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!

Blood Bowl match report - farce and failures for the Norse

On the final Friday in May Bryan and I played our monthly Blood Bowl game. I decided to take my Norse team, the Ragnarockers, as last month I boosted my Norse roster!  

I'd played Norse twice before (my first game with them was in May last year) and I was yet to win with them. Surely, having a yhetee big guy and a star player would swing the odds in my favour.

Sadly not. And, as is often the case with Blood Bowl, hubris and sheer awful luck did for both my new players. 

As early as turn 3 my yhetee went on a blitz. I rolled a skull, Bryan got two decent dice rolls and my big guy was flat on his back in the seriously injured box.

Previously I have felt the Norse are under-powered. Bryan was playing with the Tomb Kings where almost half the team are strength 5 giving them an advantage in any scraps. Losing my big guy was a bitter blow.

However, my valkyrie was able to run in a down in the first half. 

If losing the yhetee was terrible luck, losing my star player Thorsson Stoutmead was farcical. Thorsson has a special move where he can hurl a keg of beer at an opponent to try and take them out. He successfully knocked someone over in the first half. At the very start of the second half he tried again.

But I rolled a 1. That meant Thorsson hit himself with a keg. Bryan made another two good dice rolls and Thorsson joined the yhetee in the box of seriously injured players. It was a disaster.

We have discovered a weakness in the Tomb Kings "regeneration" skill, in that it makes it more likely for an injured player to be removed from the pitch. Bryan only had 3 players left on the field when my team scored their first half down. 

But this was a high carnage game for both sides. I ran out of reserves in the second half so had to field one of my cute-but-pretty-much-useless beer boars for the final couple of turns after the Tomb Kings had equalised. 

One of my knocked out players 

Desperate times call for beer boars

Honours even, then, with a 1-1 draw. Still no wins for the Ragnarockers. 

Game snack report

Chipotle and lime mini-cheddars. None survived the game.

Easter crisps

Bryan bought these for us to snack on while we were playing Blood Bowl this month. (Read my match report)

Easter is the really big chocolate holiday and, it turns out, crisps can be chocolatey too. The cocoa flavouring on these made them look like the much-missed Bovril flavour crisps of yore, but they tasted like chocolate before a mild spicy tang kicked in. There is a potato aftertaste as well. 

Although we both liked them, Bryan and I agreed that we didn't want to eat too many of them in one go. But these would be an ideal snack for chocoholic friends.

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!

Blood themed Friday

A blood test and Blood Bowl - what a day. 

The blood test was a routine follow up to see whether I have been able to have an impact on my diabetes. Since being told my diabetes was back six months ago I have been mindful of what I am eating and doing more exercise. So far I have lost over 10 kilograms and am back to the weight I was when I originally recovered from diabetes 10 years ago. 

There are some added bonuses to losing weight. Walking is easier. More of my clothes fit me, including my favourite suit that I was able to wear last week for a situation where I wanted to wear a suit. But the main aim is to get my blood glucose back to where I want it. I will find out next week whether it's worked. 

It wasn't too painful. We have some good phlebotamists working out of our local surgery. She patched it up very securely. 

And so on to Blood Bowl. Firstly, a word on the game snack situation. I took a risk and bought a new snack - gingerbread flavour Doritos. 

I was dubious but curious. Bryan, my Blood Bowl opponent, was dubious but curious. Elaine, Bryan's wife was dubious but curious. 

We all liked them. They have a proper gingery taste. They aren't too sweet. You could probably try them with a dip of some kind. Definitely the best novelty Christmas-themed snack I've tried and the first where they have got the gingerishness right in a 'gingerbread flavour'.

The game itself was a weird one. We used the same teams as last month: skaven v lizardmen. I had permission from Bryan to start with both my  two star players, Hakflem Skuttlespike and Glart Smashrip. However, Nuffle, the capricious demigod of Blood Bowl, had other ideas and Hakflem ended up in the seriously injured box on the very first turn.

Despite that setback, the skaven scored twice in the first half. Their gutter runners breaking through the lines of lizards and running in two downs. 

There was a rat on the pitch in the Wales international game last Monday and someone nicknamed it Joe Rodent after Joe Rodon, the Wales player. I've decided to call one of my gutter runners Joe Rodent when I get round to naming them. 

I moved Glart after the restart. Instead of having him stuck in a face off with Roxy the Kroxigor all game, I put him out on the wing, where he caused mayhem clobbering smaller opponents. 

Unusually for a skaven performance, my team ended up inflicting more injuries than they sustained, with six lizardmen players injured during the game. This unbalanced the lizardmen team as it was the smaller, faster, more agile players that got battered and had to leave the field leaving the lumbering saurus players to try and do everything. The second half turned into an ongoing melee in a small area of the pitch.

When the ball finally broke free I only had one turn to go and just could not get a player into the end zone. 

Bryan had dreadful luck with his dice rolls during the game. He got away with a foul, but that didn't cause any injuries. He had players flub picking up the ball. Injuring Hakflem was the high point of his game. Nuffle giveth and Nuffle taketh away, as they say. (Mainly taketh!)

Final score: skaven 2-0 lizardmen