Or well…it was. It’s been a moment since I have played consistent Bloodbowl. Honestly, with the announcement of a new edition, there’s been less enthusiasm from me to get a game of bloodbowl going, I may as well wait for the new edition.
But one things for sure, I am excited for those Tomb Kings!
But what of current games? Theres a new league started recently. I have signed up for it, bringing back the Pocket monster team for another outing (will Black Shuck finally meet his end this season!?) And brought out another rookie team; Papa Nurgle’s Pathogents!
The Pathogents in all their….gory…BloatersLine RottersNurgling tokensPestigor
Firstly, I don’t like Nurgle. I don’t really like the aesthetic of Nurgle in any iteration it has been brought out in, but they have staying power. I was suggested to at least try them out because they’re much hardier than the other teams I tend to field and I have an amazing ability to just be absolutely crushed in bloodbowl. The dice tend to not stay on my side for longer than a half.
While I don’t think I’ll follow every game this season with the Nurgle, I certainly may give some updates time to time of how they’re fairing for me. So far I’ve had them on the table once, being completely overrun by Elves losing 3-0. Nothing too bad in terms of damage, though one Rotter died in the process. I just need to grind down some teams and gain some SPP and maybe the team could get more fun… Maybe in my game tonight against the orcs…?
With the release of the War of Settra’s fury (and the Heralds and Priests on barded steeds in addition), my eagerness to get Tomb kings on the table spiked. I had been playing mostly the Beastmen as I worked on getting them built up and painted too, but everyone knows the new shiny things are more important!
So I picked up one of each of the new models, arranged a game and scrambled to get a 1000 point list put together. Tomb king cavalry, aside from the archers, have proven to be pretty weak in most of the games I have played with them. However, since there’s now the opportunity to put new heroes with them, I thought I would theme an army around being all mounted just for no reason other than rule of cool. And this is what I ended up with;
I called this army “Oops, all horses”. Using the Nehekharan Royal Host Army of infamy I started with my core troops. A unit of 3 Chariots to be led by a Tomb Prince in a chariot with the Death Mask of Kharnutt. Two units of Cavalry Cohort (6 spearmen and 6 bows in each, with full command) and in the special slot a unit of 7 horse archers to act as chariot runners.
And finally, the two new heroes. The herald, holding aloft the battle standard (with the Icon of the Sacred eye) and a mortuary priest, level 2 wizard, both on their barded steeds.
1000pt tomb kings Vs empire The gunline awaits!
And so it was time to try it out. My opponent brought his Empire. Beautifully painted and with plenty of firepower to counted the skeleton horde charging over the board towards them. We set up and rolled for turn. Fortunately I won first turn as I wanted to try get up the table as quick as I possibly could (which, due to not being able to march, is admittedly not as fast as I would have liked)
My archers unleashed their paltry volley of bows. The great thing about the cavalry cohort is being able to volley fire on the move and with 1 higher BS than the regular Horse archer unit. The terrible thing is you get half the shots. Through both unit shooting, and the horse archer unit, only 2 musketeers were shot down.
Empire Turn 1 saw them cautiosly move their knights up, wanting to maintain distance but still progress up the board. He was cautious of the chariots, less so the cavalry. His guns let loose, ripping into my Cavalry cohort on the left flank. Fortunately due to some lacklustre rolls, not many of them died and the unit was still on the table. It wasn’t until my next turn however, I realised Ihad completely forgotten about their regeneration rolls!
Tomb king turn two, Arise! from both my Tomb Prince (due to the AoI upgrade) and the Mortuary priest, saw some wounds returning to the cavalry units. The Cavalry Cohort on the right flank charged, the Empire Knights counter charged in return. A wise choice we decided as it guaranteed they were striking before the charging Skeletons.
I saw an opening in the middle, my chariots declared the charge through the chariot runners (Horse archers) into the Empire veterans directly infront of them. Unfortunately, they fell 1″ short of the charge, so failed and stopped short behind the horse archers. The veterans, having to take a terror test due to the Tomb Prince’s Death mask, failed….but then didn’t. Lucky re-rolls!
Not much happened for deaths in the shooting phase so we wnt on to the combat phase. The knights tore apart the Cavalry cohort whilst taking no damage in response. After unstable crumbled some models, only the command group was left standing. The undead gave ground, and due to it being Empire turn 2 next, they restrained from following up, and turned to face a juicy opportunity to meet my chariots head on.
The Empire moved their Cavalry to face my Chariots Purposefully holding the line close enough to negate the impact hits of the chariots. Shooting took out the remaining horse archers and focused on my remaining chorot on the left flank. The engineer sniped the champion out of the command group on the right flank, leaving a standard and a musician on their own.
The knights continued to hold the ground against the chariots. Passing all terror checks, and saves, and only breaking after two rounds of combat. The general, being the only survivor of the unit fled, stopping short of his veteran infantry, meaning the overrunning Chariots ran him down…but also didn’t overrun into the infantry. Again denied their impact hits!
The combat versus the Veterans was long drawn. Each victory for the veterans due to their static combat res would be met with restraint, and volleys of guns. The chariots were eventually shot to ribbons, and the Tomb Prince met his demise from Combat resolution after a challenge with the heroes of Empire.
The Standard and Musician managed to charge down the Engineer on the right flank, and then overrun into the Hellblaster volley gun, winning the first round of combat and killing one of the crew, only to fall in the final round of the game. Being the last model on the board.
A very fun game! The hellblaster volley gun started off the game slow, with the hit dice not being cooperative. Until it began firing at lone heroes, then it seemed to ramp up to overkill mode.
I feel I would try this list again, but perhaps when I build upon it at higher point levels. It’s definitely missing something to give it extra staying power. Maybe just more chariots would help a lot.
First off, it’s been a while. Between work being busy and holidays creeping up, I hadn’t had time to get to work on more articles. And with the bloodbowl league ending and the games coming to a pause, it felt like a good time to just focus on some painting. And so i did, ready for the new league!
So today starts the new league, and the grand reveal of my new team; Kalevalhalla
Norse were the first ever team I played in Bloodbowl, back in my teenage years so I knew I would need to get back to them some day. And with the new league I thought, why not now.
And today’s game, my first outing of the new team will be vs Chaos Renegades!
My first thought when considering how to handle the renegades was genuinely that I was unsure how I’d go toe to toe with 3 big guys. Luckily he only had two of them; the rat ogre and the ogre. My first goal was to try neutralise one of these. He won the kick off and took first drive. At the end of the first turn he had pummeled my team and took a lineman off the pitch. Great. Luckily only badly hurt (which would be the theme of the match, as only one injury was more than that).
After the opening turns luck really swung in my favour. The Yhetee broke the rat ogres armour and sent him off with a badly hurt. The ogre kept failing his bonehead.
I managed to keep control of the ball as the renegades began to dwindle in numbers on the pitch. He did managed to sneak a 2 dice block on the beer boar, getting a dead result. The only true casualty in the game.
All in all, a fairly successful opening for the season for the Norse. 2-0 win, with a good spread of spp, and enough to buy an apothecary and replace the boar.
As often comes to happen, life gets in the way. So I missed some posts I had wanted to make (generally keeping to my previous formula of my Monday bloodbowl and my Wednesday showcase of old paintings) due to generally being tired out from the heat (alright, it’s nto THAT hot, but I don’t do well in the heat) and work in general. So here’s this weeks updates in brief;
Monday night is bloodbowl night.
Monday saw my usual outing for a game in the league. This time it was my Necromantic team Vs High elves. I wasn’t too confident going in to this one. I know my opponent is a very good bloodbowl player and, well, it’s elves. I tend to struggle against the high agility teams. Not to mention the pile of inducements I was giving him!
First half started well, I maintained some control of the ball, and dice seemed to be in my favour. At first at least. What started off well soon turned in to some full on elf action and whule the game was very enjoyable, it ended in a 4-0 loss for me. Pesky elves.
As the league is slowly starting to wrap up and I still have many more games I need to somehow squeeze in, today I had a second Bloodbowl game. This time it was my Khorne Vs Wood elves. More elves! I again expected another loss. I’ve not really played wood elves before and I know them to be very tricky to pin down. And since I’ve not necessarily done well with the Khorne so far, I figured this might be a quick game. And it was a rather quick game in that it was oiver a lot quicker than my usual games.
A win! In a stark contrast to how my games usually go, the dice gods had decided to very confidentally sway the game in my favour. I rolled so many knock outs this game it was absurd. And an unfortunate take root roll meant the treeman stayed out of the action for a very severly outnumbered wood elf team. 2-0 to me, and a huge boost to my morale this league! This monday’s game is booked still too, but another friendly coming up 🙂
Speaking of bloodbowl, since this league is wrapping up, I’m slowly starting to decide which teams I might consider running next season. Considering Chaos dwarves…
Other painting projects this week. I had the urge to paint some of my epic Pike and shotte, so made a start on a unit of the Scots Covenanters pike and musket unit.
And then, when I was too tired for details, I’ve been priming a whole lot of Epic Napoleonic. Hoping to have this bunch fully painted for when I start a campaign with a friend. This is all the stuff needed for “The action at Thuin” start to the Hundred days campaign supplement
So much French line infantry!
That’s been my week of wargaming. I still have stuff in the pipeline. 5 parsecs I’m working on my crew and the terrain for the first mission. Once it’s done the weekly updates will roll out!
I never do ask, but what’s been on your work in progress table? What games have you been playing?
In a bit of a change to the revent weeks, tonight saw a friendly game happen. I do find it’s nice to get the odd game in that isn’t a league game, as it does mean I get to use a team I don’t get to play often. So today I decided to bring back out; Top Dodge!
I first used this team a couple of seasons ago. I really enjoyed playing the Amazons. Especially in a league. Starting with army wide dodge and then gaining block as a first skill up really did wonders to have a team that stuck around.
Now for todays match up it will be Amazons vs Shambling undead.
it felt so good to play the amazons again after playing just my Khorne or Necromantic for the last few months. It felt like the team was faster, and the better agility helped them get out of some otherwise less favourable positions
This was the first time I had played against shambling undead. I had a general idea of what they could do from their similarity with necromantic, but man, those mummies do hit hard!
I managed to get a goal in at around turn 6 of the first half, opting not to stall so there’d be more action. I find for beginning games giving more opportunity to learn the opening moments of a game (the kick off, kickoff events and the set up to the drive) is far more beneficial.
my opponent did a great job of keeping my numbers low. With some good blocks and some cheeky fouls I seemed to always have at least 3 players off the pitch!
Second half saw me trying to maintain my lead only to burn through my rerolls a bit too quick due to double skulls showing its ugly face. This left me hoping for my dice bit to betray me and …they did
a couple of short turns due to turnovers gave a lonesome ghoul the chance to make a run for it. With only one jaguar warrior free to make the chase, a go for it for a block and….1. jaguar down, turn over. The ghoul carries on his quest to the touchdown line and he’s one away. The jaguar blitzes, getting up and trying again for redemption, and finally! Ghoul down
Take that, Ghoul!
The ball goes off the pitch. Thrown back in to a decent pace in the centre of my half. A line woman swoops in to pick it up. And go for it! And again….1. I got greedy and she goes down, the ball falling right at the feet of an opportunistic wight who gets to just run it in for the equaliser.
1-1 on turn 15. Its a draw. We play out the last turns just going for blocks and wrap up the game. A very fun game overall and maybe if there were stakes at hand I wouldn’t have been so eager to throw away my rerolls or take the unnecessary go for it’s.
This week it’s an outing for the First Khornetact team. Still relatively SPP light, I’m really hoping I can generate some this week!
For this weeks game it’s Khorne Vs Orcs
This team will be a tricky one for sure. I’m hoping with the team value difference will allow me to get something useful. I think it will be about 90k. So perhaps a bribe for a well-timed foul of a key piece…. I guess we will see.
So I elected to take the Bloodweiser keg, assistant coach and cheerleader. I find the latter two don’t usually come in to play all too often, but wouldn’t you know both did this game! Securing me an extra reroll in the second half (as two is really not enough and I found that out all too much today when I burned through them before even turn 4 of each half!) and also giving me a roll on the prayers to nuffle in the second half too.
I won kick off and was in fairly good spirits for the game. But even from this drive my sice weren’t wanting to play nice. An early turnover meant the orcs got to grab the upper hand.
And they kept it for the whole half, scoring two touchdowns and removing two of my khornegors as injuries; and one dead. Disaster.
Into the second half two players down 😦
I managed to hit back and remove his guard orc, but the momentum really didn’t pick up for me.
The second half saw another player dead for the Khorne and a third orc touchdown. And a couple instances of blitzes ending in double KO. Ouch.
A very well played and very precise game from the orcs really just showed how much the khorne team fumbled this one.
On the bright side, I bought my 3rd reroll. So at least I’ll have that for comfort when licking my wounds into the next match!
Monday night is bloodbowl night. Has been for a few years now mostly due to this being the night the league all meets up to play.
So much violence!
For this season, I decided having too much time on my hands is clearly a problem, so I have opted to run two teams. We have my ever experienced but frequent losing team; The pocket Monsters (Necromantic) , and my brand new rage filled First Khornetact.
And from the image above you can see there’s a lot of Necromantic this season. Fortunately it’s all spread over 3 divisions, so not too much repetition of teams.
Pocket monsters was a team I’ve had through a couple of leagues. The name stems from a reach at some kind of pun to do with american football. It’s a real reach but it works enough!
The star of the team though, is my werewolf The black shuck. Named after a local legend from a town not faroff my hometown, he’s managed to not only survive this long, but also hoard all the skills. He is now just a running target and I’m more than sure his days are numbered….
Definitely a work in progress..
First Khornetact was basically me trying to find a team that might be my playstyle. Necromantic were a tough start in keague play as they are so tough to play until they get skills under there belt. Khorne have one play; smash. Frenzy everywhere reduces decisions. It seemed like a perfect idea. And honestly from the couple of games I have had with them, they’ve been great fun!
I must say one thing I have learned from the last season and this season of the league is that, recurring leagues with teams returning are huge amounts of fun. They create such an interesting challenge as, sure your team is experienced and has skills, but your opponent is too. And they’re never the same. It makes choosing your own skills a real decision.
And now on to the important stuff; Today’s game…
Necromantic Horros Vs Dwarves.
That’s a lot of guard.
So the game started out poorly, we rolled rain. Amazing for the dwarves who aren’t relying on their agility, but for a team that was certainly hoping to lean on it, it wasn’t great.
It was a surprisingly close game. The first half saw us both burn through our re rolls before our respective turn 3, and both having a number of turnovers. I got the ball to the dwarf touchdown line, then fumbled a rush. And that was the first half.
Second half saw a very study cage appear around the dwarves. It got super close and i even managed to put enough pressure on the ball carrier to force him not to stall any longer and go for an earlier touchdown. He needed to rush to get it though and….he did. Of course.
It was my turn 7 on the second half and I was 1-0 down. I had a shot at the touchdown with the werewolves if I could just get the ghoul to get the ball to werewolf and he run for it. Some rushes and it’s a given.
Kick off table roll and….Moles. Great, rain and moles. I think this game was favouring the dwarves!
Sad Teacup Games 