Splatterday Wight Fever

It's the FIRST EVER...

SPLATTERDAY  WIGHT  FEVER

Splatterday Wight Fever is a TR 105/Swiss/Ressurrection 3 games tournament, where the every team must have a Wight on it's roster (stats and cost as per the Undead roster. Undead and Necromantic teams do not get an extra wight but must also have at least one).

Two normal skills to be given before each game, no player may have more than one extra skill, and the Wight may be one of the players given a skill.
All 24 teams allowed, all inducements allowed.

Cost 5euros - price includes two tournament d6 and lunch of Bratwurst and Potato Salad.

3 games starting at 1000hrs
Tennis Club Telekom Post SV
Schillerstr. 53
33609 Bielefeld
Germany
 
Last but not least, the tournament is co-organized by our mate Neilpferd, so no doubt it's gonna be a ton of fun!


For more info or questions here's the appropriate TFF thread link for the SPLATTERDAY WIGHT FEVER

Ready for more NAF Champs goodness? Here's ceetee report!

Sooo... Are you ready for more NAF Champs goodness?


As a Blood bowl fanatic, tournament SWAG connoisseur, and a very competent Blood Bowl coach, ceetee is a known old friend of the MMN blog, and it's not the first time he is featured in the blog pages, sharing with us his NAFC experience with written reports and photos (NAFC '13, NAFC '12)!

For NAF Champs '14 he took along his Dark Elf team - Corvus Crows -, to achieve the great feat of climbing up there and rightfully conquer his place amongst the very best of this years tournament!

Without further delays, here's ceetee report:


NAF Champs 2014
Recently, I went to the NAF Champs and was fortunate enough to finish second. This is the story of the games that weekend…
With the new rules, TV110, I decided to take Dark Elves with as much Blodge and Wrodge as possible.

Game 1 vs Chaos
Luck will always have a role to play in a game that uses dice, but in a tournament as large as the NAF Championship, all sorts of other imponderables come into play. My opponent for the first round didn’t arrive. How would my tournament have gone if he did?

Game 1 vs Necromantic
Fortunately, the coach sitting next to me was due to play Geggster, one of the tournament organising team, who graciously stepped aside and allowed us to play. Maverick drove downfield in the first half and was making ground, until a 4+ dodge into the cage by one of my Witches popped the ball loose and we rushed in for an early score. In the second half, we received the kick and quickly rushed upfield. A few dodge away and some stalling later, we went in for the 2-0 win.

Game 2 vs Necromantic
The one match up I didn’t want. Over 160 coaches were there, and I ended up playing my brother, Deetee! My first match was ideal preparation, as both coaches had the same roster and the same skills, so I certainly had a chance. I received first in this game and managed to dodge and move upfield for an 8-turner. In the second half, Deetee sent his cage downfield with the intention of doing the same. I started marking his players up to string him out and possibly open some routes to the ball. Eventually one of my Blitzers managed to hit the ball carrier, but Deetee picked it up and forced the thing in for a score. 2 turns left – could we get the winner? I got the ball downfield in turn 7 but was hit, so needed some luck to pickup – pass – hand off into the endzone. 2-1 it was and massive apologies to Deetee for the jamminess!

Game 3 vs Undead
At last, some variety! And this one against the Sizzler, who as we know went on to win. This game was massively influenced by 2 dice sequences. Receiving first, the undead got perfect defence and set about putting pressure on the DE's, who couldn’t pick the ball up. He had a lot of players downfield and looked set to turn me over. On turn 3, I finally got my act together, picked up and passed to a lineman at the line of scrimmage and set about dodging away from the pursuing undead. I rolled something like 6,6,5,4,6,4,5 on the dodges – quite a sequence, although only one of the dodges required a 4+. Still, the momentum changed and Sizzler, now badly out of position went 1-0 down at the half. Kicking in Turn 9, my positioning was out as the undead poured downfield and set up camp near my goal line. I saw a chance to hit the ball carrier, though, but then the second remarkable sequence raised its head – my witches rolled 6 1s in a row over 3 turns. 1-1 it was and a very fair result against a good coach.

Game 4 vs Dark Elves
A mirror match against Myrmedon, another coach I had never faced previously. His roster was slightly different in approach, relying on no Witches, but more rerolls, an apothecary and an assassin. Kicking in the first half, my DEs positioned well, leading to the opposition’s runner trying a remarkable dodge and failing. Picking up the ball, I felt confident I could drive back upfield – however, both Witched wrestled their opponents to the ground and I was suddenly running out of tackle zones. A sideline cage seemed safe enough, but a 4+ lino 1d Pow popped the ball from my blodging Blitzer and the ball was picked up for a score – 0-1! Turn 5, we received and force our way into their half and got the equaliser at half time. The second half started well, removing 2 players on turn 1 and a third in turn 3. This advantage in numbers changed the game, and a score in turn 8 secured the win.

Game 5 vs Lizardmen
SFisher 91 and I have been to a few tournies together but have never played. His Lizzies looked a formidable opponent, but his dice were appalling. Pinning the Saurii was the key and we got a 1-0 advantage at the half. A lot of pushes were rolled. In the second half, I kicked and benefited from pouring rain. He had to use a reroll early on in the 1st turn of the second half, which meant when his skink failed to pick up, it bounced away… We picked it up and went off to score a second. As the man said, his team never had possession of the ball all game. To be fair, he took the dreadful dice as well as anyone might.

Game 6 vs Undead
Winkle Picka. We had met only once before, at the Blood bowl and with the same teams. I managed to put pressure on his cage at the line of scrimmage and bang the ball loose to score – 1-0 at the half. In the second, we received and scored in 5. It may have been possible to stall some more, but I was more confident about defending a 2-0 lead than 1-0. “-1 it ended and I was chuffed to bits that I had remained unbeaten all weekend.
A great tournament with some awesome games. But, how would it have gone for the Dark Elves if we’d faced Chaos in round one?

ceetee



Congrats to ceetee for such a fantastic result, and thank you for sharing once again this awesome experience!
A.

Halfling Challenge Update

Well it's a couple of weeks since the NAFC, the dust has settled and a hundred furry feet are now resting (quite a few are resting in peace!) as the Halfling Challenge has come and gone. Wow what a success too, I couldn't be happier with the outcome. I wanted to get 10% of the field there as halflings and with 15 coaches answering the call from 158 players it was close enough!

Straight away there was a sign that the NAF knew resistance to Halfling domination would be futile, here named first on table one at the NAFC, therefore undisputed leader before a pass was dropped or a goblin sent off, was Halfling coach Anna Delafield! If some sort of freak pie based accident had stopped the tournament then and there we would of had a good claim to having the first Halfling winners of the tournament. Unfortunately basing the plan on pies when halflings were involved was a mistake as it turns out and no pies made it to the hall, so it was back to playing Bloodbowl then.

For me first up was Necromantic Undead coached by Australopithecus, a fun and entertaining game full of halflings taunting Werewolves about claws being useless whilst Morg looked threatening and the entire Necromantic team avoided catching his eye. I so nearly held him out for 8 turns in the first half but with a little luck, and who doesn't need that in Bloodbowl, he scraped over the line for a 1-0 lead. One turn thrown Halfling for an equaliser then....splat, failed to land and dead. Second half saw the two central themes of my weekend emerge, one plan to give Morg the ball and two, watch him fail to pick it up and fail the loner attempt at a reroll. However at the third turn of asking he finally grasped the concept and battered his way down the pitch 'protected' by a Halfling umbrella to equalise in turn 16.

A roster to conjure with...

A quick survey of Halfling coaches found some triumphs and a few tales of total anhilation but lots of smiles.

Some Halfling Coaches

So Game two and Lunchmoney's Pro Elves. Remember the themes? Well sure enough Morg made heavy weather of gaining posession but eventually got it in hand and started to drive up the field. Lunchmoney couldn't see any other way but to force a half die block and hope. He rolled skull and push but then remembered he had a Leader reroll, the bane of Master Chefs, and rolled Splat and Dodge Splat.....Morg was down and the Elves snapped in took the ball away and scored, it's just what elves do. Up against it now I had to take more risks. These worked out in the traditional manner with Halflings landing on their faces and breaking their necks, Morg failing to pick up the ball and elves scoring. Final score 4-0 but Lunchmoney was a splendid opponent and Halflings always have this sort of result in them.

More Halfling Coaches

With my packed lunch demolished and fully focused on game three I used the new feature of the NAFC to find out who was next to attempt to Super Size Me via my smartphone and the free wifi, an excellent innovation. The lucky winner was - JohnnyD and more elves this time of the High variety.  Again I got to receive first and Morg burnt rerolls without using them (he only needs a three for Nuffle's sake!) before eventually gaining possession by which time though the Halfling umbrella was looking a little thin and like Lunchmoney before him Johnny decided to half die block him. Unlike Lunchmoney he didn't even have the courtesy to use a reroll and rolled double splat straight off the bat. I chose the splat on the left (in case anyone is interested!) and guess what....... elves in steal ball and score shocker. More Halflings failing to land and killing themselves duly followed although I did manage to knock his ball carrier over with a thrown Halfling at the start of the second half. Morg continued to be sporadically involved in messing up my plans and the game finished 2-0 to the Elves, ah well.

Yet more Halfling Coaches

Day two, a new dawn and new hope. Certain that today would lead to final Halfling victory and Morg earning his exorbitant fee I strode in to the hall full of, misplaced, confidence. My next opponent was Arioso, a very friendly German gentlemen who I've shared a Bloodbowl hall with on several occasions but never previously played. He had an Underworld team and right from the off he had horrendous luck and watched his team disappear in to the KO and injured boxes. It started with Fezglitch spinning in to a Halfling and pushing him back then back in to the space he had just vacated followed by the space the Halfling had vacated and then back to his start position again. A quick turnover followed with some dice disaster or other and in my turn one Morg blitzed Fezglitch and took him off the pitch, apparently the fourth game in a row where Fezglitch had survived only one turn. However, despite Arioso having the worst of the dice and total Halfling domination being threatened Morg and his now infamous inability to pick up the ball meant I was reliant on him making a single dodge roll with possible reroll to take the lead in turn 8. Yep, two for the dodge followed by another two for the loner so nil-nil at half time. The second half started in much the same vein as the first with Dribblesnot fumbling a bomb and removing himself and a skaven from the pitch. Finally Morg got the plan and we scored to take the lead in turn 16 having totally dominated. We set up to defend against the one turner and tried to fight off the sense of impending disaster that had just arrived. Arioso had certainly had the rough end of Nuffle's sense of humour up to this point but now he couldn't stop rolling sixes, scattered 3 times in the right direction and didn't even have to dodge to equalise. This draw felt worse than the two defeats, still the irony of losing out to a thrown team mate was not lost on me.

Lunchtime day two I attempted the impossible and tried to get all 15 Halfling coaches together for a photo. Trying to get Bloodbowlers to do something is like herding particularly badly behaved cats so I was well chuffed to get 14 of them clutching their lunches in a Halfling stylee. Here is the evidence that it can be done:

I have seen the future and it tastes good!

Game 5 and my phone told me Vampires coached by PeteW. What a nice bloke and what a great game which weaved back and forth and finally saw a successful thrown Halfling one turn touchdown to equalise in turn 8. Mark this day in red please. With the momentum continuing to switch I was a little unfortunate to come out the wrong side of a 2-1 scoreline but a thoroughly enjoyable game nonetheless.

W. Chaney lurks in the background as the treeman once again decides to stand still

So one final hope for a victory remained and it was to be not only Halfling on Halfling action but also Scotling civil war. Ruthy had gone the triple tree route so it promised to be interesting.

Scotlings wherever you look, if a treeman isn't stood in front of you of course!

 First up was the Master Chef nuclear exchange which was new to me but entertaining then followed a half where I was able to disrupt Ruthy's drive steal the ball and take the lead. Receiving the ball deep at the start of the second half things were looking good. A Halfling picked up the ball in a change of tactics but then remembered who needed it and gave it to Morg who promptly dropped it! Two turns wasted trying to regain it once again meant the game had become messy. I kept trying to move the trees around hoping for a take root but it didn't come all half although mine almost immediately took root, went down in round 2 and pretty much stayed there until it was too late to do anything. The key point game when Morg blitzed with three dice but couldn't do more than push back a Halfling. Not willing to risk a GFI based on his performance to date I elected to risk being blocked by halflings......I had though forgotten that Ruthy had one with dauntless who duly rolled a 5 and knocked down Morg!

Halfling power!

This was not in the script! However every time one of us looked like getting control of the ball the halflings behaved like, well, halflings and refused to do simple things like dodge in to a free square and so on. So with a sigh of relief, on my side of the table at least, the game finished 1-0 and I had a victory to go with the two draws.

The NAFC was superbly organised as ever, ran smoothly with a couple of nice additions like the free Lycos figure and the aforementioned access to the draw which also allowed blood bowl fans across the globe to follow it in almost real time. The only grumbling I heard was over the food but hey I found the packed lunches to be ok if not great, and never ate the evening meals so I had a great time and just like last year found the venue to be excellent. I loved the Halfling Challenge it added a little extra involvement and enjoyment across an already great weekend. I owe thanks to all the coaches who took up the challenge, to Cymbeline Games for helping me make Halfling block dice a reality, to Pug for his artwork, Marian for donating a team, Beastmaster games for the Halfling chef and to the lady with the red hair (sorry I can't remember your name) who provided the NAFling badges. So all that remains is to show you the final standings of all those brave Halfling coaches, congratulations Nazgob you are King of the Flings!

Liebster Award!

It's the Liebster award!

 

Past 20th of May, our friend Paul of The Man Cave has nominated The Merry Mayhem News for the Liebster Award! Weeeeeee!

On behalf of all of us who manage to contribute to the blog with stories, reports, images, contests or  whatever we can thing of that might be of interest of the Blood Bowl community (and other communities also hobby related), thank you!

According to Paul's post (here) there's a couple of "Award rules", and those go like this:

- Copy and paste the award on your blog linking the blogger who has given it to you.

- Pass the award to up to 11 blogs by listing them on your own blog.

- Answer the Questions.

- Sit back and bask in the warm fuzzy feeling that you have made someone's day.

- There is no obligation to pass the award on to someone else but it is nice if you take the time to do so.

So, keeping with the spirit of the Award, I'd like to humbly nominate:

Anatoli's Game Room: Analotli's blog is full of all sorts of board and table top game reviews, and many other great hobby projects.

 

Sons of Twilight: Eriochrome's blog always has plenty of interesting reads and hobby news, while keeping an attentive eye on GW's latest developments.

 

Ballgowns and Battleskirts: Fern Kali's young but very promising blog, already with a hand full of Blood Bowl dedicated articles totally worth checking (thanks to Neil for pointing it out to me).

Nazgob's blog: Nazgob's blog has tons of great looking and hugely inspiring Blood Bowl goodies, with plenty of juicy stories and fluff for each of them, just like we love!

(Keeping in mind that there's a few of us who write for the blog, I'd like to keep these nominations "open", for the other contributors to chip in with their own nominations, and answers for the questions below if they will!)

1. Why did you start blogging? 

A bit of a coincidence I suppose. Abraxis challenged me to give him a hand at the blog with a couple of articles once in a while, and since I love BB for quite some time (and happen to comish a league for a few years now), I thought it wouldn't hurt to give it a go. 

2. If you could change one thing about the wargaming hobby, what would it be?

Not really on the hobby per se, but I sure would like to be able to freeze time when hobby related activities are in progression...

3. What is best in life?

Family and friends. To have a game with, to share your latest conversion or paint scheme, or everything else for that matter. It's all about quality time, and that is so much easier to achieve when you're surrounded with good old (and new) family and friends!

4. Do you want to live forever? 

 LOL I guess I'd rather be able to make sure I'd make the most out of what I've got, instead of just going on endlessly... however I'm open to be convinced otherwise! LOL

5. Fame or fortune?

Somewhere in the middle would suit me.

6. What miniature are you most proud of having painted?

The answer always is somewhere in the last hand full of minis I've painted more recently. Mainly because I usually try to improve something or try out some new technique, and even when the final result is not exactly what I wanted, I really enjoy have experimented.

7. How do you deal with burn out? 

Just store the game for a couple of months or so. Then some gaming mate shows up with a new mini/team/idea and we're back in business.

8. Why is a raven like a writing desk? 

Squirrel?

9. Star Wars or Star Trek?  

As long as it has "star" I'm in.

10. If you could only buy from one miniature company from now on, which one would it be? 

Can't do. There are so many great (and small - LOL) companies out there that I doubt I'd ever reach a conclusion on the subject. Maybe 20 years ago I had a ready answer for that, but not today, no.

11. What is your favorite take out? 

Depends a lot on the mood and all, but for now it could be dumplings! Nham!

And it's done.
So now, if you blog is in the list above to receive a Liebster, please take a few minutes to please answer these same questions (or others you might want to answer) in a post of your own blog!

As always, have fun!
A.