The Tomb Kings finally triumph (Blood Bowl match report)

Bryan and I have a new system where we roll to see which teams we will be managing in our monthly Blood Bowl contest. This month I was playing Tomb Kings for the second time while Bryan took charge of an orc team boosted by a star player.

The orcs were one of the teams in the starter set released in 2016 when Blood Bowl got a hefty reboot. They are one of the first teams I painted and the paint job on them is bad even by my low standards. 

Varag Ghoulchewer, the star player, was included in the second season starter box released in 2020. I've painted him as part of my Big Pink Nightmares black orc team. For the purposes of this game we just pretended Varag's red and white uniform went through the wash and came out pink!

The Tomb Kings were in the starter set released this year, which Bryan purchased. They have no star players. They do, however, have four stronger players (the Tomb Guardians) who had a power advantage over every member of the orc team apart from Varag. 

The game started with a kick off towards the orcs. A breach in the defensive line saw some Tomb Kings players approach the ball carrier, whose attempted pass went badly wrong. The ball was dropped, a Tomb Kings blitzer picked it up and was able to make it into the end zone for the first score of the game on the very last turn of the first half. 

The second half started with a kick into Tomb Kings territory. The big Tomb Guardians managed to pivot the defence and open up a gap for three Tomb Kings players to run through and score virtually unmolested. They even got to showboat in the End Zone.

The orcs made a game of it and got the ball into a scoring position with one turn left. A player needed to rush one yard to get into the End Zone ready for a scoring pass. All he needed was his coach to roll anything except a 1. 

Bryan rolled a 1. 

That was the end of the game. Bryan rolled again to see if he would have made the pass successfully (he would) and whether the player would have caught it (he would!) but as Bryan said, that was just Nuffle, the god of Blood Bowl messing with him. If he hadn't rolled a 1 it feels very unlikely he would have made both those subsequent rolls. Nuffle is a capricious god who does whatever seems funniest to them in the moment. 

Final score: Tomb Kings 2-0 Orcs - the first time the Tomb Kings have won a game in 5 attempts.

Injuries of note: I'm not sure how you critically injure an undead skeleton powered by magic. But Bryan managed it.

Snacks: Hot Tamales Tropical Heat candy, Van Holten's Pickle flavoured puffs, and some Korean biscuits that tasted like custard creams with a hint of pineapple.  

See all my previous match reports here 

Acing the quiz

As mentioned on my post about our holiday in North Wales, I went to a football match and watched Colwyn Bay versus Barry Town.

What I didn't mention is I bought a programme at the game. (I don't always buy a programme. I mainly get them from away games for the various teams I support, or if I go to random matches and I want a souvenir.)

Flicking through the programme, I discovered one of the easiest quiz questions ever for a Shrewsbury Town fan to answer! 

I didn't need to guess the badge. I knew the badge!

Holiday team painting project

I took a portable painting station with me on holiday to North Wales last week. (This is a grandiose way of saying I filled a box full of paints and unpainted Blood Bowl miniatures.)

The great thing about being on holiday is not having a gazillion things that I ought to be doing instead of painting my figures. And as we have to carefully pace ourselves to marshall Cathy's energy reserves, that means some evenings in - which are perfect for painting!

I prepped for the week away by building the second half of my Elven Union team of elves. This has been a bit of a North Wales project, generally. I bought the team set on holiday in Bangor a couple of years ago, built half the team on holiday in Dinas Dinlle last summer (I think) and then completed assembling the team a few weeks back. 

I hadn't decided on a paint scheme for them before the holiday, but I had a pretty turquoise and a shiny silver, so I thought those would make a good elf-appropriate combo. I was quite pleased with the result.

They aren't quite finished because I left their decorative kneepads unpainted. I planned to do them a different colour, but I'm probably going to paint them silver to match their shinguard greaves. There are some other finishing touches I need to do as well.

Even though they aren't finished, mostly painted is better than grey plastic and I was pleased with the progress. I also got some paint on my Norse star player, Thorsson Stoutmead, my yhetee, and my werewolf star player as well. All in all, a very productive week.

Ar wyliau yn yr Gogledd - Medi 2026

We have had a week away in the North of Cymru, returning to a cottage very close to our favourite beach. Our big day out was taking the train up Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) and we had some other lovely days revisiting some of our favourite spots. 

Long range Cathy portrait

We went to...

Caernarfon

Football mural for a match I went to!

Pwllheli (in the mist)

Handy guide to the view...
I took it on faith the mountains
were there!

Llandudno

Goleudy Penmon on Anglesey 

And we did the things you'd expect to do on a holiday.

And saw some things you might not expect!

At the end of the week, I even squeezed in a football match in Colwyn Bay. Sadly, Barry were on the receiving end of a 5-2 thumping but I still enjoyed my evening there as I've decided not to let results affect my enjoyment of football!

And that was the end of another lovely week yn yr Gogledd! 

Taking the train up Yr Wyddfa

I've wanted to ride the steam train up Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) for a long time. A previous attempt only took us halfway because of adverse weather (mainly high winds) so I'm delighted to have finally made it to the top.

The Snowdon Mountain Railway seems to be sticking to the English name for the mountain, but our engine was called Wyddfa. 

It is the only rack-and-pinion railway in the UK, literally grinding its way up the mountain with a cog wheel connecting with a toothed 'rack' in the middle of the track. The entire line is on a slope, even the stations, and the boilers of the steam engines are built on an angle so they stay level on the sloping track.

Our seats at the back of the coach gave us a very good view of the engine. 

The views were great until the three quarter mark when we entered some low hanging cloud. That meant our short time at the summit was cloudy and cold. But we still went up to the cairn at the top.

Then we got back on the train to head back down. The views were even better on the way down as the sun was shining in Llanberis at the end of the line.

We both really enjoyed our trip on the railway. The only downside was the cloudy summit, but that just means we have to do it again some day!

Frankly a bargain

Browsing the shelves of an Oxfam shop and I idly pulled out this single, not clocking the artist or title until I looked at the cover. An early Frank Turner EP, with what looks like a signature in sharpie? For 99p? Yep. Gonna buy that.

I know that people who are younger than me laugh at my love of physical media, but, honestly, if you just streamed this you wouldn't be able to read Frank's rage-filled sweary promise to the scumbag who stole his guitar.

And for an added bonus, the photo of (very young) Frank from 19 years ago was taken in Cardiff. I'm pretty good on my Cardiffology, but I have no idea where that silhouette background is. 

I wonder if Frank ever caught up with the guitar thief.