Bexley Reapers Royal. 7th December 2024

This Saturday was the final event in the South East Tournament Series (I'll probably write up some thoughts on that in due course). 

It was my first trip to Bexley as last year's event had been on the same weekend as the Alicante World Cup. One of the great things about the tournament series has definitely been meeting a lot of the local community. I think looking round the room, I could name over 80% of the players, and some of the others I recognised. Obviously not everyone has been an addict like me and been to every event, but I hope that it is a sign of how the series has helped to bring different parts of the community together.

For anyone interested, there were a few games streamed and which will be available on YouTube soon hopefully. I've just had a look at some of the ones from last year and they look well produced so I'll probably check out the videos when they are up. They are done by Dizzy Dwarf.

I went for my standard amazon build - block and wrestle on the blitzers, guard on the blockers and block on a thrower with players to 13, 3 re-rolls and an apo. I'm becoming quite familiar with it and there's not many options for tweaking it to improve it as far as a I can tell (other than moving block onto a blocker if you're able to stack). 

Round 1 v Paul (eyeballpaul)

We had 5 SKABBERs at this event - 4 of them were drawn against each other, and I was playing one of our nearest neighbours. It never ceases to amuse me how mischievous fixture computers can be. 

For the third time this year, I was drawn against Paul and his lizards. The previous two games both went his way. How I long for the hazy days of the World Cup when he was playing halflings and a referee decided that Deeproot needed to be sent off. This is not an easy draw for round 1 with Paul being one of three players at the event with a NAF ranking over 200 - and he's playing the team with that ranking. 

Paul elects to kick to me and I fail to be able to the ball safe. A swarm of skinks get through and score a touchdown. I set up again and a blitz seems skinks in my backfield again. I use all 3 re-rolls in my first 3 turns on failed blocks and trying to keep safe, and it doesn't work as I am 2-0 down by the end of my turn 3. 

Under a lot of pressure, I manage to make a pass to get a shot at the score on my turn 8, but needing just a rush I fall foul of the tripwire.

Kicking, Paul slightly mispositions and I can get a hit on the ball carrying skink with a dodge and two rushes. I use all my re-rolls on turn 1 playing very aggressively to get the knockdown, although the ball bounces just behind the lizard's line of scrimmage. 

My block manages to pick up in all of the tacklezons in the world and dodge away but she ends up getting caught, with the ball being recovered by the lizards who run it in for a third.

Round 2 v Rob (saltymurcutt) 

After such a heavy defeat, I was hoping for a slightly easier round 2 game. I was drawn against the experienced Rob who is a host on the Channlled Fury podcast and was playing one of his favourite teams, undead.

I kicked and despite a shot at the ball, I can't stop him scoring and I'm running out of players. I didn't have great dice in the first half. Which changed in the second half when Rob had the bad dice. He kept tagging me but I managed to keep manoeuvring and getting away. The undead's re-rolls were gone quite early and whilst they have shots, they don't pay off until turn 7 when they wrestle down my ball carrier. However I'm able to do a 3+ pick up with a re-roll to score and get the draw which was quite a fair result all in all.

This was the second time I've played Rob (the first time at elevens) and both have ended in draws. Very equitable.

Round 3 v Tom (irdeaded)

Tom was the spare player on the day and had to jump in. As the TO he jumped in at the last minute with an orc team, rather than his favoured chaos dwarfs which he was using when we played last in Bromley. 

He may have been a little distracted at times with people asking him TO-like questions but really the dice decided this game pretty early on. 

I kicked and rolled a blitz on the kick off. I managed to get a blitzer underneath the ball and then nearly got the other next to her but she failed a rush. I didn't catch the ball but it applied a lot of pressure on the orcs who weren't able to easily get the ball off me. I end up scoring with a couple of turns left on the half. 

After kicking again, I push a blitzer through the line hoping for a cheeky but unlikely shot at a second. A one dice blitz results in a pow, with the ball bouncing favourably and she is able to put me 2-0 up at half time.

Receiving the ball, I manage to casualty a big un with a foul and push up the side. At this point I'm looking to run up the score for a shot at most touchdowns, despite only having 1 previously. The ball gets knocked loose but I recover for a third.

The orcs fail the pick up so I send players through.  The orcs try to make a pass, but need a rush due to the blitzzard. Unfortunately for them, the rush fails and I am able to recover the ball and put it in for an egregious fourth. 

At this point I am level on most touchdowns, but expecting to need a couple to be able to get the prize. Dimmy who I had driven up with was the only player on 3 wins with Imperial Nobility. Up until the day before, I had thought it was a 3 game event, and had it been, Dimmy would have bagged his first tournament win. He was playing EyeballPaul on the streaming table for the final game but unfortunately lost 2-1. 

Round 4 v Luke (totalfuzzylogic)

Luke has been leading the South East Tournament Series for several months, and it wasn't too much of a surprise that he ended up winning. He needed to play in this event to log the required number of tournaments to qualify, and slightly surprisingly (at least to me) he had opted for a stunty team. 

He had an ogre team with a lot of block, one guard and pro stacked on one of the blockers.

Where I was going for touchdowns, I decided to score as quickly as possible so I was 1-0 up in no time at all. My kick went deep and due to three boneheads, I was able to easily send nearly my whole team past the ogre line and put a lot of pressure on the gnoblars. 

I tried two cage dives on consecutive turns - failing the 4+ dodge on the first turn but succeeding on the second and knocking down the ball carrier. The ball goes out of bounds and is thrown back in the wrong way for me, ending up in my backfield. 

I manage to cover a little but a gnoblar has a 4+ pick up without a re-roll to equalise on turn 8 which doesn't succeed and I'm quite lucky to go in at half time leading. 

I kick at the start of the second half and I continue my aggressive play. Late in the second half, all of the skinks are off the field and the ball is popped loose. The pro ogre picks it up and manages to blitz and block and dodge free for an equaliser.

I think both of us were perhaps slightly lucky not to lose the game, so a draw really feels like a fair result here.

Conclusion

Despite only scoring 1 in my final game, I remain tied for most touchdowns. It is however awarded to my friend Nick (kendrallsharne) who take the prize on tiebreakers.

The event was impressively won by CptOats who took nurgle to victory on tiebreakers. 

Mr_Frodo had been pushing TotalFuzzyLogic all the way in the tournament series but Luke's double prize of most casualties and stunty cup meant he was out of reach.