SOBB Sevens Spring 2024

The third event in the inaugural South East Tournament Series took place this past Saturday. Set in the village of Clifton Hampden in Oxfordshire at a village hall, the event was a 3 game sevens event with slight tiering. 

As Marianne from SKABB used to live around a mile away, her and Ross had taken the trip for the last event there in November which she had won. Family illness prevented them visiting this time, so we carpooled there - which was helpful as my sense of direction is horrendous and I'd probably still be driving around some country roads in Oxfrodshire. 

Marianne took her skaven team as defending champions, Ross had some lizardmen and I was hoping to complete my (ultimately pointless but meaningful to me) mission of becoming the world number 1 chaos chosen sevens player. 

Now, there is a small pool of players who have even considered it to be a good idea to take the team at 7s - at current count just 111 coaches have done so in NAF recorded games. This is out of 3,487 coaches who have NAF ranked sevens games. I thought this was low but I've just done the matches and it's only 0.1% less than if all raced had been picked evenly. However, I had it in mind that I wanted to be the best of these 111 coaches who were playing a specific race at a niche variant of an already niche board game.

My build was a minotaur with block, two chaos warriors (1 with block) and 4 beastmen (1 with sure hands). 

Round 1 v Amsel (saltyseawench)

Despite the fact that we've both been at the same event on numerous occassions - most of them small ones as well - this is the first time that we'd been drawn together and I was looking forward to having the opporunity to play her.

Aside from those I travelled with, Amsel was the only person I had spoken to in advance about what they were playing. She had a dwarf build with a slayer with mighty blow, two blitzers - one with stand firm, a runner and linemen as well as a depsarate measure. It was the desparate measure that I was most scared of!

Rolling on the table, Amsel got a 5 which is the "Set Piece" - an automatically successful pass and catch. With a team who aren't great at passing, this could potentially be a massive benefit.

We rolled double 1 on the weather table which is normally sweltering heat, meaning players will miss the drive. I realised after the game chatting to others that we were actually meant to be using the Spring weather table, however as the weather changed at the second kick off it didn't have an overly sigifnicant impact on the game. The weather we should have been using would have made rushes more difficult - which would have meant I would have played a bit more cautiously on the first drive.

I won the toss and kicked the ball. I very much prefer doing this in sevens with a bash team that can't move more than 6 squares, and therefore can't get a hit in without rushing on their first turn. 

Amsel moved her dwarfs slightly forwards, and this left a lineman in surfing range of my minotaur if it rushed twice. As it was the fun choice, I gave it a go - but rolled a 1 on my rush. My cow fell over but not after I'd put a lot of pressure on with my strength advantage. The dwarfs manouvered slightly but in sevens it is really hard to protect the ball well, epescially with a bash team who are based and you can't move them where you would ideally want them to be. 

This left me a shot at blitzing the dwarf runner who had the ball if I managed to push away lineman marking my minotaur. I got 2 pushes to manage this and my minotaur, clearly angry at failing its first blitz, took it out on the runner by causing a casualty. With the ball loose and accessible to a beastman, I grabbed it and ran away.

I opted not to stall out as to do so would let the dwarfs have 1 more turn of hitting, and forcing them to be 6 squares from my players at the kick off would likely stop this from happening.

The weather changed at this point meaning we both had all available players for the second half. 

I opted to try for a quick score, especially when a fair few of my players started to get knocked out. A touchback had allowed me to give the ball to my chaos warrior with block. Running low on numbers, I tried for the score even quicker than I had intended, which meant a 3+ dodge and a rush with my warrior. He decided to trip over his shoelaces and with the numbers advantage, Amsel and her dwarfs were able to recover and move up the pitch. A desparation blitz with a beastman failed to knock over the ball carrier but left them tagged. A three dice block was able to clear the way for the equaliser in the final turn of the game, without being able to do the flamboyant show off dwarf pass using the desparate measure.

It was an interesting game where everything went my way in the first half, and then Amsel's in the second and the draw was a fair result for the match.

Game 2 v Phil (lord_chelmsford)

Phil is the player that my stats dive had tagged as the number 1 seed for this event due to his 176.0 Sevens rating with Norse, although I was unaware of that until after the game as NAF names weren't being used on the day when matches were called out.

Phil was playing imperial nobility with an ogre and if my memory is correct three bodyguards. Knowing that nobles are bad on offence but good on defence, along with my preference for kicking, I thought I'd get them to attack first. Phil sent his ogre forwards and my minotaur was able to blitz him and knock him over. Whilst it didn't cause an injury, he was out of position for the whole half. 

My strength advantage then allowed me to base up all of his players. The ball carrier retreated slightly and I was able to push them back a bit more before turning them over. I got out of reach and stalled for a turn to avoid his knocked out player with a skill having to changes to come back for the second half. It proved a good strategy as the first roll was failed and I was 1-0 up at the half. 

I received the ball and whilst he did put a bit of pressure on me, the KOs kept mounting up for the nobles and a second touchdown was scored to seal the game. Even when the nobles broke through for an attempt at a consoltion touchdown, I was able to blitz and stop them from doing so to secure a 2-0 victory.

Game 3 v David (dcollidog)

After two games, there were 7 players who could potentially win the tournamant, however Lachlan playing necro and Kieran playing Khorne on the top table were obviously favourites with 2 wins, with the others all being on a win and a draw. 

David was playing lizards and was amazed to be on so high a table. He had a couple of saurus with block and a number of skinks. I kicked and he scored fairly quickly after I put a lot of pressure on him to do so. 

There was a high kick and I went for the tactic that has given me varying amounts of success of putting the minotaur underneath it, partly for protection (or to hope it goes out for a touchback when it fails to catch the ball) but mainly to move him a bit closer to my opponents so that it is within hitting range of the opposing players. 

This time the minotaur decided to catch the ball on the sideline with three skinks ahead of it. I ran all my other players up and got the minotaur to blitz a skink for three dice. The skink remained on it's feet, so the following turn I hit a tagged skink to get my minotaur to advance a bit more. David tagged the minotaur with a skink in the endzone which may have been a mistake as the mino pushed the skink away and having to follow up due to frenzy got the touchdown.

In the second half, I received and there was a big scrap. The ball got knocked loose by some skinks but they failed to pick it up. The ball got thrown across the pitch and I surrounded it with my players. When a skink failed to pick it up, it got thrown back again leaving me vastly out of position. I was just about able to reposition and recover the ball, but it ended up being a very hard fought victory.

Winners

As we were finishing, Amsel came out to let me know that there had been a draw on the top table, but that she had won her game. As we were chatting, we realised she would likely have the tournament on tiebreakers, which turned out to be the case and I'm pleased that she has got her first tournament victory. I was amazed by second place, but most importantly for me, I am the world's number one Chaos Chosen Sevens coach! 

I'm quite pleased that I've completed this silly side quest and can now try out some other teams when I next play Sevens.