SKABB Easter Bonnet Bash, 30th March 2024

The first SKABB event of the year took place on Easter Saturday. It turns out that a large number of people have family plans over Easter - who would have thought it, eh? We still had a well attended event, with 22 coaches taking part.

There were a few Easter themed rules. It was a 1200 TV tournament with:

- a star player Easter bunny named Fluffy (not too dissimilar to Akhorne the Squirrel)
- a free re-roll for anyone wearing an Easter bonnet (similar to the silly hat rule for the Pissed Up Terry Testimonial which was our spring event last year)
- the Spring weather table
- one special play card unique to each team to play at one point during the day
- a resurrection rule if any player suffered a "DEAD!" result on the casualty table with a 2+ placing them in reserves

The last rule was not something I thought about when picking my team. As I'm working through the races that I've not played in tournaments and 1200 is quite nice for them, I went for Necromantic Horror. 

The resurrection rule meant that it was highly unlikely that I would get a free zombie upon killing an opposition player. As it happened, despite there being over 20 casualties in my games, none of them was a dead player and it was irrelevant.

I think it is unlikely that the rule will be implemented in future events, although most of the others were reasonable enough, although might need a tweak here or there.

My team was not terribly exciting build wise - I went for 2 flesh golems with block, 2 wraiths with guard, 2 werewolves with block, 2 ghouls (1 with block), four zombies 3 re-rolls (4 if you count my bonnet). I was using an old necromantic team which shared models with an undead team. It was made several years before the changes to the necromantic team and so there were wight models but no wraiths. To get around this, I created two sheets out ot tissue paper and put them over the wights. 

Game 1 v Chris (chriscsewlg)

My first game I was drawn against Chris from the South East London Wargaming Group, a few of whom had come down for the day. He was sporting one of the bonnets which made the shortlist for the best bonnet award, and was a really enjoyable opponent. 

He had elf union, a team dear to my heart, but that didn't stop my mean team from smashing them into the dirt. Chris scored quite quickly, explaining that he doesn't like stalling but wouldn't mind if I did so. It would have been nice for me to have the opportunity as his elves kept getting in the way and slowing down my progress. On my turn 8 looking for an equaliser, he had penned in my ball carrying ghoul but left one clear over the other side of the pitch. I managed to clear a path for the ball carrier to get through for a handover to old butterfingers who failed the 3+ catch with a re-roll to equalise at half time.

Receiving in the second half, I made my way up the pitch quite quickly, and got a large number of removals. When I scored in turn 5, Chris was setting up with just 5 players left. He pushed down one side and then managed to break through my defence. I knocked down his ball carrier but I had misjudged the number of turns left and didn't leave anyone in scoring range. The match was going to end a draw unless the elves were able to recover which, fortunately for me they were unable to do. A 1-1 draw but 5 casualties for me was a good start towards a potential most casualties award.

Game 2 v Steve (chankas)

Steve is a player who likes unusual builds. For this event he had brought a halfling team with 7 rostered re-rolls, a leader, a chef and his hat. This mean he was starting with over10 re-rolls per half (which amazingly he managed to use all of in the second half of our game).

With no star players, there was just a lot of halflings for me to beat up and a couple of trees to avoid. I kicked the ball and surrounded all of the flingswith the ball. However, I'd not realised that one had been left in the middle in scoring range and the ball carrier dodged out for a hand off and I found myself 1-0 down. 

Receiving in the middle of the first half, I slowly and systematically removed halflings from the pitch. In total I got 7 casualties in this game, and scored at the end of the first half and then turn 5 in the second half. Steve was setting up with just his trees and a couple of flings and I did some ridiculous nonsense to score a third in the final turn of the game, meaning I got maximum bonus points from this game.

Game 3 v Alex (bonethugsnoharmony)

Alex and I had played twice previously in tournaments (Octogre 1 and Octogre 2) which had both ended in draws, although really I think he should have won the first and I should have won the second. In SKABB League games across all formats, we had one win apiece and so I expected this to be a difficult contest. 

Alex was playing norse with Lord Borak meaning he only had 3 additional skills (block on both ulfwereners and wrestle on a valkyrie). 

As I was expecting a close game, I decided to play my special play card which I had been holding back until the final game, which I think had been most people's tactic. I forget the name of the card, but it allowed me to boost a player's strength by 2, with a 50/50 possibility of retaining that for each following drive. I gave it to a werewolf and to be honest Alex was shocked as his special play card that he hadn't yet used was much worse than mine. 

I thought using the card would force Alex to score quickly after I kicked to prevent the wolf hurting too many of his players, giving me a good chance at an equaliser and then a winner on my drive.  

As it played out, the werewolf was a very good boy, and he casualtied an exposed ulfwerner on my first turn. Several other removals came shortly after and I was able to turn the ball over and score late in the first half. 

With hardly any players on the pitch to defend, I scored in the middle of the second half and Alex had started to tune out of the game with lettle hope of getting back into it. I pushed for a third and maximum bonus points, needing a pass to a waiting player in the end zone but attempts on both turns 7 and 8 failed so it was just a 2-0 victory.

Game 4 v Paul (eyeballpaul)

Paul and I had last played in Spain at the World Cup. That match had ended in quite a decisive victory to me after an officious referee decided that Deeproot Strongbranch should play no further part in the game. 

He had a very competitive lizardmen build this time and having played lizards a fair bit recently, I knew that they could hold their own against my team. The maths for this looked like if either of us won the match we would take second place in the tournament. I already had a significant lead in the most casualties so wasn't concerned about that and could focus on the game rather than any side quests.

I'd been able to bully the elves, flings and norse - I could do so to the skinks but I'd have trouble getting to them. I'd have to work out how to play necromantically a bit differently. 

I kicked to Paul and he scored in the middle of the first half. I just about managed to get an equaliser in the three turns he'd left me, putting me in a reasonable position at the start of the second half. However a blitz which casualtied a wolf, followed by Paul playing his special play card which removed one of my players at random which just was unskilled ghoul left me down a couple of players. 

I managed to use my remaining wolf and my ball carrying ghoul to surf a skink, however I had to try to make a break down the flank with the ball and with my number dwindling as more of my team entered the casualty box, the lizards managed a pow on the blodging ball carrier and saw out the rest of the half, scoring the winner late on in the game. 

Results

I ended up in a respectable 5th place on a 2/1/1 record and was by far the meanest person there winning the most casualties by some margin. As predicted Paul finished in 2nd place with howlinggriffon winning his second consecutive SKABB event with vampires.

If anyone wants to check out all the standings or rosters, they are on Tourplay. 

If you attended, don't forget to fill out the feedback form. 

It was quite a fun theme and whilst the weather didn't play a part in any of my games, I quite like the weather table. The resurrection rule was probably an unecessary addition, and some of the special play cards are significantly stronger than others so might need to be slightly balanced if we use them again. As always, I enjoyed all the BloodBowl - I'd played 3 of my opponents previously and whilst I do always enjoy playing new players, it was good to continue some old rivalries as well.