Blood Bowl & Footy training

 

A bit of socialising for me this past weekend. I caught up with C_ for a friendly game/warm-up tutorial/training session of Blood Bowl Sevens, and a chance to run my Canberra (Norse) Raiders team through their paces.

A few weeks ago, I finished painting this Reaper 'Yeti' that C_ swapped me for some beers. The beer economy isn't so much a thing here in Canberra, unlike Darwin...but still, in this instance it was a goer.

Cheers!

I clicked around youtube and found a really good tutorial to paint him up & just followed the suggestions about colours. I didn't have the exact colours but I did manage to pick up the Vallejo 'Pale Blue' for his skin, and it's just perfect I reckon. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ObG_NJf_eE) 

He is hands-down my favour mini that I've painted. A very simple paint scheme, but the figure just has so much character & expression.

My Norse went up against C_'s Wood Elves. He told me he went for a 'Glam Rock' colour scheme, and I reckon he was spot on. The colours just compliment each other perfectly and give the figures a kind of Ziggy Stardust-meets-Cirque Du Soleil show business pizzaz.

He's got some serious talent, old mate C. It's just such a good looking table when he brings his figures along.

Here's his 'Tree Man'...one of the optional special players in the team. I asked him to send me some of his photos cuz I realised my iPhone snaps didn't really do this figure any justice.

During our match, C_ didn't opt to use his Tree Man, but rather went in with a full compliment of his incredibly agile and very, very quick Elves. Being Blood Bowl, it goes without saying that all the teams have a fair few sneaky tricks & skills - I can't recall them all in detail - but the one that impressed me about these Wood Elves were their ability to leap a contained square during their movement.

Yikes!!

I won't go into too much detail, suffice to say, I opted for receiving the ball on the first turn as it would give me a few options...and slow..the..pace..down..to...a...gentlemanly..tempo.

I knew that once those Wood Elves had the ball, there was a good chance they'd just slip & slide out of my reach. This where C_ came into coaching me a long and reminding me of the rules, and more importantly the strategy of positioning effective tackle zones and maintaining cohesion across the pitch.

Soon enough, the carnage & chaos took over. There were trips, injuries and two - yes two - pitch invasions that knocked over and stunned players on both teams at the kick off.

My Yeti, didn't quite live up to the hype. He made a few good slams and got slammed himself good & proper by three Elves, which didn't quite work out as planned for C-, as some of those Elves came off badly in the melee. There were also a few turns when I couldn't seem to rouse Old Man Yeti from his wild kind of stupor.

My Valkyrie came in handy and - which a lot of generous coaching from C_ - managed to score twice to the Elves' single point.  One of the important tactics in the game that I still need to think about is setting up the protective 'cage' around the ball. You can see and example of it below. The idea is to shield the ball carrier form he opposing team and advance through. 

Here's old luv with the ball, protected by Ulfwereners & Linemen.

The problem with my play style is that I'm always tempted by some of the insane & risky plays that make this game so much fun. So of course I made a few tactical blunders here and there, but it went pretty well.

Anyway, it was great afternoon. So good to catch up, have a nice warm mug of tea, and really nut-out the game. With a generous host like C_, you come away not really caring who won or lost and just carrying on like laughing idiots (he was going pretty easy on me, and coaching me along too).

After the game, I went out and had my first training session with a real footy team...playing AFL of all things.

Dear oh deary me. My poor lower back, and my poor old Raiders. They'd be ashamed of me for betraying them with a different code.