The Juggernaut Shield - Blood Bowl Baby Cup

Today I will be reviewing the first day of the Juggernaut Shield Blood Bowl Baby Cup that took place this weekend. This post forms the first of two that will record into the blog sphere our inaugural Juggernaut Cup.Originally we had planned to have 8 of us play in Coalville (just outside Leicester in the UK) in the nerd-airium of one of our club members Chris (toph). However, a couple of people couldn't make it, and then on Friday Chris' wife went into labor early. She gave birth on Sunday to a beautiful baby boy named Arthur, putting all our toys into perspective! Congratulations Chris and Kat! So because of the tiny amount of players and the newest addition to the Buckle Clan, we've gone with the name "Baby Cup".

So this left 5 of us, (see the below table), and nowhere to play. Fortunately, my wife was away for the weekend and we could all bundle round to my place. After some frantic phone calls on Friday night, we agreed to play 4 games of Round Robin with one person taking a bye each round, and then the top 4 would play semi-finals and then a final. This review is the first part of two, mainly from my perspective but with a few comments on the other highlights that I can remember!

Head Coach	Team Race	Team Name
Matt Grimes	Pro Elves	Pro Elf Pansies
Matt Calow	Dwarfs	Mul-Buldohr Brewmeisters
Ian King	Orcs	Waaaagshington Greenskins
Luke Fogg (me!)	Wood Elves	Bad-Kings of the Old World
Peter Barrett	Humans*	South Park Rangers

*Pete had order a Khemri team online before Christmas but frustratingly it still hadn’t turned up by the time we were due to play.

My first game was against the Mul-Buldohr Brewmeisters. These hardy Dwarfs were all custom modelled, with 3d printed tankards and other bits and bobs attached. Calow did an excellent job converting them. I got very lucky in this game on a couple of occasions, and ended up winning 2-1. In the second half i kicked to the Dwarfs and got a blitz straight away (free defensive turn before the receiving team has a go). This allowed me to score a second touchdown by the end of the my first "proper"turn of the second half. I did take a bit of beating, ending up with only 6 players on the pitch by the end of the game. 

me for some reason going toe-to-toe with Dwarves

There were a couple of highlights for my first game against Matt. The first was that over the course of the game i failed the first role of each turn more times than i care to remember. I also got double attacker down 5 times. That's not including the times i got attacker down plus both down. It was seemingly more dangerous for me to try two dice blocks than "risk" a 1 dice block.

The Mul-Buldohr Brewmeisters

The second highlight was that a Dwarf runner nearly blitzed + dodged out of a 4 man Wood elf defensive cage to score BY HIMSELF. He failed one of the last dodge rolls. Kudos to Matt for trying it - it certainly scared the crap out of me!

stop him! hes not supposed to dodge like that!

In the other first round game the Orcs beat the humans, with the Pro Elves receiving the bye. My second round game was the bye so i chilled out and got some lunch. The picture below is the Waashington Greenskins vs the Pro Elf pansies in the second round. A game that the Elves went on to win. The other game from the second round was one where the humans were again punched by the Dwarfs. 

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

For the third round I played the Pro Elf Pansies. From my perspective, this looked set to be a properly classic, high scoring game of Blood Bowl. It was both of those things, but not quite in the way i had expected!  Because I wanted to receive in the second half, i kicked to him at the start of the game and didn't quite catch on quick enough that i needed to foul his catchers off the pitch! At half time it was 2-1 to the pro elves, and i wasn't feeling to bad about the game. However, i didn't score again and Matt punched the life out of my team - he scored twice in the second half from him kicking to me! I ended the game with only 4 players on the pitch, and lost 4-1 overall. 

If we were to play again, I would make an effort to cripple the catchers as quickly as possible, Nerves of steel is a very good skill for playing a quick, incisive passing game. I would also try and receive first - giving me a chance to put a few of his players on the floor. Over the course of the weekend I think i should have done that more. I was always trying to dodge out of blocks instead of punching, i think that this left me a bit behind the eight ball. In the other game this round, Ian out punched Calow, and the Human team had a bye. 

I was so close to being able to just straight-up concede with no penalties!

In the 4th round of the round robin, I played Pete's South Park Rangers and the Dwarfs went head to Head with the undefeated Pro Elves. Ian had a bye, and was kind enough to cook dinner for us all. I hear the pork we ate was delicious (as a veggie i didn't have any!)

I was reasonably confident that I could take the Human team. They were neither as tough as the Dwarfs + Orcs, or as fast as the Pro Elves. This proved to be true in several areas, and for a large portion of the game I was ahead. I managed to hurt enough of the humans to ensure that my elves could blitz almost all the time. But then the tables turned and I again ended up with 5 casualties (including a dead and freshly painted wardancer!). Pete played very well, and ran in for a second touchdown near the end of the game to tie things up 2-2. In the other game of round 4 the Dwarfs were unable to stop the Pro Elf Pansies as the continued their rampage. 

After 4 Rounds the table stood like this: 

Head Coach	Team Race	Team Name	Played	Win	Draw	Loss	Points
Matt Grimes	Pro Elves	Pro Elf Pansies	3	3	-	-	9
Ian King	Orcs	Waaaagshington Greenskins	3	2	-	1	6
Luke Fogg (me!)	Wood Elves	Bad-Kings of the Old World	3	1	1	1	4
Matt Calow	Dwarfs	Mul-Buldohr Brewmeisters	4*	1	-	3	3
Peter Barrett	Humans	South Park Rangers	3	-	1	2	1

*Calow received the first round bye on the Sunday morning 

With some of the 5th played that evening and some on Sunday morning, I will report on that later this week (probably weds/thurs) and also hopefully Vlog about it as well. Im hoping to get some photos of the teams up by the weekend. I'll leave you with a tease of what the trophy looks like: 

rawr!