The Dragon Zoo...

Over the past few years some of my Citadel dragons have been re-homed, moving from the darkness of my figure cases onto a windowsill at my mum's house. Today Mum gave me some pictures of the dragon zoo. If the figures aren't Oldhammer enough, surely having Mum taking the pictures for me is! Anyway, without further ado, 'ere be dragons...

Bloodweiser 6 Nations - the results...

The 2014 Bloodweiser 6 nations took place last weekend, all of the coaches made it (despite one broken clutch and a trip to Halfords) and a winner was crowned after three rounds of Blood Bowl mayhem. I present the results, for anyone who is interested:

Round One: Multiball



The Gouged Eye (Orc) 1(0) v 2 (2) Blockholm Syndrome (Norse)
The Grim Readers (Dwarf) 3 (1) v 1 (0) Hashtut's Hell Hammers (Chaos Dwarf)
Horton Hears a Human (Human)  2 (1) v  4 (3) High Fidelfity (High Elf)

In terms of the three themed rounds, this was everyone's favourite. Multiball was loads of fun and made for really interesting games. It took me too long to realise that attack was the best form of defence! The most surprising thing was seeing the Dwarf team get 3 wins in a round that everyone thought would cause them no end of problems. Only a couple of rules questions came up: 1) Can a player carrying a ball move through a square containing the other ball. NO. 2) What happens if the ball lands on a player carrying the other ball. SCATTER IT.

So, round one ended with High Fidelfity in the lead on tournament points...

Round Two: Spiked ball



Horton Hears a Human (Human) 1 (2) v 1 (2) Blockholm Syndrome (Norse)
The Grim Readers (Dwarf) 0 (1) v 5 (4)  High Fidelfity (High Elf)
The Gouged Eye (Orc) 0 (0) v 1 (0) Hashtut's Hell Hammers (Chaos Dwarf)

Round two and it was spikey ball time. Just as the Dwarves bucked the trend by scoring high in round one, here the elves dealt out a massive dose of the smack down to the dwarf team leaving the Grim Readers with next to no players on the pitch... I managed what I think is a personal first in 'deciding' to leave three players off for the pitch on defence. As the scoreline shows, that didn't go at all well! The spiked ball was reasonably entertaining, best really when the ball went loose and bounced through various players, otherwise the effect on game play wasn't that dramatic really.

High Fidelfity maintained the lead here, picking up the win and bonus points for casualties.

Round Three: Pit traps



Horton Hears a Human (Human) 0 (0) v 3 (5) Hashtut's Hell Hammers (Chaos Dwarf)
Blockholm Syndrome (Norse) 2 (4) v 1 (0)  High Fidelfity (High Elf)
The Grim Readers (Dwarf) 1 (0) v 2 (3) The Gouged Eye (Orc)

I liked the pit trap round, with the bonus points for pushing players into pits this was a pretty entertaining variant. In terms of rules to clarify, we decided 1) that players could attempt to blitz out of pits (losing the blitz if they failed to get out, 2) that players didn't have to make dodge rolls on the move getting them out of pits, 3) that getting out of pits cost 3 movement, 4) that only one armour roll is made for falling into a pit (i.e. don't roll for the knock down and then the pit fall, 5) that only one player could be pushed into a pit (count it as an occupied square for pushes).

The winner! High Fidelfity

The tournament win was given on points (and not on the result of the game on table one in the final round) and Barney's High Fidelfity took a well-deserved win.

The day was rounded off with a curry and a game of Talisman. Of course this was the real test of skills and I totally walked it thanks to a combination of a troll with a magic sword that leeched so much life from my adversaries that really I had no option but to take the crown. I'll admit that I'd rather be good at BB than lucky at Talisman, but it made for a nice chilled out end to the day's gaming.

Bloodweiser Blood Bowl 6 Nations - the trophy... and some balls...

Preparations are now well underway for the Bloodweiser 6 Nations (and a good job too, it's next week). Playtesting last week indicated that pit trap-spiky-multiball mayhem is a goer, and painting tonight sorted the balls and the trophy. Up top you can see the trophy, nothing too fancy but I reckon it'll do just fine for the home-brew tournament that's on the horizon. And here's Varag, taking great delight in showing off his (three) spiky balls -

Thanks to Lewis over on Facebook for helping me out with the third ball (I only had the two!)

Next up, the rules pack...

Warlock Magazine

You know it's a good day at work when you get to spend a couple of hours reading Warlock Magazine... that's how my day ended today, reading all thirteen issues as background reading for an article I'm working on. For anyone who doesn't know, Warlock was the magazine of Jackson and Livingstone's Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks, first published by Penguin and later by Games Workshop. Offering a slightly off-kilter view of GW's early history it makes for a very entertaining read (and thankfully it can all be found online very easily).

Blood Bowl Pit Traps

At the grand cost of 72 pence and a couple of hours of cutting out and sticking, and the pit trap counters are ready for the Bloodweiser 6 Nations Blood Bowl tournament!

You can just see the Queen's head ghosting through, making these tokens both spooky and regal!

Next up, spiky balls and the trophy, and then I think things are just about ready. Two weeks to go the the, erm, 'tournament' and I can't wait!

Bloodweiser Blood Bowl 6 Nations

The date for the Bloodweiser 6 Nations is set. On September 20th, six teams will meet on the Blood Bowl field to see who has what it takes to lift the (very small) trophy. Will the Orcs, Dark Elves, Humans, Norse, Dwarfs, or High Elves take the title? Only time will tell...

The three-game 'tournament' (a term I use very loosely) will be played using the current LRB6 rules, with a randomly matched first game and Swiss-style for games two and three. In line with the wishes of the sponsors, who demand nothing but all-out carnage, each game will be slightly different. All of these variants reprise the variants from the Blood Bowl Companion, with very minor tweaks to the rules to bring them to the modern-day BB field.

*****

Game One: Pit Traps

Each coach places six pit trap counters (3 nothing, 2 pit traps, 1 spiked pit) face down in their half of the pitch. Players should not look to see which counter is which!

When a player moves onto a square containing a counter turn it over. Nothing: Discard 'nothing' counters. Pit: Fall in, make Armour roll to avoid injury. Spiked pit: roll D6. On a 1-2 roll another D6 (1-4 = SI, 5-6 = Dead). On a 3-6 = make armour roll to avoid injury.

Players in pits lose their tackle zones and can't move, block or tackle. They can't be blocked/tackled.

Climbing out. Make an agility roll with +1 for every friendly player adjacent to the pit and -1 for every opposing player adjacent to the pit. If a player fails they remain in the pit. If they were attempting to climb out of a spiked pit roll a D6, on a 1 or a 2 they are seriously injured. Falling back into a pit does not cause a turnover. At the end of a drive all players climb out of pits ready for set up.

Players with the leap skill can attempt to leap over pits (whether they are revealed or not). If the leap roll is failed they fall over in the square they were leaping to. If the leap roll is a natural roll of a 1 they fall into the square they were leaping over (unless it is occupied). If the square contains a pit trap they fall in.

Players can be pushed into pits. Casualties caused in this way do count towards SPPs. Pit traps count as empty squares for pushbacks so can always be selected as the target squares for pushes. Only roll once for armour when players fall into a pit (i.e. they don't roll for the initial block and then the fall).

If a ball lands in a square containing an uncovered pit marker it does not result in the counter being turned over. If the ball lands in a square containing a revealed pit (including a pit with a player in it) scatter the ball - fortune (or magic) prevent it from falling in.

*****

Game Two: Spiky Death Ball

Throwing ranges increased by one category. No Longbombs.

Catching spiky balls is dangerous. If a player fails a catch or pick up roll they must make an armour roll with a +1 modifier.

The ball can be thrown to empty square but this will cause a turnover as per the normal rules.

The ball can be thrown at opposing players (quick/short pass only). If the pass is accurate the player must make an armour roll with a +1 modifier. If the armour roll is passed the player may roll to catch the ball (with no modifiers for accuracy). If the armour roll is failed roll on the injury table: if this results in the player leaving the pitch place the ball in the square they occupied. If the player remains on the pitch scatter the ball from their square as if they had failed a catch roll.

*****

Game Three: Multiball... 

Simple - there are two balls in play. Either can be used to score, once a touchdown has been scored set up the teams for the next drive (i.e. don't play on with the remaining ball). Players cannot carry two balls (including mutants with three arms)!

1. Both teams, beginning with the kicking team, place a ball in the opposing team's half.
2. Scatter both balls. There is no touchback in Multiball... so place carefully! It entirely possible for one team to have both balls!
3. Roll on kick off table.
4. Resolve result (if High Kick is rolled apply the result to both teams).
5. Bounce/catch/touchback both balls.

*****

I throw these rules out for comments. Is there anything in this translation from second ed to LRB6 that looks like a problem? Any better suggestions? Bring them on!

Incoming: Oldhammer...

I like to tell myself that I'm not actually buying anything much at the moment but one look at the incoming post this last week or so suggests that I'm not being entirely honest with myself... Here's the swag:

So what's there? The mighty trio of rulebooks (this copy of WFB can replace my own slightly wonky copy and the other two mean an end of reading PDFs), the two Marauder Orcs complete my set and I think bring the unit up to a respectable ten (there's converting to be done to make sure the unit doesn't look too samey as there are only 4 poses), the titan gets to join my titan legion as the second Warlord (entirely unneeded for games really), and the Blood Bowl Minotaur is... well, he's a seed for a team I don't yet have. Either Chaos Dwarf or Chaos Pact I expect and of course his presence in the leadpile means that I 'need' the other 15 players.

All of this good stuff has me doing the same happy dance that you can see being demonstrated by the titan above. Tell me I'm not the only one trying to intercept the postman before he alerts the rest of the house to what's going on...