BriBBE Light And Dark Doubles, 18th November in Brighton

When I heard that there was going to be a doubles event in Brighton, I immediately dropped a message to one of my best SKABB pals, Tommy, who used to live there to let him know. His reply was “awesome, we’re going as a stunty doubles team, yeah?” (or words to that effect).

I thought this was a great idea. Mainly because it usually takes several hours of procrastination for me to pick a team to take to a tournament. As he was locked in for goblins and I had to be a "light" team, that gave me an option of 2 (and one I was significantly more comfortable with) meaning that my decision was effectively made for me!

Over the past few years. we’ve met a lot of the members of the Brighton League (BriBBe) and it was great to go down there for a tournament they were running and catch up with a number of them, and also meet a few new faces.

After my body did its favourite trick of going “oh, you need to get up early. I shall wake you up!” several times during the night, I finally got up around 6.15 to get ready to leave for what turned out to be a rather easy drive.

One of the benefits of my body’s insistence on being up early was that I got to have two breakfasts. I didn’t choose the Fling life, the Fling life chose me.

For my build I had gone for 2 pro treemen, 2 hefties (1 with leader), 2 catchers, 8 halflings (one with sneaky git), Rumbelow and Puggy, along with a masterchef and because I had loads of cash, instead of taking any re-rolls I thought I'd try out 2 kegs. 

Meeting up with other SKABBERs in the café next door whilst waiting for the store to open, we dished out our snazzy new league hoodies and Tommy and I expressed our disgust at all the try harders taking tier one teams. (Please note: I myself am a try harder at least 50% of the time).

I'd not been to the Dice Saloon before. I had been outside it on a family holiday with a child who needed to get back to the hotel for bed and looked in longingly. I was pleased to be able to get inside this time and found it to be an excellent venue. A really big gaming space that was able to accommodate 48 players, a bar and restaurant (serving excellent pizza to our tables) is ideal for a tournament of this size. 

Me and Tommy getting more use out of our Team Stunty bandanas

Round 1 v Mark (Woody)

My first opponent was playing in his first ever tournament and I think/hope this was a great first game for him. He admitted after he was very scared of halflings though, so I gave him a little hug. As a man who normally plays snotlings, I guess he understood the threat of a stunty team. 

I knew his elf union team inside out having played them for two seasons and taken them to a number of tournaments previously. 

I had the choice to kick or receive (as I did in all of my games) and I chose to kick. Halflings have a decent shot at a one turn touchdown with catchers who have sprint and I feel it is better to have that shot at the end of the first half when you are likely to have a larger number of players on the pitch to make it more feasible. My chef only took 1 re-roll in the first half, leaving my opponent with a bit of flexibility in taking risky plays.

I forced Woody into an early score by surrounding him down the flank and he made a block and then a few slightly scary 3+ dodges to get through my screen to my endzone in the middle of the first half. At this point I was quietly confident. My confidence was misplaced.

Rushing into my backfield after kicking to me, I was forced to try and get my ball carrying catcher up to the middle of the field to get them safe, but they failed the rush with a re-roll thus allowing the elves to recover the ball and score.

The next kick was too deep for me to try to pull one back before half time, so I went in 2-0 down.

I was removing a large number of elves who didn't have a bench so I was getting the numerical advantage. Figuring my best short at getting anything out of the game was a quick score and then to attempt to turn over the elves, I handed off to Puggy who used his halfling luck for the catch. I then attempted to throw him to score and got the following sequence of dice.

This is:
Throw Team Mate - 1
Pro - 1
Puggy trying to land after being fumbled - 1
Puggy using loner - 3 - SUCCESS!
Puggy trying to land again - 1

Puggy then hurt himself and got removed from the game. Any slim hope I had of getting a result was gone at this point. It was a fun game and Mark was a great opponent, and I hope I was too for his first tournament game. 

Tommy drew his match in this round 1-1 against orcs as we bemoaned the standard of officiating in Brighton due to a large number of his players being sent off. We therefore lost this round.

Round 2 v Andy

Turning up for this game, our opponents had branded team shirts, tokens and stickers. These guys were prepared! 

Andy was playing Chaos Renegades, a team that I have historically not done well against. Although this might be because a number of my games have been against Sid who has picked me apart with them!

However, things started to go my way quite early on. My masterchef took all three of my opponents re-rolls in the first half, at which point Andy declared he played better without re-rolls.

I then proceeded to roll a blitz on the kick off table. Unfortunately I didn't play a good strategy with this. I hit a player on the line and threw a fling into the backfield, but it didn't stop the renegades picking up the ball and caging up on their first turn.

Andy's minotaur then blitzed into my backfield and double skulled. With no re-rolls, the mino was on it's back and quickly fouled off the pitch by my sneaky git. I struggled a little defensively and the blodging dark elf made his way to just in front of my line and stalled out. This gave me an opportunity for my hefty to dodge and rush in for an uphill block, amazingly getting a double pow, knocking down the elf and sending the ball out of play and back towards the halfway line. At this point I was quietly confident. My confidence was misplaced.

With no re-rolls, a lineman moved into my endzone whilst another lineman picked up the ball in a tacklezone, dodged out, passed and then the catch was made putting me 1-0 down.

Again, I had a chance at the one turn touchdown, but the ball went too deep. The kick off roll was changing weather and I was hopeful for a favourable scatter and/or a touchback. The weather changed to sweltering heat. I didn't have a chance at a touchdown, but when the heat rolls were made one of his big guys got taken out and both my trees survived. 

Going in to the second half with 2 big guys against his one, with him having no tacklers on his team, with my masterchef again taking all three re-rolls from Andy's team, I was slightly hopeful of the draw. 

However again my catcher snaked a rush to be out of range of being hit, and at this point it went downhill quite fast. The renegades scooped up the ball marched up the field and stalled out before scoring turn 16 to give me a second 2-0 loss.

Whilst it was disappointing to lose again, this game was what BloodBowl is all about for me, craziness, silly plays, and above all fun. Both of us were laughing throughout and it is one of the more memorable games I've played in a long time.

Tommy got another 1-1 draw against high elves but this meant another team loss.

Round 3 v Sleeves

We headed to the bottom tables to join our leaguemates who had all been having a pretty rough time as well.

SKABBERs on the bottom tables with me trying to relax Tommy after he was 2-0 down on turn 3.

At this point we had discovered that the only other coach in the running for the stunty cup was Lachlan who we had met at OctOgre Cup 2. He was on a win and a loss, meaning Tommy was on the same number of points as him and if he bettered Lachlan’s result he would take the stunty cup.

As you can see from the above, it did not go well for Tommy this round. He ended up losing 3-2 and Lachlan took home the Stunty Cup.

My game was against Sleeves who Tommy had been chatting to just before the game and we set up with him having Slaan with Akhorne and me not being terribly hopeful about how the game would go. I really struggle against the frogs tactically but it's always nice to have a challenge.

For the third game in a row I kicked, hopeful of the one turn throw team mate touchdown coming off at the end of the half in at least one of my three games. 

On his first turn he blitzed with Akhorne leaving him in prime position for Rumbelow to have a shot at him. He managed to knock him down but couldn't remove him even by using his once per game ability. I tried a foul which also didn't remove him. Oh well, he was stunned and would be out for a turn.

The frogs moved up the pitch but were losing a few players here and there. The scored midway through the half leaving me time to pull one back. Again Puggy failed me and actually ended up removing himself after being thrown for an attempt at a score. 

I received the ball and started moving up the pitch. I had the option of stalling out but instead I decided to score, as I thought it would be more fun for us to both have a shot at winning the game. At this point Akhorne had been removed and the frogs were down a couple of players. 

Scoring reasonably early made for a much more exciting finish. 

The Slaan had the ball just inside their half and I spotted a way to get a shot on the ball carrier. A lot needed to go right for me. I had to knock down the player at the edge of their line to allow Rumbleow to double rush in for a hit on the ball. The first hit got a knockdown giving Rumbelow the shot. He made both rushes... and got the knockdown. I was then able to dodge my only unactivated fling through the line of frogs and successfully pick up the ball. 

With it being easy for the Slann to get a hit on him, I didn't expect him to be holding the ball still at the end of their turn but amazingly he was! He ran away towards the endzone and was then surrounded by frogs. The Slann blitzer rushed at him but was only able to get a push, however he was crowded in a sea of slann linemen and would have a few dodges and a rush to make to be able to get into the endzone. 

The way they had been positioned meant I had an oppotunity for Rumbelow to blitz and chainpush my ball carrier forward a square meaning he wouldn't have to make the rush. The best result I got a push but I thought that was fine, as I'd have the same number of dodges to make regardless of whether or not I'd knocked down the ball carrier.

I went to make the first dodge... and at this point Sleeves reminded me that Slann blitzers have diving tackle. Oh crap. I don't play against them enough to remember this. It didn't change my plan, though. This was the only way to score so I had to go for it. I roll a 3 on the dodge and obviously the blitzer uses diving tackle. Ok, this next dice will basically decide the game... needing a five to succeed the first dodge using his dodge skill.... I roll exactly a 5. Phew. Two more 3+ dodges are made and he scores on my turn 16. As the Legion of Doom would say "WHAT A RUSH!" A very exciting way for my tournament to end. I did feel a bit bad for Sleeves as it was a series of plays that could have easily failed that got me the victory, but that is how it goes when you play a dice game. 

Winners

Thulean playing amazons cleaned up winning best indvidual, best painted and also best team along with PurpleChest (playing underworld). Lachlan took the Stunty Cup with his goblins on 2/0/1. 

Conclusions

I really like Rumbleow but I've still not exactly sussed how to play Puggy. He's a great cage diver, but I've not had the chance to use him as such in the 6 games I've played with him recently. He should be a good scoring threat but he's not managed it when he's had the opportunity. He's also pretty good at taking himself out of the game with only 7+ armour. I think the kegs were wasted cash, although I didn't come up against any real bash teams, so my opinion might be considerably different if I had done so. 

The event was really well organised. Neil has a lot of  experience running events on FUMBBL and had a great team around him to ensure everything went smoothly. The event had sold out fairly quickly with a good combination of local players and some who have travelled from along the south coast and London.

The only tiny criticism I have of the event that it was difficult to hear annoucements, however that is not specific to this event - it happens at a large number of BloodBowl events and I'm not sure if there is an easy way around it. It becomes more difficult as players move around after the matchups are announced, although how disruptive this can be to hearing the annoucements can really depend on the size of the room, number of players and how loud the TO can shout! 

I'm already looking forward to the event they are running as part of the South East Tournament series in September next year, assuming I will be able to get a ticket. Local BloodBowl events have been selling out really fast recently! 

There were three games streamed during the day which can be found on MisspelledTree's Twitch channel here.

The awards ceremony was also streamed by DizzyBess here.