Superbowl, London, 20th January 2024

Superbowl was scheduled for this past Saturday at Rule Zero in London. Unfortunately, a message from Tournament Organisers loynster the night before around 6pm suggested that it might not be going ahead due to flooding at the venue.

Amazingly a venue was sourced at short notice - the Hackney Brewery & High Hill Taproom. Although the start time was slightly later, the venue a bit chilly and loynster's stress levels probably a bit higher, the day went smoothly all things considered.

I was taking humans as I'd recently finished painting them and I'm trying to get tournament games in with all the races (partly to encourage myself to get them painted). The tournament was using the rules for NAFC and I went for a block ogre, four blitzers (2 guard, 1 frenzy and 1 tackle), two catchers (1 wrestle, 1 sidestep), four linemen, two halflings and four re-rolls.

The only time I'd used humans on tabletop was when I had taken an all linemen and ogre team when teaching the game to newer players, so I thought it would be an interesting experience. 

The first tournament tiebreaker was to complete Special Plays during games. There were six available and prior to the kick off for each game you had to select one of them to attempt to achieve. If you achieve it, you gain a bonus point. The options were: win by 2 or more touchdowns, score in the first 4 turns of either half, stall for a turn before scoring, cause 2 or more casulaties, remove a player by fouling, nominate an opposing player and remove them.

Game 1 v Jag (dragonloup)

The first round was drawn as we were on the way to the venue and I was up against dragonloup who was playing orcs, and also happened to be the first person I spoke to when standing outside waiting for the venue to open. Jag plays more online than on tabletop and seems to prefer the bash teams having mainly played orc or khorne in NAF events. 

I lost the toss and was receiving and I picked the Special Play of removing a player by fouling. This I acheived in my first turn as my halfling successfully knocked out the orc's troll who didn't return for the entire game. 

Using my slight speed advantage I zig-zagged my cage down the pitch to try to create space and had the ball in the hands of my thrower at the start of my turn 8. Jag had managed to get as many orcs as possible in the way but with a couple of blocks, I was able to make the space where I needed just a 3+ dodge with a team re-roll in hand in order to go into the half 1-0 up. Unfortunately Nuffle did not smile favourably on me and my thrower tripped over his own laces.

Kicking to the orcs I managed to knock the ball loose a couple of times exploiting a couple of gaps that Jag hadn't noticed, however coming to his turn 8 he had the chance to score with a dodge, pickup in a tackle zone, dodge and rush with no re-rolls left. Nuffle was feeling more generous and the orcs went 1-0 up.

I had a turn left and considering my options and the players available at my disposal, the throw team mate was a better choice than trying to use the sidestepping catcher, however I failed the pickup and lost the game. 

Game 2 v Bart (BartK)

Bart was playing nurgle. I found this a really difficult matchup for humans. In the NAFC rulespack, they are tier 3 meaning they get the same upgrades as stunty teams.

For this game I picked the Special Play of scoring in the first 4 turns of either half. I had edged into Bart's half and threw a lot of dice and re-rolls at making this happen to get my bonus point. It involved dodging a catcher a few times to get them into the endzone, followed by dodging, rushing and handing over. It took a lot of my resources to manage it and in hindsight was not the smartest idea as it allowed Bart to go in level at 1-1 having had 5 turns to equalise.

My players were beginning to get removed and Bart ended up with 8 casualties against me.

As I didn't have much to do in the second half, I spent quite a bit of time admiring the painting on Bart's models which won the best painted award on the day. 

It was a really difficult task attempting to defend against the nurgle. I was struggling at the end of the first half when I had some numbers on the pitch, but when I got down to the lower digits, it was all desparation plays to attempt to make something happen. None of them paid off and I didn't have enough players to feasibly attempt a one turn touchdown. Bart encouraged me to do so, but my first dice roll was a double both down re-rolled into the same result so my sidestepped stayed exactly where he was and the game was lost 2-1.

Game 3 v Toby (tofu)

Toby is a relatively new player who plays in the BBBL, one of the closest leagues to us. He has received a lot of stick from the youngsters minimorg and dinlo who don't seem to be happy with any of the teams that he ever plays! Today he was playing imperial nobility. I was quite pleased with this as I think player for player, humans match up quite favourably against nobles.

My Special Play for this game was to pick a player to remove. I chose the lineman who my ogre was eyeing up on the line of scrimmage. Toby picked the same thing for the halfling that was on the pitch.

It was raining throughout this game and I struggled to pick up the ball initially. I managed it on my second turn and made a move down one flank. 

On around my turn 4 I removed the player I had targeted, and Toby did the same on the following turn and we high fived! Neither of us had won a game but at least we were racking up the bonus points!

The stand firm and fend on the nobles proved annoying until I started removing some of his team. I found it difficult to get past but I managed to sneak through although Toby had a shot on the ball which he succeeded in getting loose. My numbers advantage did allow me to get a player onto the ball and then into the endzone to go 1-0 up at the end of the first half.

Defending in the second half, I had forced the nobles down the side and had a lot of them either in the dugout or on the floor. The nobles had used a lot of re-rolls to try to keep a hold of the ball and I managed to surround their ball carrier causing them no end of problems. The blodging noble blitzer tried to blitz himself free and fell down leaving the ball in an easily recoverable spot for me. I managed to get it deep into the opposition half which reduced the likelihood of an equaliser against me, so I wasn't too upset when I wasn't able to get in for a second touchdown as the game had already been won.

Game 4 v Jim (salontiger)

I had been chatting to Jim between games and was quite pleased to get a chance to play him and continue chatting with him. Jim is one of the hosts of the Channelled Fury podcast which focuses on the London scene. I recommend checking it out if you live in or around the area.

Jim was the only stunty coach at the tournament so unsurprsingly won the stunty cup! He had brought ogres with Scrappa Sorehead. I was kicking to him, and he had just managed to push around a few of my players when my first dice roll of the game gave me triple skulls on a block against a gnoblar.

Deciding that this was worth a re-roll, I started getting some good hits in and started removing gnoblars. I managed to knock the ball loose and then had the choice of fouling an ogre or Scrappa. Feeling that it would be easier to remove Scrappa later in the game, I kicked the ogre who ended up in the casualty box. Seeing how the rest of the game played out, kicking Scrappa probably would have been the smarter move at this point.

I went to pick up the ball and pass it to a waiting catcher, however the pick up failed and the ball bounced into the crowd before it was thrown back in at the feet of a waiting ogre. Out of position and with no way of getting a block on him, my only hope was to take the ogre with a halfling and hope. It was only a slim chance and unfortuantely the ogre pushed the fling away before scoring.

I had a go at throwing a halfling for a one turn touchdown equaliser which was going really well, but unfortunately the halfling went head first into the pitch and that was that. 

Recieving in the second half, I edged into the ogre half and realising that they were down to four ogres, Scrappa and a gnoblar, I scored quickly as I fancied my chances of turning them over an scoring again.

The ogres had burned through all their re-rolls trying to stop the humans scoring and so they needed every dice roll to go perfectly. The odds went in my favour as I was able to surround both the ball carrying Scrappa after failing to knock him down and any ogres that might have thrown him. However the ogres were on their best behaviour and Scrappa flew threw the air and danced away into my endzone to win the game 2-1.

Conclusion

Initially I was a bit deflated on the way home. Humans seemed hard. Looking at it again when less tired, I had 3 close games and 1 whitewash so it wasn't perhaps as bad as I initially thought. They were all against players I'd not played before and I always enjoy that at a tournament. 

One of my problems with humans is that I'll sit down against someone who will tell me their race and I will have no idea how to play humans against them. Obviously humans are designed to adapt to their opposition, and at the moment I'm not sure I've got the BloodBowl brain to be able to quickly assess the situation and adapt my strategy. 

I might not play humans again for a while as I think I need to get a better understanding of a number of races in the game. Against nobles I sussed the strategy early. Hit them and hopefully hit harder. They have lower armour so I should get the advantage. Against the ogres I thought I had the right idea - take out all the little guys and ignore the ogres. The match against nurgle I had no idea and against orcs I was less sure. I think a better understanding of certain races would enhance my ability to play humans.