Season 4 - League Champions - The Mighty Undercheesers

[LtSpinx]

Matchday 1

The Cangurus vs The Brewers Bashers

Borri Biscuitbeard, the press relations and head brewer of the Brewer's Brawlers made the following press announcement in between pints of his latest concoction (which, it has to be said, dissolved a not insubstantial amount of the flag stone floor of the press room)

"The Brewer's Brawlers give fair warning of the 2,023,234th grudge to be recorded this week against Raveen with his obiious slight against the honour, integrity, honour and contenance of our magnificent team by deliberately using the wrong name for our team. This dishonour will forever go in the book of grudges until the debt is repaid and further more..." at which point it would appear Borri decided it was and excellent time to leave a dramatic pause of several hours and as he later confirmed, was most certainly not from ingesting epic amounts of super strength ale. The rest of the press release appears to have been about comparative merits of pie with beer and has not been printed.

[Raveen]

You know the going rate for bribery, it's not my fault that you never paid up. This is what happens you see?

[LtSpinx]

Classified Ads, help wanted section: The Brewer's Brawlers are currently looking for a new Press relations officer and head brewer, also the position of chief briber has become available.

In an unrelated note, it would seem league organiser Raveen has recently been in receipt of two fine beards and 200 barrels of the creation now to be called "Borri's Last Brew"

Borri is apparently unavailable for comment.

[lawastooshort]

Also, I'm saluting lawastooshort right at the start, for having the only tier 3 team here. Much respect.

Thanks!

I'd like to say that the lads are hoping for some decent mid-table obscurity, but I think that's a lot to ask for

[DaigaroOgami]

Right, gotta post quick because the wife is expecting the house to be in boxes by now... And Rav, I apologise for not having the time to fill in your players names... I'll edit it later

But what a glorious start for the lads! It seems that box of mushrooms PilOrc confiscated from Percy that got left outside the Carrion's dugout found their way into the spectating wizard's hands...

The Ducklingz kicked off, hoping to force errors for the Carrions - it didn't seem things would go to plan, lots of pushing about on the LoS instead of knocking anything down... The Carrion's blocking Mummy gave Leroy lots of Blocking cuddles for the whole match... Leroy spending most of his time flexing his big new muscles instead of trying to do any killing...

The Carrion's got a steady cage on the march, but left enough of a gap for PirlOrc to nip in, give a swift backhand to the ball carrier, and dodge back out again.

The ball must've scattered to an Orc in the crowd; it got lumped downfield towards the Carrion's endzone. Even luckier, a Mummy fell over his own bandages on the way to protecting the ball... In all the cagemaking rukus there was enough gap for Jamal to trundle towards the ball, getting all stary-eyed with the thoughts of a rare TD... but Harriet wasn't having any of it, and sprinted in to gather the ball and head towards the far corner, chased by Jamal who could only think about what could've been. Thankfully the Khemri wizard was too busy eating free mushrooms to notice Harriet tying his shoelace on the Endzone line, and the Ducklingz stole a 1-0 lad at half time.

There was enough time for the Carrions to line up and boot any Black Orc or Troll they could find on the LoS, but thankfully AV9 was useful for once... (It was slightly troubling seeing everyone having a liedown all at once... it was like someone handed out the half-time mushrooms 5 minutes early...)

2nd half started with a riot and the formalities of Cage Formation lead by PirlOrc - he's heard about the Rushing Cup and fancies a bit of that...

The 'shroom'ed up Khemri Wizard confirmed his post match sacking by zapping a Khemri blitzer off the pitch instead of any Orcs...

The ladz got a a wriggle on and stomped their way downfield, basking in the glory that FOR ONCE it was the opposition suffering the wrath of Nuffle... PirlOrc strolled over and made it 2-0, giving time for the Mummies to tickle some Black Orcs, and time for Malcolm to put the icing on the cake by shattering a skeleton to tiny pieces - fouling the crap out of the poor bugger with an elbow drop from Percy's shoulders...

A nice solid start for the lads, the dice were with us, as soon as I got the 1d block on the ball carrier the 'luck' tables turned and Rav didn't get much after that... he did Casualty up a Black Orc though...

Roll on next week! Time to go mushroom picking with the UnderCheesers!!!

[lawastooshort]

the UnderCheesers!!!

Speaking of which, 2-1 to the Mighty Undercheesers vs the Tomb Army.

The Undercheesers got a bit distracted in the first half by trying to foul a ghoul, which turned into a bit of a general scrum in which there was a lot of lying down Underworld players. At some point David Bowie got his collarbone broken (I think? -ST) but regenerated after the doctor said he could instead break his neck. The Undead walked it in on their Turn 6.

The Undercheesers applied maximum violence to equalise in Turn 8 and then, 11-8 down on numbers in the second half, broke down a flank as fast as they could hoping to get another kick off and another chance for the KO'd Paul Simon and Bob Dylan to wake up.

That made it 2-1 and the Undead had 4 (? 3?) turns to score back; they got within a turn's run but Bob Dylan, who had indeed woken up, took down their ball carrier and left the ball pretty much unreachable. The Undead took the only move they could to free the ball up with a skeleton blitz, but he tripped up and knocked himself out and the whistle blew.


The league looks a lot less... friendly with no stunty teams to keep us company; despite the difference in TV and coach experience the Underworld spent a lot of time flat on their backs, which made this reasonably tricky.

[Gandalf]

Next up on BBBBBC (Brilliant British Blood Bowl Broadcasting Corporation), we have Smash Of The Day, brought to you as always by our elf-orc team of Gary Linekicker and Arran Handsquash.

***************************************************

GL : Hello and welcome, today we shall be looking at the smash-up between the Everglade Wanderers and Eballa. On the one hand, the veteran players of the beautiful game, and on the other, a load of disgusting rotting flesh.
AH : Hurr, I dunno, I likes me some rotting flesh every now'n'then. Dey not worth much tho, so to make up fer it, so dey gets the orciest orc of all, Morg'n'Thorg!
GL : Yes that's right, and a couple of extra inducements too. As the game kicked off it made for a formidable starting lineup, for the mighty Bee Tiered and his allies to line up against.
AH : Aaah, dat big tree got quickly felled, along with tons of dem stinky elves!
GL : Pff, you call them stinky when the other team was Nurgle?
Ah : Ummm, yeah! Why not! Dem pathetic elveses fell ova tons at da start, haha!
GL : They sure did. Nurgle marched forwards over the elves who were bravely lying down. One square from the end though, a fantastic defence was launched, the elves got the ball free and launched the ball forwards. However...
AH : (interuppting) Haha!! I remember dis bit! Morg'n'Thorg intercepted dat wimpy throw and walked over da line for da first score!!!
GL : Yes he sure did. The elves had a few turns to even it up before half time and it came down to an epic throw to a wardancer in the end zone. The ball flew gracefully through the air, towards the target...
AH : And wimpy elf couldn't catch it!! Haha! A snotling cound've caught dat!
GL : Well I don't think it was that bad. Anyway, to the second half. The elves recieved, quickly punched a hole in the line and flooded elves into the other half.
AH : Dem nurgle-wurglies stood next to all dem elves and made dem smell all dat horrible flesh!
GL : Yes, they displayed great fortitude. What followed was the best pass we've seen so far this season.
AH : Ummm Gary, its da first match of da season!
GL : Well, erm, yes, but my point stands. It was almost 50 yards. The wardancer was marked but he caught it anyway, and ran to the line. 1-1.
AH : So now dem Nurgle players hit lots of pansy elves, but noble Pestigor got offed for kicking dat treeman on the floor. Dat refereeing is disgrace!!
GL : It was perfectly justified in my opinion! The elves got the ball free but were unable to gather. Eballa closed in but the ball was made of butter as it bounced around and no-one could catch it. The Wood elves standing were left with a number of unpalatable choices. Eventually they reached a decision.
AH : Did dey decide to leave and go back to pansy elf-land?
GL : No Alan, they did not. A wardancer surrounded by 5 nurgles leapt over them, picked up the marked ball, and ran to the line. A superb display of agility there.
AH : Bah! He could've hit dat rotter instead!
GL : What good would that have done Alan?
AH : Blood Bowl is all about da hitting, yeah!!!
GL : *sigh* no it's not Alan. We've been through this. Anyway, the elves ran down the clock for a turn before scoring, whilst Eballa played ping-pong with elves, pushing them back and forth.
AH : Dan after kick-off, da rotting corpses scored to secure a win and show dem elveses who is da boss!
GL : No no no! That's not what happened. There were only a few turns left and no clear scoring chances were created.
AH : Oh yeah. Now I remembers.
GL : Well done Alan. Lay off those mushrooms before next week OK? Now over to our resident stats man, the Vampire known as Count Block, for his view on the encounter.

CB: Hmmm yes, well the Elves started off poorly, with their first two turns ended with double ones and elves falling over anywhere, despite many of them having dodge. Nurgle took advantage of this by scoring, but nearly messed it up and it needed a 6 from mercenary Morg'n'Thorg to intercept the ball and rescue the situation.
Later on the luck evend itself out quite a bit, and neither side could feel hard done by from Nuffle come the end.
Eballa attempted 50 blocks compared to Everglade's 21. They got decent luck with the blocks, but only managed to injure two players. The elves managed to counteract their iffy block rolls by having block/wrestle and nurgle being almost devoid of those skills.
As ever a highlight of watching the wood elves was the leaping wardancers. Only 4 out of 7 leaps came off today, but when it was needed the most, it worked, as we saw for the second touchdown.
Morg'n'Thorg managed to collect so many SPP's this game that he could level up twice! Thankfully for the rest of the league he can't join Eballa full time. The Elves got their thrower to level 3 (safe throw) and a wardancer with tackle.
The elves looked like they had MUCH better veins than the half-dead Nurgle. On an unrelated note, I'm going to see if I can get an.... autograph from the elf team before they leave the stadium.

GL : Good luck with that Count. We'll be back next week to see the beautiful game in all its glory as Wood Elves take on Pro Elves. One thing is for sure - the true winner of the encounter will be the game of Blood Bowl itself. Good night!


(stat correction: Nurgle ran for 100 yards, not 10.... this is a known BB Manager bug)

[notjarvis]

Stagocalypse opened up the Party with a 2-0 defeat of Ident's Necro's "Fables"

Even teams so no inducements.
In Breif
1st Half
- Ident Kicks off, the norse receive, pick up the ball with their passer and knock over a bunch of Mummies, building up a light cage.
- A runner also runs deep in the Necros's half.
- Ident manoeuvres around to pressure the ball, but fails a 5+ dodge with a re-roll.
- The Stag runs, and sees an opening, He only needs to make a normal pass for the Norse runner to score on the second turn, but clearly the constant Alcohol since he arrived has got to him and his pass goes astray next to the runner. (failed 2 attempts at 4+)
- The necros swarm around the ball, and knock down the runner. Some unedifying hitting happens.
- The Norse think they have the ball tied down, by dodging and blocking to get 5 players around the Werewolf ball carrier, but the werewolf breaks free! and runs to the other side of the pitch.
- A first attempt to blitz the ball off the werewolf fails, and he runs down past the half way line. But just when he's about to get free, a second hit takes him down! The Norse take their chance, get the ball and run it up score on turn 8! (despite a fumbled hand off at one point)
Norse 1 - Necro 0 at half time
2nd Half
- The second half opens with a Pitch Invasion! Knocking down 7 of Idents players, and 1 of the Norse
- Nevertheless Ident picks up the ball and tries to keep it safe. The Norsemen run through the lines trying to pressure the ball, and The ball carrier runs uo the Norse right. Injuring a Norse Lineman in the process.
- The Norse respond with the Berserker Brand pushing the ball carrier off field. Lucky for the Undead guys it comes on next to a Tomb guardian and 2 Zombies.
- The next couple of turns involve fighting over the ball until the Norse get it free to score their second (On turn 13)
Norse 2 - Necro 0
The final 3 turns see scrabbling over the ball. The Norse defence stands firm (despite losing 2 more players to injury) and gets the ball, but again they miss a pass to which would have left it 3-0.


Notes on the Dice
I edged the Block dice (I had more defender downs, but I also rolled more skulls)
The riot at start of 2nd half was a kicker for Ident, and was really bad luck letting the Norse through his lines.
Ident had better than average luck getting through the Norse armour ( I know they are lightly armoured, so they should be broken a little over 40% of the time, Ident managed 60%), whilst I sucked at getting through the armour,

Play of the match
Clearly the Werewolf getting out of the cage I put him in, with a little more luck that clever block and escape move would have led to 1-0 to The deadies

[id3nt1ty]

It was a good game notjarvis, thanks!

I think I said at the end that the dice didn't go in my favour but really I think I just made some stupid mistakes. There were a few key moments ruined for me because I forgot about tackle zones and had to make dodge rolls, or thought a berserker (with Frenzy) was actually a lineman. I also never got a good defense on my ball carriers - mostly because you tied up my key players very well.

[Gandalf]

Time for this week's dice awards. Where I pull out cherry-picked stats that look impressive, that may or may not have had a large bearing on the game.

The Blessed By Nuffle Award for the week goes to the Orkly Ducklings - in 27 D6 rolls not a single 1 was rolled, at odds of 1 in 137.

The Insufficient Goat Sacrifice Award goes to their opponents, Raveen's Khemri, for rolling 1 or 2 18 times, and not a single 6, in 34 D6 rolls. Those two things have odds of 1 in 70 and 1 in 492 respectively, combine them and you have odds of.... 1 in 34,395. That about evens out last year's Khemri vs Ogre match!

Honourable mention to Stagocalypse vs Fables! who both tried to pick the ball up 4 times and succeeded every time, odds of 1 in 121.5.

[Idanmel]

First half:

The Gurus chose to kick, planning to try to stop the dwarfs from scoring in the first half, and aiming to finish the game 1:0.

Zig Zag Zigler kicked the ball to the side. The dwarfs picked it up with a problem, and started bashing the elves, quickly serving the first KO of the match.
The elves managed to blitz the ball carrier and catch the ball, but failed to dodge out of harm's way. The dwarfs picked the ball again, and managed to successfully thorw and catch it and ran like the cowards they are to the middle of the pitch to form a cage.

Slowly moving down the field, the dwarf team managed to score on their 8th turn. Bye bye game plan. 1:0 to the Dwarfs.

Second half:
The elves received the ball and spread 3 catchers and a line man to both sides of the pitch, but forgot to pick up the ball before trying to dodge and failing. However they did manage to pickup the ball, make 1 gfi, pass the ball 1 square, catch, dodge and run to the TD line for a 2 turn TD. 1:1

After Zig Zag Zigler kicked the ball to the side of the pitch, the dwarfs again picked it up and threw it in order to form a cage in the middle. This time the elves manage to infiltrate the cage with 2 sidestepping blodgers... At their 2nd 1 dice block attempt on the ball carrier they managed to break the ball lose, pick it up dodge and pass it to a catcher who ran as far away as he could.

The snailish dwarfs had two players who could get next to the elven catcher but needed 2 gfi's to get there. The first one parked himself as best as he can to force the elven catcher a dodge on his next turn. The 2nd dwarf wanted to make the catcher's life harder by adding another dodge roll between the TD line and the catcher. Unfortunately he failed his 2nd GFI, and on the next turn the catcher dodged out of the way and scored. 2:1 to the Elves on turn 13.

Zig Zag Zigler kicked the ball for the 3rd time in the game, and by this time the dwarfs were out of rerolls and couldn't pick the ball up before suffering a turnover. I don't remember what happened next, but the elves managed to pick up the ball before the dwarfs did, and scored another quick TD. 3:1 in the end.

Interesting Statistics:

The elves only had 15% ball possession, but 66% of the time the ball was in the Dwarf's half of the pitch.
The dwarfs tried and succeeded to throw and catch the ball 3 times.
Although the elves had 4 successful throws, the dwarfs came on top in passing yards.
The elves failed 4 out of 9 GFI's, while the dwarfs failed 3 out of 22.
A fresh Elf catcher who just been accepted to the team 3 minutes before the game start, scored 2 TD's and is already level 2.

[Idanmel]

I just realized I'll be unavailable on Sunday.

Gandalf, I'm free on Friday, Saturday and maybe Monday, and then I'm going to a catchball tournament for the rest of the week.

[Gandalf]

Saturday works for me. The usual time?

[Idanmel]

Yeah

[Raveen]

Matchday 2

The Everglade Wanderers vs The Cangurus will be played a day early as both Elven squads have decided to play before the pitch is made all muddy by "Those oiks".

Eballa vs Stagocalypse is a showdown of two of the newer teams in the RTBBL. Will the speed and skill of the Norsemen be enough to escape the pestilence of Nurgle's rot. Spectators should note that Papa Nurgle himself will be attending in person and therefore anyone within a 10 yard radius can expect to need to visit and apothecary in the coming days.

The Mighty Undercheesers take on The Orkly Ducklingz in this years best hope for Goblin on Goblin and Troll on Troll action. Or at very least Goblin in Troll being munched action.

It'll be interesting to see if the Dwarves can keep up with the pace of the Werewolves and Ghouls when The Brewers Brawlers play Fables.

Finally it's Dead vs Deader as it's The Pinewood Carrions vs The Tomb Army. Will the new corpses on the block be able to beat the old, dead, masters?