Deathbowl X - result = 5th/24 (without a win!)

Check out my preamble to Deathbowl X here.  I did make a last minute change to my roster, dropping Strong Arm on the troll and Catch/Sprint on the goblin to give the goblin Pro and +MV.  Thinking back upon it now I wish I hadn't of changed my roster as I was always failing the catch or the throw. Hindsight is 20/20 but I didn't even think of probabilities in terms of actual opportunities (ie. I wanted Pro to reroll the landing, however it would have been better to make the catch roll easier with a full Catch skill reroll rather than Pro, and Strong Arm would have meant a 2+ throw instead of 3+ - which would have given me more chances to attempt to land and I should have just worked on saving my rerolls for that instead.  Ah well - maybe this means I take the original roster next year!

Game 1: 1-1 tie 3-1 CAS

My direct opponent was Matt, playing High Elves. To my left was Manuel also playing Orcs and to my right was Leathan playing Wood Elves.

Started on table one, which at this point seemed a blessing but by the end of day one was a curse.  It's impossible to sit down at this table due to it's height so I spent all day standing!  In this match I quickly decided it was best to focus on Leathans wood elf linemen so I could get them down and get some casualties.  I got 2 pretty quickly but then had to wait a long time for my third.  Leathan has won Deathbowl the past 2 years running so I wanted to make sure he didn't get a good start.  Debatable whether that helped him get to 2nd by not playing at top table or not, but in any case, right near the end of the game I made sure to help Manuel by blitzing one of Matt's players off his black orc so he could score the tying TD vs. Leathan.

I ended up with 5 points from this match.  1 for tie, 2 for having most CAS on the table, 1 for having 3+ CAS and 1 for sharing most TDs.

Game 2: 0-2 loss 3-2 CAS

My direct opponent was Mark H playing Humans. To my left was Peter playing Dark Elves and to my right was Colin K playing Skaven.

I wasn't too surprised to still be on table one, since I got lots of bonus points.  Mark's team was well composed with a ST5 blitzer with juggernaught as well as a MV10 catcher.  He and Colin made a good team, nullifying myself and Pete throughout most of the match.  I was very unfortunate to end a great turn one (first blitz = CAS vs. Colin) by eating my goblin.  Mark was very fortunate to have the ball bounce right next to his thrower (from the crowd/wall twice) after Pete failed a Leap to score vs. Colin and was able to run in his first TD without any blocking required!  Both he (again!) and Colin managed to score throughout the second half, so in the dying parts of the game, in order to screw Colin out of 2 points for the win, I threw the ball in front of Pete's blitzer, giving him a walk in TD and resetting the board. At this point Colin had 2 turns and I was willing to throw a ball to him, to then return those points but screw Mark out of the bonus points for most TDs on the pitch, but not surprisingly Colin didn't trust me and tried to get the ball himself, failing the pickup.

I ended up with 3 points from this match, 2 for most CAS and 1 for having 3+ CAS

Game 3: 1-2 loss 4-2 CAS

My direct opponent was Rod playing Skaven. To my left was Mark H with his Humans and to my right was Alex G also playing Orcs.

OK, NOW I am surprised to still be on table one.  CAS is apparently the way to go for bonus points so I am likely going to alter my plan away from the Slaan next year.  In this game Rod was really unfortunate not to score a couple times, with his gutter runner either dropping an accurate pass or failing the last GFI to score.  I also lucked out that in the later stages of the first half, nobody realized how close my goblin was to Rod's endzone so with a simple hand off, I ran the ball in and scored without even so much as a dodge or GFI required.  At this point I thought I had a good chance of progressing to play on top table again on day two, however in the second half, trying to throw a goblin twice ended up giving Rod easy TDs and he took the game 2-1.  I had maybe 5 TTM attempts this game and only once did I even get to roll to land the goblin which failed.  4 unsuccessful catches.

I ended up with 3 points from this match, 2 for most CAS and 1 for having 3+ CAS

Game 4: 1-4 loss 4-2 CAS

My direct opponent was Leathan with his Wood Elves.  To my left was Matt with his High Elves and to my right was Peter with his Dark Elves.

Again in this match I wanted to make sure Leathan didn't do well as there was definite possibility of him winning the tournament for the third time if the top table drew a bunch or he got a bunch of bonus points.  As it was I think that first tie in the first match just kept him out of 1st place (whew). Which was good because during the match, Matt took offence to me blitzing his catchers who he setup behind my LoS and CAS'd then fouled 2 black orcs out of the game.  He also went for it early but unfortunately his blitzer who knocked the ball loose caught the bouncing ball, which gave the impetus to Leathan with a big gap Matt had created, and it was quickly 1-0 Leathan.  Pete early on tried to return the favour by throwing a ball right in front of my blitzer to screw Leathan but luck or perhaps karma meant my blitzer bobbled the pick up and saved Leathan from a TD.  Later on, Pete did help me get a TD but it was too little too late since Leathan had a 2nd already and Matt kept fouling me to death, causing a casualty against my troll and removing my OTT TTM option.  Right near the end of the game I got my 3rd CAS (+ a bonus 4th).

I ended up with 3 points from this match, 2 for most CAS and 1 for having 3+ CAS

So I ended up with 14 points which tied me for 4th place and put me in 5th on tiebreakers, without even winning a game and with only 1 tie!!  WOW, so that's taught me something.  Colin K ended up in 3rd behind Leathan so mission accomplished to keep the Keilars off top spot.  If Stephane had managed to tie Colin late in game 4 on top table (Rod stopped him by scoring first) I think there was a chance I could have squeaked into 3rd place, however thinking back now I am pretty sure that then Stephane would have gotten 3rd.  Still I was very close to the podium without a win which was quite the feat.

I ended up winning Most CAS with 14, and due to finishing 16th last year (was 6th in 2010 - but last year everyone was ready for my Slaan) and 5th this year I also won Rising Star.  All in all a great fun and successful tournament for me.

dual posted on GWpertinent