Bank holiday Blood Bowl bashfest

My monthly Blood Bowl showdown with Bryan was a battle of two "bash" teams. I was playing Norse for the fourth time, in search of my first win with them. Bryan was fielding his trusty dwarves again.

Previously my encounters with the dwarves have been while playing low-strength, low armoured, agile teams. However, the Norse line up had players who could go toe for toe with the dwarves and had a couple who were stronger. That led to two dwarf serious casualties, depleting their line up. Having a trollslayer sent off also didn't help them much.

Injuries and naughty trollslayer

Star player Thorsson Stoutmead had a decent game, using his special move 4 times to take out an opponent by lobbing a keg of beer at them. It's a useful way to open a hole in a defensive line. 

It was a breakthrough like that which led to the first Norse score. The dwarf ball carrier got sacked and four Norse players showboated to party in the end zone. 

In the second half, the Norse were receiving from the kick-off. The ball was collected by one of the valkyries, while her team-mates bashed a clear pathway through the reduced dwarf defence. She was then able to run the length of the pitch to score, fending off an attempted blitz on the way. 

But the play of the game led to the third and final score and saw Bryan overcoming his usual incredible terrible dice-rolling luck. With the Norse streaming forwards towards the dwarf ball carrier, Bryan rolled the required 6 to ensure a successful long pass and then successfully rolled to receive the pass. 

With three dwarves free and bearing down on the end zone, a Norse berserker tried to stop them but failed and ended up injured. 

There were a few turns left for fun bashy aggro, but no real chance of scoring as we ran the game out. The final score meant the Norse have finally won a game - it finished 2-1 to them.

Snacks: spicy crisps and mango jaffa cakes, washed down with Tango "Thirst Trap".

Bretonnian debut - Blood Bowl match report

After Bryan and I played our match last month, we did something new where we rolled a D12 die to select the teams we would be playing this month. Bryan rolled dwarfs. I rolled for Bryan to have a free pick and he decided I could play Tomb Kings. So I turned up expecting to get hammered by the dwarfs, only to find Bryan had finished assembling the Bretonnian team that had been in the season 3 box. 

So we ended up with Bretonnians v Tomb Kings, which was both teams in the box set. 

I like the Bretonnian team. They have a mix of skills. They are a bit under-strength compared to the Tomb Kings, but some of their players have the 'dauntless' skill - as befitting noble questing knights - which raises them up to the level of stronger opponents. However, the downside of that is they can end up within grabbing range of those stronger opponents who will attack back on the next turn and have a dice advantage. 

Stymied in midfield

It took a while for the game to get going but eventually the Bretonnian blitzer made it to the end zone to open the scoring. It was 1-0 at half time.

I like playing with fast, high agility teams like skaven or wood elves. The Tomb Kings are not a fast, high agility team. Still, they were able to run in a down after the 'Tomb Guardian' bigger guys bashed a hole in the Bretonnian defensive line. 

However, the Bretonnians came back, courtesy of a very long pass downfield. The Tomb Kings had an opportunity to blitz the ball carrier to prevent the score but I rolled a skull! And the Brets went on to score what turned out to be the winning down.

Noooooooooooooooo!

Fail!

The winning down

Even then, the Tomb Kings had a chance to salvage a draw at the death with two players heading for the score line and the ball in the bony hands of a designated thrower. 

However, Bryan cleverly blitzed the player nearest the line, meaning the remaining Tomb King player couldn't reach the end zone even by rushing. I managed to roll a 6 to complete a long pass of my own but the guy fumbled the catch anyway. It would have been more gutting to have fumbled it in a scoring position. But this is how close I got before running out of turns.

Final score: 2-1 to the Bretonnians 

Overall, then, I think the Bretonnians are the better of the two sides out of the starter box. Even with Bryan's penchant for rolling disastrously (he rolled a 1 three times in a row when all he needed was a 2 or higher) they seemed a much more balanced unit with greater flexibility to switch play between running and passing. 

Two game snacks this month as well: cheesy penguins and jaffa cake biscuits!

Definitely not cakes!

The Rodents Return - a Blood Bowl match report

I have a large number of Blood Bowl teams. If you check my list of match reports, last year I coached two different orc teams, wood elves, and Norse (humans). This year I've debuted my team of "necromantic horrors". But, however much I enjoy fielding other teams I keep coming back to my rats.

I now have my own copy of the Season 3 rules for Blood Bowl, courtesy of my sister-in-law Abby who gave it to me for as part of my birthday present. The skaven (giant rats) have been slightly 'nerfed' in the new rules because a coach can only field two gutter runners (super agile and speedy players). However, gutter runners do have a new "stab" skill (which I forgot to use) and I have two star players, one of whom is very agile and speedy.

My reserves box is just teeming with line-rats now. Including two that aren't painted.

Bryan is still figuring out the Tomb Kings that came in the starter set he had for Christmas. They are a strange side. The 'big guys' tomb guardians are very strong, but none of the team are agile. They also all have the regeneration skill, which can work for a coach but often works against them as it increases the possibility of a player having to leave the field.

I say I love my rats, but they are a bit neglected. Hakflem and Glart, the two star players are still unpainted. Hakflem got injured almost immediately and spent the first half recovering. He was lucky with his injury. One of my gutter runners ended up dead.

It was a fairly even first half. Towards the end a skaven line-rat broke free and scored a down.

The second half started similarly to the first, with a star player carted off to the injuries box. 

I was having a bad time with my dice rolls. Lots of ones being rolled and that all-time clasic, double skulls! Fumbles led to some loose play on the wing.

But my surviving gutter runner scored.

The Tomb Kings then ended a drive successfully with a down. 

From the restart, possession was regained by the rats and they were able to pivot the play, opening up a channel through the Tomb Kings defence.

That led to Hakflem scoring a down on the very last turn of the game. Not a bad comeback from injury.

Final score: Tomb Kings 1-3 Skaven

And on an additional note, Bryan and Elaine had made me a birthday "cake" out of jaffa cakes. They know me so well!

The jaffa cakes had an even worse survival rate than my skaven players!

Jaffa cakes from outer space (and Irish cookies)

In my quest to try all the flavours of Jaffa Cake, I've sampled this new "cosmic berry" flavour that Cathy spotted in the supermarket.

So, what is a cosmic berry? Well, it's a vaguely raspberryish sweet-with-a-hint-of-tartness quite clearly artificial flavour. Certainly not of this world if not quite 'out of this world'. It contrasted sharply with the dark chocolate coating, leaving a lasting aftertaste of cocoa.

My next jaffa adventure occurred when I went round to Bryan's house for our monthly game of Blood Bowl. Bryan produced a packet of Irish biscuits in a limited edition "Jaffa" flavour that he had found in another supermarket. 

Although the drift in what "jaffa" means in "jaffa cakes" means you could expect any flavour of filling, when "jaffa" is used in other food contexts it always means orange. These cookies were great, a strong yet not overpowering orange flavour, decent-sized chocolate chunks, a good choc coating on the reverse and a good snap when I broke one. 

The cookies were the high point of the game night for me. My dice rolls were utter crap, with my high agility wood elves failing basic agility roll after roll. Bryan was coaching his lizard-men team who bashed out a comfortable 2-0 win without barely a scratch on them. Ah, well.

I probably deserved to lose because I forgot to take Roxy the Kroxigor with me for Bryan to borrow. So we subbed in the frog god turn marker that comes with the lizard-men team as a proxy. Here's a picture of our Roxy kroxi proxy.

That was pretty much my expression at the end of the game. Pure disgust at the treacherous dice!

Yuzu lemon jaffa cakes

You wait a year for a new flavour of Jaffa cake to come out and then discover two in the space of a couple of weeks. 

I've only seen these on sale in Tesco, just like I've only seen 'hot honey' flavour on sale in Asda. This may just be a quirk, or it might be McVities marketing strategy to place new flavours in different supermarkets. 

I took these jaffa cakes with us when we went to see Bryan and Elaine, both of whom also tried them. The overall verdict was unanimously positive. They have a very sharp lemony tang with a mild spicy kick at the end. 

Yuzu is a citrus fruit that is a cross between a lemon and an orange. (According to the Internet; I googled it.) So it feels like this is extending traditional jaffa cakes into new, yet cogent direction. Unlike some of the random flavours they've been hyping recently this really worked. More unusual citrus, please!