Slaughter Bowl I, 21st April 2024

This past Sunday, the second event of the South East Tournament Series was held. Four SKABBers (myself, Ross, Marianne and Craig) took the trip to Surrey to visit the Geek Retreat in Addelstone. It was a lovely games cafe and there was space for 24 coaches. 

Unfortuantely due to a drop out, this became 22 with Tournament Organiser Nick unfortunately missing out on playing that day. Which is a shame as I need to get revenge for when his cowardly skaven ran away from my brave brave orcs when we'd previously met at Sevens.

This was the first event that Nick (also known and kendrallsharne and the commissioner of the Surbiton league) had put on a tournament, and it all went very smoothly. He's already thinking about the next event.

The rulespack that Nick had put together was very chaos focussed. The Wrath of Khorne weather table was being used, and each team got a Chaos Sorcerer to use. This would either grant them chosen mutations on a player of their choice (had to be played at the start of an opposition turn) or a thunderbolt (at the end of either player's turn). With both teams having this, it was often a cat and mouse act about who would strike first!

As I've been trying to get the very niche title of world number 1 chaos chosen sevens player, and the rulespack was very chaos-y, chosing my team didn't take much time at all. I went for the standard build I've taken previously (mino, two warriors, four beastmen) and the skills pack allowed me three skills, so I added block on a warrior and the mino, with a beastman gaining sure hands for when I inevitably failed pickups. 

Craig had also taken Chaos chosen but with extra arms instead of sure hands, with Ross bringing wood elves and Marianne skaven. Ross and Marianne were randomly paired up round 1 - a game that they could have played at their kitchen table! But as they pointed out, you come to events to hang out with lots of cool people as well. 

Round 1 v Simon (armisee)

Simon had brought halflings but didn't realise that a masterchef could gain re-rolls even if there were none to steal, so he hadn't brought one along. I opted to kick - I think with chaos chosen it's the sensible play as you get to hit on your first turn without rushing - assuming your opponent makes some forward progress. 

We rolled 12 on the weather table, which was called Crimson Downpour and meant that any time a player rushed, they would need 3+ to succeed, and any time there was a push result on a block, you rolled a D6 and on a 1, a player was knocked out. 

Simon decided to try to use his wizard early to give one of his trees mutations. Unfortunately he must have hired a dud wizard and only gained disturbing presence. I held mine back until the point where it felt like knocking a player down would be more useful. 

Simon went for a quick throw team mate score but his fling failed the landing. This allowed me to recover the ball and move upfield for a score. In the process, a couple of unfortunate halfings were knocked out due to the weather table result.

Receiving the ball I was in control of the game and the flings eventually got down to 2 trees and a hefty. Amazingly two uphill blocks knocked the ball loose each time, slowing me down and preventing me from getting a touchdown, so the game ended 1-0.

Round 2 v Chris (bondy)

Bondy finished 5th at the 120 player Kent Team Championship so I knew he was a good player, even if he's only been playing a short time. He had brought along vampires. I've been playing them in our recently started sevens league, and they've been performing much better than I expected them too, so I knew this was going to be a tough game. 

I received and with the hypnogaze being able to turn off both my tacklezones and my sure hands, the ball kept getting popped loose. I managed to the number of thralls on the pitch and was in scoring range with just the strip ball blitzer able to hit me. Whilst it was being held by my sure hands beastman, I wasn't confident I'd still have it, so I used my chaos wizard who actually managed to knock out the blitzer who didn't return for the rest of the game.

Kicking in the second half, the vampires got the ball in scoring range but I had managed to put a lot of pressure on which forced them to score in turn 3. Reciving the ball, the game could go either way. The luck in this game went Bondy's way as the vamps managed to vamp me, recover the ball and get another touchdown to win 2-1.

Round 3 v Nicky (misspelledtree)

I've chatted with tree a fair bit but never had the chance to play her before so I was delighted to have the opportunity to do so - at least until we were a few turns into the game. She had brought goblins taking a troll with pro, a sneaky git ooligan, a bomber with pass and a chainsaw with dodge as well as a bribe. 

These skills all worked pretty well together and she had a couple of my players in the casualty box in no time with the chainsaw and the troll both pulling their weight. My build maxes out the strength that I can get on the pitch but as soon as players are removed, it can be really difficult.

I had a shot at stopping tree scoring a touchdown. My minotaur was marked by a goblin. If it was unmarked, it could hit the ball carrier for 6 dice, meaning a good chance of a knockdown and a removal. I made the choice to use my wizard to hit the goblins marking the minotaur, which casualtied the gobins. Looking to get two removals in the one turn, my minotaur declared a blitz on the ball carrier... and then got really angry and decided not to do it. This led to the goblins going 1-0 up.

Looking to get back in the game, I surrounded the ball that went onto the side of the pitch, with the goblin bomber proving themselves to be the MVP of the game by knocking all the players surrounding it over, allowing a cheeky goblin who had just been given two heads by the chaos wizard to hop in, nab the ball and leg it. Tree didn't make any mistakes and the goblins were able to run in a second to win 2-0.

Round 4 v Kev (coach_kev)

Kev is another player I'd chatted to but not played so it was nice to have the opportunity. At this point in the day, I think he'd realised he wasn't going to win the big prizes, so when a spot prize was announced for the first sending off, he decided he was going to foul at the first opportunity. He removed one of my players to the KO box but got one of his team sent off. As he had a reserve, this wasn't a big issue although my minotaur did remove a lineman shortly after leaving me up on numbers overall. My minotaur (Ed Miliband) was removed shortly after so I forced a quicker score than I would have liked to try to get him back on the pitch. 

Kev had an opportunity to equalise before half time, with his catcher pinned in on the sideline. He tried to blitz them free with an assist, but there was a skull on the dice and it wasn't to be. 

He got the equaliser early in the second half, but with me getting the ball and a bit of luck, I was able to push for the winner in my penultimate turn meaning he didn't have time to equalise so I won the game 2-1.

Round 5 v Justin (dustbin89)

At this point I was 1 casualty off the most casualties and I was hoping for a nice squishy team. My wish was granted with my third stunty opponent of the day! Justin had brought halflings and had previously played Craig in a near identical match up as his first game of the day.

We had the wrath of khorne weather meaning that at the end of each drive, a random player on each team on the pitch would have an armour roll made against them. This definitely favoured me with the higher armour

I kicked to the halflings who looked like that were going to escape from my reach when they ran down the far flank. I managed to jump a beastman over another prone beastman, rush and blitz the ball carrier but unfortunately he stood on his feet. He was however pinned against the sideline and I managed to get another three players near enough to be a nuisance, meaning at least 3 dodges were required to score. Failing the first one but using the dodge skill, the fling also failed the 3rd dodge into the endzoe for the score. The ball popped loose and got thrown by the crowd all the way to the other end of the pitch. 

A halfling recovered the ball but was stood next to my beastman with sure hands who had run up the pitch to try to be of use. Realising I would need a pow, I hit another halfling and dodged a beastman away for an assist as the sure hands beastman blitzed to get a three dice block on the ball carrier. Not only did I get the pow I needed, but the ball bounced favourably into the path of my beastman who was able to pick it up, rush twice and score to put me 1-0 up on the halflings drive. Justin didn't have the luck this half, with his 90%ish attempt to score failing and my 8% play (I've just done the maths) succeeding but that's what happens when you play a dice game.

When Justin kicked to me, I had a high kick and as in an earlier game, I put my minotaur underneath the ball to put him in range of hitting something. The ball bounced to the side of him and I surrounded it and perhaps made an error in that I got the minotaur to hit the halfling he was next to rather than the tree. There was obviously more chance of knocking over and hurting the halfling but I think attempting to get the tree down would have been tactically more useful. 

As it was, the halflings were able to take advantage and teal the ball. A halfling made an escape with it down the near flank. I managed to get players in threatening range, however a failed rush meant he dropped the ball and I was able to surround it meaning it couldn't be recovered so I got a 1-0 win.

Awards

Nick had been updating me about how many casualties I would have needed during my final game, but the wee little fellas just weren't getting removed so I didn't get the most casualties award. This instead went to Luke (totalfuzzylogic) who also won the event with his orc build with both a re-roll and leader (tut tut). Other winners were Darren (malawicihild) playing wood elves who got most touchdowns and second place and Amsel (saltyseawench) playing high elves who got most completions.

And more importantly, I guess you all want to know whether I'm world number 1 in the very niche thing that I apsire to be... unfortunately due to the way that the ELO system works, each of my losses lost me more points than my wins gained me, meaning I only gained about a point an a half on calltroop who is currently in that spot. However, I'm just 2.1 points behind, so maybe next time Gadget!