You're Too Old For an Easter Basket, But Why Let That Stop You?

Has the Easter Bunny long since stopped delivering baskets to you?
Maybe you're too old.  Or maybe he's just grown concerned with your onset of borderline diabetes.
Well, he's only a rabbit, they have small brains.. what does he know?

Here's a chance to get some free Easter Swag!

Chris, over at Sippin' On Paint Water is doing a bit of a give-away for some Easter Surprises.
Why? He's just a nice guy like that. I know, I won some free bases from him for a naming contest.
And this contest doesn't require any skill or talent. just an ability to make a reply... doesn't even require correct spelling as far as I can tell, so there's really nothing holding anyone back.

Likely he's been sippin' on the Paas Easter Egg dye water, so time to take advantage of his generous disposition!

So go over >Here< and enter! 

Apparently Easter used to be a lot more creepy than it is now. 

We've got some catching up to do. 

Jumping into the A-Z Challenge Again: Madness!

Last year I did the A-Z challenge. 

The idea is to update your blog with Titles starting from A-Z, once per day, skipping Sundays, and to find other blogs and see what they're doing while you're struggling to do the same thing. 

Last year I'd only been at the blog for a month & a half before diving into it.  I found it challenging enough just to post that often and to come up with some of the trickier letters. I was undecided about this year, but like a lot of my decisions, if I wait until the last minute I'll usually just go forward. This seems to be no exception. 

So with nothing really planned or lined up, I'll be starting it anyway on April 1st (first Sunday is an update day, for A, then other Sundays are skipped until the alphabet is complete). 

To help distinguish it from last year's A-Z challenge, this time I thought I'd give it a theme. 

Not a very narrow theme, but a theme nonetheless. 

The theme for 2012's A-Z will be: Things that influence me, inspire me, or that do the opposite: distress me or make me want to spit venom. I suppose that is a theme of sorts. 

Now, this is a hobby blog 97% of the time, but occasionally you might have heard the strains and screams of the wheels against the rails.  This may increase those frequencies.  We'll see. 

I will likely still have hobby updates that don't fit into this, due to the theme, so I'll probably end up with more than 30 updates in April. 

WANT TO DO THE CHALLENGE TOO?

SIGN UP HERE

Not up for it yourself but want to see some of the 1400+ Blogs who are doing it?  Click the link above, it's got them all.

I'm #1470.  Told you I'm a procrastinator! 

That link will take you to the official page of the challenge with lots of updates on the process, hints & other bits. 

If you missed my entries for last year's challenge, you can find them in the labels to the left, 'A-Z'.

And to get in the mood... enjoy:

Orcs Hit Las Vegas: Game 6 Tournament Report: Last Game

And so we come to the final game of the Quake.
If you missed the earlier 5 game reports, they're in the updates just before this one.

The contenders for the cup looked to be Norse (not the one I played earlier) vrs. Wood Elves.  There was also a chance it could come down to Orcs vrs Dwarves.

For the rest of us, it was a 'challenge' match: we were all out of the running, so we could pick a team to play.
I like when tournaments do this.  Some of my best games have been in this setting, when it is more relaxed.

Coming back from lunch late, many already setting up their games my friend Dan and I decided to play. Despite coming to the event together and being friends for, what? 13 years? We don't get a chance to play each other very often, and the last time we played Blood Bowl against each other was the last last game of West Coast Quake where my Lizards made pitch fertilizer out of his high elves: inflicting 6 casualties and winning the game.
A fact I was kind enough to remind him of ;)

He was a bit hesitant at first, probably thinking Orcs can do as much or more damage as Lizards... but he put a smile on his face and was ready to play:

Game 6: Bronze Boars vrs Lothern Lyin' Under the Bed in Fear... no wait, Lothern Lyin' Down on the Job... no that's not right either... Lothern Lyin' About Bleaching Their Hair.  No.. let me check the notes again... ah! Lothern Lions! That was it.  

Ribbing aside, I have a lot of respect for the High Elf team.  I think they are a really good team and are under appreciated.  I have a High Elf team I converted a year ago, just haven't had the time to paint them- maybe for next year's Quake, we'll see.  The problem with an elf team is that the linemen are so very expensive for a skill-less player. 70k is a lot to pay.  But you can do amazing things with agility 4.  Most people, myself included, are drawn to bash teams though, for the stability and for the Big Guy.  That's a drawback of a High Elf team: no big guy!  Big Guys, like trolls, are just so fun.  

His team was 11 players plus Zelvis.  1 Thrower, 2 Blitzers, 2 Catchers: Pretty standard High Elves, emphasis on pretty. Both Catchers had Block, 1 Blitzer had Dodge, the Thrower had Pro (for the 3rd Re-roll) and 2 Linemen had Fend.  

Pre-game: He gets +2 fame! and wins the coin toss. It's now official, I tied for fame a few times but never won that dice-off and I never once won the coin toss. I feel like Rosencrantz. He elects to kick. 

He unfurls his living net and kicks.  

Just some glamour shots. His high elves are a gorgeous team. 

I sent in a guarding blitzer then blitzed his blodger with my tackler, to eliminate that dodge advantage, but nothing came of it.  In return he knocked out Squeeze Box! Pick on someone your own size!  So much for nobility! Sheesh!

 Turn 2 Happy Jack beats the snot out of one of the catchers, injuring him, out for the game.  That will help!

Unfortunately the slippery elves came after my thrower:

These elves dodge with impunity: dodge, dodge, dodge... just can't pin them down.  Watching this really makes me want to play an agility 4 team! 

They blitz my thrower, who somehow stays on his feet, even after they reroll it for a push. 

But they cage him up good. 

The Seeker, my thrower, dodges out and away!  Haha! didn't think orcs could dodge too did you? 

He then makes a double Go For It, to pass, but an intervening elf rolls a 6 and intercepts the pass! Argh! 

Bad luck for me, amazing good luck for him. 

Hey you elf! You're lucky the ball is covering your number or we'd find out where you live! 

On his turn 3 this elf dodges away, hands it off and they score! 

The TD got him the attention to finally bag that Clairol Hair Dye endorsement contract he's been wanting.

Nice play.  Well, I had no choice but to try for the pass with all those elves on my thrower.  Still plenty of time to score to tie it up before the half ends.

Let's try this again.

My Orcvis was ejected (secret weapon) and his Zelvis must take the field since he's down a player. 

Baba O'Riled Up, my tackler, tackles the blodger ellf and knocks him out and then gains some ground.

I toss a short pass but even with the reroll (2 reroll 2) it scatters.  Next turn The Seeker goes for it, picks up the ball, goes for it again to hand off, the receiving orc rolls 1: reroll: not caught.  It bounces. 

The elves take advantage of the orc clumsiness and get some TZ on the ball:

I knocked an elf down, stupid me put him in the wrong place, so when pushing the next elf, he still has a TZ on the ball, a mistake I'll pay for: The Seeker picked up the ball, but in dodging out, rolls a 1 and falls.

I still have a chance though: The Seeker gets up, gets the ball, does 1 go for it to make a pass: 2: re-roll: 1.  

This is getting ridiculous. Seeker can't seem to make an 8/9 chance of success roll no matter how often he tries it. 

Time's out, half ends 0-1 for the Lothern Lyin' About Their Age.

2nd half: 

A Fend Elf & the Blodging Blitzer stay knocked out, the catcher comes back.  Zelvis has left the building, leaving just 7 elves on the pitch.  

The kick is shallow and is caught by a line-elf.  Wouldn't a kick off result of Blitz have been perfect right now? 

The kick-off table was special for the event however, and since it only had results on 7 and 4 of the numbers at either end, there usually weren't any kick off results. 

Venting their frustrations, the Boars knock a catcher down and Boris da Spider gets a +4 assist to stomping on the elf's groin. Rarely used anyway, this merely stuns the catcher but the ref sees it and ejects Boris from the game. 

The elves send a couple scoring threats down my right side, and I try to fence them in while blitzing to get at the thrower.

I have a clear man-advantage, but these elves are so slippery it doesn't count for much.

Seeing a way around my left, an elf blitzer charges little Squeeze Box and injures him. Again with the picking on the little guys?  Seriously? What did they ever do to you?  Oh yeah.. groin-stomp... but how long are you going to hold that grudge? It's been a full two turns already. Sheesh.

I blitz the elf ball carrier and he goes down, the ball squirts to Tommy, #5 the Orc Blitzer. 

But he gets blitzed himself, knocked down, the ball squirts free:

Didn't have the ball for long.  The elf catcher scoops up the ball, dodges out.. what's this? 

He fails his dodge? The catcher falls!  

I'd been keeping track: this was dodge #19 for the elves: the first failure.  Not a bad run.  

At this point we were one of just 2 games not finished.We'd taken our time, with pictures, joking, and were now under 'time-clock' to finish up. So less pictures more play...

I recover the ball with The Seeker, make a pass: 1: Re-roll: 2.  Great Coagulating Blood Hell! Are you serious? He only needed a 3. With a re-roll that is a 8/9 chance to succeed. Again: this is why I don't gamble. 

The elves, singing a merry tune, skip over, pick up the ball, thanking the howling orc thrower kindly, and run it in to score: 2-0.   OK, it was a bit harder than that, he had to make 2 dodges, one through a Tackle Zone to get the ball, pass it, catch it and score. All of those rolls he made fine- but it feels better to imagine he only had to skip along a garden path to do it, after all, that's how easy elves make it look. 

Now very rushed, I set up to receive, make all my moves and say your turn, hitting the time clock. 

He begins moving his players only then do I realize I forgot to move my thrower!  The Seeker just sat in the middle of the backfield, while the ball was 6 spaces to the left.  Serious punishment for feeling rushed. What a stupid move- the ball is a full move plus 1 go for it from my thrower, though I could have just sat on its TZ and picked it up the next turn. As it is, it's within 2 go for it's from being picked up by an elf blitzer! 

Which is exactly what the elf blitzer does: 2 Go For It and snag the ball, he also has a back up elf by him and got another line elf to mark The Seeker. What a mess. 

He'd wrapped around my left hand orcs, so only The Seeker was available, to dodge & blitz a blitzer, with no team rerolls left.  

When there is only one option though, it's an easy decision to make.  

The Seeker declares a blitz: Dodge (It's good!) move 5 to contact the elf, Go For It to blitz the blitzer, I didn't roll a 1! (amazing) 1 die block: Pow!  The elf goes down! The ball bounces, goes out of bounds, the fans throw it in the direction of my forward lines and roll 2d6: 10! The ball lands right in front of Baba O'Riled Up! Who hasn't gone yet!

Baba O'Riled Up is free & clear, steps forward, picks up the ball, runs toward the end zone, with not a single elf in range to stop him! 

The orcs in the stands yell & cheer.  The Seeker is obviously trying to tell the coach he doesn't want to be a thrower, he wants to be a blitzer. Well, what orc doesn't? 

Next turn Baba O'Riled Up walks it in, but the real hero is The Seeker, who botched every throw he made and had to have the crowd do his job for him.

Luck almost balanced out with that, not quite, but what a great story that play makes, so it was worth it. 

It wouldn't have been as good of a story if it hadn't been preceded by so many bungled throws. 

The game ends 2-1 For the Lothern Lyin' About in Their Undergarments. 

MVP roll was: The Seeker!  Dice got it right.  I guess. Until he made that blitz I was ready to fire him ;) 

In our 'what if' league treatment of our teams, The Lions got 4 players with skill ups, and so did mine:

The Ox, (troll) got Block, Seeker (Thrower) took Accurate .. not giving up on his throwing career yet. Happy Jack the Blitzer got his 2nd skill: Might Blow, and Baba O'Riled Up got his 2nd skill: Guard.  

Thanks for a great game Dan, a well deserved win. 

Maybe we'll have a Boar v Lion rematch someday! 

The winner of the tournament was Norse. A good team and excellent player, so not surprised, though he faced an equally amazing player playing Wood Elves so it could have gone either way.  

After report: We headed out of LasVegas, back to California, but on reaching the middle of nowhere, the freeway was shut down due to snow & ice. Really?  So we were stuck, but found a moderately long detour and only delayed us a couple hours. 

In honor of the Bronze Boar's MVP.... enjoy:

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!

Charge of the Quar Brigade! LPL6 Round 3

Round 4 of the Lead Painter's League challenge has started, which means I can now show my entry for Round 3.

I entered some Quar Royalist Cavalry:

My theory behind entries is "Paint a variety of stuff that gets some progress on the 50+ projects I have and may never finish".  Maybe the bias is less than it once was, but it does appear there is a tendency at Lead Adventure Forum for a greater appreciation for historicals over fantasy & sci fi, and certain periods, such as Victorian and Interwar being favorites.  Everyone has their favorites, so I don't have a problem with that. I tend to like almost all things mini-related, but I have some soft-spot favorites too.  Maybe it'd be smarter to 'play to the audience' more if I was really gunning to win, and while I'd be lying if I said I don't like to win, I'm not real big on competition, more enjoy the process and community of it.  Awww, don't I sound like a hippie? ;) At the heart of it, I find competition too stressful, and don't like the feel of it when I approach something in a serious-competitive way, whether I win or lose, so I tend not to.

So I'll stick to painting what I want to paint and get some progress on the projects I've already committed to.

Round 3 entry is the Quar.  If you're new around this blog and haven't checked the older updates, you'll find a lot of Quar here, it has it's own index label in the left column.  Despite being non-human aliens, I think Quar fit in pretty well with historicals actually.  These Royalists seem great for a Franco-Prussian war to turn of the century setting.  I like all the Quar, but the Royalists are my favorite.

I love their mounts.  They look like what might evolve if there had been no horses and capybaras filled their ecological niche.

Round 4 is a small fleet of Space Ships. You can check them out and all of the other entries for this round.  There are really great entries.

Just some thoughts on the process:


So far I've won my 3 rounds, but I haven't yet faced any of the powerhouse heavy hitters there.

This is my favorite painting challenge I've found, but there is one thing I find a bit disappointing:  the total number of votes.  Voting is done in paired-off challenges, but some get as much as 10-20% more total votes.  Since the main criteria for winning is total number of votes, this can hurt people's chances.  My last entry had about 50 votes less for our pairing than some of the others and some other pairings had a good deal less than ours. I suppose sometimes people may not vote if they just can't decide, but I doubt there is much chance of being exactly evenly drawn in someone's mind.  I just think it's a shame and a bit unfair for people to vote for some pairings but not all. Not only does it give some a clear advantage but it's also like saying "the effort you took isn't worth my effort to vote though I did vote for others".  Everyone took time and effort to paint and photo their work, they should all get the same consideration.

Next will be a return to the final games of the West Coast Quake. Stay Tuned.

Orcs Hit Las Vegas: Game 4 Tournament Report

Games 1-3 precede this report, feel free to check them out if you haven't yet.

So I lost my neutral footing in the last game and am now at 1 & 2.  Next up to face is Nurgle.
I figured this should be fun, win or lose, since I've never had a chance to play against Nurgle before.
I'd been thinking recently of making a Nurgle team, I've thought of a different theme and some minis that would work nicely.. but that's hush-hush until I do it ;) So I looked forward to seeing how they play.

For those who don't follow Blood Bowl so closely, Nurgle is a team that is a lot like Chaos, but with very significant differences. The Nurgle Warriors are just as strong as other Chaos Warriors, but not as fast or agile (more like Black Orcs) but they get regeneration (heal injury on a 4+) and before you can block them you must roll a die, if you roll a 1 your player is too grossed out to hit them.  They have beastmen too, but less of them, but cheap 'rotter' linemen that do the job fine. The Big Guy is a nasty creature with tentacles, that grapples players in place, making it hard for them to get away, and has the same attributes as the Nurgle Warriors.

So once Nurgle got done auditioning for a local job, we were ready to play:

Game 4:  Bronze Boars vrs. Hambnurglers (Nurgle) 

The Nurgle team had 2 warriors with Block and 2 with Guard. There was at least one Beastman with Surehands I believe.   In pre-game he won the +1 fame (breaking the 3 game tie) and won the coin toss and chose to kick to me. 

He kicked and then drove hard at me.  He blitzed my ball carrier and a Rotter got the ball. 

I blitzed him right back and got the ball back, hand off to a Blitzer, forgot the -1 to such actions because of the zone of nasty flies Nurgle creatures make, but made the hand-off with a reroll.  

I didn't get to keep the ball for long though, with horns a beastman is strength 4 on a blitz and he charged my ball-carrying blitzer and injured him, out for the game, and recovered the ball with a Rotter.

Looking to be a real slug-fest.  get it ? (cue rim shot). 

Turn 4 I do a 1 die block on that rotter: Skull: re-roll: Skull.  I'm telling you, no one can hit those 1 in 36 chances like I can. It's like my super-power.  Even that boy in the Wonder Twins is laughing at me. 

Next turn though I injure a Nurgle Warrior, and kill him! Oh! That'll even things up! But not so fast... regeneration?  Yes. he's fine. He takes the bench.  Not to be outdone, another Black Orc kills another Nurgle Warrior! Yes! but just like his buddy, that Nurglebloke regenerates as well.  Good luck for him, not so much for me- those deaths could have made a big difference.  I notice I have broke my curse on not being able to break armor, which is great, but that Regen is nullifying it.  Regen is such a  good skill in a tournament setting. 

I then Blitz the Ball-carrying rotter and injure him! 

But in trying to get to the ball my rising star Baba O'Riled Up dodges to get to the ball, trips and injures himself, out for the game.  All the Orc fans gasp and the Goblins laugh their fool heads off. 

The Half ends 0-0 with 9 on the field for me, some very good players injured, but my thrower came back. and only 8 on the field for him, with a beastman knocked out, but other than him all his quality players are on the field. 

I now set up to kick to him, no score, but the advantage is now his with the ball in his possession. 

Yes, I set up with a goblin on the line. It's not such a bad option really, the dodge balances out the lack of strength. and my team is thinned, so I need to keep some good players back to try to stop him from scoring. 

Unfortunately, Boris da Spider looked like a tasty goblin to the slug, and he ate him. R.I.P. Boris. 

I sandwiched the ball on the sidelines, trying to stop it from squeezing through. On the line, he stunned my troll and a brawl breaks out. 

The Blitzer Happy Jack injures his Zelvis, but his beastman gets the ball and takes it down close to scoring.  

Pinball Wizard there looks clear to try to stop him, but then he got marked by another, and in trying to dodge out to get that goat, he failed the dodge, failed the reroll and falls.  The goat scores and on Turn 6 it is 0-1.

I set up to receive, now just battling for the tie.

I set up for the Goblin throw play, since I'm down a lot of players and he's still got his good players.

Turn 7. Seeker gets the ball. Runs to the Goblin, Squeeze Box. Hand-off the ball, Squeeze Box takes it, The Ox, showing that not all Trolls are stupid, realizes what's going on, doesn't feel so hungry he's willing to fuss with goblin bones, grabs Squeeze Box and flings him down the field.  This could be it!

The Goblin arcs through the air, but the throw is high, the lightweight goblin tumbles in the wind, is blown back, back and to the left, back more and to the left. He lands fine, but within reach of the slug! He tries to get away, but the sticky tentacles has him firm! If only he'd landed where he was supposed to, or a favorable deviation he'd have run it in to tie it up.  But 3 wrong deviations planted him where there was no chance.
For those mathematically inclined, there is only a bit more than 5% chance for 3 back deviations, and less to get them to where they'd place him in range of the slug. Happy Birthday Slug! ;)

Next turn the Slug makes his second meal of Goblin this day:

Game Ends in a Loss for the Bronze Boars: 0-1.

Nurgle looks like a very interesting team to play.  All of the denial skills can really have an impact.

In the 'what-if' league, MVP went to The Ox, and rolling for his skill he got double 1's! A doubles? Block please!  I knew rolling all those 1's would work out eventually!

The Day ends with 4 games: 1 Win & 3 Loss.

Boris da Spider, In Memorium:

Orcs Hit Las Vegas: Game 3 Tournament Report

If you missed the action of Game 1 & 2 they are easy to find, just before this update.

With an even record now of 1 & 1 the Bronze Boars made their way to the next field of battle.
The enemy of the moment: Norse.  Quite a coincidence.  One the drive to Vegas, Dan and I had talked some about what we thought were the best teams in a tournament.  I feel that 'bash' teams have the edge.  Reason being, even though a team like Wood Elves excel at winning games, able to score often, dodge & grab the ball anywhere with agility 4 across the roster (which is no doubt amazing) if a couple teams can win all their games it is going to come down to bonus points, and bash teams could win by a decent margin but also have a lot of causalities, which Elf type teams aren't going to have much of.  Also, with skill packages, most bash teams get the 'gravy' skills: the real enhancers, where an elf team with few skills is going to be trying to cover the basics. Of all the bash teams I think Norse is the strongest.  Block across everyone but the wolves & yeti, which most will take block for their wolves easily enough.  Frenzy can be great and their only disadvantage is armor 7, which is still a better than 50% chance to protect them. Plus you have to get them down before you can hurt them, not always so easy.

Besides: I tend to not be able to break even armor 7 anyway. So we'll see how it plays out...

Game 3: Bronze Boars vrs. Valhallan Loyalists (Norse).

The Norse came to inflict pain.  That was clear by the build.  The team was 12 players, with 1 Catcher and 1 Thrower, 2 Blitzers, 2 Werewolves, 1 Yeti and the rest Linemen.  The Yeti had the dreaded Mighty Blow to augment his natural Claw.  For those not too familiar with Blood Bowl, if you knock someone down, you must roll over their armor value to have any chance to hurt them. Teams like Norse are easier to hurt because their armor value is 7.  Teams like Orcs are harder to hurt because their armor value is 9. On 2 dice, it's a lot harder to roll 10 or more than it is to roll 8 or more.  The Claw skill makes any roll of 8 or more beat *any* armor value, even if it is 8, 9, or 10!  Mighty Blow skill lets you add +1 to the armor roll (and if you don't need it, then you add +1 to injure after).  So to have both means any roll of a 7 will break any armor in the game.  A very powerful & nasty combo of skills.   Both Werewolves had Block, Both Blitzers had Mighty Blow and the Thrower had Sure Hands.   All that Mighty Blow helps them even the odds against higher armor teams.. like orcs ;)

Pregame: We tied for fame (3rd game in a row!) he wins the coin toss (also 3rd game in a row) and elects to kick. 

I held the ball back and tried to do some pounding. He kept the Yeti back, knowing I'd get first swing.  

I did manage to knock out a lineman on turn 2, but mostly I knocked guys over and didn't break their sturdy armor 7. 

On his Turn 2 he did a double Go For It to sack my thrower and the ball bounced free.

Turn 3 I fail a dodge (with a reroll) to rescue the ball.  Another 1/9 chance and I hit it out of the park!  ;)

But that's nothing... Next chance I blitz with the troll, needing a Go For It (Risky, but had to be done).  The Go For It? 1.  Loner is good.. Reroll the die: 1.  You couldn't make this up if you tried. So his Runner gets away and scores on Turn 5. 

Set up to receive, his knock out comes back. I try to set up to tie the game before the half. 

He injures a guarding Orc Blitzer.  Ouch. Meanwhile I still am not breaking his armor.  Tending to roll '5'. 

The Troll tries to redeem himself, needing a double Go For It to blitz, but the 2nd is a 1. loner reroll is fine and the reroll? 1! Oh!  Take that Gods of probability! In Your Face! That's 2 times I hit the 1 in 36 chance!

This is why I don't gamble folks.

This leaves no more time to score and the half ends 0-1.

2nd Half: I kick to him, and start worrying about the Mighty Blow Claw Yeti.

In my turn I go after the Thrower while my Troll gets into a slug out with the Yeti. I manage to knock the Yeti down, but I don't break his armor.

I Blitz his carrier for a 1-die block and get him down, then I dodged away, to cover the ball where he'd have to blitz me off it, but I fail the dodge, fail the reroll and go down, stunning myself.  Yikes.

On the bright side, the Yeti takes another swing at my Troll and they both go down, relying on his combo, the Yeti accepts this, but doesn't break the Troll's armor, but the Troll breaks his, and knocks him out! I'll take my moral victories where I can.

The catcher recovers the dropped ball and tries to make his way through the Orcs.

Turn 5 a werewolf injures a Black Orc and his ball carrier makes a break for it.

I'm having none of it, so I blitz the norse ball carrier, manage to stun him.

Boris da Spider, the Goblin then grabs the ball and heads back to the Troll.  The Troll grabs him by his shirt, decides he's not got enough meat on his bones to make a decent meal, and flings him upfield.  The Goblin sticks the landing and is fine.  Time's running out, but this is my chance to score next turn. A slim hope.

The Goblin get's blitzed, stunned and there's no more time to score.

The game ends 0-1.

MVP went to the Orc Blitzer, Happy Jack.

I think I only managed to break armor three or four times this game.  Pretty poor showing for a 'Bash' team ;)
I had never considered Mighty Blow as a worthwhile skill in a tournament skill package, except where combined with claw, but the Norse showed how useful it is.  That is the thing about a team like Norse: the basic skills are already covered with all that block, so they can make more from their skill selection than some other teams.  Norse does look like a very fun team to play.

Fear the signs that the Norse are coming!

Orcs Hit Las Vegas: Game 2 Tournament Report

If you missed the action of Game 1, you can check it out in the update directly before this one.

Now that I realized that Orcvis counted as a secret weapon and wouldn't be sticking around for the whole match, I wondered what he was doing the rest of the time.  That was soon answered...

Apparently he had other duties and pleasure that demanded his attention.  

With beauties like these, who can blame him?

Game 2: Bronze Boars vrs. Ghouls Gone Wild (Undead).

Ghouls Gone Wild had the full spread of Undead goodness: 2 Mummies (1 with guard), 2 Wights (1 with guard, and I believe 1 with tackle), 4 Ghouls (2 with block) 3 Zombies and a Skeleton with Dirty Player. 

He told me straight off that he was going for the 'most fouls' award, which was sporting of him. 

Pregame: We tied for fame, and he won the coin toss, electing to receive.  

I kicked and rolled a kick off result that saw a fan come on to the field to help my team! So I had 12 players, not bad!  The extra is a sideshow dancer of some kind, counting as a loner lineman with no hands: maybe the dance was Can-can or Irish step dance. 

Turn 1 his Mummy knocks out my Black Orc with Guard, Pete Townrender.  This was bad, but once he was removed he then knocked out The Ox, my Troll!  So much for my man-advantage: before I get to have a turn two of my best players are off the pitch.. not looking good.  A bit of compensation, his foul skeleton got himself ejected for a stun.   In my Turn 1 I knocked out a zombie, so the players are even again, but quality isn't.  The ghouls safely have the ball so I start to try to beat my way to them. 

Turn 3 his Mummy knocks out my Thrower... this is getting worrisome! I pulled off my most famous maneuver next: Go for it: 1: Reroll: 1. No one hits 1 in 36 odds like I do! If only I had something good with those odds...  Next turn I must get to the ball carrying blodging ghoul! I dodge out to blitz her: fail: Reroll: fail. Obviously this Undead team has some bad voodoo in the brew.  

She sits back there, running the clock, taunting me. I'm trying to get to her, at very least to just put pressure on her to score, but #4 Pinball Wizard just can't untangle himself from the attention of the ladies.  I wonder how hard he's really trying? 

Turn 6 a Mummy knocks out another Blitzer. Did I mention this is looking bad? I finally had Pinball free to put pressure on her and she scores on Turn 6 .  

Setting up, only The Seeker, my Thrower comes back, the rest of the knocked out just sit there: 

Only 3 Turns to score to tie it for the half, but I'm down some serious players and he's at a good full team. 

I try for a long bomb throw, but Seeker rolls 2 Reroll: 1. and fumbles it.  The rest of the half is uneventful.

2nd Half: Score 0-1.

I got all my knock out's back in play.  Pheew! I'm aiming to win, so I try to score fast with as much hurt along the way as possible, so I can steal the ball and score a second time.  That's the plan anyway.  

I knocked down many, but no armor breaks, I made a pass, rolled a 3 (for once) and Baba O' Riled Up caught it, ran and scored!  One of very few times the Thrower did his job right this tournament.  

Turn 2:  Score is now: 1-1.   

Turn 4 saw the ball in the hands of a blodging Ghoul again, so I blitzed her and knocked the ball free.  It bounced and landed in Tackle Zone City. A Mummy threw a goblin down on the ball and it squirted out to be caught by Baba O' Riled Up! 

Baba blitzed the ghoul blocking his path, and ran past her. In the clear, he scores on Turn 6 for his second Touch Down, pulling us ahead now 2-1. 

The Ox saw some revenge as the Troll injures the wight Alice Cooper.  Have a bit of Battle of the Bands going on here! 

I kicked again and all the knock outs come back.  The extra dancer takes the field again for my side.

He quickly knocks out a Black Orc and a Blitzer, but the clock is winding down. He still has a decent chance to tie it up though.

The dancer blitzes the ghoul, but with both down, he's the only one who gets dropped.  

In Turn 8 he had one last chance, but on a 1 die block gets the skull, ending the turn and the game ends 2-1 for the Bronze Boars. 

MVP roll said Tommy was the star, but I disagree. Clearly it was Baba O'Riled Up with his 2 Touch Downs for the tie then win! 

It was a great game, the Ghouls really had me in a bad spot right from the start, but that's Blood Bowl, a come back is always possible, unless it isn't. 

The team raises Baba onto their shoulders to take him back to the locker room to try to drown him in a vat of Green Orcaide until he could wrestle free and start a brawl.