Thrudball 2023

I've heard Thrudball described as the Glastonbury of BloodBowl. It's certainly the only event that I've been to where the majority of coaches were camping, and the BloodBowl was only a portion of the whole experience. 

I'm going to write about the non-BloodBowl bits first, as I feel that is most interesting. If you just want to hear the nitty gritty of how my tournament went, feel free to skip the first bits.

Most Thrudlike

Thurd the Barbarian is a character created many moons ago and Thrudball are allowed to use the character by kind permission. One of the ways that they take advantage of this is by the Most Thrudlike competition. 

I've heard that it was a bit less family friendly (and likely contestant friendly) in the past, but this year it was very much just a whole lot of silly fun. When you complete the booking form, you can opt to be put into a draw for contestants and 6 names were pulled out at random. It just so happened that 3 of the 6 were SKABB league members giving us a 50% chance of having a most Thrudlike Champion!

Challenges happen between rounds providing a bit of light relief if your dice have been cursed by nuffle. All of the challenges were melon based, meaning that one of our league had to drop out in advance due to being unable to eat melon. 

Oli and Craig took part and there were events involving finding melons around the campsite, holding a melon with arms outstretched, racing with a melon between your legs, melon bowls and of course, a melon eating competition. 

The contestants all had to come in a costume of some sort - this didn't seem to have any impact on their performance although may well have been scored secretly. One of the contestants was dressed as a goblin fanatic with a ball and chain comprising an inflatable kiwi fruit. Their dedictation to competing in every event (bar the eating challenge) by spinning round and round in circles was both admirable and ridiculous.

I am very proud to report that SKABB Commissioner Oli won most Thrudlike, and will likely be returning to defend his crown (well helmet) next year.

 Auction

On Saturday night there is an auction of lots of BloodBowl memorabilia, hosted wonderfully by Dan also known as Landrover. 

You get to view all the auction lots on the internet in advance (and can make internet bids as well). All the things that I thought "ooh that could be really cool" were things that a big room full of BloodBowlers would also think is cool and would likely go for much more money that I would have been willing to pay for them.

In hindsight there were a couple of things that I wish I'd bid on now (a dark elf bundle which went for a good price, where I'm playing dark elves a lot in tournaments at the moment and possibly next SKABB season) and also a poster for Thrudball this year which would have been a nice memento of going. There were several of these and they were done in a dutch auction meaning the price kept rising until the number of people willing to pay that amount and the number of items were the same. 

As it was, I picked up a few bits and bobs from the general Thrud stall on the Sunday which I was quite happy with, and I very much enjoyed just watching the auction itself but if I go in future years I will probably think more about putting a bid on some items as it seemed very exciting to do so. 

It is amazing both the generosity of those donating the gifts for the auction and also the prices BloodBowlers are willing to pay for things, and the auction of 100 lots raised over £9,000 for charity. All of the money made at the event is split between Mind, the mental health charity, and the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation. The event itself raised over £14,000 for these two charities. 

BloodBowl

Before talking about the games, I realised after the event that I had done a classic Stewbacca roster muck up and forgotten about something that was on my roster. I had an assistant coach. I don't think it would have made a significant difference in my games, but it serves as a reminder for me to check my roster prior to the first game of any tournament.

This goes into the scrapbook along with thinking I only had 11 players on my roster rather than 13 at the NAFC last year. Fortunately I realised during game 2 as I was in a mirror match and shocked at how many more positionals my opponent had!

My roster was a dark elf team with two witches (1 block, 1 wrestle), four blitzers (3 dodge, 1 tackle), 6 linemen and 2 re-rolls. And apparently 1 assistant coach. I think I must have thought it wasn't worth having a runner on my team, or forgot it was possible. 

Game 1 v Tom (13silver)

I was paired up against the lovely Tom who had come along with an all snotling snotling team. No trolls, no pump wagon, no stars. Everyone was strength 1. Tom is an exceptionally brave man.

Tom was playing a cutimals team, so I immediately sent a picture to Oli as cutimals are his favourite thing ever ... NOT! And that cultural reference is dated, even for me. 

I kicked to the snotlings. and the game very quickly swung in my favour. I got knock outs or casualties on most of his skilled players. I turned over the ball and scored, meaning that the weapons got sent off. Most of the KOs did come back however due to having 2 Bloodweiser kegs. 

I got the game to 3-0 and had a chance at a 4th. To do so meant effectively leaving my defence wide open. I decided to go for it as the game was won and a shot at a 4th touchdown was more valuable than the risk of conceding. Tom managed the score and seemed genuinely chuffed to have done so which in turn made me feel good about the game, especially as I'd been really bullying the small green chaps on the field. 

Tom ended up finishing in 62nd place out of 127, looking like he got 2 wins and 2 draws, which is incredibly respectable for the roster he picked. 

Game 2 v Kaare (kfoged)

The draw came up after lunch and I instantly had two feelings -

1. My tournament was going downhill
2. It would be great to test myself against one of the best players in the game, as Kaare was the number 2 ranked player in the world at the time (although he's just been overtaken by 0.27 ranking points).

It's really great to know that Kaare is a lovely chap and great fun to play against. He plays the game a little like chess but also plays it with a great humour and I think I would enjoy playing against him even if he beat me 8-0. 

Kaare was also good to have a chat to about the game afterwards, and gave me advice and a few insights into his strategy. As someone who plays games through in their head afterwards, it was really good to have my opponents' perspective on it as well.

I got 2 KOs on the los and immediately had the advantage. I formed a loose cage which became tighter as the half went on. He really struggled to break through at anywhere and I was able to score on my turn 8 surfing his guard catcher at the same time as his cage dive attempt had failed. 

After the game Kaare suggested that I should have caged up one square in (I was on the sidelines and didn't want to do that as it risked my cage being based) but as he's a much better player than I am, I'm going to note it down as a learning point.

The second half he received and went down the sideline. I had a choice between a surf attempt on the guard catcher and diving into the sideline cage to hit his ball carrier with my tackler. I opted for the surf on the guard piece and didn't get a push. I then realised instantly I had made the wrong choice when his catcher easily jumped over me for the score as it wasn't safe for the frogs to try to stall. 

I received the ball with an opportunity to score but his strip ball lineman got the ball loose and also gave the slann an opportunity for the winner as well. They decided to focus their efforts on preventing me from scoring first and attempting to score second. They managed the first but not the second and the game ended in a draw. Strip ball is a skill that I hate my opponents having, especially on quite mobile players, it makes me play the game significantly differently and not to my strengths. 

Game 3 v Beard

 

Beard was playing ogres and had a really bad game dice-wise. We didn't keep count but there must have been at least 25 boneheads, so significantly over 1 per turn. It really wasn't going well for him right from the off. 

Kicking to the ogres, I turned the ball over and scored and then scored on my drive. If I'm being honest, I don't remember a lot of details about the game as it wasn't much of a game. My team were playing, his team were not.

Beard said that those at his club in Wales would have been a lot more ruthless with it being 3 or 4 nil, however I was happier to hold on to the ball and try to secure victory by preventing him from being able to get to me. I ended up winning 2-0 but would like to play him again another time where hopefully his dice aren't letting him down so we can have a more competitive match.

Game 4 v Hargrim

Going into the second day I was in 16th place - a position much higher than I expected to finish. Being that high up the table meant that I was going to face some good coaches in the second day and all three that I played were really experienced coaches.

Originally from York but now living in Copenhagen, Hargrim is a lovely guy and whilst he was a bit under the weather for our game, it didn't stop it being an exceptionally competitive game. 

Kicking the ball and then breaking through into his backfield, I turned over the ball and scored quickly. Hargrim then drove down my sideline and failed a rush over Nuffle's trip wire meaning the ball came loose with me having 2 turns left. I decided to attempt to score rather than holding onto the ball and forcing him to hit me to have a shot at scoring. I'm still not sure whether this was the right option. It was a 6+ pass which, had it paid off, would have probably resulted in me going into the half 2-0 up and just needing to protect the ball. As it was, the pass ended up being wildly inaccurate after my re-roll leaving the ball loose after my witch elf failed to catch it. The damn dirty rats equalised meaning it was 1-1 at the half. 

Hargrim is the 5th highest ranked Danish coach at skaven and his experience showed as he put me under a lot of pressure for pretty much the rest of the game. 

Receiving the ball in the second half, I tried to cage up and progress the ball up the pitch but the rat ogre blitzing into my vengabus meant that my cage was wide open and I was in what Hagrim told me the techical term for - "a pickle." 

At this point I made a wrong decision - with a blodging blitzer having been given stab I decided to attack the linerat next to him with his new knife. The blitzer would almost certianly have been much more use elsewhere. With very few options available I tried to dodge my ball carrier free which failed and eventually allowed the rats to turn me over and go 2-1 up. 

Now having to push for an equaliser and feeling under a lot of pressure, I pushed again and again the rat ogre burst into my vengabus and put it's tail onto my ball carrier leading eventually to the rats getting a third and winning the game 3-1. 

As we sat down, Hagrim had said that he expected not to win the game, he was going for most touchdowns, a feat that he did ultimately accomplish thanks to the three that he scored against me. 

Whilst I lost this game, it was one of my two favourite games of the tournament.

Game 5 v Raging82

Again I was matched up against another high quality coach with Raging82 having been the individual champion at the 2022 UKTC. I thought I would be in for a tough game, however the dice made it very difficult for my opponent. Playing black orcs and not getting a single removal allowed me the luxury of a foul at the end of the first half knowing that I would start the second with at least 11 players. 

I couldn't spot anything that he did wrong, he just wasn't getting the dice he needed which meant he wasn't able to pull off anything he tried. 

The game started and I was able to blitz in and get the ball loose and pick it up in tacklezones, although it cost me all of my re-rolls to do so. He recovered the ball and my hopes of returning the score were slim. Trapdoors appeared and I was able to push a goblin into one (perhaps the first time I've actually seen this happen) and with a few good rolls I managed to get the equaliser just before half time. 

I then scored late in the second half being able to hold off the pressure and stall out whilst the black orcs used all of their re-rolls. 

At the kick off I got a blitz and was able to push a black orc away and get a blitzer underneath the ball which he caught. My opponent was getting visibily frustrated at this point which was only slightly alleviated by me making a mistake. I blitzed my ball carrier loose with one dice and could have scored with two rushes. Rather than holding onto the ball which probably would have guaranteed the victory, I went for them both and fell over in the endzone meaning the ball ended up in the middle of the field giving the option of throwing a golin for the one turn attempt. Fortunately his dice continued to be bad meaning I got the victory, but what I've learned is that sometimes it is better to hold the ball and do nothing.

Game 6 v dafo

Paired up against SKABB friend dafo, I knew my last game would be fun no matter what happened. Which is good, because the dice very much turned on me during this game. 

I quickly went 1-0 down and trying to bltiz my ball carrying witch elf free against a snotling, I changed my mind mid blitz and made the wrong choice by picking a both down rather than a push which would have allowed me an easier dodge. She fell on her face and I conceded a second in the second half as the number of players I had on the pitch dwindled. 

Dafo sportingly scored rather than stalling giving me a chance to score. I got the ball to my blodging blitzer in scoring range, however the pow took the ball away and we got in for a third. 

I was able to laugh at my dice which made me happy - it is easy to get frustrated when the dice don't go in your favour and to get over confident when they do. It's nice to know that I am that level removed from it emotionally. 

One bonus to this was that we got a spot prize for finishing early, although we were then also talked into helping to get down the flags from outside the venue. 

Conclusion

I ended up with a 3/1/2 record and in 35th place (out of 127) with my two losses being against the coaches who finished 7th and 9th so I'm very happy with that overall. It is the first tournament I've taken dark elves to prior to taking them to the world cup (and I have another one tomorrow) so it is good to get the practice in and feel like I'm more comfortable heading into that. Despite the fact I've been practicing them a lot online, there's nothing better than a competitive tabletop environment to practice. 

David finished a few places above me and got his first ever SKABBERS on Tour Victory, which he was very pleased about, as you can see his little face here.