OctOgre Cup 2, 7th and 8th October 2023
This past weekend, we ran the second iteration of OctOgre Cup. The first one was a smaller event run at Chaos Cards at capped at 18 players. As we had used the Burstin previously for the Pissed Up Terry Testimonial, we used that again and the capacity was increased to 30 and made into a 2 day event. It may be possible to extend this for next year's event, the date of which is currently dependent on when Eurobowl is scheduled.
This was our first ever attempt to run a 2 day event and it seemed to go quite successfully. There is a feedback form available here which we would appreciate you filling in if you attended, so that we can help to make future events even better.
The event was very kindly sponsored by Charlie Victor, Punga Minatures, Rule Book Tabs and Pogostick Productions.
The ruleset required teams to roster a strength 5 player if it was possible for them to do so. If after setting up for a drive, either team wasn't fielding a strength 5 player then a random player would be knocked out and replaced by a Drunk Ogre Fan who was a ball and chain with both bonehead and animal savagery. There was aslo a violent crowd who added +1 for any surfed player, a hard pitch that made the ball bounce twice and a special weather table featuring gale force winds and ice storms.
The ruleset actually led to quite a varient of rosters. Despite there being only 31 rosters (the 30 capacity plus a spare) there were 21 of the 29 races represented. These were
4- Underworld
3- Vampire (note: new rules are in effect. vampire coaches are encouraged to explain the team fully to their opponents)
2 - Amazon, Goblin, Lizardmen, Norse, Ogre
1 - Black Orc, Chaos Chosen, Chaos Renegade, Dark Elf, Halfling, Imperial Nobility, Orc, Old World Alliance, Shambling Undead, Skaven, Slann, Snotling, Tomb Kings, Wood Elf
For anyone wondering those not represented were Chaos Dwarf, Dwarf, Elven Union, High Elf, Human, Khorne, Necomantic, Nurgle,
Star players were allowed and those taken were:
2 - Akhorne, Borak, Fungus, Ivan, Wilhelm, Zug
1 - Black Gobbo, Deeproot, Morg, Nobbla, Ripper, Varag, Zolcath
This left 12 teams who didn't take a star.
And to get around the strength 5 player rule, 28 teams rostered a strength 5 positional, 2 (both amazon coaches) had a star player to cover the requirement and 1 brave dark elf coach accepted his fate and played the entire weekend with the drunk ogre!
For my roster, after a lot of what I believe the youth call "banter" with David at the World Cup we picked each other's team, which meant I was playing Tomb Kings. They're a team that would have been way down on my list if I'd been picking myself, so it's nice in a way to be forced out of my comfort zone. After 1 tabletop practice and a couple online, I realised that there isn't a wide variety of play styles for them. Due to this and my desire to shout "VILHELMMM!" a lot, I rostered Mr Cheney. My build was 4 guard Tomb Guardians, 1 blitzer with tackle, 2 throwers with block, 4 skeletons, Wilhelm Cheney and 2 re-rolls.
David had given me minimal advice on playing the team, with the main bit which stuck in my head being that if an opponent rolled an 8 for the injury roll on a skeleton that you had to tap on your head and shout "THICK SKULL BABY! BEST SKILL IN THE GAME!)
I'm going to talk through my games and then a bit of a summary of the event and my thoughts.
Game 1 v Greenskin Phil (Chris)
It is confusing that Chris has neither greenskin nor is named Phil. I feel that this is a tactic designed to discombobulate his opponents from the off! He's a lovely guy and had actually been my teammate Ross's opponent in the first round of the World Cup. With all the excitement going on at the time, I don't think I'd said more than hello to him on the day, so it was great to actually be able to play and chat with him. We have similar BloodBowling stories - getting into the game at a younger age and then rediscovering it more recently, and both trying to get to as many tournaments as possible to satisfy our addiction!
I was fortunate enough to kick. This actually happened nearly all of my games, and suited the way that I had planned to play Tomb Kings. However my team were letting me down from the start. Chris was playing Slann who I find pretty scary to play against because I have no idea how to play them myself, but whenever I play them I seem to have my opponent dance around me.
From the off, I had a Tomb Guardian not roll anything better than a both down, and shortly after this Wilhelm double skulled which prompted me to start screaming at him. I wasn't really able to do much to protect against a score and Chris went 1-0 up, but did leave me a bit of time to get an equaliser. With the ball in the middle of his half and no re-rolls, I managed to get my blitzer into the endzone ready for a skeleton to try to pick up on a 6, pass on a 6 and for the blitzer to then attempt to catch on a 4.
Chris was telling me a story of when a dwarf coach managed to score against him against much greater odds, but unfortunately it didn't inspire my players to do the same. It wasn't far off, with the pick up being successful and the throw being inaccurate rather than wildly inaccruate giving the blitzer a potential attempt at the catch, especially with the hard floor making the ball bounce twice but it didn't at any point scatter to him unfortunately.
On my drive, the dice didn't improve for me, with a cry of "VILHELLLLMMM!" as he double skulled for the second time in the game. The ball got knocked loose a couple of times, but I was able to stall for enough time to make Chris use all his re-rolls in recovery attempt so after I scored, it was always going to be difficult for the slann to get a winner. The game ended 1-1.
Game 2 v Lostviking (Dan)
Dan's lonely rooted treeman
Out of everyone in our league, I have known Dan for the longest. We may have even played each other around 20 years ago when I was learning the game. This makes our games really good fun as we can give each other a lot of smack talk which is fun, even if the game ends up being very one sided.
Dan was playing wood elves that I had lent him as his weren't finished in time (and which TO Oli said I wasn't allowed to vote for as best painted, the spoilport!). I jokingly asked Dan to talk me through which positional was which was "I am unfamiliar with the models." I'm basically Jimmy Carr.
Dan scored quite quickly and I had focussed a little bit on trying to remove the tree, sending Wilhelm's claws and special ability after him, and even sticking the boot in with a foul, however the resilient tree stuck around meaning that after Dan scored he wasn't stuck with a drunk ogre.
I drove up the pitch and Dan managed to get a blitz on my ball carrier in his turn 7, knocking it loose but the double bounce allowed the ball to end up in the hands of Mr Chaney who scored the equaliser.
Dan looked at setting up for a 1 turned and asked me for advice. I told him that I would explain a bit after he had committed his set up and fortunately for me, he hadn't quite got his head around what he needed to do.
Receiving the ball, I drove slowly up the pitch - discovering this is basically the only way to drive when playing tomb kings - and trying to avoid giving up blocks on the ball carrier. I was unable to do so, and the elf movement and agility meant that they were able to pop the ball loose. In my final turn, I had to blitz a tackle zone away from the ball, send VILHELM into the endzone and then do a 5+ pick (re-rolled with sure hands), a 5+ pass (re-rolled with pass) and then a 3+ catch (re-rolled with catch) to somehow snatch a victory.
This was our second NAF ranked game. Dan won the first at our Sevens event last year - against a lot of odds as my chaos chosen had his skaven down to around 3 players left when my minotaur decided to remove himself from the game. I got my revenge today, tying the scores at 1 apiece.
Game 3 v Dimmy Gee
Dimmy Gee does have a human name but I think he likes it to remain a mystery so I won't divulge it here. We'd had a bit of interaction online prior to the event, but this was my first time meeting him and it was great to be drawn against him. I'm aware that he's a streamer, although in my minimal spare time, I very rarely get to watch anyone streaming so I'd not previously seen him play.
He was using Chaos Chosen, a team that I've used in three seasons across tabletop and online, and you would expect that I know really well. More on that, later.
Dimmy pushed down my flank getting a couple of casualties against me but fortunately they regenerated. He was stalling out one square away from the endzone and I did probably the best play I've done, and Mr Gee very kindly said it was the best play he's seen on tabletop. I was able to chain push a tomb guardian one square towards his ball carrier. I then blitzed with VILHLEM (by this point, my voice was a bit sore from shouting excitedly/in despair in the first two games that I was a lot more restrained) who got a push and a knockdown meaning that my tomb guardian could get a 1 die block on the ball carrier.
Realising that another push would make it a 2 die block, I opted to take the push and frenzy, getting a knockdown on both the second block and then with the tomb guardian against the ball carrier, meaning the ball went out at the corner and got thrown back onto the opposite side of the pitch. As he had a chaos warrior available, he was able to dodge out on a 3+ (remember: I should know this well) and attempt to get the ball but he failed to get the score and ultimately I was able to surf 2 more players before the half.
Dimmy was exceptionally unlucky with his KO rolls with none of his 4 knock outs coming back meaning he started the second half with just 6 players compared to my full team. At this point, an experienced tomb king coach would possibly have been able to easily wrap up the game.
However, this was probably only about my sixth ever game with them and Butterfingers McGee kept failing to pick up the ball even with sure hands. A combination of this and Dimmy's smart defending meant that mid-way through the half, I finally had the ball in hand but hadn't protected as well as I'd hoped.
I blocked with a tomb guardian on a chaos warrior and followed up hoping that this would annoy his players. I ended my turn and Dimmy just looked at me and said "You sure?" I said yes and he said... "AG 3 mate." At this point I realised a chaos warrior just had a 3+ dodge to get 2 dice on my ball carrier. This worked to drop the ball loose and the rest of the half turned into me attempting to not lose the game from what looked like a winning position. Fortunately I managed to do so, and the game ended 0-0.
At one point I rolled maybe 11 and then 10 for armour and injury and I said exasperated "Oh NOW I get the high numbers" to which Dimmy gestured towards his dugout. It served as a reminder that it's not just rolling well, it's rolling well at the right times. If I'd had a few less removals but an early succesful pickup, then I might have been able to progress the ball a bit better. It's one of those things that you have to accept when playing a dice game and plan accordingly.
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| Not my game but a photo of my 3 year old daughter's first ever painted mini (sort of) being borrowed by Marianne to represent her Zoat. |
Game 4 v Hellbent Ginger (Craig)
Craig and I had only just played our gutterbowl league game a week or so before, with my black orcs coming out victorious against his orcs. With his orcs he, he very much got his revenge! This was our first NAF ranked game, but in league games between us the honours are probably fairly evenly split.
I had a couple of players removed early. A tomb guardian died and failed to regen on the same turn that a skeleton did the same. One or two turns later, I managed to engineer a 2 die block on the ball carrying orc with VILHELM who managed to get the ball to come lose but was standing next to three big menacing orcs who had promised to punch him in the face. Deciding that this was a bad idea, he attempted to dodge out, failed, casualtied himself and failed to regenerate.
Down 2 key players, it was always going to be really tough for me and the orcs made it 1-0 just before half time. At this point, I heard Matt on the table next to me playing vampires say that he was going to make a regeneration roll. Due to my multiple failed regens, I said across to him that regen wasn't working today. It frightened him as he thought that it was a special rule that he was unaware of! This comment was probably actually the best thing I achieved all game!
The second half was very much a formality. I was running very low on players and at the end of the game, just before the orcs were going to score their second, I elected to stop using block on my players to allow him the opportunity to get a couple more casulaties, but his orcs very sportingly refused to do so.
A 2-0 loss was a reminder that after my first day of playing tomb kings undefeated that I was probably not as good with them as I had thought!
Game 6 v bonethugsnoharmony (Alex)
I sat out round 5 due to odd numbers with a player having to pop off, and instead gave a practice half to one of my league mate's sons.
The following round I was drawn against Alex who I had actually faced at the first OctOgre where we drew 1-1 with me playing undead and him playing tomb kings. This time I had the Tomb Kings and he had a norse build with Lord Borak.
Alex managed two quick KOs on skeletons and then spent quite a while trying to work out the best block and foul on a tomb guardian only for Lord Borak to double skull. After a couple of blocks I made the risky decision to foul Borak with a thrower who successfully casualtied him without getting sent off.
A couple of turns later with the yhetee on the floor, I sent a skeleton over to put the boot in and he successfully KO'd the big guy. With a distinct team value advantage on the pitch, Alex was forced to resort to slightly risky plays but managed to break through and score although gave me 2 turns to pull one back.
At this point, I realised later, one of Alex's team should have been knocked out and replaced by a drunk ogre which should also have happened at the start of the second half. Unfortunately we both forgot this. Ultimately, it probably didn't have a massive effect on the outcome of the game.
I picked up the ball and sent my blitzer and VILHELM deep into his half ready to potentially receive a pass the next turn. A norseman managed to get through and stun my ball carrier however on my turn I was able to send the other thrower over to make a pick up and long bomb. The 6+ throw succeeded first time and VILHELM plucked the ball out of the air. All he had to do now was to break free of his marker and walk into the endzone. I declared a blitz, later realising that he was up against an ulf not a lineman, meaning a 1 die block rather than 2. The second block resulted in a both down and he failed to score. Oli sitting next to me watching asked why I didn't just dodge, which was a very fair question. I think that I'd expected a 2 dice block to be the right option. I think I should probably play norse at some point to get more familiar with their team.
At the second half Alex asked if I was going to try to go for the win. I said that I would after I had murderised his team. I marched the ball up the pitch protecting it as best as I could whislt aiming for more removals. The norse were down to maybe 6 players but still managed to get a hit on my ball carrier due to me snaking a rush on a surf attempt. The block on the ball carrier was successful but it bounced to a standing tomb guardian who was able to double rush and score the equaliser.
With no riot, the game ended 1-1 meaning I finished on 1/3/1 in my first outing with Tomb Kings. I was pretty happy with that as I'd expected my unfamiliarity with the team to result in a few more losses, and despite the game with Craig I was very competitive in all of the games, with opportunities to win in all three of the draws.
Prizes and thoughts
The winners on the day were:
Winner: howlinggriffon (underworld)
Runner up: euhan (undead)
Most TD: minimorg (underworld)
Most CAS: fluffles (Norse)
Best painted: PaganAgent
Wooden spoon: busseltonwanderer (OWA)
I had hoped to play one of the three vampire teams to see them in action but it wasn't to be. I managed to see snippets of games and have a chat with a couple of the coaches and have an idea of what they are like at least.
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