Wouldn't you give the witch wrestle instead of block and make her a safety/ball sacker?
sure that is a choice, though skills are at a premium and with dodge and the first player to be skilled up, I'd rather get a blodge player myself to carry the ball and then get wrestle on a lino or the second witch
anyway onto the report!
Game 1 vs Undead
there were a fair few undead teams unsurprisingly and I was unlucky enough to get one first match, though dark elves are still capable of beating them if things go well and none of their ghouls yet have block
I won the fame roll and also kicked (can't remember if it was my choice or not) he caged up but gave me a chance at the ball carrier, I didn't get it loose though and this happened a few more times but each time required marking up his players rather than standing off
this lead to lots of armour breaks and my players leaving the pitch, a lot of 12s were rolled including 3 in a row! despite the lack of players when I only had 6 or 7 I finally got the ball loose, just needed a 3+ pickup and a hand off and I would have been away with the ball with 3 turns of the half left, I rolled a 2 though and he managed to score
rest of the match involved more 1 reroll 1s and losing more players, took 5 casualties including 2 MNG though nothing permanent and managed not a single SPP, I couldn't even get any completions! thanks to winning fame and saving 20k I needed a 2+ to get enough for an apothecary and promptly rolled a 1! So a 2 - 0 loss, no skills, no apoth and a blitzer MNG
Game 2 vs Pro Elves
he had 3 journeymen to my 2 and dodge on a blitzer and catcher and the whole game was played in a blizzard, I hung back in my own half just trying to whittle down his team with the player advantages while he hung back with the ball on his dodge catcher and the thrower around the half way line. I kept marking up the thrower so he couldn't get an easy hand off, managed to BH one of his blitzers which he thought about for a while and apothed him to reserves
after a few turns he eventually made the play to get the TD and failed the pass leaving the ball on the floor, though not straight forward for me to get with no rerolls left, I did manage to grab it though but had to leave a 1 die blitz available though I managed to hang on to it, same thing next turn but the ball went loose. ball scattered in the one square he didn't want and failed the 4+ dodge with dodge to try and grab it, two turns later I scored leaving him one turn till half time
second half starts and he gets a blitz! it was quite deep though and despite his non dodge catcher grabbing it, my blockless witch elf failed to get him over using 6 block dice :/ 1 - 1
thanks to the turnover TD in the first half though I could still draw out the rest of the half for the win, he made it hard work though, my lack of rerolls and dodge making life hard and I couldn't get through AV7 either, the blizzard was causing me issues as well and I would have scored earlier but wanted to avoid 3+ 3+ without a reroll and hoped dodge on the witch elf would keep her up, though obviously it didn't and vs pro elves I soon saw the ball half way in my half from one square next to his end zone
I had one lineman in blitzing range to save the TD and got the
and stunned his catcher, it took both gfi to hit him though so I couldn't pick it up and the rest of my team was too far away to help after the previous turns turnover, I don't recall exactly what occured in our next turns but his final turn his catcher could stand up do a 2+ pick up and the 3+ GFI to win but fell over in the snow in the end zone, finished 1 - 1 which was perhaps fair in the end, managed to get block on my witch elf and finally buy an apoth
Game 3 vs Amazons
he had a block on two catchers and thrower but thankfully no guard, I kicked to him and the first half I just held him at the half way line, getting the occasional crowd push and KO and we went into half time 0-0
second half I used about 5 turns to score getting more crowd pushes along the way and after kicking it back to him I again held him at bay for the win, managed no cas and managed my first completion of the tournament! 1 rr 6 on the winnings giving me 80k winnings, enough to get the second witch elf and I got guard on a blitzer
Game 4 vs Skaven
he had players out and so ended up with just 10 and a journymen vs my 12, piling on mighty blow blitzer, guard rat ogre and 2 block gutters, he got a babe in inducements
I kicked and my witch elf managed to get in his cage and
his block gutter and I grabbed the ball, I had a couple of players off though (not due to his blitzer oddly) apoth failed on the guard blitzer so he was MNG and I had to score leaving him 2 turns to equalise which he did
second half with still only 1 completion of the tournament I set up to crowd push one of his blitzers, though with some 1 dicers so went for the completion first as gutters were in range to grab it if I turned over, 1 rr 1 the pickup, never nice to use a rr on the first turn
obviously he comes in and grabs it and next turn I 1 rr 1 again on a dodge and leave him an easy score
things went wrong again on my drive and I was heavily down on players having passed 2/9 KO rolls and 4 in the injured box, his AV7 I broke once in the first half and his induced babe was useless as I'd not even managed a KO, thankfully I managed to score but left him with 3 turns to get the winner which looked likely given how few players I had
the ball scatters right wide next to the half way line and I comment I could perhaps save the game if I got a blitz, kick off table BLITZ! I grab the ball with my blodge witch and try to cover her but needed to roll too many dice for anything safe, the roger was in blitzing range to crowd surf her but would have needed gfi to do so, so he tried to knock her over with a linerat but she held firm albeit next to the sideline, the roger piles in next to her with players either side leaving me in a pickle to get out of
with only 6 players and 2 of them the far side of the pitch my best chance was a 2 dice against blitz with the witch but I managed to position players that it became a 1 dice on the second hit and then I had an easy dodge out to run off, I didn't mange to avoid the skull though so down I went and the ball stayed in bounds
he scooped the ball up and some mess ensued and I managed to get it loose again and on my blodge witch (thank god for jump up! I couldn't cover her but she remained standing despite 3x 2 dice blocks holding on for 2-2, unfortunately my team got battered, guard was MNG, -av blizter, -mv lino and a dead lino (along with 2 badly hurts) given my luck (on 1 rr 1s and av rolls) the blitz just about evened it out
Game 5 vs Amazons
amazons again but with my battered team I had 130k inducements (took a reroll) and I'd got wrestle on the other witch and dodge on another blitzer, he had guard x2 on blitzers, blodge on a few other players, sure hands thrower and ST4 lino
I won the fame roll and throw a rock BH one of his blodge catchers at the start, his first turn saw
twice and I responded with a crowd push and ran some players into his half (though the wrong side as there was somehow 2 balls on the pitch and I went after the wrong one)
guard was a pain to deal with especially along with blodge but he was making it easier as he had 2 players sent off (plenty of reserves though and I had 3 loners) I hit the ball carrier with somewhere in the region of 12 block dice and couldn't knock her over, this included 1db push from my wrestle witch before frenzy
rr
-AV apoth -AV
he finally scored and then I continued my tradition of failing completions and couldn't equalise, second half my rerolls went early again rolled more 1 rr 1 I don't even remember how I lost the ball before he ran it in for 2-0, he nearly made it 3 after I lost it yet again but managed to make a last grab elf TD special when I remembered I had induced a reroll on turn 7 after I turned over, too little too late and I spent all my money replacing the witch elf for the last game
Game 6 vs Chaos
was surprised to see chaos and obviously things had gone as well for him as for me, though I had my guard player back, I bogged him down at half way got a KO and a crowd surf giving me the player advantage and managed to open a hole in his cage got my guard guy in there and the blodge witch got the ball loose and a I recovered it with the blodge blitzer to go in for the score, he had 3 turns left to equalise with 2 reroll which he managed
second half I received and spent 7 turns dancing about with the ball to secure the win for a final tally of 2 wins 2 draws 2 losses
I was dubious of progression tournaments before I went and I'm still not convinced, a poor first game saw me on the back foot every single match from then on and despite playing AV7 for 4 games on the trot and being AG4 I couldn't generate SPP while other teams had an outrageous amount of skills
this was my concern about progression tournaments before hand and this did nothing to change my mind, though at the end of the day I still had fun and some crazy and intense games