BLOOD BOWL PLAYERS!

We had a World Cup! And what a tournament it was!

On the second day of playing we were going into it with soaring spirits and the will to push this as far as we could. Showing up late to the morning bus sadly didn’t help enough with my five-six hours of sleep. At least I got some nice coffee from a café on the way, as well as a proper sandwich.

With three mostly narrow wins on the first day we are not yet playing the top 10 tables, but the competition is still going to be stiff. On this morning we face the team Deadline. Awesome guys, and my opponent Miziosaurus was a ball of fun, so engaged in the game, lots of banter and talk, all while having a great time. You should check our their video on the World Cup, you can find the Red Leaf mercenaries there too!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIamlIobhX0

As a reminder, I play one wolf Necromantic, and on this first game of the day I face Tomb Guardians. They have a bunch of Guard Guardians and start with the ball, hoping to decimate my team before second half. They get a cage in order but soon find that they are making very little progress. Forced to push they run Guardians into my team and hope that I’ll stumble and create a path forward. My players come through in a big way, Golem and Guard on my part allowing 2d hits, and then the wolf blitzes and kills the MB Guardian and I tag the ball carrier. Then he rolls 2d both down/both down rerolled into the same — and it’s a complete disaster for the Tomb Guardians with a quick turnover. I punch the ball loose and manage to put it in the hands of a Ghoul. They try to catch on as I run the side but lack of agility prevents them from keeping up and I’ve got 1-0 defensive TD.

Miziosaurus is not happy, but any anger felt like good competitive anger and never directed at me, more like that he really cared about what was happening! Second half he throws everything at me, maximum contact everywhere, because what else to do? I swing to one side, he can’t hit it but blitzes through to put a TZ on the ball that I can’t easily move. I need that 3+ dodge to win the game. Crash! He fails the pick up! While we struggle about halfway up his side of the pitch time is running out and he runs a single skeleton down my side. I catch it with a zombie but it blitzes away the zombie and gets out of range before the very last turn… the Throw-Ra has the ball in front of it, just needs an easy blitz to move my TZ, then pick up, then long pass, then skeleton catch… it is a touchdown!!

1-1 and a draw and I got my unlikely pass TD from last night thrown right back at me today. It’s a great game really, so much fun through both halves, though maybe my opponent didn’t have as much fun in that first half hah. Our game was one of the last to end and we soon learn that the total score is 2-3-1, Red Leaf Mercenaries win!

Deadline coaches kept coming up to cheer us on later in the tournament and I hope I get a chance to meet them again, to play Blood Bowl or just to hang out! We had some questionable lunch and we’re off to play table 6! Wow!

Next up is Dömdömdöm and I face Wolio with Wood elves. Sadly this is going to turn out to be the least enjoyable game of the tournament, not because of my opponent, but because I will roll absolutely bonkers BS dice for all of the game, completely dicing Wollo and robbing her of any chance she should reasonably have had! If anything, this was one of the games where I could feel that I was likely playing worse than my opponent but like the dice were this did not matter one bit.

A few highlights: First kickoff I get a blitz and stun a Wardancer. My turn 1: I dodge a zombie that fouls and kills that Wardancer. Elves probably failed a 2+ dodge here too to let me get the ball somewhere around turn 3-4. I get the other Wardancer down and I foul. Ref! Argued. Ok it was stunned, let’s foul again. Ref! Argued. Ok, it’s KO now, let’s foul another elf. Ref! Argued.

You see, it was just absolute insanity. Due to me not playing very well the game ended up at just 1-0 and that means that the elves could have possibly stolen the game somewhere, because they sure tried, but this was not that day.

Red Leaf mercenaries took home another narrow win, meaning we were 5 for 5! I am happy that Wolio sought me out on the following day to have a chat, so we could leave it all on good terms and with smiles, because walking away from the game on day 2 neither of us felt good about it. Thank you, and let’s have a rematch that isn’t all bonkers one day.

Table 3! Let’s goooo! We get Valhalla United and I get to speak Swedish for my last game of the day, facing Sindragosa with Amazons. In this match up we also faced SpoiledSquid that I met on my first day in Alicante and his Goblins, but he ended up being totally crushed by Hovring’s Dark elf team.

I opt to receive, hoping to reduce the number of zons in play. Solid defense, I only knock down 1 player and then fail the pick up. The pressure is on and I’m scrambling, trying to protect the ball. I manage to back away but I’m down in numbers. I take some 2d blocks that needed POWs and when I don’t get it I’m out of position, and when the ball goes loose it bounces 4 steps away from my player and next turn it is in the hands of ST4 amazon. That was the last I really saw of the ball this game.

I don’t remember much about second half. I had eleven players, so we had a real fight, but being 0-1 already the zons didn’t need to push it and I don’t think I got anywhere near scoring back. Game ended like that so I guess my defence held reasonably well without breaking the other team. I think I managed to keep a smile on for this game as well, though there was a rush of some bad turns in the early game. We had a good time in all and we kept talking some more next day. Sindragosa took a win for her team but Valhalla ended up being beaten by 3/2/1 I believe, so RLM were now 6 for 6!

I ended the day on 1/1/1 again, and the team with another 3/0/0, meaning we were going to play table 2 tomorrow morning. Minds blown, we are already so way past what we had set out to do and really, we have already won this competition for any way that we could have imagined.

Sandune had a harder day with 1/1/1 too, and everyone on the team had some point where they got a tougher game, fearing that their loss meant that the team had lost the round. But on each such occasion we would look up and find our team reassuring us, it’s fine, the rest of us took our games! And that was such an amazing feeling, that at all the right times the team was there and we carried each other, though on day 2 Hercules really brought us all the way with a 2/1/0 record. But not only was that a great record vs tough opponents, when his last opponent was leaning towards some rage due to an awful run of dice, he just charmed his way through that and they came out on the other side seeming like great friends. What an amazing skill to have!

On the bus home Historic was getting news from the network of french players about the results on the top tables, we would be playing The Mad Hateful Seven tomorrow morning. The best team from Spain, looking to take the tournament for the home country. And wow, such amazing NAF records these guys have…

That’s a thing for tomorrow, tonight we celebrate! A feast, and drinks! And a decision to just have the best possible time tomorrow, whatever may come. We talk about the Seven. We talk about COCORIPOW. And we talk about that having some beer might have helped relaxing during that last round.

It is the best of times in Alicante and a lot of people seem excited about our success too, so that’s fun. I get home too late again, I end up grabbing a taxi to get there. Good night. What can we possibly do tomorrow?