The fabulous tales of the Limp-Wristed Elf Lords

[bathoz]

After brutally crashing and burning in the playoffs (see above), I have ended up in the Div 2 of the freshly restructured B&S. And it's a mix of unfriendly and solid. Not the best place to nurture new catchers, frankly, but needs must.

Top 3 go up. Bottom 3 go down. Middle too get to enjoy Div 2 again.

ON TO THE TEAMS

Skitz Skatz - Leonardas - Skaven

Last Season: 1st, 33 points

Two Time Champion, very effective Skavener, and all around nice guy. His team is blessed with an perfect thrower, a one turner and an AG 5 GR, two solid ball-hunter GRs and not a whole lot else. Interesting, three of his GRs are niggled. On paper his team is not terrifying, but he's a good coach and should be challenging for the title.

Prediction: Promotion


Pillowfight - Marlei - Chaos

Last Season: 4th, 21 points

The misleadingly named Pillowfight are not big on creativity. Lots of block. Lots of mighty blow. Some guard. Some claw. The beginnings of piling on. A terrifying tentacular minotaur. And two, almost incidental, ball handlers. I really don't look forward to playing him. That said, killer chaos are not the best league team due to TV issues, and he's at 2160 at the moment.

Prediction: Midtable


G.I.R.L.S. - Jakerbeef - Amazons

Last Season: 3rd, 23 points

OCC coach, Jakerbeef, has ridden this curse team to respectability. They were brutally beaten in their first season, and continued to take a fairly incredible amount of main in their second team. But Jaker can coach, and makes things happen fairly consistently with these girls. A number of stat-ups has gives him some useful roleplayers, plus - of course - he has the B&S's top performing thrower of the last two seasons. I don't know how he has that, but he does.

Prediction: Challenge


Limp-Wristed Elf Lords - Bathoz - Pro Elves

Last Season: 2nd, 27 points

I'll go more indepth with myself in another post, but here's a summary. A skill rich Elf team that, counter-intuitively, isn't as strong as it could be on offense. A lack of stand-up throwing talent limits the power of the long throwing game, meaning that more elves have to be committed to forming a bridge, and less to creating a downfield stalling cage. One or two injuries away from being a much weaker side.

Prediction: CHAMPION!


Nasty Cheese Nurglers - Nod_Hero - Nurgle

Last Season: 3rd, 27 points

A brute of a Nurgle side that is a touch weakened from last year, but still has a couple of very capable ball handlers, plus a whole horde of killing creatures and a unfairly reliable beast. Nod tends to vacilate between a much too tight cage and leaving his ball carrier exposed. Still, with the firepower his has and the mix of teams against him, he should do well.

Prediction: Challenging


A Brief Fling - Mystro - Halflings

Last Season: 5th, 19 points

What was supposed be a 'brief fling' while getting to know the lay of the league has led to Mystro braving the league with his Halflings for the 3rd season. After being robbed in the final of the plate by horrible fate, he'll be a much tougher opponent than his side would suggest. Brilliant coach. Still halfings, though - and the bottom 3 going down doesn't leave much room for error. Still, he'll be better than someone.

Prediction: Going down. Not last


Deathskull Stealers - Gnasher - Orcs

Last Season: 7th, 7 points

This is probably the most experienced team in the league by a good 50 game margin. They're ancient. They're effective. And they were awful last season. Dire. During the season he had to almost his entire Black Orc line, a 5 skill blitzer and two 5 skill line orcs. He won a single game and drew 4. It can't be that bad again. Tends to play the casualty game, which might not be a winning strategy against the two Chaos sides.

Prediction: Fighting Relegation


Dawg Mountain Raiders - Fluidwill - Orcs

Last Season: 5th, 24 points

Dawg Mountain got serious last season. No more long bombs. No more Black Orcs throwing to Black Orcs and going for a solo breakaway with a Troll. No, Fluid was going to win something. He didn't. His side is pretty quick for Orcs, and his thrower is pretty damn mobile. Sadly, like the Stealers, his BO corp has been halved, so he's going to fight to deal with the other big teams, and will probably have to revert a little to the reactive play that his team is designed around.

Prediction: Who knows, probably bottom half

 

[bathoz]

Game One - G.I.R.L.S.

I was a 110 TV underdog (two babes) in the first game of the season - though, that probably didn't reflect the actual strength of the teams.

My team featured 11 elves, but only two fit catchers. Sir Terrance (Blodge, SS, Guard, AV6) and a new team member, Sir Wesley. Both my ball hunters (and one of the two players I have with tackle) were missing.

Jakerbeef's Amazons were at full strength, including two ST 4 and two AG 4 players.

He received; deep kick. KOed my guard lineman turn one, and the formed a fairly wide front across the line of scrimmage. I half-heartedly chased his thrower - who has been the top passer across all divisions for two years running now - he popped the ball over and into a indifferently formed cage. And for once, he didn't knock down all my elves.

Fatal. I created a whole, dropped a guard onto his ball carrier and popped the ball free. After some scrambling (I used Lady-Boy Lou's AG 5 to scoop the ball, hand it off to the virgin catcher and ran him all the way to the opposite corner). The GIRLS couldn't engineer a hit, but could get a Stand Firm blodger next to him, pinning him against the side. Instead of rolling a lot of dice for a similar chance of success, I just took the 3+ (with reroll) dodge. It succeeded, 1-0.

He had 3 turns to score, I slowed him down with yet another deep kick, hit him in the back field, and should have turned him over and scored. I didn't, his star thrower scooped the ball, and threw to the only receiver in scoring range (who was marked by Fonsy). Except, I intercept, threw the ball and scored. Bang. 2-0, half time. Oh, I took the time before throwing the stupid shot at the end zone, I seriously injured his thrower - sadly apoed to BH. Not really sadly, I love the character of the long-bombing star amazon thrower.

Second half he got a blitz and made the critical mistake everyone always seems to make against elves when they get a Perfect Defence or Blitz: going man for man marking everyone, losing any defensive depth.

I managed to abuse the AG 5 frenzy to double surf two players, including a ST 4 linewoman, and free up my new catcher to burst upfield. He shifted over to cover that side of the field, marked the catcher, and strung a very light screen across the middle of the field. Instead of going through loops to free the catcher, I popped a whole in the middle of the screen and ran my other catcher free, screening him with loose elves.

Even better, I was able to work the ball into the virgin catcher's hands in the following turn, getting to 6spp in one game. 3-0.

I pretty much relaxed for the last 5 turns of the game, just surfing anything that moved and trying to keep people alive. I didn't entirely succeed, a wrestle line-elf will miss the next game, while The Fool's King - my main thrower - took a -MV. Humph.

Final result 3-1.

+AG on Fonsy Twinkletoes
Normal Skill on the Catcher.

 

[bathoz]

Oh, no. Not him again.

Aka, Nod_hero and his horrible Nurgle. Again.

Problems

No long thrower, meaning I'm going to have play a running game
Horrible elf/pestigor hybrid throwers
Plenty of chaos murder to apply to my AV 7
No reserves

Opportunities

Uh, 100k inducements - so, babes or an apo.


Chances

I don't know. I'm fairly certain I can still score (full compliment of catchers makes life fairly simple for elves). But stopping him from scoring twice? Once, sure (especially if it's a short half). But with those two stupid ballcarriers in his side, he's able to make sudden and big plays.

Probably a draw with a side helping of pain.

 

[Viajero]

Looks like a tough game indeed. Even scoring wont be easy thanks to DP. Long thrower MNG but a running game is pretty much the usual way to go against slow and DP Nurgle anyways. Feint to one side, spring to the opposite, etc. Just make sure he does not get a solution to move the beast in contact with your ball carrier.

He s got 3 Tackle players who should be your first objective alongside those freaky ball handlers. Avoid blitzing NW if at all possible unless strictly necessary.

2 Babes and kick first?

 

[bathoz]

I'm actually unbothered by whether I go first or not. Kicking first, though, gets me more KOs back - a point which the babes almost nullify. Yes, it lets me "control the game", but hmmph.

My biggest issue will be balancing my natural instinct (which is to aggressively chase gaps in O to push for a turn-over) or trying to stand off him and delay.

 

[bathoz]

Well, that went well and that went horribly.

I took two babes and kicked first - controlling the game, blah blah blah.

His offense quickly advanced into my half and then stopped dead. I injured a NW who regened, and then was able to push the ball out and move it upfield for a simple score. 1-0 with two turns left in the half.

He hit people. BH my fouler, KOing another.

1-0, half time.

Nod's Nurgles got a blitz against me, but thankfully the kick went very deep. He did the thing that all bashy teams seem to do, and pushed right up on my offense, going very flat. I was able to use Sir Wally's higher strength to punch a hole and move players upfield. Some very simple mindgames (saying I'm going to stall now), meant he moved to pressure, not intercept, so (with a nervous 4+ pass), I got the ball upfield, and scored in two turns. I injured a pestigor... who regened.

2-0.

Then it went slightly pear-shaped. First of all, he killed club Captain Fonsy Twinkletoes, dead apo dead. Then he killed my kicker, Maximillian.

In the mean time I had mostly disengaged from his team, trying to stop further carnage and letting him score. Except, he pushed into the end zone, failing a gfi, dropping the ball into the crowd, who threw it nicely up to my thrower. Who then passed it on to my one skill catcher, letting him score his third td of the game.

3-0.

The next drive I just kept away as much as possible, and had ANOTHER elf die. This time Willard. For those keeping score, that was a level 6 blitzer and two level 4 linemen. Ow.

I just tried to stay alive, while he scored to make it 3-1.

So, a victory, but at what cost?

 

[Viajero]

Gratz!

"Cost of winning" with elves is a relative question. As long as you keep on winning you are doing ok, cost or no cost. Elves come and go and replacements will (hopefully) skill up soon enough, that is what elves do.

Take one game at a time and focus in your roster as if it had always been like it is at present. Easier said than done obviously and there is always a limit to pain (see Coachman blogs)...

Next game you may be enjoying some reasonable inducements?

 

[bathoz]

Playing Gnasher.

So, no. In fact, if I buy more than one replacement lineman (one lineman takes me to 12 players), I give him a babe.

I'm fairly confident going into this game, but it won't be a walk. His lack of competent thrower should help me out - but missing a kicker is a sadness, as he's a perfect opponent to take advantage.

 

[Viajero]

Wow, that is another killer of a team. Potentially much more dangerous than the Nurgle last week methinks...

5 Tackle/MB!

And a couple PO at that!

ST6 BO?



This game is going to be all down to those armor rolls... You are going to need that bench.

 

[bathoz]

This game went much better than I expected. Especially after the first hit of game resulted in one of my new linemen going to the injury box badly hurt.

He won the toss and chose to receive. I set up with my standard inverted zigg, with the kick going to the side. He moved most of his 'quick' movers back to cover the ball and scooped it up with virgin thrower. His BOrcs and Troll stayed by the LOS.

I sweeped around, trying to cut him in two, failing enormously, by giving him a lovely hole to run through and set up a game in the middle of the field. Doh. On the other hand, I did badly hurt his +MV block, strip ball thrower. And somehow, my armour was holding together.

I used Lady-Boy Lou's AG 5 to step into the cage and lay a 1d on the ball carrier, knocking him over and moving the ball out of the cage - which I then scooped up. My opponent misclicked his blitz, which had the added result of meaning he couldn't blitz the ball carrier into his cover. So even when he did hit him, the ball landed somewhere I could fetch. Which I did, and then scored.

1-0. Turn 6.

In the the next three turns he KOed four elves, and I turned him over again, but a Black Orc intercepted the pass to score. Grumble.

But then I had no reason to grumble, because all four KOs came back at half time.

I received the kick, and dodged a whole lot of elves up through the middle, looking for a quick score. I got four players through before snake eyes ended my moves. Gnasher, though, didn't send anyone to chase my thrower, instead falling back on my receivers, so I took the opportunity to move up with my thrower in a mini cage.

He still didn't really react to the cage, so I went further after shifting my receivers around to avoid hits. Only now, when my thrower was in him half did he react. Still, I had stretched him enough that I could just pop a quick pass to my new catcher and score - taking him to level 3.

A perfect defense set up another turn over to make it 3-0, letting me disengage to allow him score and preserve my players.

3-1, final score.

Sir William (?) got a skill. He's a block Catcher about to become a block, dodge catcher.

Sir Wally (7 4 4 6 wrestle, dodge, mighty blow, catch, nerves of steel) just rolled an 11. That's a lot of TV in a brittle shell - one I thought would have died ages ago. But you can't say no to that stat combo.

 

[bathoz]

It doesn't get easier.

A genuine kill team in a league structure. Is there anything more anti-social in blood bowl?

Positives

• He's only got two tacklers.
• He's only got one ball carrier.
• I'm fully fit.
• He's actually fairly skill light.

Negatives

• Lotsa kill.
• One of his two tacklers is going to sent many elves to the injury bin.
• His one ball carrier is an elf.
• That Minotaur is really unfriendly.
• He's getting over 100k worth of inducements. That spells bribe.

Plan

I've been fighting the same fight for a while now, but kick first to defend with the maximum number of elves alive. Try to play a standoff game (though I'm always way too keen to go diving in when an opportunity shows itself - I got through so many elves that way.)

Try and keep the dp loose to foul his tackle PO guy the second he hits the turf.
Try and avoid having important elves out in an unsupported position.

 

[Viajero]

Lol, man all those teams seem brought from a Nightmare in Auld Street. Farming galore lookalikes.

You must be feeling so happy with so much useless claw around hey?

Just kidding!

 

[bathoz]

Yeah. A massive 80k of TV that does almost nothing against me!

Sadly, the bashy teams aren't mutually destroying each other - which is kinda what I was hoping for.

 

[bathoz]

If you look back up at Pillowfight's team sheet, you'd get an idea of what happened.

Long story short, I beat the snot out of him.

He chose to receive, I kicked the ball out of bounds (forgot my kicker was dead), and he moved a cage into the middle of the field, KOing a random line-elf. He caged in midfield, pushed forward and then I used a guard and Sir Wally (now with AG 5 to go with his ST 4) to wander into the cage and smash the ball out.

At the same time I busy killing his killers. The POMB tackle player went out to dead apo -AV. Nice. And then the Tackle, MB, Frenzy beastman followed with a -AG. I also KOed the Claw, POMB beast. And killed another beast. It wasn't friendly.

I scored in turn six because I reckoned that, men down, he couldn't reply.

He did. Scoring in two turns without some good elfing. I tried to one turn back, but couldn't manage it.

1-1 at halftime.

In the second half I continued how I had started. I BH a chaos warrior and surfed the, now recovered, ClawPOMB beast into the crowd. Another injury. Only an MNG this time.

I took a little time scoring, though not as much as I would have liked - best of all setting it up to get my second thrower a skill and my new blitzer. Oh, and put -AG on another beast. And had a virgin lineman die from a dodge. Oh well.

2-1. Then kicked to him and turned it over again. 3-1.

And an end to an utterly unfriendly game for the Chaos team. My opponent was a gent though - claiming, in the face of horrific dice, that he'd just played badly.

Baron Bazza (my new Blitzer) got a skill. He'll get dodge.
Jumping Jack (dodge passer) got a skill. Probably accurate.

 

[Viajero]

Wow. Well done. And congrats to your opponent aswell for being such a good sport. Not an easy feat based on your report!

 

[bathoz]

Today I play the best coach in the division

Thank Nuffle he's playing Halflings.

1000+ inducements means big hurting things and fouls and chefs and Zara and and and...

Sure, whatever.

I think he's missing his star Halfing, but again, whatever. They're flings.

That said: look, a wrackle fling! WTF!

The long and the short: I should win this, but I don't expect it to be easy.

 

[bathoz]

Ow. Ow. Ow. That was tougher than I expected.

Mystro chose to kick on a very sunny day, bringing Deeproot, Zara, a chef, a wizard, a bribe and a babe with him.

He got a blitz off the kick, but there's not a whole lot halfings can do with that (except stab Sir Wally with Zara. Stab versus av6 makes me nervous).

I ineffectively blitzed some people, flicked the ball from Jumping Jack to The Fool's King, who moved into a rough cage. In my next turn (after some moving around and more fail hitting), I knocked down Zara, moved up a flank and got ready to foul the crap out of her when I got some snake-eyes, leaving a gap for Deeproot to blitz my Ball Carrier. Damn, I said. Down he went. Double damn, I said. And the ball scattered into the crowd. WHAT THE HELL NUFFLE, I said. And was thrown into Mystro's backfield, right next to Sir Simon (MV 9, wrodge, tackle, side step catcher). Oh, I take it all back Nuffle. That's not so bad.

Then began one of the weird luck swings in this game. First, Mystro tried to throw a halfing up to the ball - BHing as he failed the landing (the blodge, ss star fling). That left no flings close enough to get to the ball, so he tried to get a player closer, and failed the dodge. Another badly hurt.

On my turn I BH another fling with Lou, and then gangfouled Zara into the injury box, while collecting the ball. (And KOing his wrackler. Seriously, a wrackle fling? What the hell!)

Two turns, 5 injuries. Half won, and Mystro was already talking about the game being gone. I faffed about a bit and then finally scored in turn 6. He was going to get a one turn attempt anyway - if anything, giving me more time to pressure him would help me out.

What a mistake to make.

Off the kick he started kicking the crap out of me (even though I had a perfect defense). One lineelf KOed, another badly hurt. And the ball was safely secured.

I took advantage of Sir Wally's insanity and just walked straight into his cage and blitzed his ball carrier, wrestling him down. Then I covered the ball before waltzing Lady-Boy Lou (my other AG 5 elf) in to go pick it up in two TZs. Failure, but no worries, the ball is in two TZs.

Enter the wizard.

A bolt hits Lou, badly hurting him. Sir Wally gets fouled and fouled and fouled, and the flings setup to throw the ball and halfling downfield. In the last turn of the half I piled all my elves onto the treeman, just trying to make the throw as difficult as possible.

Positives: it worked! Fumbled throw!

Negatives: Dead, hurt and KOed elves. So many of them. Notably, The Fool's King (5347 Blodge, Safe Throw, Accurate, Pass thrower) died hard.

Half time, 1-0. 11 flings versus 6 elves in the second half.

Oh wait, did I say six elves? I mean 4, as in the first turn another two disappear. One to the KO box, another to the grave. Farewell Sir Terrance (8346 Blodge, Side Step, Guard, Catch, NoS, catcher).

Left versus 11 halfings were Jumping Jack, Sir Simon, Sir Wesley and Baron Bazza. And I promptly ran Jack the hell away. Losing one thrower was clumsy, two was just not going to happen.

Mystro carefully walked up, while beating on Bazza (the only player I was wiling to risk putting slight pressure on him). Bazza then got knocked over and started receiving many fouls.

And then luck changed again.

In two turns, both of his trees took root. Suddenly, his cage wasn't that scary. Still probably good enough - but it was nervous enough that Mystro didn't trust grinding it out. He wanted to score now. So Deeproot put a fling in the air, and despite having a reroll, that fling couldn't land.

Jumping Jack, hiding in the backfield was right there. Scooped the ball and flicked up to Sir Wesley, who was away for his 8th TD in 5 games. Hell, I was suddenly so far on top, that I was able to stall out the rest of the game, using my 4 players to gradually take out any halfings that might stop me (because Deeproot certainly wasn't going to make it all the way back upfield).

2-0. Lucky. Unlucky. Winner.