BBBL Winter Cup III, 1st February 2025

This Saturday was my first event of the calendar year. I had hoped to go to the Greedy Goblet but Papa Nurgle had taken me under his wing and it wasn't to be unfortunately. 



We took a trip up to our neighbouring league, the Bromley Blood Bowl League and had a ruddy good day out. I'm saying that now as I might complain a bit about the results!

There was a 1,000 TV limit for purchasing and also a limit on the number of repeated skills. Last time there had been a similar limit, I had wanted to take halflings on the assumption that some good master chef rolls could steal all the limited re-rolls that my opponents had. I had backed out at the time, so I committed to it for this one and stuck with it. 

Oli decided to steal my roster. He's like that. Marianne had humans, Elliott had norse and Stu had skaven. All good choices that I had considered but then decided to stick to my guns. Yes sir, never had any doubts in my mind at all!

I took a build with Karla von Kill for a couple of reasons - mainly that I'd not used her and it motivated me to get her painted.

The Bromley events have Really Stupid plays that are the tie breaker. These are quite fun. Based on how well my day went, I wasn't too focussed on completing them! 

Round 1 v Jake (dinlo)

Jake and I have now played four times. Each previous occasion had led to me being victorious. That wasn't the case today. Jake had some orcs with 2 goblins and no tree.

I receive the ball and I have a tree root and then fail it's pro re-roll turn one. The same thing happens at the start of the second half. And then all of this repeats itself in both of my next 2 games. I don't like blaming dice, but it was clear it wasn't going to be my day!

A halfling fails a dodge that would have protected Karla allowing a big un to knock her over with an orc blitzer taking the ball and running away out of range.

Jake is a big fan of fouling... and within no time at all he had 3 players sent off for three fouls! The weather was sweltering heat and the combination of this meant he was quite low on players. However, I was missing a tree which was very unhelpful. 

I manage to surf a blitzer and Karla blitzes the ball loose. She manages to recover it and run away but on the blitz to free herself up, she double skulls (again: Karla will do this every game. Not my day). On the turn that she could potentially have blitzed a player away from the ball, picked it up and run off for the draw a halfling fails a key dodge. Again the orcs recover the ball and run away, meaning I am 2-0 down. I try for a one turn touchdown, but Karla fails to recover the ball to hand to the waiting halfling and Jake picks up the win.

Round 2 v Sean (zarjaz)

Sean was a founding member of the BBBL who has picked the game up again recently. I'd not bumped into him before but he was a pleasure to play against. We were playing on the bottom table, a position I would remain in for the rest of the day. 

He had an elf union team and they were quite squishy. I managed to remove the entire line of scrimmage when receiving the ball. I get the game to a 9 v 7 state and I decide to try to dodge the ball to get it to Karla to make me feel a bit safer from the pressure the elves were putting on. The fling fails the dodge and the elves are able to recover an run away, repeating the pattern from my game against Jake. 

Sean sets up with not many elves and retreats. I manage to screen to not allow him to get past and I have a shot at the ball the comes off. Unfortunately with some elfy shenanigans, the ball is recovered and run down into my endzone. 

With not much to play for, the flings try a throw team match touchdown which comes off and Sean celebrates along with me! 

Round 3 v James (mrlord86)

James and I had played at the previous Bromley tournament and he had his halflings again for a fling off! 

James kicks to me and I remove some players but not a significant amount. Karla double skulls for the third time in the day and puts me in a bit of bother. A pass from a hefty in my turn 8 gets me the score and the ball fortunately goes out of range for a one turn touchdown so I go in 1-0 up at half time.

The opposing flings just have 7 players and they throw a halfling with the ball who scampers out of blitzing range, meaning the scores are levelled up.

I manage to move slowly up the pitch with the ball and remove everyone except the trees. I opt to score in turn 7 to allow James a shot at the one turn touchdown award, but he doesn't make it. 

Conclusion

Not the best day with my flings, and a few key moments let me down in my two losses. I don't like blaming the dice but stunties are often reliant on not rolling bad dice at the crucial time to do well, and it wasn't to be for me on this occasion. 

Some chump who stole my roster (but subbed in Rumbelow) managed to win the stunty cup. But we won't talk about that.



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