TWBBL Stunty Slam

As I have mentioned previously, over the last 6 months or so we've been trying to create better links with other leagues in our area.  As such, myself and Stu got ourselves and invite to TWBBL Stunty Slam run by the Thanet League.

This was a stunty sevens event run over 2 evenings in February and March with 8 coaches taking part. The ruleset allowed for a stunty alliance team which 1 player took. The skills package allowed you either 2 picked primary skills, 3 random primaries on chosen player or 4 random primaries on random players. 

I took ogres with 4 random primaries and a keg. Having played through the tournament, I know this was the wrong roster. 2 chosen primaries on ogres would have been so much better, along with a desparate measure. You live and learn!

As it was, I had a runt punter with grab, an ogre with piledriver, a further skillless ogres and 8 gnoblars - this was also excessive but did mean I was always fielding a full 7 players - one of whom had catch and another who had leap.

It will probably not come as much of a spoiler to reveal that the skills weren't used very often. I think in 5 games, I can only remember using one of the skills once, and I only did it just so that I could say I had used it!

The first day comprised two divisions of 4, with everyone playing 3 games and the top 2 in each division going through to the finals day. As it was a while ago, I don't remember the games in a lot of detail so this might not make for very exciting reading! 

First up I played Tom who had goblins with no trolls. Tom is obviously a good player as he just finished runner up out of 14 coaches in the TWBBL Season 3, however his goblins kept getting beat down by my ogres and I nearly pitch cleared him as I ran out a 2-0 winner.

My second game was against tournament organiser Ben and his halflings. I really struggled in this game. I remember a point where I could have (and in hindsight should have) run a gnoblar through a web of tackle zones to try to pick up and make 2 rushes to score, however I lost the war of attrition and Ben ran out a 1-0 winner.

My final game I don't remember too well at all - I think I was playing against Luke and his goblins - although I may have got the chap's name and team completely wrong! It ended up a 1-1 draw and I somehow just scraped into the playoffs on the tiebreaker.

Stu had a fun 3 games but didn't make the playoffs with Andi and Sean progressing from his group. Here is a picture of him making Jake ponder. 

The play-offs were played this past Wednesday night at the Thanet Wargaming Club (TWC) club night. I was due to play Sean but he had to drop out due to personal issues, so TO Ben stepped in to play Sean's mixed team of snotlings, halflings and goblins. I wasn't too confident as Ben had beat me on the first night, but despite banana skins and chainsaws making me even more nervous, I managed to come out the winner.

This meant I was in the final against Andi and his halflings. It was a really enjoyable match up and I look forward to hopefully playing him again sometime in the future. Everything was going in my favour, having scored and caused a casualty on a treeman, but I conspired to throw the game away. I placed my ball carrying gnoblar on the sideline when looking to take a 2-0 lead which allowed Andi to dodge lots of flings around and surf him! Andi managed to pull it back to 1-1 and neither of us could score in the final 2 turns of regular time. With the game going into overtime, I received, drove up the pitch and scored on my turn 6, allowing Andi a chance at a one turn touchdown. He made a great go of it but was 1 pip short on the landing for what would have sent the match to a penalty shoot out, meaning I just about snuck the tournament win.

I'd like to thank all at TWC/TWBBL for letting me and Stu join in and making us feel welcome, and hopefully we will see them all soon! I believe they provisionally have a Sevens event booked in for Saturday 13th May, so you may want to pop that in your calendar.