Blood Bowl Paint Jobs

So been painting up my final dudes, with some nicely highlighted glutes. Particularly pleased with the cloak on the wardancer, turned out way better than i'd hoped. Wet blending really helped!

Bolt action league results

So last night I won my bolt action league! Here is the proof: 

I went 7 wins with 1 draw and 2 losses over the last couple of months. Very pleased with the overall result obviously, but also since I've not really played bolt action prior to this term, exstatic to have a the juggernaughts trophy for a short while. 

You can watch my latest vlog about bolt action here:  

Wednesday night gaming - how to I cheated my way to victory

Yup. That's right. On reflection I'm pretty sure I unintentionally cheated at game club this week. We'll get to that, see if you can spot it on the way through. 

 

Nom nom nom

So on Wednesday I played topher at 40k, and in a habit that happens after every 40k tourney I played with my salamanders, because I like them, but they just aren't as competitive. Here's the list I ran:

Vulkan He'stan 190
Librarian 65

4 Tactical Marines: flamer; + 1 Space Marine Sergeant (power weapon) 90
• Drop Pod 35
4 Tactical Marines: flamer; + 1 Space Marine Sergeant (combi-flamer) 85
• Drop Pod 35

4 Assault Terminators: 4× thunder hammer and storm shield; + 1 Terminator Sergeant (thunder hammer and storm shield) 225
Venerable Dreadnoughts
• Venerable Dreadnought: power fist (built-in heavy flamer) 135
• Drop Pod 35

1 Thunderfire Cannon: + 1 Techmarine Gunner 100
Land Raider Redeemer: multi-melta 250

Inquisitor Coteaz 100

Callidus Assassin 145

1,490 points

So a pretty fun, pretty non competitive list. Toph had lots of big tyranids, 2 flyrants, a tervigon, a big squad of zoanthropes, some squads of gaunts and squads of gargoyles. 

The mission

We played an interesting mission which I've never played before but thouroughly enjoyed. Basically, there are 6 objectives evenly spaced on the board. 3 on each side, with them 16 inches on and 18 inches apart. They also 18 inches in from the sides. You score one point for each you control in your turns only but right before scoring them you roll a d6. The number objective that this corresponds to moves 2d6 plus scatter. If it's a bt symbol you choose the direction. If they go off the table, tough. It's really fun! And also means you can't camp your shoot stuff on them turn 1. 

The game

I got first turn, and deployed basically nothing. Just the land raider (with terminators and vulkan) and the thunderfire cannon. Chris deployed evenly opposite me, with lots of horde everywhere, supported by bigger scarier things. 

In my first turn I burnt some gargoyles (scoring me first blood) with my drop pod marines and moved the rhino up. Then Chris basically charged me with everything. I was surprised not to loose everything, although I think this was in part because i was invisible on one of my squads. Because Chris had charged his gaunts into both small squads it was one massive combat that involved a flyrant, tervigon, and a big squad of gaunts. 

 

They were picking on Coteaz and the one remaining marine so I duly obliged and charged in the assassin and thunder hammer terminators. This combat lasted for a good long while, probly 2-3 game turns. It was eventually won by me, with the Eversor using his fleshbane&shred&power weapons to basically kill everything. 

Whilst his was going on Vulkan had tried to kill the 2nd flyrant and got stomped on. In return im used my multimeltas to fry the big bug before it got away. By the time the combat had finished there wasn't a whole lot left on either side. My thunderfire cannon was chasing objectives unsuccessfully and the zoanthropes had zapped my land raider. 

 

The assassin, Coteaz and two thunderhammer terminators proceeded to slog through the cornfields towards the zoanthropes, and reached them locking them in combat (Although coated blew his own head off on the way in). The mawlocs contained to try to Sarlec pit my poor marines and assassin, but failed miserably. One of them did charge the assassin who over two combat ohases efficiently sliced all his wounds away using power sword+fleshbane+shred. 

The game ended with the 2 remaining zoanthropes locked in combat with an assassin and thunder hammer terminator whilst my dreadnought claimed objectives. I think one of the mawlocs may have been burrowing around somewhere. I rolled out a 12-8 victory on the evening. 

The mission

I actually really enjoyed the mission, it's a lot of fun without being to much hassle. I might reccomend it to Alex if he's looking at new style of game for double trouble. 

Where did I cheat?

Where did I cheat? Well, if you've read all the way through you may have figured it out. The Eversor has a power sword, and a weapon that's fleshbane with shred. But not a weapon that's both! So I'm pretty sure I should have been choosing one or the other. Instead I was wounding, with a re roll and not allowing a save! Rematch needed. Sorry toph! 

Double Trouble Interviews Vlog - Darksun 20

As you may be able to guess from the title, this is a Vlog from Double Trouble on the 10th of June. Its basically a bunch of fellow like minded geeks chatting about how the day went for them. A short Vlog at only 3 mins, hope you enjoy :)

Missile launcher conversion: to done!

Finally! A painting update. This major project has taken months of my time and has been a real labour of love.

 

So just in time for Double Trouble, I've painted this missile launcher rack to indicate that my old school Ultramarines have a missile launcher. 

 

I've used blue stripes as a spot colour to tie it into the first founding chapter, but ive painted the base a yellow colour to tie it in with the Howling Griffons.  

 

The base, coupled with the little dots on the control panel all help to brighten this model up a bit, I was concerned that it was all just shades of mechanical gray to start with but the spot colours have worked that out nicely. In a pinch I might be tempted to use this as some form of fortification add on or something. It's generic enough.  I can't find the 2016 "40k addict" hobby stamp that indicates this is "to done", but I'm signing this little project off as completed :)

Darksun 19 - Double Trouble Vlog Preview

Hey Guys! A short vlog today featuring what units im taking to Double Trouble this weekend. Enjoy! 

X-wing mini tourney pre Double Trouble

By now, some of you may have read the from the gang blog post that talks about me running an X-wing hunger games event the night before double trouble. It'll be free to enter, and everything you need will be provided. I may have to cap the numbers but we'll see! Hopefully it will cater as an intro event but also a nice way to experience new forms of playing X-wing, beyond the competitive scene. There may be a prize for the winner, thou it depends on numbers how that will iron out!

 

Without giving the game away too much, a Hunger Games style event copies some of the battle royal feel of the films and books. You, in your single spaceship will go toe to toe with others in similar small plastic spaceships. In the centre of the battlefield there will be a cornucopia where you can grab upgrades to attach to your X-wing, tie fighter or y-wing. These updates will be random and may be something you couldn't normally put on your ship type. For example, a mangler cannon on an x wing or some torpedoes on a tie fighter.  Ships will be deployed around the edge of the board, facing inwards. The winner will be the last man/woman standing. 

 

I'm hoping that the event will allow those who haven't played before to learn the ropes and also test themselves in a swirling cross fire of events. I think the unfocused nature of it will help people get a taste for the game. They can just take things slowly whilst others destroy each other, but they can also dive straight into the thick of the action. For the experienced player it offers a chance to prove their mettle in a new form of space combat. No practised formation flying here!

So, if you're around the night before and would like to get involved, let me know! I know that some of us from Leicester will be there, along with some of the usual suspects (Mike, Dave, henni?). Comment on this post or email me at: lightningmuppet(at)hotmail.com

EDIT- provisionally putting the start time down as 7.30, but this does depend on when people are available! 

Double trouble update

 

Hello! An update of some fashion on the various 40k aspects of my hobby from this weekend. Firstly, I've submitted my list on time to Alex for Double Trouble, a 40k tourney with a twist! Basically you get randomly paired a partner each round and then fight against another partner. It's the first time he's run it, and should be great event! Stay tuned in the next week for a video run through of what I'm taking and why. 

 

Secondly, as you can see from this photo my forces were in action for a training game ahead of the aforementioned tournament on the 11th. Was obviously a training mission because we all had space marines. So at least 1 in 9 lists will be "good guys" in Power armour, though I imagine it's way more than that. Second time I've played 40k all year, went reasonably well. The dual nature of the missions as you rush to compete objectives is great fun. 

 

Thirdly, on submitting my list i realised that I do have a model to paint! This missile rack. My old ultramarines are taking a rocket launcher with them so that they aren't completely useless on the battlefield. Holding objectives and taking hull points! Yay! I used these guys in the practice game and there was something deeply satisfying about using my first painted models!

I've decided that if I enter the whole army into the painting competition, I might do a little before and after version of the tactical squad, comparing them with some extra howling griffons marines. Hopefully Alex won't mind. Now that all the lists have been submitted, Did anybody take up 

my challenge about using some of hire first painted models? I'd love to get a group photo on the day :)

Double trouble challenge

I've been thinking a lot recently about what to take for double trouble (more on that in a future post) and I wanted to throw down the gauntlet regarding models. 

 

This is supposed to be a fun tourney and having been interviewed for the better know a blogger series I decided I wanted to get back to my roots. So, I will be taking to double trouble the first models I ever put together and painted. The challenge is, are you?

 

 You might ask yourself, why should I? I'd say because in some ways, these models are like a tangible equivalent to baby photos or photos of you when you were a kid. For me, I've developed into a reasonably good hobbyist and wargamer. But more than that, I've developed as a person, and wargames have helped me to do that. Coupled with my faith, both environments have helped me develop and come out of my shell. Both have been safe places for me to learn who I am. A bit gushing I know, but totally true. The friends I've made through this hobby are real friends who value me for who I am.

 

That's why I'm going to be taking these models to double trouble. I'll be rocking the classic "I glued these boltguns on the wrong way round" look, with an added extra of airfix paint. I may even use one as my librarian on a bike!  My challenge to anybody coming is to do the same!

Milton Keynes X-Wing Regional Vlog - Darksun 17

Hey Guys!

I went to a 100+ x-wing event at the weekend and came 24th! You can watch a video of how I got on here, with battle reports to follow later in the week.

I partied pretty hard all the way home in the car to celebrate, listening to a Radio 4 podcast and a Blink-182 Album. Going 4-2 was what I'd hoped for, and whilst I was dreaming of making the cut, if you'd have offered me 24th at the start of the day I'd of bitten your hand off I think!

Deathwatch Killteam review

Last week at club I played Deathwatch: Killteam. Read on to find out how I got on.....

Ian had brought Killteam with him, and I'll be honest the models are beautiful. As much as it pains me to say it, games workshop are doing an excellent job with the quality of thier miniatures, and the ruleset isn't that bad either. The game plays basically like how Soace Marines are in any of the books you read. Ian described them as being are superhuman "movie marines". 

The way that this is borne out in the basic game is that the marines go first, and shoot twice. So each turn looks roughly like this:

• Space marines move
• Genestealers move 
• Space marines shoot
• Genestealers shoot
• Space marines shoot again

This means that as a marine player you can wade through hordes of cultists and stealers as you achieve your objectives. Having only played the one game, I'm not going to go deep into the rules, but they are very simple. They've removed "to wound" rolls entirely, if you hit, that's a wounding hit. 

The game plays very fast, with the phases cycling through very quickly each turn. What's interesting for the tyranid player is that you get cards to lurk with every turn, similar to space hulk. You draw from a deck every turn and place those cards facedown, not revealing them until after the space marines have moved. It's tough to bring down a marine, and I found that they were taking out smaller groups of 6-7 cultists with ease. The cool thing is you can leave one card lurking for another round, especially as you can only place what models the game comes with. 

This creates a balancing element, as you can never have to many purestrain genestealers running around. It's nicely balanced though, as the marines are so tough you might cycle through the same models every round. 

The thing that I realised very early on was that I needed to swarm the marines to stand any chance of killing one. You need at least 5 or 6 to 1 to stand a chance of taking one down. And that's after thier attacks! So you probably need 8/9-1!  It feels very cinematic, games workshop have got that bit spot on. There is desperation on both sides and it really turns into a swirling blood bath!

Springing the trap is all important. The cards that give you cultists also give you abilities such as "attack twice" and combining these factors is the only way to take down a space marine. Even with that ability and all of these guys I was only able to take down 1 marine. They're tough!

Overall, I'd reccomend playing this game if you get the chance. It's fun, fast and cinematic. I don't know that I'd buy it, as £118/$160 is quite a lot, and I don't play tyranids. But if you have always planned to do a cultist army, then the models are amazing, and if you've got a group together you could play through the missions quite nicely. If you can, give it a go!

Poe dameron and T-70 X-wing repaints

Dear reader! Today I'm sharing my paintjobs for my T-70 x-wings! For those not in the know, they are the ones used in episode 7: The Force Awakens. They are a slightly updated version of the older models used in the ironical trilogy, and this bears out in the X-wing miniatures game. 

Being a sucker for punishment, I really like painting fantasy flights ore painted models. (Even if I could be working thru my back catalogue of things to do painting wise!)

I own two T-70s and normally paint a duplicate fighter to signify that it's an ace. I've done it with the B-wings, A-wings etc. This time, I couldn't resist the chance to paint up Poe dameron's ride. A lot of people have done the same, in fact id go so far as to say that it's the most common repaint I've seen. 

I went for a reasonably classic look here, lightly drybrushing skavenblught dinge over the black to pick out the raised areas. I then used a couple of base coats of games workshop orange before following it up with blazing orange. And then I highlighted the orange with a mix of white and blazing orange. 

The engines are a breakaway from my normal orange glow (there was already enough orange!), with an ice blue through to white effect taking place in less than 5mms. Doing t quickly whilst the paint wasn't dry meant that it all blended in quite well. I added shiney gloss to the engines and the cockpit. 

For my second T-70 (although it was painted first!) I used my now standard paint scheme. Bleached bone all over, tin bits on the metal bits and then wash the whole thing in nuln oil. Following that, lighten back up with tyrant stone (basically a bone colour) to give a rugged, well loved feel to the hull. 

The red was a mecharite red base coat, the blood red, then inked, then brought back up with blood red. I ended up putting gloss varnish of the little wing markings as well :)

For the engines I used the standard red/orange/yellow/white combo that goes on most of my repaints. I'm really pleased with how this turned out, I feel like I've got painting small base ships down quite well now. Really excited about wave 8 now! Will be doing some repaints and vlogs of those bad boys, so keep an eye out for that!

Battle report: Double Trouble Practice Game

Last week, we played our first practice game for double trouble. I know I know, it's still 5 months away, but hey! Practice makes me less incompetent.

We randomised the pairings and they came out as follows:

Team 2

Me (imperial guard - Leman Russ eradicate, standard Leman Russ, 35 guardsmen including a command platoon with 4 Flamers)  & Dan (Eldar shenanigans - 3 squads of guardians/ dire avengers, a farseer and a tank with a d-flamer.)

Vs

Team 1

Topher (tyranids - flyrant, 2 tervigons and a big swarm of gaunts) & Matt (HH blood angels- contemptor dread, big unit of marines with a captain and a stormraven)

We played the 3rd mission, which for those in the know means that you set up in all four corners. For those wanting more information, we set up like this:

The Tyranids were 1A, Eldar 2A, Blood Angels 1B and I was 2B. I managed to grab a warlord traight that allowed 3 units to outflank, so we outflanked most of the Eldar army, leaving only a farseer and a d-strength tank in 2B. All of the objectives were in the right 2/3 of the map. 

pew pew pew

Our oppenants went first, and didn't have much to do but run towards me! The flyrant swooped over to try and alpha strike Dan's tank, and one of the tervigons spawned some gaunts onto a central objective. The other tervigon, plus a squad of 30 gaunts, went as fast as they could towards me. meanwhile, on my other flank, the Blood Angels began to close in, slightly slower than the space bugs. Between them, I believe they registered either 4 or six victory points in the first turn as they were mostly claim objective ones. we also lost most of an autocannon team and most of a squad of guardsmen. Whilst I say "we" I of course mean me. Dan's tank jinked and got glanced but lived on. This did mean that they didn't get first strike.

In our first turn, we drew reasonably unreachable objectives, given that they were all claim this or that number objective. We did score our first maelstrom points as a squad of guardsmen heroically ran towards the Tyranids to claim objective #3. In the psychic and shooting phase, Dan's Farseer single handely took down a Tervigon through a combination of Mind war (I think) and a Singing Spear. Im hazy on the details because I wasnt 100% paying attention. I was way to busy watch the 18 inch gap between the Tyranids and what increasingly looked like lunch close down. So i opened fire to devastating effect. It felt very dramatic having two lines of ten men shooting at an oncoming hordes whilst the tanks lobbed shells overhead. all in all, I killed 15-20 gaunts. I felt more like a man than I had done all day.

Before

After

That meant at the end of turn 1 we had 2 points - one for first strike and 1 for claiming an objective but not having an ally on another objective.

In turn 2, things started to go downhill for us. Suffice to say, the Farseer died to a drive/fly by from the flyrant, Blood angels marched further towards me (although they were put off by the battlecannon a bit I think), and most scarily, the Tyranids moved in very close. You know its going badly when you're trying to help your men die so that the Tervigon is out of combat so you can shoot it. Luckily for us the Stormraven didn't turn up, but unluckily for us i believe they achieved another 2 objectives, whilst also smashing most of my army in. so they were up something like 9-2.


In our second turn, 2 units of dire avengers showed up as well as my Platoon Command Squad, which had four flamers. I'd decided to put them in normal reserve, since I figured they'd come on from my board edge. Which mean I could jump on what was left of the small space bugs. I did. They burnt to death. True story. The dire avengers that showed up on my right flank totally wiffed, leaving it to both my Leman Russ tanks to bring down the lumbering behemoth before it reached them. And unfortunately on the other side, they were too far away to do anything. This meant we didn't scire any VPS in turn two. 

The stormraven appears!

In turn three, matts gunship flew on in fine style, and began doing things. The rest of his army advanced towards the centre of the board, holding the middle ground. Apart from the contemptor dreadnought, which was lagging behind a bit. He'd been bugging the cover and claiming an objective, doing a worthy job of stacking up VPs over the previous turns. 



dead blood angels. everywhere.

Suffice to say, over the course of the next couple of tens things didn't go well for us. I loose track of the turns, but it was 1-sided enough that we stopped recording maelstrom points! In fact, we only achieved 3 over the whole game - our third coming in the 4th turn when both leman russ tanks opened fire into the big unit of Blood Angels. Many of them died, but significantly so did their warlord, with Matt opting to catch Battlecannon shots with his Captain guy. Plus, the remaining marines marched relentlessly into the squishy elder from what I remember.



a failed late game objective grab from the leman russ



Overall, on blood points we probably were a lot closer, there weren't many space bugs left at the end of the game, and we gave the Blood angels a bit of a mauling as they moved towards the centre of the board. But by that point we were already behind significantly on both areas, so it was a tough ride.

these Dire avengers did nothing

After game thoughts

• The deployment corners makes a massive difference in this game. we went into it thinking our triple outflank was going to be great, and it proved to be our complete undoing, allowing for our opponents to focus on my army almost exclusively. When they did turn up, everything was to near the middle and the surprise was lost.
• Normal reserve however, is awesome. I may need to check with Alex, but our interpretation of coming on the long board edge allows you to just jump your opponent.
• Guardsmen may be to squishy for this deployment. My build didn't have any staying power, and I ended feeling a bit trapped.
• Objective Placement. Basic, but important. they need to be spread out, especially since they are occurring 50% of the time!

I think next time I might be tempted to try a infiltrating list, or something that doesn't need to deploy normally. Anything that has the power to break the deployment restrictions basically!

Double trouble life hack: objective cards

A quick one today. A little life hack for practicing with objectives for the June tourney:

Playing cards! Whilst I'm sure I'm not the first person to do this, I came up with the idea all by myself, and didn't have to find it online or anything. You can get two sets of the double trouble cards out of one pack - using the suits to define which deck they belong to. I actually went for cutting the numbers in half, so 1-6 is one set, and 7-queen is the other. 

The really enjoyable thing is that this has a lot of practical excuition for practicing. You just need the corresponding table and it means you then don't have to roll on it every turn. We've found that you can sometimes need to roll multiple times to just generate a new result. 

It also works with the picture cards as well. Alex has the past generously sent out the PDF for the cards, but I thought instead of bothering him I'd try this out and see how it gets on. 

It's not a long term solution, and I'm sure won't look as professional as the official gw ones. But at £1 a pack it's a darn site cheaper! 

Double trouble 2: Space marines

Hello reader! Continuing our musing on what to take for double trouble l, I thought I'd address what is probably the elephant in the strike cruiser. The skyhammer formation. 

Alex has updated the page since last I posted about this, and there are a couple of interesting things that both encourage and discourage me to take it. I don't quite know how well it will work in teams, where as I am sure that in the 3rd deployment type it would be awesome. That's because each 750 starts in a different corner, allowing you and your team mate to gang up completely on one side.  In a later post I'll discuss my thoughts on the mission. 



Tickets and attendance

Happily, I've already achieved first place at this tournament! Check out the link here: http://fromthefang.blogspot.co.uk/p/double-trouble-doubles-with-difference.html?m=1 to see who got ticket number 1! At the moment only 4 of the tickets have sold, I'd really encourage people to buy tickets if they can make it, Alex's events have always been well run and the vibe is usually excellent. If you're reading this and you're a Leicester sabre, ask me about it - we can always take a couple of extra ppl in the cars. Otherwise, get on board!

Skyhammer Draft 1

As you may or may not be aware, a fully decked out skyhammer formation comes in at around 800 points, so it's not hard to reduce that to 750. Let's take a look at my first stab at it:

 

9 Assault Marines: flamer; eviscerator; + 1 Space Marine Sergeant (combat shield) 175

5 Assault Marines: flamer; eviscerator; + 1 Space Marine Sergeant (combat shield) 119

9 Devastator Marines: 4× multi-melta; + 1 Space Marine Sergeant 180

• Drop Pod 35

9 Devastator Marines: 3× missile launcher; lascannon; + 1 Space Marine Sergeant 205

• Drop Pod 35

749 points

The main thing to note here is that the assault marines aren't big enough to both combat squad, with only one being 10 men. The devastators however are, making handy use of thier 3d6 morale check rule.  To stick to the format, here and some of the brief pros and cons.

Positive 

1. The special rules that this formation gets. All turning up turn 1? Yes. Relentless devastators and assault marines charging on turn 1? Yes. 
2. Board Control. Deploying my entire force after my oppenant is almost guaranteed. Not 100%, but most of the time I will get to choose the engagements, overwhelming specific flanks or areas. 
3. Mission types. Good for objectives in the first few turns, but even better for collapsing your opponent. 
4. Other deep strike armies. This combos nicely with other deep striking units. Got some swooping Hawks? Another skyhammer even?

Negative

1. It's only 35 marines. Not a lot of men so you'd need to be careful with them. One loose battle cannon shell and you're done for!
2. Anti armour. I'm not sure how well it would do against Knights. I've got eviscerators and multimeltas I suppose, but no grav, and no plasma for terminators. 
3. Hordes. Tyrannids and orks would love you to drop right in front of them and maybe kill a unit or two. 
4. Fearless. One of the hidden strengths of the skyhammer is the pinning effect the devastators can have. If your oppenant is fearless, that strength is taken away. 
5. Other skyhammers. Or people just reserving their stuff. It's then almost the battle to go second!

I am honestly unsure as to how competitive a taking a Skyhammer would be. As you can see from the negatives, it basically fails on paper against most things. Im not convinced that it would play very well in maelstrom missions either. Part of the game here is to make your opponent do something different and make a mistake because of what you're presenting them with. It would also had much more of an impact at 1500 than 1850, especially when everything has the potential to be much more disjointed.


I think for me overall, the skyhammer will still make your oppenant sigh as they look at your army, even with 30k, knights and other things all being allowed. So do I want to be that guy? And just as importantly, can I be bothered to paint 15 assault marines (that are pretty useless apart from this formation!) Its the trap that Games Workshop try to get you with all the time. Most of the time, I'm ashamed to say, they get me hook line and sinker. We will have to see. I might start getting some practice games in my local club now Alex has released the missions!


Until next time!



The Juggernaut Shield - Pictures and Final Thoughts

I thought I would showcase some photos of the teams from our tourney last weekend, and also muse on the advantages and disadvantages of having a bye.

Waaaagshington Greenskins

Ian's team are an experienced team of many editions of blood bowl, and even include a painted coach and apothecary (see back row in the centre).

The starting line up, a nice traditional red colour scheme, with some added extras. Ian did a bit of touching up on the models in preparation with some liquid skill (nuln oil). There are some really nice details, for example the shoulder pads of the blitzers came out really well. 

These are the two models that were hastily assembled in order to crunch me in round 4 and the semi final. Rather intimidating when he's assembling a black Orc (Thrasher) as we play, in case we play next round. The goblin was who nearly scored in the final is called "Pancake McNumpty". 

The final line up! With added emergency models takin thier assigned places. Really nice team to play against, great to have two fully painted playing ball on the pitch!

Pro Elf Pansies

Not fully painted, but that didn't stop them destroying all before them! They scored 18 touchdowns in three games!

And very impressively, these 3 were the cornerstone of the attack. 11 completions and 13 touchdowns between the three players (one of the catchers got a completion as well!) meant that the thrower and 2 catchers made this team champions! Plus they had terrific names :)

Mul-Buldohr Brewmiesters 

As featured in a previous post, the drunken dwarves! Thankfully from my perspective I never had to face thier death roller. Love the 3D printed tankards, and especially beer leader in the middle!

And to underline things- here they are kicking the teeth in of my wood elves! For some reason I tried to go toe to toe with them!

Bad Kings of the Old World

Although you've seen them before, here is a shot or two of my team:

A close up of a loyal lineman

Some of the star performers. My catcher scored most of my TDs and this wardancer got +1 armour! (And also didn't die!)

Obviously there were 5 teams, but I didn't get any close up shots of the South Park Rangers - although very nicely painted they were a stand in team and tbh I also forgot!

Project completed!

Whilst I'm a little late to the party, I'm declaring the combined blood bowl bits from January a major achievement of my 2015-2016 list. I completed the team by the 16th, majorly fast painting skills! And we also held the tourney. I only scored 8 touchdowns in 5 games, so that's a bit of a fail, and something I need to work on in the future. 

Having a bye
One of the things that we encountered was that every person had a bye for one game. In such a small tournament it didnt have to great an effect, but I can think of a couple of ways that it might be made more interesting. For example, so that there could be some benefit to having a bye, the coach could pick one of the following four options for his team to complete.

• "Rest week". In the middle of any busy season, teams always need a chance to rest and recuperate. Sometimes squads arent big enough to allow proper rotation, so you choose to give your team a short break. Effect: This bye allows any "miss next game" effects from the casualty table to be healed during your bye, meaning that players can start your next match.
• "Press Drive". Every second counts in this league! You and your players go on a press drive, flooding instagoblin, faceelf and all other types of social media/media in an effort to grow your fanbase. This has a positive effect, but you wont know how much until your next game. Effect: At the start of your next league game, you may permanently add some fan factor to your roster. Roll a D3 and add the result to your fan factor.
• "Intensive Training". Theres no rest for the wicked. You need to use this week to train your team up and work on those special plays. They spend the whole week on the training ground. This has varying positive outcomes, but at least you get more experienced as a unit. Effect: Randomly assign one team member +3 SPP to represent this training.
• "Gala Dinner". Be it Dragon Steak or Halfling Hotpot, your team has a fund raising dinner in an effort to prop up its ailing bank balance. You invite the local nobles and barons to your home ground for an evening of mixing with their star players in the hope of attracting more funding. Effect: Roll a D3 and add this much to your treasury. If this boosts your treasury enough to make a purchase, you may do so before your next game.

These are just my ideas! Does anybody have any comments or counterpoints? To powerful? To weak? Not needed? 

As ever, thanks for reading :) hopefully later this week, I will be musing further on double trouble lists. I'm going to address what for me is the elephant in the room :) 

The Juggernaut Shield: Blood Bowl Baby Cup Part 2

Today you join us as we look at part 2 of my review of the Juggernaut Shield: Blood Bowl Baby Cup. For part one, please go here.

As a reminder, the table after 4 rounds looked 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

So, in the fifth round my elves were to play the Waaashington Greenskins, with South Park Rangers needing to beat the Pro Elf Pansies to make the cut. I wasn't sure if I would be able to beat Ian. We'd played a practice game a couple of weeks ago, and he had stomped all over me for a 2-1 win for the Orcs. I touched the ball once after my second turn the whole game! So I knew I had to do better.

I got to receive in the first half, and was able to score almost straight away, in my second turn (this is my almost complete cage - the last guy fell over! However, in-spite of this I was leading 1-0, and then looking to craft a decent defense. I succeeded in this endeavor, managing to keep Ian from scoring for the rest of the half. Not only this, but on my turn 7 I bundled his ball carrier into the crowd, scattering the ball deep into his half. This was the turning point in the game, it went from the Orcs probably equalizing to me scoring a second touchdown on the stroke of half time. 

Quick! Stop them!

In the second half, Ian scored (despite my wizard i had bought with my inducements!) and if memory serves, punched me quite a bit! I did shove at least two of his players into the crowd though! The final score however, was 2-1 to me. With Pete failing to stop the Pansies as they raced into the semi finals, the final table looked like this: 

Head Coach	Team Race	Team Name	Played	Win	Draw	Loss	Points
Matt Grimes	Pro Elves	Pro Elf Pansies	4	4	-	-	12
Luke Fogg (me!)	Wood Elves	Bad-Kings of the Old World	4	2	1	1	7
Ian King	Orcs	Waaaagshington Greenskins	4	2	-	2	6
Matt Calow	Dwarfs	Mul-Buldohr Brewmeisters	4	1	-	3	3
Peter Barrett	Humans	South Park Rangers	4	-	1	3	1

We'd agreed beforehand that 1st would play 4th, and 2nd would play 3rd. This for me meant a grudge match with Ian straight away, whilst in the other semi final we had a game to decide who was the better Matt.

Ian and I took to the field again, with the game progressing in similar manner to the previous one. I scored reasonably early on (took me until turn 3 this time!) and then after the reset we had riot, which moved the turn markers on by 1 square. this was significant, because it gave the Orcs less time to grind through elves on the way to a touchdown, which gave me more opportunities to break the cage. Indeed, I started the second half with 11 players still on the pitch!

BB is the real fantasy football 

However, this was not the end of the story for the first half. In what was the biggest mess imaginable, I fumbled a long pass (twice) and the ball bounced out of the grasp of my thrower. Suddenly, there were Black Orcs and spare Black Orcs punching my elves out of the way. My elves, like my morale collapsed in a heap as the Orcs ran in for a Touchdown with the last move of the first half. Instead of going in 1 ahead, I was drawing.

These guys served me loyally but ate a lot of astrogranite

As we went into the second half, both of the semi finals were tied at 1-1, the Dwarfs holding their own against the Pro Elf Pansies. I felt confident in the second half, but alas it was not to be. Without a wizard i was unable to stop the Orcs scoring again, and without an apothecary i was unable to save my lineman who had kick from dying. (Kick is a seriously amazing skill as far as im concerned!) I could have tied it up 2-2 but for three turns in a row I was unable to throw the ball, or dodge to get to the ball, or throw the ball. So Ian rolled out with a 2-1 win,  and in a controversial turn of events the coach of the Wood Elves petulantly fired the whole team on the spot, so grumpy was he with their performances. In the other semi final, the "battleMatt semi final"  was won by the Pro Elf Pansies  2-1. This set up an Orc vs Pro Elves final.

The Final was a tense affair, with not only the Juggernaut Shield up for grabs, but bragging rights as well. If it had been me in Ian's shoes, I would have tried to kill the Catchers and then worry about everything else later. On reflection I think that may have been his plan.




With Matt leading 1-0 from an early touchdown as we approached half time, the Orc's were driving towards the end zone. However, their Cage was broken and in one turn the ball ended up one square away from the Orc end zone as matt failed his last go for it before scoring. Ian then tried to repeat the same feat, picking the ball up and going to a long throw that would have led to a hand off to a black Orc to score. It was not to be however, with the throw spiralling away in the wrong direction. Thus the first half ended with Matt ahead 1-0.

In the second half, Matt scored again and the situation become desperate enough for Ian to bring on his new goblin "Pancake McNumpty". Even this Goblin couldn't make it to the end zone, despite getting very close. To add insult to injury as Pancake failed a dodge roll and dropped the ball, the Pro Elves picked it up and again scored on the final turn of the Game, meaning that they deservedly won 3-0.




All in all, a great little mini tournament. I personally re-learnt a lot about how to play the game and also watching Matt play with the Pro Elves about how to block better/to my advantage. Ill be covering more of that in another post later this week, but for now I will leave you with a picture of the winner, with the Juggernaut Shield.