Blood Bowl in the Street: A 1 Day Tournament Report

What is meaner, rougher and nastier than Blood Bowl?  Playing it on stone streets and up against the walls!

At Kubla Con I took my Orcs to a short Street Ball tournament.
Street Ball is a Blood Bowl variant.  The pitch is just as long, but it is a lot more narrow.  The ground is stone, so is +1 to breaking armor and instead of crowds to be pushed off field into, you instead get slammed against the walls of buildings! Just being pushed back (not down) into the wall is +1 to armor as if you did get knocked down, and if you actually did get knocked down and against the wall then it is +2 to break armor!

Teams have just 600k to hire a team, re-rolls cost double and all your positional limits are cut in half, but you only need 7 guys on the field. You do get d3 magic potions each match, which you can give to injured players, it might be good, bad or weird. And you can get an item (up to 3) from the shop for 10k, so it is best not to spend everything on your team, since these items give a player a skill, such as catch, leap, sure hands, claw...

You can find the rule set to play here: Street Ball.

And you'll be ready to kick the balls in the street!

I used my Bronze Boar Orc Team, but since this was a rookie Street Ball team they went by the name:

Clobberstone Crushers 

And wouldn't you know it my first opponent was their nemesis...

The Lothern Lyin' About in their Undergarments!  Or Lothern Lions, I always forget. 

GAME 1

I won the toss and elected to kick:

I started out trying to beat him up good.... and stop him from getting anyone past my line.

He did get one past, but his high heel broke on the cobblestone and he knocked himself out!

I recovered the ball and threw it to my blitzer with catch, who failed to catch it and it bounced twice.

After some time I managed to score, at the very end of the half! Perfect!  Now to keep it...

I got the ball, then lost it, and it's hard to keep an Agility 4 team from getting where they want to be.

We did have fun pounding a catcher into the wall:

He did score and I ran out of time to get another TD myself, we tied 1-1, 

but I had the higher tournament points from inflicting casualties... Victory is Mine!  

GAME 2

I faced the ever-present Blood Bowl enthusiast and supporter of the game extraordinaire, Zoot Suit Jeff.

This globetrotting "I'm a Blood Bowl Team and So Can You" Americana team was being run as humans rather than Norse (I suspect the hard stone streets had something to do with that), with an Ogre, Blitzer, Thrower and couple catchers. 

He kicked to me, a perfect deep kick. 

The Ogre was pretty scary. I'd decided not to take a Troll, since with only 7 players I didn't want to dedicate a player to babysit it reminding it what to do. I did have 2 Black Orcs though!

I did manage to knock Lady Lib down (that red prone token) but wasn't breaking the armor. 

But he got the ball away from my Blitzer!

Then I got the ball back and challenged the waking ogre with a Black Orc

Oh what a mess!

I kept getting 'Both Down' results with Black Orcs against the Ogress, 

but she weathered it fine and I got both Black Orcs Injured!  

Luckily a Magic Potion did work and one of them came back to play the 2nd half! 

He had a KO'd player so was down a man and I had a deep bench (2 extras) so I had 7 still. I kicked:

 Kick off result: There's a sack of cash at the end zone!  All the players started running back to get it, ignoring everything but the sack of gold!  Whoever got to it first got a reroll!  Whoo-hoo!

I got to it, so I got a re-roll... excellent!

It also made a mess of both team's set up.

He had the ball, but had a hard time doing much with it as we mashed half his team against the wall!

Good Times!

The returned Black Orc got another Both Down against the Ogress!  

That's one seductive big green woman!  What orc can resist? But this time she got knocked out!

If we tied now he'd 'win' on casualties, but before that happened with several go-for-it's I scored!

Final Score 1-0

GAME 3

This game was against the Slann!  Probably the strangest team in Blood Bowl. All that leap is insane.

No Kroxigor. The team had 2 catchers & 2 blitzers. I chose to kick to him.  i figured, if he stalled I'd beat his frogs up, if he got worried and scored fast I'd have time to score to tie it up at the half.

I could not stop those leaping frogs, but I did steal the ball and run off with it! 

Look at him go!  (way at the top of the picture)

Since that was the last turn, instead of kicking to him he now kicks to me!

Oh, my poor thrower, The Seeker, has such bad luck, he stunned himself!

Don't laugh at him frog! That's not nice!  Want to see what is funnier than that?

The Wall!  That's what's funny! Well, I thought it was funny with that frog-face stain on it.

Distracted by this entertainment, the Frogs scored!  Those Catchers move fast! 

Facing the final five frogs, the orcs didn't have much trouble scoring to bring it to 2-1, a win.

With the same record as Dan's High Elves it came down to bonus points, and he had more total Touch Downs, so he walked away with the trophy!  I got a fun mini of a Fimir Blood Bowl Player! Nice :)

Congrats to Lothern Lyin About Their Hair Extensions! 

If you haven't played Street Ball Blood Bowl before I highly recommend it.  

It is a much faster game, and with the change of the pitch and almost never any rerolls it really changes how you generally play. Good Fun!

Be careful on the streets, it's a jungle!

Quar: Songs of Our Ancestors: Test Game

I've used Quar in games for a VSF campaign, for Legends of the Old West, and for home-brew games, yet until last weekend I never had a chance to try an actual game of Quar.  At KublaCon, the Zombiesmith folks run late night games of Quar, this time Songs of Our Ancestors, and this was the first time I had a chance to go to that, so I was looking forward to it. I was kind of hoping for a huge mega-battle with lots of participants, but they were running the skirmish game with the new scenarios- which was fine, I'd wanted a chance to learn the game, so this worked out.

Songs of Our Ancestors is the skirmish game for Quar using the Songs of Blades & Heroes game mechanics from Ganesha Games. I'd played the fantasy skirmish version a few times so was generally familiar with it.

I brought my painted Royalists, and my friend Dan had his newly pained Crusaders, and appropriately enough we got paired up to confront each other. Since Royalists & Crusaders have been at each other's throats forever, this was a good mix.  The author of the new scenario book was on hand and set us up with a mission.

My Royalists had a small squad with rifles, a small squad with sub-machine guns and a heavy machine gun team.  They had to defend the two generator buildings at a river.  The Crusaders had a few combined arms squads, including grenades and two satchel charges to blow up the buildings.  we alternated placing the extra terrain: trees & crates, for cover.The field looked like this:

The two structures to represent the buildings on either side of the bridge (the river runs under it and then into a waterfall that goes underground.

I didn't have a machine gun team, and had just 1 submachine gunner, so I borrowed the team (at left and some of the submachine gun squad). the heavy machine gun was set up on the roof.

The Royalists get ready to shoot any Alkynder-lovin sot that raises his head.

The Rhyflers go on overwatch:

And so the Crusader rebels start lobbing grenades:

Guess those troopers will now be watching over from the afterlife. But one survives, he moves around and shoots the Quar with a satchel charge and gets a 'gory kill' and the others run off!

Yay! But they soon recover and send my Rhyfler off to join his mates.

And here is where it bogged down.

The crusaders had grenades.  So he used them: kept lobbing them out, killed my troops when lucky.
So I pulled back and kept on overwatch.  This made him stay behind the crates.  He felt (maybe rightly so) that if he went up to attack the building I would kill him with the heavy machine gun, and he was in overwatch, so if I went to dig him out I would die, but if I stayed where I was, I'd eventually die from grenades.  Since you can go prone in the game, which is a free action, you could stay behind cover, safe from attack, and if the other guy came out, you could raise, shoot, then go prone again. There was no turn limit, so the crusaders were smart to stay put, lob grenades until they ran out (a random roll after the 3rd one) and hope to clear me with grenades. If I retreated to the buildings, I couldn't see out to defend them and he could walk up and destroy them.

I ended up feeling like I had to sit, hope he ran out of grenades before I ran out of Quar, and see if he would walk into my line of fire which hadn't happened yet, and he felt like he had to sit and wait until I failed to roll enough actions to put my heavy machine gun into overwatch, which hadn't happened yet.
So we were both waiting for the other to have bad dice luck.  It was a Catch 22 and didn't really work out.

"Just give me something to shoot" 

Some of the problems were our own ignorant fault:

We set up terrain in a way that made what was nearly a trench war.  Given that, it worked out just right: trench war should bog down to a stalemate where no one wants to move if accurate.  We shouldn't have had all that terrain ready to make complete cover when prone.

We were letting troops that were prone go on Overwatch. They can't, we didn't know, and hadn't questioned it enough to find out.

It is a fun scenario for the story, but needed players more familiar with the game and game options than we were.  I do see a couple problems that I'd want to fix in home games:

1. Going prone should cost an action.  It is a free action, but that causes some problems.  It creates something I remember from 2nd & 3rd Ed. 40k: Pop-Up attacks.  You're safe, you suddenly move out to shoot, then move back safe & untouchable again.  That should cost an action, if it does it makes it harder to do.  Also, if this is allowed, the defense for it is overwatch.  That can work, but that means people will sit on overwatch, which is then countered by the enemy sitting on overwatch to watch them, and soon the gears grind until nothing is happening. But it is fixable.

2.  Every tactic should have a counter.  Overwatch is a defensive tactic. If the only real counter is to go into Overwatch too, then that puts both sides on defense: nothing will happen.  There should be offensive tactics to defensive tactics.  I'd suggest something like 'covering fire': have one squadmate shoot at the overwatching unit, to try to break their overwatch, while another squadmate moves.  That's how it happens in the movies, which is a good guide for the tabletop.

We should have just played "my 10 guys in the woods hunting your 10 guys in the woods" at this point.
I love objective based scenarios, but you do need to have the basics well understood to see potential pitfalls.
A lot of the scenarios are in a linked campaign, which sounds like a lot of fun.  It also means they probably will not all be equal & even, which is fine in my opinion: as long as I know the odds are against me ahead of time I don't mind, since you adjust your expectations, then try to beat the odds. The scenarios do have some specific unit types & equipment, so if you don't have a large collection, be ready to borrow or proxy, or if you have a good grasp of the mechanics and power levels, adjust the troops on each side to what works for your collection.

This scenario didn't work out for us. We got to a point where we had to face that there was not much either side could do, other than wait for bad luck to take advantage of. A learning experience.  But that's ok- I'm still looking forward to playing the game again, change or add options if it is needed.

Some other local people are talking about starting a Quar league using the Songs rules, which would be awesome: I hope it happens!

What I really needed in this scenario was this:

This gun was hanging out on the table behind us, and I had to get a picture!

Respect the Cocklegriff

Anyone can get a griffon.  They are everywhere.  Some even come with two heads and chests the size of a house, pumped up with growth hormones. Anyone can get a griffon.  But how many will get a Cocklegriff?

Like a mountain lion crossed with a proud giant rooster, the unquestioned king of the untamed farmlands.

Frank T.J. Mackey says "Respect the cock." 

Frank T.J. Mackey says "You must have this cock."

It isn't just about the size, though it certainly is a large monster, it's also a really nice sculpt. 

It's available for pre-order now here. 

For about the same cost as a snooty elf griffon (without a head that looks like a hatchet) and cheaper than a steroid pumped germanic empire griffon, with a lot more character, this seems like a no-brainer if you're in the market for a crossbred feline fowl. Support a talented independent artist who's making characterful miniatures? People often say we need more of that, and here it is.  

(Wing removed, so you can see the detail of the body)

That's a proud bird! ..cat... Cocklegriff!

"But wait! There's more!" -no, not a fork to go with steak knives, something cooler. If the number of pre-orders gets to 30 by June 7th (just 14 to go at the time of writing this) anyone who pre-orders the Cocklegriff will get another miniature *free*: a halfling lord to ride it.  I can't say for sure, but I suspect Alex might sculpt a rider eventually, but it would cost more to get the rider, I am sure of that.  But if you pre-order it you will get the Cocklegriff as you would and get the rider for free. I know it's nice to see a mini before purchasing it, but 1. It's free, you aren't purchasing the halfling, and 2. he sculpts great halflings, go check out the site and see for yourself.  

Here is a concept sketch for the halfling lord rider:

Like a little Baron Munchausen!

Frank T.J. Makey says "I see you get a short guy to ride the cock? I like it. Sold."

Zombiesmith Booth at Kubla Con 2012

I tend to be drawn to unique, quirky independent mini ranges. Not that I don't like a lot from some of the big global spanning companies too, but there are a handful of uncommon ranges that reel me in, like World of Twilight, War Rocket, Eureka's Teddy Bears & Pond Wars, and Quar among others. Check the Label list at left for Quar and you'll find a lot of my past Quar.

If you still haven't checked out Quar, or the other fun ranges from Zombiesmith, you should.

I kept looking at the minis for years, considering getting into them, and when they released the cavalry, on those improbable guinea pig-like mounts, and the Royalist faction, I could resist no more.  I still have far more unpainted Quar than painted, and last weekend didn't help that ratio.

Quar are a non-human species, descended from animals a bit like anteaters, with a world and culture similar to Europe around World War I.  They have some very fun, quirky technology and the background is full of humor. They are infectious.

Here is a small look at what they have around the corner (with a sale starting early this month too, so not a bad time to consider purchases!)

To the right of the big Quar statue you can see one of the new factions: Fidwog.  Shorter than average Quar, with a great new mini: 2 Quar on a cav mount, a driver and a machine gunner in back.

Here is a better picture from my friend Dan:

If you find you can't decide between Crusader & Royalist (the two main factions) then Toulmore might be right for you: Once Royalists, now fighting for the Crusade (the anti-royalist cause),they have helmets & uniforms in a Royalist fashion, but the more modern Bogun rifles of the Crusade:

If I hadn't already bought into Royalist so deeply I might have gone this route myself! 

Speaking of Royalists, check out the awesome new beast they get!  This has a driver and two gunners, one on each side. This one was the prototype, the current version has the gunners attached higher and at angles that don't look awkward.  

A shot of two light tractors (tanks) for the Kryst faction:

Sorry for the slight blur, the glass made it hard to get a picture at some angles & the booth was crowded ;)

Check out this chap! A Quar regimental bagpiper! I picked one up, mine will likely join my Royalists, though here he is seen with Crusaders:

Another Quar I like- the Quar photographer! I'd waited a year to get one of these ;)

Zombiesmith also released a fourth book for the Quar, a book of scenarios, with many in a linked campaign system.  Pretty cool!  While there I left my 'Songs of Our Ancestors" Quar Rulebook, a skirmish game based on Songs of Blades & Heroes, with the talented Sequoia Blankenship who does illustrations for the books.  He did an illustration in my book while I was playing in a Blood Bowl Tournament.  

How cool is that?

This is worth the trip to Kubla Con right there. Nice to see the Royalist cause getting some resupply! 

Zombiesmith had some other news outside of Quar. They are developing a new game, War of Ashes.

It is a ranked regiment fantasy game.  For theme and style think Vikings. Now replace Vikings with Muppets. Have the image in your mind? Right... maybe not, but this will help:

There are four factions,

Elvorix:

The minis are thin and graceful. The detail is quite nice and not overdone.  They are thin muppets.  

The skirmishers, in the bottom picture of the two above are shorter than the others.  They also use big armored pig-cow creatures in battle which they light on fire and send careening through the enemy ranks.

The Vidaar:

The same species as Elvorix, but a different culture. They have some tall furry creatures with giant weapons. 

I really like the big guys:

Both Elvorix & Vidaar are designed to have spearmen fight from a second rank, over the shoulders of the shield troops. 

The Jaarl:

The most hard militaristic of the factions.  A lot like Romans, but looking like Ewok Gremlins.

The Kuld:

Cute and odd. Some ride giant snail creatures.  

This range immediately grabbed my friend Dan, which erased whatever resistance I might have had. 

I couldn't decide which I liked most. I was very torn between Elvorix & Vidaar. In the Elvorix favor: the cute little skirmish troops and I liked the round shields better than rectangular shields, also there are some really cool helmets with brush-crests.  In the Vidaar favor: the big muppet trolls are so very cool, I like them more than the pig creatures, since they are fuzzy muppets ;) and the troops are very similar to the Elvorix.  The Kuld are also appealing, but I thought they'd probably end up as a second faction after one of the other two, but which?  Well, when my friend went to get his book with illustration, and I was still playing a Blood Bowl game, he went and bought some Vidaar! Betrayal or Helping me with a decision?  ;)  So I got some Elvorix, one pig and I got a pack of 2 'wookie big muppets' (their real name is Nhilde) to add to my Elvorix! 

I like the minis, so they can defect and join my side! 

Why deny myself the ability to pick all the ones I like best? 

We got to try out the game on the demo table, and it looks promising.  

We also discussed using these for Saga skirmish! So expect to see some Muppet Saga someday.  

Dan is looking to run the Vidaar as Vikings and I am thinking the Elvorix would work well as Welsh. 

Come to think of it, those Kuld have a lot of double-handed weapons... could make for some interesting Anglo-Danes?  Could be. 

This got to be long- there was a lot of stuff to admire and buy! But I think it will be best to save the report of the Songs of Our Ancestors Quar battle for another update.  

This also marks my 300th Blog Post! 

It's all downhill from here! 

Thanks for reading!

And to continue the Muppet fun... 

Enjoy! 

Preview of Upcoming New War Rocket Faction

Here is the full picture of the Class I rocket for the unnamed new as-yet unreleased faction for War Rocket from Hydra Miniatures.  Had some interesting guesses from the first partial picture- but I think mostly people were imagining it was facing the other way around.  No new guesses from the 2nd quarter picture, and with just 2 quarters left to show, one being just a sliver, time to show the whole ship.

A single-cast miniature.  I like it, I think it looks very fun.  One of the coolest of the Class I rockets I think.
I'll be interested to see what the other class rockets look like.  I'm sworn to secrecy on the name of the faction and their background story, but that doesn't stop you from looking and speculating. I don't have any info on the game rules for them, so I'm wondering what kind of movement and weapons this faction will have.  So far every faction in the game have a unique system for movement and different weapons, which is one of the best aspects of this game to my mind.