Troll Bowl, Bromley

This past Saturday, Oli and I ventured to Troll Trader in Bromley to take part in  Troll Bowl. The event rules were 1000TV team build with no stars and everyone got a free giant. I'd never used a giant before (aside from a practice game with Oli the previous week) and I was quite excited that it finally gave me a reason to paint up my giant that had been sitting in my pile of shame for at least half a year.

My most recently painted team, and the one I will be playing in Season 8 of the SKABB League is goblins, and so I figured I'd give them a run out. I opted for 2 trolls with pro, a looney with dodge, a bomma with pass, a sneaky git 'ooligan, another sneaky git, a bunch of other goblins, 2 re-rolls and 2 bribes. Obviously I wanted all of the weapons but there didn't seem to be a way to fit them in without weakening the team substantially, and I took the recommendations of some more experienced goblin coaches when building my roster.

 I hadn't been to an event run by the Bromley BBL previously, although knowing commissioner Chris, and having worked with him to organise the Kent Team Championship I was not surprised to find an efficiently run tournament. I was especially impressed by the range of prizes on offer, and the TV screen with the countdown timer for each round.

We had a nice leisurely journey into Bromley by train as Oli probably rightly suggested that driving in on a Saturday morning would be a silly idea, and we bumped into our friend Nick on the 5 mintue walk to the shop. 

The shop itself is quite a specialist shop, focussing on trading used items, a few specific games and modelling supplies. I was very impressed as I'd not seen certain items on sale in stores before that I'd been interested in, and I ended up picking some Vallejo base textures for myself and another league member. There is also a nice sized gaming area, largely separated from the shop items and with tables that are really nicely sized for BloodBowl.

In round 1, Oli and his ogres were drawn against Nick and I was playing Graham who I previously knew from attending the Halloween Sevens event at Surrey Spartans which he was helping to run. We hadn't played at that event, so I had no idea what the match would be like, and I was up against his Old World Alliance, which he kindly reminded me, had dwarves with no tackle which came as a relief.

I had decided that I wanted to get a photo of my giant with all of my opponents' giants, so here is a photo of mine defintiely not developing Little Man Syndrome.

Graham was receiving in the first half and he scored on turn 4 after I threw a bomb at his giant and focussed on fouling him. The free gift for the tournament was a giant down token which was really useful because, as you can see, if Graham's giant had been on the floor it might have tean up half the pitch! At 1-0 down with 5 turns to score, I managed to again knock down his giant and I think my 7th foul on him removed him from the game into the casualty box. With over 300k of TV difference and the numbers going in my favour and after equalising just before half time, the second half was largely a formality. I marched down the pitch hitting and kicking anyone that got in my way as Graham's few remaining players tried to guard his endzone. A desparation blitz from a catcher failed right at the death, allowing me to get a 2-1 victory.

In their game, Oli was the victor against Nick and our friend Stowelly also picked up a victory. With the three of us among I think seven who won their first game, we were chatting in the lunch break that it seemed statistically likely that between us we'd be matched up but it actually didn't happen that way. Oli was playing a 12-year old named Robbie who learned to play during lockdown and I was playing against James, who I believe won the Halloween Sevens event.

At that event, I had spent pretty much the whole day thinking "I recognise that player" and it wasn't until the final game when we were sat on tables next to each other and I noticed his turn counter that it twigged that we'd been sat next to each other at Warhammer World for the pre-NAFC 7s event last year - and I only realised as he was playing an American coach who had specifically made tokens for all of his opponents.

I knew James was a good player and I didn't have a lot of hope being up against his orcs who had enlisted The Hulk as their giant.

The game didn't start too well, with James scoring on my drive and me not being able to foul The Hulk off the pitch as he incosiderately didn't stay on the floor for long enough. Despite this, I didn't use a single re-roll in the first half as I think at least 5 of my turns finished with failed goblin dodges. The probably of this happening each time is (I have just checked here) 11.1% so to have it happen that many times when I wasn't making a significant number of dodges was a little frustrating. However I am led to believe that is what playing goblins is like, so I can't complain too much. At least I had players on the pitch. 

At the start of the second half with things starting to go against me, I managed to get two goblins through to do a 1 die blitz on his ball carrier. Unlike the first half, I burned both re-rolls in this attempt and managed to pop the ball loose. Unfortunately I couldn't recover it and in hindsight I probably should have tried to dodge more goblins through to form a shield as James' thrower got up, dodged out and passed the ball to his goblin, completing an objective for a bonus point.

There were three bonus point objectives and you had to pick one prior to each match, that could only be used once. In my first match, I went for get a player sent off for fouling. I would have achieved this had I not used a bribe to keep my 'ooligan on the pitch in turn 6 which I think was the right thing to do in the context of the game. For game 2 I didn't expect to achieve 4 casualties by any means, so I saved that for my final game and had an objective of completing a pass in my opponents half which I fully expected to be unable to complete.

On my turn I managed to get my giant to push the goblin to the sideline, forming an imposing barrier to dodge past, however James' goblin was a lot better at dodging than my entire team and he managed to squeeze through for a 2-0 lead. 

Prior to the score, it had looked within the realms of possibility for me to get an equaliser but at this point the game was over, unfortunately. My giant made an impressive blitz (dodging through a tackle zone much more efficiently than my goblins) to force James' blitzer who had recovered the ball into the exact same position as goblin was in for his second touchdown but his blitzer was not as sneaky as the goblin and the game finished 2-0.

Despite the result, I had an enjoyable game as James is a fun opponent, and I leared quite a bit about goblin strategy, which is not very surpsiing as this was only my 3rd tabletop game using them. James' goblin was especially gobliny, so much so that he kept trying to get himself mistaken for one of my team! See Exhibt A below.

Oli and Stowelly both won their games so were in contention for a tournament with as, along with James, they were all on 2 wins.

Oli and I switched opponents for our round 3 games with him playing James and me up against Robbie, whose skaven had been cruelly beaten up by Oli's ogres.

Robbie received the ball but was running out of players quite quickly and decided to stall out. Unfortunately with a successful throw team mate, I managed to get a 1 die block and surf his ball carrier (something that I actually managed to do twice in the game). We ended the first half 0-0 but with Robbie running short on players and me already having achieved my objective of 4 casualties by any means.

Receiving the ball, I slowly marched up the pitch taking out everything in my way and on around turn 14 fouled the giant into the casualty box, meaning I had 2 casualties on giants in 3 games where giant casualties was one of the bonus prizes. I know at least one other player had managed similar, so I was unsure how it would be judged.

I actually managed to pitch clear Robbie, meaning he was unable to do anything on his turn 15 and I walked the ball in to give him 1 turn to score. He only had 4 players return, and the kick off table was kind and didn't move the clock back securing me the victory. I did explain the principle of the skaven one turn touchdown to him after the game, and hopefully he will be able to use it in future. I'd really like to have another game at him at some point as he's got a really good grasp of the game but just made a couple of tactical mistakes that I was able to capitalise on. To apologise for both Oli and me beating up his team, we gave him a pair of our UKTC SKABB dice.

Oli was playing James and stalled out in the second half for a 1-1 victory but Stowelly won his game meaning he was the only player with a 3-0 record which earned him the title. James just pipped Oli on the tie breakers to second place, with Oli coming third.

The way that Chris awards the prizes is as the as we do at our tournaments, such that you cannot win 2 prizes. This meant that the stunty cup fell to me rather than Oli as I must have just pipped the other goblin coach who also had a 2-0-1 record. I think I may have been tied for most giant casualties, but obviously I got the more presitgious prize. 

I really enjoyed both the event and my experience of playing goblins and I'm really looking forward both to attending another Bromley BBL event (hopefully in the near future) and playing goblins this season.