. His next skink managed to get the ball and score. Game ended 3-2.
Hard fought and if I hadn't have had a couple blitzes to exploit early on it could have been very different!
Notice how only my troll is completely painted?
3 months in and my team is only about 1/3 finished.
As a friend reminded me with an old saying recently: "The cobblers children go unshod."
How true.
How I still don't know. Underworld is a pretty underdog team, and while I have figured out how to run them on defense, offense still leaves me head-scratching a bit. They are fast, but not fast enough to be a fast team. Without a lot of skills the passers aren't really going to be playing a dedicated passing game, and they don't have the durability to maintain a grind-game. They're opportunists at heart I think... which is why I feel I've been better at defense than offense. And probably explains why I managed to do well in this game.
My opponent was Mark, of the Southland Snakemen: a fierce coach and the only team to give me a loss this season, so my team was not going to underestimate them, but they were also seeking some payback.
The Lizardmen had 11 players: 4 skinks & full strength crew. 3 Saurus have block and 2 Skinks have sidestep.
The Knights had a couple goblin bench-warmers to pad their ranks, and induced Fezglitch to play for them.
My thrower has extra arms & leader, one blitzer has dodge and the other has the dreaded claw/mighty blow combo. I also have a rat kicker.
What do you call a Goblin with a skill? A theory.
Mark won the coin toss and elected to receive. I left Fez on the bench, knowing how fast skinks can be, and kicked shallow and got a blitz! Beautiful start. I badly hurt a skillless Saurus on my way to recover the ball, which I got. He marked up the thrower with the ball, but I dodged out, go for it and score.
It worked well the first time, so I kicked shallow to the other side of the field and rolled blitz again! Wow. Once is awesome. Twice is equal parts awesome and pained empathy for the opponent. I got the ball and scored in short order- he had too much strength and slippery skinks to run the clock. But I did manage to injure a skink and get a couple other knock outs. I also got my thrower knocked out.
I kicked again- he got his knockouts returned, I didn't. Skinks are fast. I tried to contain them, but couldn't prevent him from scoring. I had one last turn to do some hurt, but didn't get my thrower back and didn't hurt anyone.
The Half ended 2-1 Knights.
I got my thrower back, and put Fez on the field. Fez took center, facing the Krox & a block-Saurus and an empty square, the Troll angled off another Saurus. The ball is kicked deep and the fans cheer for the Snakemen. Ungrateful louts. ;) The troll pushes the Saurus into the empty square in front of Fez, who now can't miss.. in his moves he knocks down 2 saurus & stuns the krox, earning him a big target from the lizards! I managed to knock out 2 more players, but could see my chance to run out the clock wasn't secure, but halfway through the 2nd half if I have a 3-1 lead I should have the game so I just scored early. Plus, he'd just knocked out Fez, so my lizard magnet was gone! ;) I had an injured goblin too.. but that's easy to accept. He injured my star Blitzer, which isn't easy to accept, so I apotho'd him and he took the bench.
He made his knock out return rolls: that's 4 for 4. Might not have had good luck everywhere, but his players weren't willing to sit on the bench and watch, and for a team with just 11 players, that's good luck.
I kicked off to the Snakemen and it scattered mid-field. In short order 2 more goblins were injured. My lines were getting thin. I tried to hold him, but he's real good with those skinks. One skink had the ball and I dodged with my dodging blitzer and blitzed him... a dodging blitzer dodges and blitzes? As advertised, so no complaints there. He knocked the skink out but I couldn't get the ball. His next skink managed to get the ball and score. Game ended 3-2.
Hard fought and if I hadn't have had a couple blitzes to exploit early on it could have been very different!
Notice how only my troll is completely painted?
3 months in and my team is only about 1/3 finished.
As a friend reminded me with an old saying recently: "The cobblers children go unshod."
How true.
4 comments:
Great stuff, I love blood bowl!
PS-In my league back in the day, having any unpainted figures cost you a re-roll. No joke. ;)
The big hippo troll guy needs a tank top to round out his uniform :)
Congratulations.
I'd be in favor of rewards/punishment for painting (or lack of): sometimes deadlines are the only way to get things done. Though taking away a reroll seems a bit tough since they have a different value depending on the team. I could see giving painted teams +1 Fame, so they make more money and have a greater chance of getting rerolls on kick off results.
Alfrik: yeah, he'd look good in a tank, but since I wanted to have this troll eligible for double-duty still for fantasy skirmish I deciding to keep him simple.
Thanks Bill!
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