Orcs Hit Las Vegas: Game 5 Tournament Report

Heading into Game 5.  With just 1 win in a mess of losses it hasn't been looking good.
All of the losses have been kept to within 1 Touch Down, so that is something, but small consolation.

If you missed the earlier 4 games, just look back at the last updates for them.

Game 5 put me up against a Chaos Dwarf team.  I know there were a few teams that weren't 'bash teams' but I hadn't played any yet, and didn't look like I would.  Chaos Dwarves are a tough, hard hitting team.  Though they tend to have a handful of more vulnerable hobgoblins, they do allow the team to handle the ball, and the 6 Blocking Dwarves and 2 Centaurs, and possibly a Minotaur is more than bashy enough to be a bash team.  Plus the Centaurs can move as much as 9 if they go for it and sprint, and with strength 4 they make for a serious seeking missile on a blitz.

My plan: eliminate Hobgoblins, tie up Centaurs and, moving faster than the Dwarves, score enough to win.

That's the plan anyway.

Game 5: Bronze Boars vrs D.A.M.M. (Chaos Dwarves) 

 -- I forgot to write down what the name stands for... Dangerous After Midnight Munchies? 

No, that sounds like a Gremlin team... I don't remember now. 

The Chaos Dwarves didn't take the Minotaur, which meant they had 2 Rerolls and 11 players, plus Zelvis.

Skills: 2 Centaurs with Block, 2 Dwarves with Guard and 2 Hobgoblins with Sure-Hands.  

Sure Hands is a good idea on a team that struggles to get enough rerolls, but I was (pleasantly) surprised to not see 'Claw' on any Dwarf Blocker. 

Pregame: Chaos Dwarves got the +1 Fame and won the coin toss for the kick off (haven't won that roll yet).

DAMM chose to kick to me.  Smart move I think.  This forces me to either score fast, or risk them beating me up and taking the ball.  If I do score early, this team has the potential to score in 2 turns with almost no trouble at all.  

Turn 1 I recover the ball and do a lot of pushing and not much else: not a one goes down.
I move the Thrower to protect him and blitz a Hobgoblin, sticking to 'da plan'.
I need a double Go For It to connect with the hobgoblin.  First Go For It: 1.. Reroll: stays on his feet!
Shame on you Nuffle!  I know how this goes... I continue the Go For It's and the next is a 1 too.  No Thank You.  I stay where I am.  Fool me once won't get fooled again ;)
The Centaur then Blitzes for 3 extra spaces.  Go For It: 1: Surefoot skill reroll: fine.  next: fine.  Sprint: 1. Team Reroll: 1.  Oh! See? I knew Nuffle was just waiting for such an invitation! The Centaur falls down and knocks himself out!

Next, Baba O'Riled Up injures one of the Sure-Hands Hobgoblins. Things are looking good! I pass the ball to Happy Jack and he heads down-field.

A Hobgoblin knocks The Seeker down, but it's too late: the ball is long gone.

I decide I'm in a good position to run the clock.  Some might say it's unsporting, but most who play Blood Bowl a lot realize this isn't the case.  When facing a faster team, stalling can be just good tactics.  If an opponent runs the clock, then put pressure on them to score. Which is just what they did.

I stalled out turn 4, 5 & 6. I had a Centaur in the knock out box, and the ball safe.  Makes the most sense to do what orcs are want to do: try to inflict some pain.

I did manage to knock a lot down, but no further injuries or knock outs. The other centaur got away and came after Happy Jack.  So I swarmed him.  I couldn't bring him down, and decided to try to stall one more turn.  I instantly wondered if I was being a fool. Should the centaur get away it could take my chance to score away from me too. But scoring in time for them to have 2 turns to score was just too easy for them, so I tried to hold on.

I surrounded this Centaur, and in his turn he tried a gutsy dodge into 3 Tackle Zones... a 6 always succeeds, but no, he falls down.  Turn 8, first action, I scored.  Not taking any risks at that point.

Last turn of the half, I set up my minimum 3 players to take it on the chin.  The knocked out Centaur came back (darn) but since they were down to 10 players they had to field Zelvis, and with him being a secret weapon and the drive ending after just their 1 turn, that's all he'd be able to play for the whole game.

The angry dwarves pummeled these 3 as much as they could, but didn't do any damage.
Knowing he was going to get kicked out anyway, Zelvis fouls with 5 assists! But still can't break armor.
Rolling a double 2, he's ejected even before being kicked out for being a secret weapon.
Half ends: 1-0.

Apparently I forgot to take any pictures of the 2nd half.

Early in the 2nd half the Orc Blitzer Keith BadMoon knocked out a Centaur.  The other Centaur, while carrying the ball, blitzed the goblin Squeeze Box to get past him and gain some ground, but the blitz was a Double Skull! With a reroll already being used that turn, the centaur falls down while little Squeeze Box is standing fine.  He must have had a pocket of caltrops.

Before that centaur could recover, 2 others joined in while Squeeze Box put his boot to the centaur's face, stunning him again.  Don't mess with goblins!

As he was going to recover the next time, Boris decided to foul him too, but the ref saw this and ejected him from the game.

I'd got the ball, and making his way downfield, The Seeker ran it in on turn 6.  Score: 2-0.

With just 2 turns to score, I can be assured I'll at least win 2-1.
The centaur comes back from the Knock-Out box: have to give them credit, they are persistent.

I stop the ball's advance and the game ends 2-0, a win for the Bronze Boars.

MVP Goes to Squeeze Box, which I thought was well deserved for standing up to a charging bull and then curb stomping him.

After some bad luck it felt good to have a game where everything went just about as good as I could have hoped.

The plays went as I planned, the dice didn't go unlucky, I got 2 Touchdowns and prevented any against me.
I think maybe it was another David playing ...

Bit of warning for those at work and such:
This music video has a scantily clad woman for the 2 seconds of introduction. Why? I have no idea.
Try to fathom British TV. I guess Monty Python wasn't making this sort of thing up!