Suffolk Subterranean Showcase 2, 26th October 2024

This Saturday was the 9th event in the inaugural South East Tournament Series.

Last year onysersix, also known as Justin, ran the first Suffolk Subterranean Showcase.  Four of our league went up with a full on assault on the Stunty Cup, and I managed to come away with the trophy with my halfling team. 

We had looked at doing similar this year but when one of the four dropped out a month or so ago and then with BeardedLucha getting sick a couple of days before, we weren't going to be going stunty en masse again. Up until around 6pm the night before I was going to be taking gnomes. A combination of an extended drive and the tail end of an illness - along with the fact that you could only take 2 of any one skill (when really you want to be able to spam dodge on the gnomes) meant I didn't fancy a long journey to have my team wiped out three games in a row. 

I changed to playing Amazons who I had really enjoyed at UKTC and felt like I could play even if I wasn't 100%. My roster was fairly similar, although as this ruleset allowed stacking, I was able to have a block guard blocker, with guard on the other one, with the remaining skills being block and wrestle on the blitzers.

The overall ruleset was largely similar to last year, with a couple of minor tweaks. One was to limit teams to 1 star player, removing the egregious Varag & Hakflem snotling build. Another was to introduce SmeaGhoul - a star player who was able to steal the ball on a 5+ once per game. 

I went up with DimmyGee who had Chaos Renegades and TommyB who was taking goblins (he rarely takes anything else). Arriving bang on time, despite scaring Dimmy about how bad I thought the rail replacement bus would be. 

After a few hiccups getting Score to do what it should do (technical hitches happen to the best of us), the tournament got underway. Justin is a natural TO, being able to clarify things to ensure no issues came up and including both spot prizes and bingo to improve the engagement for those who wanted a bit more to play for. 

Game 1 v Jane (ghost_of_carrie_fisher)

I was drawn against Jane in the first round who had dark elves. She's gone for fun skills on her players, such as multiple block on her assassin and sidestep on her witch elf. I kicked to her and then on my first turn having knocked them down, I used the free foul to send her assassin into the KO box. 

On one turn I hit her witch elf and then reminded her that she had sidestep. This didn't stop me from forgetting two turns later and trying to surf her witch elf. It had been an early start, and it took my brain a good while to switch on.

Jane scored fairly quickly which gave me lots of time to score back. I failed the pick up and opted not to re-roll it, which was a mistake as the speedy elves were able to come and steal it from me. I managed to get it back and drive up the pitch, scoring in turn 8 purely to reduce the number of chances for her KO's to come back. 

Receiving the ball, I was planning on a long drive to score the winning touchdown. I moved up the left hand side, shielding the ball. On my turn 7 I had the opportunity to foul a downed witch elf which I did and sent her to the casualty box, but my positioning wasn't perfect and the dark elves had the opportunity to hit the ball carrier - they managed to do this. With 2 dodges and an uphill block, the ball was loose and fell right into the corner. More dodges and pick up rolls and there was a dark elf in the corner with the ball. 

On my turn 8, I hit the blitzer with the ball with my wrestle blitzer, who needed wrestle to get the ball loose. It was thrown to the other side of the pitch by the crowd. I had the chance at an unlikely passing touchdown but failed an early roll in the sequence and the match ended up a 1-1 draw. 

Game 2 v Luke (owlluke)

I instantly took a liking to Luke as not only was he playing ogres (one of my early Blood Bowl loves) but he also had a Los Campesinos! top on.

I kick the ball to him and he kills someone turn 1. At least that was ticked off my bingo card, through. Armour 8+ against mighty blow was looking like it was going to be a bit shakey. As it progressed, Luke was struggling to get removals and with the pressure on, he scored in around 4 turns.

With the ball in hand, I started to worry about the event star played, SmeaGhoul stealing the ball from me. I put a lot of effort into getting him off the pitch and Luke's other star, Scrappa Sorehead, followed not too long after. 

Luke was constantly using gnoblars as missiles to try to break my cage which failed and I managed to equalise just before half time.

I ended up scoring in 4 turns as there were so many of Luke's players in the casualty or sent-off box that I had a good numbers advantage and decided to go for a third. Luke tried for a one turn touchdown which failed and this allowed me to recover. An ogre did get a shot on the ball carrier but even with a knockdown, I was able to recover and score a third.

I managed 5 casualties in this game, amazingly 3 of them were on ogres (this obviously didn't help Luke's chances in the game). There was an award for the Suffolk Slayer - the player who caused the most casualties against a member of either of the local leagues in a game that they won. I managed to win this award (although handed down as scs.sam who would have won it also won most casualties).

Here is a picture of me receiving the award including a whole bunch of goodies that I was struggling to keep hold of and shake Justin's hand at the same time!

Round 3 v Tim (mrquause)

I'd been in touch with Tim a few months ago as I saw a message from him looking for an event on this weekend. Tim was over from Germany for work and managed to get a ticket for this after being on the reserve list.  It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to play against him.

We had an amazon mirror match with very slight difference on skills as he had opted for leader, but it was essentially the same build.

I kicked and knocked over a couple of played. I managed to get a couple of early casualties, including a blitzer who used the team's apothecary. Tim scored fairly quickly - he said after the game perhaps too quickly - but I had assumed that he wanted to restore the number of players on the pitch from his reserve box. 

I managed to make my way up the pitch. Tim put players in the way but with three in the casualty box, he was light on plyers and I was able to break through for the equaliser to go in level at half time. 

Receiving in the second half, I moved up slowly. Tim managed to keep basing my ball carrier by knocking over a cage corner. Each time I was able to blitz the player off to move the ball without needing the dodge. On my turn 15 I failed a dodge to protect the ball a bit more, which left the option for a blitz on the ball carrier. However Tim's blocker then failed a dodge herself and I was able to score the winner unchallenged.

Results

As previously mentioned, I won the Suffolk Slayer Award and was in 3rd place. Tommy had his best ever tournament with goblins, going 2/0/1 - with the loss being against the other member of our car, Dimmy, who he played in round 2. There was hope of a stunty cup (I won it last year with a 1/1/1 record) but with a large number of coaches it wasn't to be.

Dimmy won all three games and finishing before everyone else who had a shot at the win, it looked like he was on for his first tournament victory. Unfortunately a late touchdown in another game meant he just missed out. Tied on points and bonus points, it went to touchdowns scored - and unfortunately a triple skull with a rat ogre that stopped him scoring meant that Dimmy just missed out and got his second runner up trophy of the month. I know he's super gutted about it, but his time will come soon as he's been putting in some great performances recently.