I played the finals of Duncan's FumBBL Blood Bowl league earlier this week. I posted about my different options for how to prepare my team and ended up deciding to cut my dwarf who was missing the next game and to also cut the niggled hobgoblin since I was really worried she was going to just get taken out. I also threw in 150k to get a wizard. I figured my opponent and his likely 220k would be getting a wizard anyway and especially against Khemri adding a wizard on would be a big advantage. He ended up spending his 370k on a wizard and 2 bribes which had the potential to let him foul his way to a man advantage but it didn't end up mattering as he didn't have a single player ejected all game.
My opponent chose to receive the kick and the weather was very sunny. Not that either of our predominantly 2 agility teams were planning on passing the ball but it did mean desperation plays would be a little more desperate. The game started off on a bit of a sour note for my opponent. The opening kick-off roll was a thrown rock which killed his only tomb guardian with block. He did regenerate but it meant he lost a 5 strength dude for the opening drive. He then proceeded to throw some blocks with guys who didn't have block and burned a reroll and then rolled double skulls to end his turn after knocking down one person on each team. I then badly hurt a second tomb guardian on my turn, who didn't regenerate, and moved some guys into position to go steal the ball if he didn't deal with it.
His second turn opened with another reroll burned on a 3 die blitz that came up skull/skull/both down. He did pick up the ball though. I then badly hurt a skeleton who also chose not to regenerate. My opponent only had a 12 man roster so he was guaranteed to be down guys for the rest of the game. His next turn didn't accomplish a whole lot. I KOed a skeleton, made a very risky and probably wrong positional choice, and then got kicked out for fouling. My risky play was sticking 5 of my guys into a little box where they could be hit by a fireball. One of the 5 guys got kicked out so only 4 could get hit. Only problem is those were my 4 best guys. Both bulls, my 3 skill dwarf, and a 2 skill dwarf. It did put my opponent in a really bad position and I was likely going to get a shot at his ball carrier if he didn't use his wizard. As a team with a 2 agility ball carrier I actually want to get the wizard out of the way when I don't have the ball so it might have been the right play? In retrospect I think I probably could have baited out the wizard with a hobgoblin in the box instead of my second bull. He did use the fireball and it knocked over my beatdown bull and seriously hurt my 3 skill dwarf. Fireball does have to roll to hit and roll to break armour so it is only 5% to take each guy out. It is 81% that he doesn't KO or better any of my 4 guys when he takes this action so it is probably pretty good to make him do it? But it does give him an out to get back in the game when I'm already ahead so maybe it wasn't worth the risk? Anyway, I used my apothecary and he came home so Colonel Mustard was back in the game for the next drive.
He ran his ballcarrier down the field and it was looking like he was going to get to score if I didn't use my wizard. I ended up doing 2 go for its to get assists in the right spot so I could blitz off a marking tomb guardian. I had to reroll to make that work. Then my utility bull centaur was able to make a dodge and 3 go for its in order to stand beside the enemy ball carrier. He has stand firm, block, and dodge so it's pretty hard to move him away. My opponent ended up deciding to dodge with his 3 agility blitz-ra to get an assist and the blitz with the ball carrier who has tackle. Skull reroll push meant he was stuck still beside me. He could take the 2 agility dodge and score or he could stand there and hope things got better next turn. He decided to dodge away, rolled a 3, and stunned his guy.
All this play had been taking place on the sidelines so I took the opportunity to ignore the ball and push his tomb guardian and his 3 agility blitz-ra into the crowd. Both got KOed. I also badly hurt another skeleton, but he got better. His turn didn't do much since he only had 4 guys in play and one was stunned. I had 3 turns with the ball deep in my own territory so I started running a dwarf down field as a scoring option, moved a couple guys back to watch the ball, and tried to pick it up with my bull and a reroll. It failed. And the ball bounced to a reasonable spot for my opponent. He didn't have a reroll but he did have a play to roll 5+ 5+ 4+ 2+ 2+ and score, with a reroll on one of the 5+s. He tried, rolled a 2 on the first roll, and kicked the ball out of bounds where the crowd threw it to mid field. I ran my dwarf down field some more just in case and decided to foul his piling on guy while I had the chance. It didn't work, but I didn't get kicked out either. I then failed the pickup through reroll. He did nothing and I again tried the foul on the piling on guy. It again failed, but I still wasn't ejected, so I got to try my desperation play. The pickup and 3 go for its worked, but the hand off didn't, and that was the half.
My plan going in was to try to minimize the impact of regeneration by winning 1-0 so being tied 0-0 at the half after kicking off was just fine by me. He failed all 3 of his KO rolls so it was 7 on 11 for the second half with his 3 agility guy out, all his guard out, and 2 of his 5 strength guys out. I still had my wizard. I didn't see how I could lose. The kickoff table was perfect defense so he got to make my hits a little harder and the kickoff landed exactly in the end zone which was about as good a start as he could have hoped for. But then my bull centaur managed his pickup in the end zone and it was pretty much over from there. He did decide to keep dodging and going for it with his 1 agility tomb guardian to blitz my ball carrier and it kept working but he never got a pow to take my guy down. I stalled until turn 8 while hitting the few remaining guys he had left and scored. He went 1 for 6 on KO rolls for his turn 8 so he was down to just 3 guys and Khemri really can't one turn touchdown with 3 guys. To rub a little salt in the wound the kickoff result was another rock thrown which stunned one of his 3 guys. The dirty player who was undoubtedly going to try to get some revenge. His final action was to roll skull/both down on a tomb guardian block and fall over.
Everything went my way this game. Absolutely everything. I think I played it reasonably well and had a solid plan and I even think baiting out the wizard was probably a good move though I didn't think it through well enough at the time. But I could have played like an idiot and probably would have won the game anyway with the way things went for my opponent.
To make things even sweeter my main bull centaur, Mr Boddy, skilled up and rolled his 3rd set of doubles in 5 skills. I skipped the first one to get block but I actually took stand firm with his 4th skill because I was planning on rolling doubles again with his 5th and wanted to combo it with diving tackle. (I also wanted to be able to play more on the sidelines without getting surfed and the ability to not get pushed off of a marked target was actually pretty key this game.) So now he has block, dodge, break tackle, stand firm, and diving tackle. He's a beast! He should help out against elf teams that can make desperation scoring plays. I had two other people skill up and the whole thing brings my TV up to exactly 1850. As far as I can tell the salary cap for next season is 1750 and I get bonuses of +20 for winning my division, +30 for winning my conference, and +50 for winning the championship. So my cap is actually 1850... Exactly where I landed with no cuts needed! I did cut two guys before the finals, to be fair, but I still like how that worked out. I need to light 440k cash on fire but I'm otherwise good to go for next season. Maybe I'll eventually roll doubles on a dwarf and get claw...
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