Lead Legion Bloodbowl League: Session 2

Last Sunday saw two new teams join us the Lead Legion Bloodbowl League: Dark Elf team the Naggaroth Numpties and a second Human Team, the Middenheim Wolves.

Stirland Dockers vs Goutfoot's Ogres:

Game 3 saw my much reduced Stirland Dockers team take on the as yet undefeated Goutfoot's Ogres. I was missing a catcher and a linesman due to injuries inflicted by the Komodo Killers, in my second game of the first session. This meant I was going up against the Ogres with no reserves and no sacrificial journeymen. This was going to hurt. Fortunately I was able to hire on a wandering apothecary to supplement my team apothecary for the game, as well as additional re roll.

Things started badly, and did not get much better. By turn 2 I was down to seven players. I would not have more than seven on the board from now til the rest of the game (with the exception of the first turn on the second half, when I had eight). My plan had been to pound his snotlings into the ground, but Gordon managed to screen them with his Ogres horribly well. I only managed to knock out two in the whole game. To everyones' surprise -not least my own- I managed to score first after forcing a ball-carrying snotling into the crowd. The ball was thrown-in right at the feet of a human Blitzer deep in the Ogre's second half, who'd been left unmarked while he recovered from being stunned.

My Knockout Box at the end of turn 2.

On my next turn (last turn of the half) the Blitzer stood up and walked the ball in for a touchdown. But even when I was 1-0 up, I knew I was still losing. I set up my eight guys to receive at the beginning of the second half, only to see the Ogres win a blitz. So it was that at the end of the blitz turn, a thrown snotling was carrying the ball one square away from my end zone. With the Sidestep skill and Dodge.

Bugger. My only action of my first turn was to blitz the little git with a Catcher, preying for a down result, knowing that anything else other than a both down would result in Gordon scoring on my first turn of the second half. I rolled the dice....

Jammy!

Both down!

I punched the air, stunned his snotling and only knocked over my Catcher. I was able to hold him off for another two turns before I made a stupid, stupid error which allowed him to score.

I set up to receive again. He got another blitz.

I cried. Gordon laughed. He surrounded my five Blitzers and linemen with Ogres, leaving only a Thrower and Catcher unmarked and able to manoeuvre. It took Gordon until his last turn, but with most of my team locked down tight by six ogres (including one with Guard and two with Block!) he was able to swarm my last two players with Snotlings and secure the win at 2-1.

Fortunately, I didn't have to use my Apothecary -or my mercenary one for that matter. All three casualties only missed the remainder of the game, and were free to play in my Game 4.

Stirland Dockers vs Elfheim Eagles.

My 4th game was against Andy and his Elf team. Andy's had atrocious luck all tournament and, although this was Game 4 for both of us, Andy had only just recovered from some early losses of players. Even so, we went into this with nearly identical team ratings and the same number of star players.

Elfheim Eagles.

Unfortunately for Andy, he had atrociously bad dice rolls. He player very aggressively, constantly sending players into my half at the expense of weakening his line, allowing me to blitz his ball carrier time and again to steal the ball and score while he was the receiving team. The deep penetration gambit did pay off for him once, in the last turn of the second half, but by then I was already 2-1 up. On three separate occasions he managed to wrest the ball from my Catchers deep in his half and go for a long bomb, only to see one of my players successfully intercept, needing a six each time (see what I mean about Andy's luck).

The Eagles Penetrate the Stirland line but look at the two human players furthest away on the human left flank. The Standing Blitzer has Strip Ball and is about to take down the ball-carrying Elf Thrower so the Catcher can zip in and claim the ball. On the human right, a Catcher and Blitzer will mark the two Elf players in front of them while the second Blitzer on the flank zips in to threaten his line of scrimmage from the rear.

In the end, we finished 4-1, with Andy only a turn away from scoring. Fortunately, none of his casualties took permanent injuries, but with only ten men (at most) on the field from turn 2 he really struggled to send enough players into my half to tie down my defencive thrower and catchers and at the same time keep my Blitzers from pounding down his flanks. Man of the match for me was Number 6, who'd earned his first skill (Strip Ball) in Game 3 against the Ogres. He started the game on 6 Star Player Points and went on to score a touchdown, an interception AND win the randomly allocated MVP award to earn his second skill in two games (Tackle).

So all in all, a rather good weekend for me. No deaths or mangled players facing the Ogres and a very solid win against the Elves.

The Other Matches:

Sunday saw a lot of blitzes: 6 blitzes in 6 games. Four of these blitzes happened in succeeding plays in two games, meaning that my Stirland Dockers and Doug's Pesky Plaguerats both had to defend against two blitz plays in a row.

Middenheim Wolves vs Gouged Eye 1-0

The Gouged Eye

The Gouged Eye, recently reformed after their mauling in month, found themselves up against a human team. The Orcs almost managed to equalise, with their ball-carrier just one square away from equalising at the end of Turn 15. Rather than risking a second go for it, he gambled that a human Blitzer, who would need two go for it's to reach him, wouldn't be able to take down his ball-carrier on a one dice block. The gamble didn't pay off. 1 nil to the humans.

Elfheim Eagles vs the Pesky Plaguerats 2-2

A good, close, tight match that could have gone either way. The Eagles were lucky enough to win two Blitzes in a row against in the Skaven, but, with the help a Star Player Gutter Runner with a movement of 10, Doug was able to claw back victory from the jaws of defeat.

The Hard Knockers vs Naggaroth Numpties  2-1

Don't mess with a red head.

Once again the Dwarf girls proved themselves some of the hardest players in the League, inflicting three casualties on the rookie Dark Elf team, killing one Blitzer and leaving two other players (including a second Blitzer) with permanent injuries. The Dark Elf coach was heard to mutter something about selling his useless players to the shrine Khaine and using the resultant funds to hire somebody competent.

 Komodo Killers vs the Pesky Plaguerats 3-1

The Killer's grabbed the Plaguerats by the throat from turn 1 and proceeded to pound them into the ground, inflicting two casualties and scoring three touchdowns against the Rats. The Plague rats were able to come back to score a touchdown of their own

Here's the League Table at the end of Session Two: