Pirates 3-0 Marauders

The Pirates made up for their lacklustre first game with a 3-0 win over Skaven last night. I've not got a lot of commentary to add, so I'll just forge ahead with the match report.

Pirates vs Marauders

After winning the toss and choosing to kick the Pirates lost no time at all blitzing right through the Marauders line of scrimmage with Helehuiwen (#4, Witch Elf) cracking the skull of the Skaven ball carrier and relieving him of his burden. Turn two saw her finish what she started with a short sprint into the end zone to put the Pirates 1-0 up.
Kicking again the Pirates tried to blitz the ball carrier a second time, this time from the flank. But overconfident Arnon (#10, Linesman) ended up going headlong in his attempt to reach his target. Thurichir (#2, Blitzer) made up for his team-mate's mistake by knocking the Skaven down next turn, but Maenven (#8, Linesman) couldn't get a grip on the ball, sending it straight into the waiting arms of a nearby rat. The startled Skaven player was unable to take advantage of his good fortune, failing to make the pass to his team-mate. Helehuiwen (#4, Witch Elf) saw this chance for another touchdown and raced right into the middle of a pack of Skaven, but tripped in her haste which allowed the Skaven thrower to get his paws back on the ball. It wasn't to last, as Thurichir (#2, Blitzer) bowled over yet another Skaven ball carrier, recovering his opponents drop and making it down the pitch for a turn 8 touchdown to leave the Dark Elves with a two point lead at the end of the half.

The second half started with a Dark Elf push down one side of the field, but Himchir (#6, Linesman) was stretchered off after taking a solid blow and missed the rest of the match. Undeterred the Pirates managed to break away with the ball, then spent the next five turns tossing it back and forwards next to the end zone while the remainder of the team held up the Marauders on the scrimmage line. As the referee prepared to blow the final whistle Maethoranu (#1, Runner) stepped over the line to make it 3-0, with only two Skaven left on the pitch.

The start of the season

Tuesday night saw us getting the Blood Bowl league started at the club, and it was certainly eventful. The dugouts were packed with the dead and injured by the end of the night, and a good time was had by all!

Week one results
A good week for physical teams, with wins for Dwarves and Orcs. There were three deaths; a Dark Elf Lineman for the Pirates, a Dwarf Slayer and a Human. On top of that not a single team escaped serious injury.

Karak Yermaw (Dwarf) 2-0 Pynk Nightmares (Dark Elf) - 23,000 attendance

The Nob Fumblers (Orc) 3-1 Horny Horny Hippos (Human) - 19,000 attendance

Graveyard United (Necromancer) 1-1 Karond Kar Pirates (Dark Elf) - 25,000 attendance

Karond Kar Pirates vs Graveyard United
(I didn't make any real notes on this, so some of it may be slightly out of sequence)

Two strong wins in pre-season had left me confident going into my first league match, though aware the Necromatic Undead team was going to have a different style of play than the Humans I'd faced so far. Despite kicking in the first half my Dark Elves, true to form, had soon stolen the ball and managed a rush down the centre to the end zone.

Kicking off after this I pushed for a repeat, getting one player within spaces of the endzone. Unfortunately my ball-carrier was blitzed out-of-bounds by an Undead Ghoul who went on to catch the ball when it was thrown in, setting the Undead up to push up field and even the score at 1-1.

Going into the second half I only had 5 players to set up. Of my original 11 two were still unconcious, 3 were out for the rest of the game with injuries (though none of those were long-term), and I'd had a Linesman killed. It wouldn't be easy in that situation, but receiving the kick and with my good speed I'd still have a chance of a touchdown. A combination of luck and good dodging kept my players from taking too much of a beating, but two turns in a row my Witch Elf failed to pick up the ball on 2+. As a fast team I almost managed to bring it to 2-1, but a last turn desperate attempt to dodge tackle zones, pick up the ball and throw a pass into the end zone failed, leaving the game drawn at 1-1.

Lessons so far

1. Dodging out of a tackle zone takes penalties for the square you're moving into, not the one you're moving from. Makes it really easy for my Dark Elves to pull back from the enemy line (typically 2+) and avoid getting into trouble.
   
2. Bring an apothecary. Dark Elves aren't the most physical team, so if your opponent gets the chance he'll try and land blows.
   
3. Stay away from the sidelines. There's nothing worse than getting within one turn of the endzone when the opponent makes a lucky blitz with the only player in range to threaten you and throws your ball carrier out of bounds.
   
4. The dice hate you. If you're making a major play and just need a 2+ to score a touchdown you'll roll a 1. If you've got a re-roll you'll roll another 1.
   

Blood Bowl - Karond Kar Pirates

Because I've clearly not got enough unpainted Dark Elves sitting around I'm now starting a Dark Elf Blood Bowl team for the club's upcoming league. It'll be a few weeks before the leagues starts properly, but I managed to get a bit of pre-season play in at the club last night.

The list I'm currently running looks like this:

Fan Factor: 2
Re-Rolls: 2

7 Linesmen
2 Blitzers
1 Witch Elf
1 Runner

Unfortunately my players are still un-named, but I'll get around to that.

After playing around with a few different lists I've settled on this one, that closely follows what comes in the standard Dark Elf box. However the box comes from an earlier version of the Dark Elf list, so comes supplied with a Thrower which no longer exists. On the other hand, the list has a Runner which there's no model for. Easy solution then, use the Thrower as my Runner and I'm sorted!

I'd hoped to have more gold available for an Apothecary, some Cheerleaders and Assistant Coaches, etc. but the Dark Elves are an expensive team. In the end most of my gold went on just getting my basic 11 players. Because of that I'm likely to be spending the earnings of my first few games on those types of extras, starting with an Apothecary to keep my frail elves out of the graveyard!

So I played the list in a practice game last night, playing a half game against a Human team where I managed to pull off a 2-0 win. Won't go into much detail over what happened, but was really stunned at just how fast the Dark Elves can get about the field. At one point I had my Runner boxed in with the ball on one side of the field, but after the Humans broke the front of the box open he managed to rush across the field and hand off to a Blitzer who ran the ball down the other side of the field.

High agility is a fantastic thing, I had players pulling off most moves (picking up the ball, throwing and catching) on 2+ or 3+, which means I can move the ball about even faster than I can run. With agility 4 on the whole team it means that anyone can be used to make passing plays, so there's a lot of adaptability. Although not as physical a team as Orcs or Dwarves, the Witch Elf and Blitzers can hold their own in most situations if supported by runners so I'm still able to land a few blows.

The biggest thing I'm worried about once the season starts is losing players to injury, as I've got no reserves and no spare cash to spend on them, but careful play until I can afford an apothecary should keep me pretty safe. Expect more updates as the league progresses!

Power armour

Yeah thats right power armour ^_^ I went to my local GW store with some thoughts about war machines or perhaps buying some Orcs for my army only to find that over the festive period the greenskin collection had been stripped right down! So i got myself a unit of Vanguard Veterans instead.

Theres a new Orc and Goblin army book on the way though so I might be holding off until then to see how much my plans are going to be altered by the new lists.