Bloodbowl - Club League Game One (Skaven vs Ogres)

Hi,

As I posted earlier I was heading down to my local club for the first game of a bloodbowl league.

In my view Skaven need a few games under their belt to get good in a league. A few too many casulties in the early games can kill them. Therefore you can imagine my horror to find out I was playing ogres in my first game. I was facing:
5 Ogres
6 Snotlings
with 2 Rerolls and 4 Fan Factor

Thats's a lot of Ogres in a starting team, but the team had the minimum 11 players. I wouldn't have minded playing this team later in the league once I'd got a few block skills in my team, and maybe the odd tackle, but taking them on immediately would make it hard to get down the snotlings even though they are Str1.

Recapping my team it was:
1 Rat Ogre
2 Stormvermin
3 Gutter Runners
5 Linerats
3 Rerolls
0 Fan Factor

I lost the coin flip and was receiving. Tthe kick-off event was get the ref (giving us a bribe each).

I spread out intending to avoid the ogres as much as possible and blitz a snotling a turn with my stormvermin. An opportunity arose turn 2, my opponent had left the snotling carrying the ball slightly exposed, as in the diagram below:

OsO
OO

O = Ogre
s = snotling with the ball

If I was willing to put models to cancel out assists, I could blitz the ball carrier with a stormvermin, and there were 2 gutter runners near by to pick up the ball and run. If it worked I would be 1-0 up as the ogre team had left no-one deep. It's was risky because if it went wrong I would be left with a lot of players in ogre tactkle zones.

I took the risk and knocked over the snotling and the ball scattered, first onto an ogre who didn't catch it, but then onto another ogre who caught it while being in two tactkle zones. I couldn't get it off the ogre that turn, and was facing a battering from the ogres.

Rats started heading to the dead and injured box. A couple of turns later a gutter runner gave an assist, and the rat ogre blitz the ball carrying ogre and knocked him down on the second hit. The ball scattered to an ogre in tactkle zones who couldn't catch it, and it scattered to a snotling in two tactkle zones, and, you guessed it, he caught on a 6+.

My team was now really getting a pounding, as I needed to get the ball and score to stop the pain. Just after half way through the 1st half (after already having two linemen badly hurt), an ogre took a real dislike to one of my gutter runners, and killed him with a vicious blitz. My decision to only start with 3 gutter runners was going to hurt.

Around turn 6 I was able to hit the snotling with the ball and a gutter runner was able to get it to safety, but not before the rat ogre was knocked down and fouled into the knocked out box. Once the ogres got a numbers advantage they fouled every turn.

I scored turn 7 (so I would have 2 rather than 1 rolls to recover 4 models from the knocked out box before the second half started). However not one of the 4 models decided to recover, nor did they recover before the start of the second half. I had 4 players for the second half !!

With 2 storm vermin, a gutter runner and a linemen to start with vs 10 opponents it was looking bad. I needed to score quickly (if possible at all) to stand ny chance of winning. Luckily I got perfect defensive against the ogres extremely agressive set-up (5 Ogres in the middle of the line of scrimage and the snotlings lined up either side.

Against this I put my gutter runner, linemen, and stormvermin on the line of scrimage as far to one side as possible. My idea was to get the ball with the remaining stormvermin, while the other stormvermin hit a whole for the gutter runners to run through (while you have to dodge away from snotlings they don't give a -1 modifier if you dodge into their tackle zone, so the gutter runner would be on 2+ with a reroll to dodge).

The linemen and stormvermin on the line knocked a hole, but them the stormvermin left to pick up the ball failed (even using a team reroll). This left the 3 on the line in a bad place, and the blocking, blitzinf and fouling continued. Next turn the gutter runner got up, sprinted round the edge of the opponent players, while the stormvermin at the back picked up the ball, ran forwards and threw to the gutter runner. He only had to stay on his feet and it was a touchdown. Unfortunately a ogre blitz later and the gutter runner was taken off (knocked out), and an ogre was standing next to the ball (I was down to 3 players now).

The storm vermin that threw the ball, raced up and blitzed the ogre standing next to the ball, kncoked him over, and picked up the ball. However he was still in range to be ganged up on, and he was and he was not only knocked out, but was send to the injured box and would be taking no further part in this or the next game, and was also a bit slower now (-1 movement).

Turn 5, and the ogres had my remaining players on the floor, and an ogre picked up the ball. He was exactly 3 turns of movement from scoring. In turn 6 and 7 my remaing two players were removed from the pitch while the ogre sprinted for the end zone. Turn 7 he reolled a 1 for bonehead, but was able to use a reroll. In turn 8 he rolled a 1 again, and was stuck 5 squares from the end zone.

A very lucky 1-0 win for the skaven, but what a price they had to pay.

And the gate was a tiny 20k, so team rebuilding will have to wait a while.

Hope you enjoyed the match report. Next game is in February.

Rathstar