Blood Bowl: Corounne Panthers, AGBBL season 9, game #6

AGBBL Season 9: Couronne Panthers game #6 vs. Arkham Annihilators.

My season in the AGBBL was stymied for a bit due to my family and I moving into a new house. Thankfully my next opponent, my good friend Brad from Harrisburg and the Adventurer's Guild made the trip down to Reading to meet me for a game. So, since it was a mildly special occasion, I broke out one of my special Blood Bowl Pitches made by Impact Miniatures.

I was originally optimistic, my human team had been performing well and I know that I had a bit more experience than Brad when it came to the game of Blood Bowl. However, no matter how sound your tactics are in ANY game, when the dice fail you, you will be hard pressed to salvage the situation.

I expect at least one or two games like this in any season of 8-10 games. Today happened to be that day for me.

Looking at home field advantage, the Couronne Panthers won the FAME roll, and had the +1 bonus. This result is determined pre-game and is modified by your fan factor. The FAME modifier can affect results on the kick off table each time, and did come into play at times for me.

Weather was perfect, the Chaos team: Arkham Annihilators won the coin toss and elected to receive first. I set my human team in a classic 3-8 defense, careful not to be too close to the sidelines as there was a Minotaur with Frenzy on the opposing team. The kick was short, but good, and the kick off table result was Brilliant coaching. I rolled a 6 for the d3 roll, +1 (for FAME) gave me a 4. The Annihilators rolled a 1, and had 2 assitant coahces, ganing +2 for a result of 3. The Couronne Panthers gained a bonus REROLL for the half.

Starting out, the Annihilators manged to KO one of my lineman and picked up the ball, forming a classic cage offense, with defenders on each corner of the ball carrier's tackle zones. It was all I could to to just pick up my men and position to try and drag out this drive and hope for a Chaos mistake at some point during the game.

It was becoming clearly evident that the Minotaur was going to be a problem. Most Big Guys are, but ones with skills are dangerous. This particular Minotaur, apart from being Strength 5 and having Horns and Frenzy, also had Tentacles to hold players fast and a Claw. The Claw mutation treats all armor as value 7, and with Mighty Blow, allows him to break armor on rolls of 6 or more. As fate would have it, the Minotaur (Shub-Niggurath) stunned another lineman on a frenzied block. My human passer, Matt Moore managed to do the same to one of the Chaos Beastmen.

In turn 3, the Chaos Minotaur blocked my lead passer Jake Delhome, and killed him! Flat out dead, it was everything for the apothecary to save the man, and as a result, he will now only be missing the next game. Apothecaries can help your team out once a game. You may reroll the injury dice, but are stuck with the new result. If a player is lessened to just a "Badly Hurt", he may actually enter you reserves in your dugout and enter play again next time you set your teams up. In my case, Delhomme would be saved, but would have to sit out my next match.

This is when the dice really started to fail for me and run red hot for Brad. Brad made every roll, dodge, block, armor, pick ups, everything. Me....I couldn't even make a Go-For-It roll and using a reroll, which normally is successful on a 2+ on 1d6.

One of my lineman tripped on a dodge to get into position. Turn over. The Chaos forces started to reassemble their drive and make their way downfield. They knocked out another one of my blitzers. All I could do was to keep trying to gain position on my opponent. Sometimes just having a tackle zone on the ball or ball carrier is enough, if you can force your opponent to make a mistake. In this case it didn't seem to matter much. Each time I moved a player to dodge out of a tackle zone or make Go-For-Its (up to 2 extra squares per player), my team would find a way to fall flat on their faces.
With the Annihilators close to scoring, I put just enough pressure on them at the end of turn 5 to force them to score by their turn 6. This would at least give me some time to try and score.

The Annihilators managed to hand off the ball and score in turn 7. This would give me 2 turns to try and tie up the game. Normally 2 turns is exactly what I need to pull off a moderate passing play to score.

As fate would have it, I had to move players to clear the way for my catchers to get downfield. Two of my blitzers led the way, one with guard moved into position to tie up to men, allowing the second blitzer to throw a block and clear the path. Fate failed me and I rolled a skull/pow (both down unless you have block), and his beastman did not have block. I needed a push to open the way for my men. So, all I had to do was "Go for it" with the blitzer and than move my two catchers downfield. I rolled a 1. I rerolled, and rolled a 1 again. Blitzer down, turn over. On a side note, the kick off result was "Get the Ref", and both teams received a bribe for the referees for any rules infractions, such as fouling a player while he is down.....

That dice failure cost me any chance to score in that half. More hits from the chaos team sent one blitzer to the Knock Out ward and another to the infirmary with a Serious Injury (Miss Next Game).

So, I entered the 2nd half down some men, but thanks to reserves, it was only going to be 11 vs. 10. I was receiving and thought I could pull out a tie and with luck, I could still win this game, it was a new half.
The second half for me was worse than the first. The kick off result was Brilliant coaching. The Arkham Annihilators won this roll, giving them another reroll for the half. I tried my classic clear the lane and send 2 catchers downfield. I had men on the front line, but no one on the minotaur, thinking without someone for him to hit, he may be left out of the mix. Big mistake, i should have sacrificed one lineman to tie him up.

My men went downfield, my passer got to the ball, I was prepared to throw the ball next turn and score in turn 2. Or so I thought.

{

The Minotaur miraculously made his "Wild Animal" roll, and if he's not blocking or blitzing, he can only move on a 4+. He moved right between my two cathers, getting his tentacles all over them. A Chaos Warrior managed to dodge away from my lineman and blitz my passer, leveling him and knocking the ball loose. This than allowed #3: Abhoth, another Chaos Warrior to move in and pick up the ball.

With a Strength 4 Chaos Warrior running with the ball, I would have to use at least 2 men at any time to have a hope at knocking the ball loose. I moved men into position but the chaos team's blocking was so effective I could only get one man into position to do anytying and Abhoth simply blitzed and pushed him away, scoring a TD in the 4th turn of the 2nd half.

I was down 2-0 and 4 turns left. I was going to have to play very tricky and desperately to have a hope at tying this game at all. I set my men up, kick off result was "high kick" allowing my passer to get underneath the ball and attempt to catch it. He didn't. I was not surprised.

I rolled my men down field and attempted to make a way down to score. This time I found a seam in Brad's defense. I moved one catcher through it, making the dodge and getting into scoring position. I moved the second catcher into a similar position. He failed the dodge but has "dodge" skill, so got to reroll that result for "free". He failed it again.

The Arkham Annihilators showed no mercy, nor would I expect such from a Chaos team. They set about throwing devestating blocks. My catcher with Strength 3, Dwayne Jarret #81 was injured and sent off the board with a minor injury. Lineman #72, Duke Robinson was knocked out. Blitzer # 53: Na'il Diggs was thrown out of bounds, but thankfully landed into the safe hands of some Panther fans.

The rest of the Chaos team bum-rushed downfield to get to the ball, pushing my passer away. I tried to get my men into position to save face and take the ball away from the chaos team, one last attempt at a possible TD score for my honor. My dice failed again and passer Matt Moore (#10) fell. This allowed the Chaos team to get a Chaos Warrior into position to pick up the ball.

The only saving grace I had here was that one of the Warriors picked one fight too many. Throwing a block at #74, Geoff Schwartz, Chaos Warrior Abhoth rolled double skulls on the dice, and the Panther's lead scoring man in casualties got his 5th one of the season by ducking low and kicking him in the groin. Abhoth will be sitting out his next game recovering from that attack.

I tried to move men into position to stop the Chaos Warriors, but they ganged up on Matt Moore and fouled him, stunning the human passer and effectively taking him out of the play, leaving the Panthers helpless to prevent yet a 3rd touchdown score by the Annihilators.

In the end, the game was an utter loss for me. My tactics were sound, my dice were horribly bad. Not one play I made succeeded, where as when the Chaos team tried to do anything, they almost always succeeded. The Minotaur was amazing, activating every round but 1. He dominated the game, responsible for 75% of the knock outs, stuns and casualties. Big guys can be a risk but in this game, Brad showed how truly effective they can be.

Still it was a good game in that I got to see a good friend of mine, we hung out for a few hours, swapped some tales, and had several laughs over the inneptness of my team today. On a bright note, my 2 players that miss the next game are not permanently injured and the 50,000 gold coins my team earned for their play today gives me enough for purchasing an Ogre to play for the Corounne Panthers.

So, we welcome #99: Fredrick W. "The Ogre" Palowaski to the team!

With the ball loose, I tried to blitz my men to clear the way and get someone to pick it up. All I managed was a series of pushes and the chaos warriors were still around the football. The Annihilators would mess up and drop the football on a failed attempt. I had one more chance to fix this mistake.

Blood Bowl and the AGBBL

Blood Bowl is Life.  

This has been the running "joke" phrase of the AGBBL (Adventurer's Guild Blood Bowl League) since I've been involved with them back in 2003.   The crew up in Harrisburg, PA know their stuff when it comes to Blood Bowl.....perhaps the greatest little specialist game that Games Workshop had ever come up with.

What is Blood Bowl you ask?   It is a variant loosely based upon American Football played in the Warhammer Fantasy Battles Setting.    The fluff behind it started out more as a joke than anything serious.   But what happened is that Blood Bowl took on a Pop-Culture style following amongst gamers.    So essentiall if you combined the following aspects, you would get an idea of what Blood Bowl is:  The NFL, Rugby, WWE Wrestling, Lord of the Rings, Warhammer Fantasy, and a 3-Ring Circus.    Blood Bowl is a fun, silly and chaotic game that tests your skill, stragegies, patience and sanity.

Initially, Games Workshop stopped supporting the game, my best guess is because it is not a huge money maker.   An entire full roster is only 16 models.   Sure, GW makes their own line of models and as expected, they are very good quality.    The fun aspect of Blood Bowl is that it is a game that screams out "Conversions!".    In my experience in the hobby now, some 8 years, I notice that folks get started by borrowing a team from experienced players, who tend to own several, or they start out with a standard boxed set team.    

Once settled into the hobby, a player will collect a second team, something more suited to their style.

As the hobby grew, so too did independent support.    Perhaps the most important and well known is the NAF.   So nammed after what "the founders", the story goes....of the Dwarf "Roze El" and the orcs on the battlefield that fateful day that uncovered a lost stadium and the holy book to "Nuffle"  (NFL), the lost god of football.   You may have up to 16 players on your roster, but the sacred number of "11" is what you are allowed to put onto the field each time.

So was born Nuffle Amorical Football.  (NAF).    In the gaming community, the NAF is an organization that actually supports Blood Bowl, tournaments, and allows for international rankings amongst players.   Also, for a $10 annual membership, they send you a set of colored Blocking Dice....which are well worth that fee alone.    Those are the main thing one needs to play, in addition to a field.   

Also, as the hobby has grown, many independent companies have created varaint football teams.    Some are funny such as some done up as "Playboy bunnies", and another as "Nuns".    (Shadowforge Miniatures).     Another company that has been supporting a lot of the AGBBL tournaments is Impact Minaitures, and they make great models as well as travel cases perfect for transport of your Blood Bowl team and also for travel to tournaments.

As for the AGBBL....I came across these folks when i was researching some information for our local gamers in the Reading PA area on Blood Bowl.   We attempted (unsuccessfully) to run some leagues in the area, but just had lack of support and no real knowledge on the subject.    But my interest in the game was secured.  

I picked up playing with the folks in the AGBBL in season 3.   Now, we are in Season 9, and I am having a blast.   I have 5 teams I own, most of them based upon "actual" fictional locations within the Warhammer Fantasy universe.    I have my favorites, as I prefer a more direct pounding style of offense, much like the old school Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970's, and I go with a dwarf team as my favorite.    Hopefully one day soon, I will be able to run a league and host a tournament in the Reading PA area for my friends.

My current teams that I own are:
* Dwarf:  Black Fire Pass Blitzers  (Hail from Karak Varn in the Black Fire Mountains by Black Fire Pass)
* Humans:  Couronne Panthers  (modled after the Carolina Panthers, Couronne is the capitol of Bretonnia)
* Orcs:  Blood Peak Punishers  (I've never played them in a league yet!)
* Chaos Dwarfs:  Public Enemy  (my tournament team, but Chaos Dwarfs are in my opinion, one of the most diverse teams and one of my favorites)
* Chaos Pact:   Nemesis Enforcers:   (Converted from Chaos Marauders, but have the ability to have 3 "Big Guys":  an Ogre, Troll, and Minotaur as well as a goblin, Dark Elf, and Skaven runner.    VERY tough team in a league, I did terrible last season).

The folks in Harrisburg at the Adventurer's Guild are very serious about their Blood Bowl hobby.  In fact, they host several tournaments throughout the year that are sanctioned by the NAF for national rankings.    One of my farorites happens to be coming up in April 10th.   It's the 4-Diamonds Cup!     This is special to me because the tournament is a fund raiser for the Four Diamonds Fund, the largest student-run philanthopy around, and it's at Penn State and Hershey Medical Center, raising money to help children battling Cancer and other medical challenges.     (My daughter was treated there for Leukemia for 2 years.  Thanks to their help and support, she is finished her chemo and recovering now to a normal life).

http://www.agbbl.com/FourDiamondsCup/


Some Fun Facts that my friend (And Arch Nemesis!) Evan Doyle recently posted on the AGBBL website list me in a few categories.    Mind you, i've been playing since season 3, some of these guys have been there since season 1.     :

On 4/2/2010 Evan_Doyle said: Recent/Upcoming Milestones: Mike B won his 30th game last week (5th all time). JKarr and Josh need 1 win for 30 wins. Jamie needs 2 wins for 30 wins.


Evan scored his 150th TD. Ed needs 1 more for 150 TDs, Jamie needs 3 for 100 TDs and Mongo needs 11 for 200 TDs (all time leader).

Ed got his 175th Cas. Rich got his 100th Cas. Stoner needs 3 to reach 125 Cas, Mongo needs 3 to reach 175 Cas and Mike B needs 12 to reach 200 Cas (2nd All Time).

Evan and Mongo played their 100th Regular Season Game (against each other). Roy's next game is his 50th regular season game.
 
(I didn't realize 30 wins was a milestone, but nice to know I am there now!   Also, the Casualty count is impressive.  Mongo is the commissioner of the AGBBL and has been since its inception.)

Blood Bowl League game 2: AGBBL: Couronne Panthers vs. Mighty Sleestack

Blood Bowl League game 2: AGBBL: Couronne Panthers vs. Mighty Sleestack.

Having had a great start to the new season, (Season 9, AGBBL), my human team, the Corounne Panthers had to square off against a cagy opponent: Jaime and his infamous Lizardmen team: The Mighty Sleestack.

one thing that stands out most on this team is not the Strength:4 Sauruses, but the huge monstrous Kroxigor. The beast is huge, Strength:5, moves 6, and has a prehensile tail to trip you up. On top of all that, the Kroxigor is like all "Big Guys" and packs the Mighty Blow skill, thus allowing it to break armor and cause more injuries.

As fate would have it though, it was the Sleestack, and the Kroxigor "Grimlock" in particular that would have a difficult time this day.

The Panthers won the coin toss and elected to recieve the ball. The front line of blockers laid out amazing blocks, knocking flat the front defensive line of the Sleestack. With all of the Saurus warriors out of the way, Blitzer Na'il Diggs, #53, laid a crushing chop block into the Kroxigor potentially seriously injuring the beast for this game and the next to come. Early, 1st turn, and albiet, desperate use of the apothecary by the Sleestack would allow Grimlock the Kroxigor to return to the reserves.

With the huge beast out of the way, the Couronne Panthers continued to lay in solid blocks and attempt to make their way downfield. Desperate plays laced with clever dodges and questionable blocking decicions let to the Sleestack knocking the ball loose from Jake Delhomme, the Panther's Thrower, #17.

Skink #6, Tweet Anklebiter, knocked the ball loose and started to make his way off with it, trying to desperately get into the Panther's backfield and potentially score next turn. A solid blitz from the Panthers would again knock the ball loose, and soon enough, both teams were bogged down in a scrum vying to get shots at the ball.

Eventually Blitzer #51, James Anderson would make off with the football and get in for a score. He would also score a casualty this game, and put him into position to gain a skill increase.

The Panthers would score leaving the Sleestack 2 turns left in the first half. It wouldn't matter though as the dice just failed to aid the lizerdmen in any way.

Staring off the 2nd half the Mighty Sleestack tried to make a chance and get downfield with the ball. However, the Sleestack took to the field down 2 or 3 men and just couldn't come back. Bad dice rolls and fumbled balls allowed the Panthers to swarm the ball, create some good blocks and free up key fellow players to pull of a 2nd score of the game. The catcher was forced to pick the ball up and throw it deep to a lineman, #72: Duke Robinson.

Duke Robinson, #72,would manage to catch the ball and run in the 2nd score. This left the Sleestack down by 1 score and forced to take some desperate measures. The Sleestak then tried to rally themsleves to try and make a game out of it. But with having suffered 5 injuries on the day, their reserves pool was depleted.

Eventually just sheer numbers just overcame the Mighty Sleestack players and being outnumbered by 4 players was too much for them to comeback from. Skink Tweet Anklebiter, #6, would manage to find the ball and get in for a score, so it wasn't a total washout for the Lizardmen.

A great victory against a worthy opponent! The Couronne Panthers are 2-0!

Blood Bowl: AGBBL Season 9 kicks off.

Well, here it is, Season 9 for the AGBBL, the Adventurer's Guild Blood Bowl League. This is, in my opinion, the best game GW ever created. Since you only need 16 models to fill an entire roster, it's very affordable for many folks as well. However, that is the same reason that GW doesn't give it much support.

http://www.agbbl.com/bloodbowl9/MainMenu.asp

Aside from their gold mongering though, GW has kept the Blood Bowl game active because there are more than enough independent leagues and tournaments in worldwide that it is in their ultimate best interest to keep it together.

So here we go! I have been playing with the AGBBL in Harrisburg since season 3. Now into my 6th season with these guys, I turned to a team I've never run full course in a league before: Humans.

Sure, Humans are vanilla and can't do any one thing great. But, what the do lack in flash and flair they more than make up for in versatility. I have racked up a lot of experience with them online on fumbbl.com, an online interractive league of blood bowl.

I started the season against a good friend, Jason, who also works at the Adventuer's Guild. Now, in Jason's defense, this is only his second season in the AGBBL, and he's learning. He took High Elves onto the field against my humans. Being the first game of the season for our teams, it was going to be sloppy as no players would have any advanced skills at this point.

We started off the game with Jason giving us the ball first. After trying to get started, my players fumbled picking up the ball to start the game. The High Elves closed in and after two turns we were looking at a classic Charlie-Foxtrot (A big mess!).

Eventually the ball popped loose and though the elves did manage to grab it and break away for a pass, fate would betray them and the Couronne Panthers would pull out an interception whist in 2 tackle zones. The elves were unable to stop the drive and a pass downfield with some clever blitzes created an opportunity for the Panthers to get on the board with the first TD of the game.

The first hald ended terribly for the Elves as one of their blizters tripped as he was dodging away from the Panthers players and he fell to the pitch, breaking his neck. The dead elf was carted off the pitch and the High Elfs of the Highway-To-The-Danger-Zone were in trouble.

The second half didn't go any better for the High Elves. A short kick and lack of man power thanks to some timely knock outs inflicted upon them by the Panthers left them short handed as well. They scrambled men out and flipped the ball out to try and make a run for a score, only to have their man knocked out of bounds with the ball. The fans threw the ball back into the field near midfield, away from the elves.

The Panthers managed to get to the ball and throw it downfield to a waiting lineman. That too would end up in another touchdown for the Panthers, putting them up 2-0.

Kicking off to the Elves once again, The elves tried their darndest to score and make something of this game. Pulling a classic streak down the sideline play, their pass was again intercepted! Two interceptions in one game! By Humans! Just outright craziness for Blood Bowl.

This would prove to be the nail in the coffin for the elves, as that last interception would lead to yet another Panther TD.

Like most games of this nature, this final event came down to dice rolls. When I needed them the most, my dice came through, and were pretty solid most of the game. As for Jason? Well, let's just say, he was rolling some dice he got from Dan Summey that have "Sum's Curse" listed where the 1 would be. And that pretty much spells it out for you there.

Jason took the loss well. Just bad luck for him. He's a great guy to play against and just didn't have lady luck on his side for this one.