Blood Bowl match report: Da Fragile Rokkaz vs. The Infected away leg

Last weekend my fiancée and me went to the inhospitable wilds of "Guild Ford" for a friend's (he of the Necromantic Horrors team) birthday. On the Saturday evening we played a fun game of Dominion followed by Zombicide. Now I really like Zombicide, and cooperative miniatures games in general, but as is often the case with this one it devolved into arguments about who should do what and complaints about the mechanics of the car pieces (no pun intended).

We played the original series

Whatever, I chainsawed a lot of zombies to death out of the window of my stolen police car, and drove off into the distance hoping my Looney would manage to do the same thing the next morning.

Spoiler alert!: He didn't.

Pre-match

We set up our game in Unplug + Play, a new board game café in Guildford. I was very impressed, as although they're new they have a very broad selection of games, and the staff were very helpful and made great recommendations. These kept two young kids distracted whilst me and my opponent spent many hours on the Blood Bowl pitch.

Before the match began Da Kaptin, my coach, had to be extricated from a pile of his own vomit and half-eaten mushrooms. Da git had spent 20k of my treasury on a night of fungal excess!

Our teams were unchanged since last time, other than me gaining one Fan Factor and him losing one. That meant I had to spend 30k to induce Szczepan (a.k.a. Fungus the Loon) this time. I won +2 FAME(!) but nothing else of great note happened before the match began.

First half

My opponent won the toss and elected to receive. This left me with a tough choice: play Szczepan from the start and risk losing him to a quick score, or hold him off and risk losing him to a stall. I opted to play him from the start in the hope he'd take something out like he'd managed to do in the first half of the last game.

Kick-off!

Unfortunately the ball didn't scatter far enough and the Ghoul managed to grab it and head towards my right flank. The Werewolf headed that way too and surfed one of my poor Gobbos (who got Badly Hurt in the process). D'oh, I'd forgotten they could do that! I think I suffered an early turnover in my turn, and things weren't looking good.

Google helpfully animated the first turn

After their second turn they'd kinda-sorta caged up on my right (with the Ghoul on the sideline), and it was looking like an early score. But I had an idea...

The Necro team are pushing down my right

Szczepan spun off to try and hit things, but ended up not touching anything. This would be his only activation of the whole match, which is not 80k well spent :¬(

But more importantly my Looney, Kutta Monsta, spotted the Werewolf in prime blitz position, and went for him. He got there, rolled 13(!) on the armour roll, and then failed to do any more than stun him. Crap!

The Werewolf is down but so is my Troll, I think from a failed block on a Zombie

Bad things then happened. The Wight who was starting the turn basing my Looney decided to do what is only natural, and promptly killed him! I don't have a photo of this but there is a video, and I'm not sharing that because it's hard to tell what's going on with all the waterworks and rending of garments. The Ghoul then made it to within scoring range, and this was only the start of turn three :¬/

I had one shot and I went for it: a 2-dice uphill blitz from one of my Goblins against the Ghoul. I got a POW! and a Defender Stumbles, but due to its stupid Dodge *cough* hypocrite *cough* I only succeeded in forcing it to need a dodge next turn.

The Ghoul (bottom right) is so close, but my stout-hearted Gobbo is holding the line! Note the Troll is still down :¬/

But then a Wight came in and blitzed the way clear, and the Ghoul scored.

Strength 3 should be banned!

I set up to try and do some damage (albeit with no Looney nor Szczepan), but found it hard to find a way through.

How things looked at the end of my turn 4

Not much had changed by the end of the Necro turn 6, but some readers may spot what I'm up to

So it was my turn 6, and I felt running it in was looking unlikely. My opponent had left a gap on my right, where I could hand off to the Goblin by Fish Stikz (the blue Troll) and make a run for it. But with Zombies, a Flesh Golem, and a Werewolf ready to go after him that seemed too risky.

And so instead I decided to do my first ever throw teammate in the tabletop game!

My opponent's face

Let's see what it took to succeed:

1. The Zombie basing Sprokkit (the green Troll) had to be knocked over, which a Goblin somehow managed to do: 5/9
2. A hand-off from the ball carrier to the 'lucky' projectile: 4/6
3. Really Stupid: 5/6
4. Always Hungry: 5/6
5. Throw: 4/6, which he fumbled, leading to a 4+ Loner roll and a subsequent success.
6. Three scatters, which moved him back and into a tackle zone (damnit!).
7. Landing in one tackle zone: 2/6
8. Dodge out of a tackle zone with Dodge: 8/9
9. Go For It! to score: 5/6

Ignoring the effect of the re-roll on the throw (which makes the probability hellishly complex to calculate), that makes my odds something like 4%. But it worked, and my opponent looked rather pissed off!

Gobo da Gobbo did me proud!

The rest of the half wasn't that exciting, and that was a good thing as I was physically shaking after that equaliser, as were the fans!

Second half

I started the second half hoping to preserve the 1-1 scoreline, but I thought those odds weren't good. And that seemed to be the case, as the ball scattered into my end zone and the Gobbo I sent back to pick it up fumbled it, even with a re-roll. Then the Wight on my left CASed one of my Goblins  (another Badly Hurt), letting the Werewolf run at the ball.

Matt da Travella (foreground) is currently thinking only in expletives

Luckily he managed to pick up the ball this time, and a friend came to help him out

The undead were slowly enveloping my central players, leaving some of the Zombies and a Wight free to run at my ball carrier giving the Werewolf a 2-dice block against him. Surely a Necromantic TD was in sight?

:¬D

Down and Both Down! This would obviously free up the ball, but with a turnover there was a risk of me running off with the ball with my other player. So my opponent did the only sensible thing: he re-rolled, saying "I didn't even use one last half, so I might as well use them".

I was laughing; he certainly wasn't

I don't know what I'd done to please Nuffle so, but with that amazing piece of luck I did what all good Gobbos would do: I ran like the zoggin' wind!

Cue Dr Zoidberg: "Woop woop woop woop woop woop woop woop!"

The rest of the half became a story of me trying to screen as best I could, as the ball slowly made its way forward on my left flank.

"'scuse me, miss"

Screening and stalling like a boss on turn 17

After scoring a TD on my turn 18, I offered three sacrifices to Nuffle to thank Him for His divine intervention.

"Please accept these offerings as a sign of my devotion, oh Nuffle"

 And with the hope of getting some more SPP for his players, the beatings began...

No injuries!

Post-match interview

I should not have won that game. I scored a TTM TD with a 5-10% success rate and only managed to score in the second half due to a failed block with re-roll. Yes I'd been unlucky on armour breaks (I think I only got one the entire match) but this was something else.

I also screwed up by putting Szczepan on from the start. Against such a fast team I'd have been better waiting until after they'd scored. I accept that I probably have a lot to learn with Goblins, but even against a brand new player they are really difficult to play with.

My opponent was much improved. He was holding back his Werewolf as a safety, making it scary for me to try and run past his line, and he only made 3 Illegal procedures this match :¬p

My opponent said next time he plays he'd like to play against a different coach, or at least against me when I'm coaching a different team. The good news is he ordered some Chaos Chosen for his birthday, and two friends said they'd create a Skaven team they'd share. Although thinking about it, Skaven are never good news...

Admin

We each had two level-ups. His Ghoul rolled doubles but he went for Block, and his Werewolf got the same on a normal roll. Unfortunately my MVP missed BOTH Trolls AGAIN, so I added Side Step to two Goblins.

I got 90k from the match, so with 190k in my treasury I hired a new Looney, and am now mulling over what to do next. I feel like getting a Fanatic is a good idea, but then my TV will be higher than his (and any starting team) meaning I'm no longer getting inducements. But if I don't spend it, Da Kaptin will just snort it straight up his nose again...