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MrCushtie



Joined: Aug 10, 2018

Post   Posted: Oct 19, 2020 - 20:07 Reply with quote Back to top

Inspired by pielover's preview of the Maidens' season, here's what the most famous Chaos team since the All Stars will be up to in what all the cool kids are calling SWL LXXXIV:

Round 1: Flack Ork Flockers
The Facts finished their first season with a bad-tempered implosion vs the orcs, spending more time fouling a blitzer just because he had Guard than trying to get the ball back. Now, with the Flockers coming down from the Premiership and the Facts loitering in the Conferences, it's time for a rematch. The fans are not on our side, but there's enough money to induce an apothecary for the game in case it gets violent, and we have to trust in Claw. Four Guard vs one on the Facts - I expect there to be quite a few battered players by the end of the match.
Fun factor (based on how much Guard you bring to the party): 7/11.

Round 2: Bravado
... we've never played the elves before, and a match like this may make me regret stacking up on Claw against such lightly-attired opposition. Plan A: consign Slumbering Leaves to the woodchipper and then start on the Wardancers.
Plan B: rage like mad. The Facts have a pretty terrible record against elves of all kinds (although we don't get to play the Corsairs this season, which is a mercy after the last two times).
One Guard player - fun factor 10/11

Round 3: Pugs Not Drugs
It's a father-son pairing. After (hopefully) slaughtering ramchop's forest dwellers, we have to try to beat up on mushroomy's Necromantic. Two MB-Claw wolves are a bit scary, but we've brought our own MB-Claw players to the funfair. Question is, will Puggy and Griff be around in round 3, or malingering or worse after the first two rounds?
Two Guard players - fun factor 9/11.

Round 4: Vermintide
Always fun to play against LictorZ, but this is our first mutually serious game in a long while - either one of us has been playing a filler. More AV7 will make me complain that I spent too much on Claws during the rebuy, or make me crow as all that Mighty Blow does what it intended. Have to do something about Splatterhand, or hope somebody else has before it gets to this round...
Fun factor 13/12. Don't forget, Guard is ok if you put it on the Frenzy players. Otherwise, you're just being silly.

Round 5: Blue Mountain Giants
Another fearsome team to deal with, from the coach who got me into the SWL in the first place. I was surprised to see that the Scoundrels didn't play the Giants in their first season, but I guess the goblins dodged a bullet there. I'm hoping that my ludicrous luck vs ClayInfinity holds, because that's the only way I expect the Facts to get out of this one alive.
Fun factor: 7/11

Round 6: Skye Hoppers!
It's frogs, which means anything could happen. First time I played Slann, they leaped all over me. Second time, we gave them a good squashing. Maybe some tentacles get added to the mix to make things a bit harder this time around?
Fun factor: 9/11

Round 7: Blackwater Cockfighters
And finishing the season and possibly finishing the team, it's the Norsemen. As regular contributors to the Death Watch, a mass of blocky shirtless Vikings are always intimidating, but sometimes they're battered, sometimes they're battering. I'm hoping their previous six games are unkind on them and we get to do something. Also, that for some mad reason Foad takes +AV on every skill up and I get extra claws. Well, we can but dream?
Fun factor: 11/12

Altogether, looking forward to this season. A lot of variety - some flimsy armour here and there, some hard hitters elsewhere, and lots of teams that I thought we'd never get to play against after languishing in the Regionals for so long. I'm expecting the team to get damaged the most by the Pugs in round 3 - let's not jinx things, but if we can get past the claw then, and if the Giants are too harsh on us, we might have a good run to the end. And if we don't, well, the pressure is off when all your good players are in the hospital and the morgue, right?

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Last edited by MrCushtie on Dec 07, 2020 - 07:24; edited 5 times in total
D_Arquebus



Joined: Aug 02, 2003

Post   Posted: Oct 27, 2020 - 03:13 Reply with quote Back to top

Nice Smile

Only feedback is re the Woodies... dont play with the Tree! Never play with the Tree. It is a trap. Squish the Elfs or bust!

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MrCushtie



Joined: Aug 10, 2018

Post   Posted: Oct 27, 2020 - 05:16 Reply with quote Back to top

Oh, but the lure of using claws to send a tree to the wood chipper...

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MrCushtie



Joined: Aug 10, 2018

Post   Posted: Oct 27, 2020 - 05:33 Reply with quote Back to top

Round 1
The second half was a blur, the first half less so.

The orcs won the coin toss and opted to receive, and then I had eight turns of thumping to take, a classic demonstration of how high ST isn't so helpful if you don't accompany it with lots of Guard. Grim Ironjaw had his leg fractured in his first game, and I'm glad we saved the apo otherwise the Mighty Zug would have been dead shortly after. Then again, Jordell Freshbreeze was rescued from the dead in the season opener last time around, and he went on to have the highest casualty count in the entire league, so there's hope there.

Nothing too spectacular. I almost prevented a TD in the first half, managing to sack that blodge thrower, but we didn't have the pace to prevent them recovering the ball with a turn to score, and by the second half, fatigue was setting in.

Puggy got a casualty, which was nice, but we'd hoped for more, what with four Mighty Blow and two Claw players on the team. Let's see if it goes any better against the elven scum (sorry, lovely treefolk) next week...

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MrCushtie



Joined: Aug 10, 2018

Post   Posted: Nov 04, 2020 - 02:34 Reply with quote Back to top

Round 2

Second match, and in a repeat of last week, the wood elves won the coin toss, and decided to receive. I was hoping they would; my expectation was they'd force me to receive, pick up the ball on a blitz and then leave me looking stupid for 8 turns, then do their horrible elfy thing for a 2-0 drubbing (or worse). Having looked through all the deaths and serious injuries for the past 13 seasons, I was also aware that Bravado are fairly violent - while they've had 101 players maimed or killed, they're joint tenth on inflicting serious injuries (74), so if I knew if I took my eye off the ball there might be dead beastmen everywhere.

On the other hand, only 'Limping' Chris Jubba had Guard, and the only Mighty Blow was that tree, which I was under strict instructions to leave well alone.

There's a riot, making life a bit easier for Bravado, although in the first turn, the woodies knock down a few beastmen but don't do any serious damage. Our valiant journeybeastman stands up for the assist, Jordell Freshbreeze moves up in case there's a second hit we need to reinforce, and Puggy Baconbreath blitzes, just like I was told not to. Those claws shear through Slumbering Leaves' bark like it was butter, and there's bits of treeman heading to the lumberyard until ramchop denies the Facts their kill and deploys the apo. Little good that does, as Leaves still has a smashed collar branch, and is out for the rest of the game. Good lad, Puggy.

I can't stop the wood elves scoring, but I can make them uncomfortable enough that they score quickly, which is almost as good, as we want more chances to hit them. It would be nice to score as well, but I've had too many matches where I was over confident and let another TD past, so we carry on thumping for a bit.

Now, regrets, I've had a few, but maybe I can cope with this one: I could have put myself in a position to go 1-1 at half time and then bash for 8 turns to take the win. Those mean wardancers and their Strip Ball means that even the Mighty Zug struggled to hang onto the ball, and there we were starting turn 8, close to making a final push, but with multiple elves making life difficult for us.

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Roxanna over there by the LOS is a rookie Beastman and I can't guarantee she won't Both Down it, but what I probably should have done is blitzed in with her and pushed Violent Guido off the ball. Then Zug dodges out on a 2+, picks up on a 3+, dodges out on a 2+, passes on a ... er.. 3+? and then the Prince, up north and unmarked, will have run down to the end zone, scores on a 3+. So that's a 25% chance of a score, and I've burned all my rerolls already because I knew this would happen and I didn't want to have to figure out complicated probability trees.

But I do what is less smart, because it doesn't make the pickup any easier: I blitz with Puggy again, because that's the honourable thing to do, and I was hoping he'd do two more casualties this game. His 3d blocks on Artoria are no good because they result in another elf on the ball, and we don't risk trying to score when we can have more fun hitting people. Keen to hear what anyone else would have done differently, so I know for next time.

Never mind, second half is coming. The elves don't have an apo (I didn't realise until after the game that I'd played naked throughout - things could have gone very badly wrong at any time for me) and only have 8 players left. So I'll half-arse the pick up, they'll swoop in and go 2-0 up by the third turn, and I'll be up all night seething at my ineptitude.

Well, no. I get to play the game I want to: there's a wardancer on the floor for most of the second half while I keep putting the boot in, everyone else seems desperate to leave the pitch (Violent Guido, that little coward, dives to the ground and fakes an injury just so he can avoid me killing him) and we move cautiously to the end zone, scoring too late to try for a win (with four elves at the final kick off, that might have been possible, but I didn't want to risk losing). Then again, ramchop couldn't hurt a fly in this game. Nuffle isn't going to let you have any nice injury rolls if you only break armour three times in a match, and especially if you don't sacrifice your tree for the good of the Death Watch.

Still, I've always lost against ramchop when we've played in the past, and this is somebody who knows his onions when it comes to wood elves. Having never played in the league before, a draw counts as a victory this time around. Two games in, not circling the drain just yet...

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MrCushtie



Joined: Aug 10, 2018

Post   Posted: Nov 16, 2020 - 07:32 Reply with quote Back to top

Round 3

A terrifying panic before the match, where I readied before remembering we hadn't rostered an apothecary yet. Thankfully that got sorted just in time, and off we went to the stadium...

I lost the coin toss, which was a good thing, because otherwise I'd have regretted whatever decision I made. Never mind. The Pugs opted to receive, and, failing to do any real damage, scored quickly. We got a couple of good hits in, but those undead horrors regenerated. Still, we had four turns to equalise before the half, which would have been fine, until the Pugs rolled a Perfect Defence on the kick off.

So incensed by this were the Facts that we knocked a bunch of players over, and then Lord Borak the Destroyer put the boot in and sent Taffy back to the flesh golem laboratory for some serious rebuilding. We clumped and thumped our way down the pitch, Zug justifying my decision to take Sure Hands because once again, he rolled a 1 the first time he tried to pick up. So at half time, 1-1. This was much better than I'd expected - I was thinking the MB wolves would fillet the Facts and leave us no players left. But although the Pugs are a top ten team for causing damage, we started the second half only missing Lord Borak, who'd had a worse injury from the ref shoving a whistle up his backside when we demanded the big booted Beastman stayed on.

Second half, a riot. This should have played to our strengths, but we left a wide open gap for the Pugs to run through, and they took the ball off Zug after he failed a 2+ dodge and scored in four turns. That big lump does like to roll his 1s. So now we were 2-1 down and scrabbling for a draw. The crowd helped out by rocking off a wight, but a poor passing performance, and then a failed GFI to blitz a zombie off Zug, and that was that.

So, 0-1-2 as we go into the middle game of the season. Probably not enough to keep the lads up in Conferences if we carry on like this. I'm still optimistic right now - rats-dorfs-frogs-norse feels like we should be able to squish a few things. There's no claw, so the dorfs are probably the most serious threat to the team's lifespan, but on the other hand we need to hand out some serious pain to stop the rats running laps around us.

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MrCushtie



Joined: Aug 10, 2018

Post   Posted: Dec 01, 2020 - 09:41 Reply with quote Back to top

Round 4

Coming off the back of an expected loss to the Necro, next up was rats, at a significant TV disadvantage. I was expecting to get fireballed, but instead LictorZ took the more entertaining, but risky, choice of Kreek. I left things open for him to run the ball in for a quick TD, and hoped Kreek would get banned. That part of the plan paid off, and then we just had to remember to score and not let the rats get the ball again. We'd battered enough players off the pitch to ease to a eighth turn equaliser, and then in the second half we just had to be reliable and risk averse.

We were lucky; with Kwik Skeeter badly hurt and out for the match, there weren't many credible threats to get the ball off us. Poor old Rogski kept rolling double skulls, the big dumb rat that he is, and that moved things swiftly along for us; and with a blitz at the end of the match, where we could run a beastman under the ball, and have poor old Rogski fail a GFI and fall flat on his face, we took a rather cruel third touchdown.

This wasn't as enjoyable a game as I'd expected, because with the dice favouring me, I had a stranglehold on the match too early. Generally I like a match where if you don't win, at least you can extract a massive bodycount. It is a social game, after all, and I'd like to think both sides can enjoy it and not have to watch as their team gets stomped by a bunch of thugs. At least Rogski got MVP, so he's the SPPiest Rat Ogre the SWL has ever seen. And nobody on the Facts got murderised, so I should be positive about it, but Chaos is rather one-note. My hope is that in the new rules, there might be different ways to play them.

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MrCushtie



Joined: Aug 10, 2018

Post   Posted: Dec 07, 2020 - 07:34 Reply with quote Back to top

Round 5

It's remarkable that up until this match, I'd only ever played Clay twice, and neither in the SWL that he recruited me to while I was wandering the lonely wastelands of the Blood Bowl Community page on Facebook. And despite being a much better coach, I'd savaged him in both of those games: a comedy foulfest in the Rabidass Super League, where the Skavenblight Scramblers beat up the Chaos All Stars, and an ill-advised Ranked game where my Nurgle kill team tore his rats apart. Which is to say I should have expected a regression to the normal.

First turn, the dwarfs set up to receive, I roll a blitz, and make my first, dreadful mistake. Griff Oberwald sprints over to make a hit. He has to GFI once for the block. I roll a 1.

I reroll it to another 1.

The rest of the half I could hardly bear to watch. It was just surf after surf as Fact after Fact was disproven, rammed into the crowd. My only saving grace was that Puggy Baconbreath punched a trollslayter hard enough to make him miss the next game too, but it was never enough; having not had enough players to even try to make the dwarfs not stall, I went into the second half a broken man. Why, oh why did I risk a needless GFI?

Second half was, if anything, worse, because I had enough players on the pitch, and I felt I was playing at least decently, rather than in panic/fail mode after the start of the first half. But then coming in with a high TV has its disadvantages; the dwarfs were packing a wizard, and with the ball carrier zapped and (when it bounced to Mighty Zug for a catch) the ball carrier blitzed, we couldn't get the ball back and had no chance of stopping a 2-0 loss.

So, after the previous game that I didn't enjoy because I had it too much my way, I really didn't enjoy having it not my way. You might question whether I should have complained about winning.

Not that I had anything to complain about after that, as this loss heralded the start of a comedy of errors that persisted for the next seven matches. Tilted? I've seen pyramids with more vertical lines than me.

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