The draft is over, and we have sent our faithful reporters down to the “Pool” to find out what coach Vatn thinks about draft 5. And you did meet some people there, didn’t you, Hertha?

Hertha and Günther is in the large cantina on the second floor of the “Pool”. Günther is munching on a large hot dog he brought with him, knowing full well that the Cascade’s halfling cook is strongly against that sort of food. They have been joined at the table by the Cascade head coach Vatn and his two quarterbacks, Inga and Darian.

Günther (between disgusting eating sounds) “Tell us, coach. What is your honest opinion of the worst season Cascade has ever had! You ended up 0.469 and third in the division like season 2.”

Coach Vatn (grinning): “Glad you liked it, Günther. We were actually quite happy with season 4. The only bad match was against the Classics in week 15. Otherwise, the crew did what they could and pulled off points from tough matches, like the week 2 match against the Buccaneers and the week 16 win against the Vikings. And stuck to the scheme I had drawn up in advance. We got lucky as well, and avoided serious injuries to most of our key players. Only our LOS-crew was ravaged, so we have a big problem there in front of season 5. Otherwise, we kept and developed our players as planned.”

Hertha: “Any players you want to point to especially?”

Vatn: (hesitates ) “Well… we are a team and everyone needs to play well for us to succeed. That said, we are especially satisfied with Janine, who produced 14 casualties and 13 KO’s in the last seven matches of the season, and Catharina, who has developed into a full-fledged catcher. She is so good even the Patriots came knocking on our door, inquiring about the price for her services.”

Darian (grins widely): “And Inga. Together, those three are the Blood Bowl Queens. Fans have given them new nicknames, you know. Janine is the “Killer Queen”, Catharina is the “Dream Queen” and Inga is simply “The Queen of Blood Bowl!”

Hertha: “That sounds like well-deserved to me!”

Günther: “And coach Vatn, what about the draft? What were your expectations, and how do you value the result?”

Vatn: “Well. As you of course know, we had very little draft capital going into the draft. Only one pick of substance, our own 2nd, which turned out to be pick #46. The fourth round picks were not going to give us anything of substance, neither for our own use nor for trade. Luckily, we had no pressing needs either. Only one position needed to be filled, and that was the big guy. And my quarterbacks and I estimated that the one good pick we had would give us a big guy with block. The two best ones we expected to be first rounders, and then we thought we would get one of the other five with our pick #46, and that was exactly the way it turned out. So, for our pressing needs, we did fine!”

Günther: (pushing on) “But still, you did not improve much in value, while other teams have improved with hundreds of points in team value. You are now down to 24th in team value. After a draft!”

Vatn: (shrugs) “As I said, the pressing needs were taken care of. However, with little draft capital, and little willingness to trade good players for better, there was not much more we could do. We need strong linemen and blitzers, but they are not on the market. We also need agile thrower and catchers. We had hoped for an agile catcher to replace Rottmann, but we couldn’t make it happen without giving up too much. So in the end, we sent Cossmann, who was a development project, away for a better player right now in damaged Franklin, and we replaced Rottmann with Kümmel, who is a much better player, but didn’t increase the value of the team. And we managed to improve our draft capital slightly before draft 6.”

Hertha: “So, how do you evaluate the team before season 5 starts?”

Vatn: “We will fight every match as usual, and our opponents will know that we are present, but we are still in a building phase, and should not expect too much this season either. “

Günther: “Would you care to be more specific, Vatn?” Coach Vatn looks at his quarterbacks.

Inga: “We have of course analysed this as usual. There are four teams we expect to have little chances against. Buccaneers, Knights, White Wolves and Gunners are way above our current level and we are lucky to get away with a point or two in these four matches. The new inducement system may let us survive them, though.”

Darian: “And then there are four teams we expect to beat, and that is Legion, Sluggers, River Bandits and Sharks. Of course, everything will not go as planned and so we hope for a total of 6 points in these four matches.”

Inga: “Finally, we believe we have a fighting chance against the other teams, which is two times Vikings, Wolfskins and Grizzlies and then once against Thunder and Marauders. We expect an average of 1 point in each of these games for another 8.”

Vatn: (shrugs) “So, a total of 15-16 points should be reasonable, but Blood Bowl is Blood Bowl, and so nobody can say for certain.”

Hertha: “Any which way, we have an exciting season in front of us, and CCC starts against the Buccaneers in the Pool! Be there, and see who is the toughest killer of famous Bucs veteran Brandon Spikes and our own Killer Queen!”

Brought to you by Hertha Wendlinger and Günther Schiele, Carroburg Tageszeitung.