Sorry for the lack of updates - I've been on holiday and for some reason Google wouldn't let me sign in from outside the UK.
First up we have:
Long Gone and Reprospering (necro, TheMuffinThief) v The Grey Haven Guard (high elf, me)
At the third attempt I lost 2-1 to Muffin in yet another close game.
I won the toss and chose to kick, and Muffin removed two players on the first turn, and one player a turn thereafter while I rolled skulls and ones. Muffin easily broke through and screened the ball deep in my half, but forgot that Gil-Galad is move 9. Gil-Galad sprinted around this screen and knocked over the ball carrier, and then I figured that it was time to roll some dice - my blodge lino dodged through several tackle zones, picked up the ball in 2 tackle zones, dodged clear and then wound back his arm to pass the ball to a waiting catcher (4+) but fumbled the pass.
Muffin knocked over the lino and tried to resecure the ball but failed the pickup, and so it was the turn of Alawe to dodge through traffic (fewer dodges this time!) and pick up the ball. This time I had a reroll left to use on the 4+ pass but again I fumbled it and this time there was no way back. I had a glimpse of a chance when on the following turn I was able to knock a zombie onto the ball, but it scattered to another zombie who caught it and ran in a TD on turn 8 for a 1-0 lead.
I lined up with 9 men for the 1 turner, but a riot unexpectedly gave me 2 turns to score. With no thrower (mine was MNG) I used a catcher to retreive the ball, but my last reroll had been used on the 4+ glory play, and so when I rolled a 1 on the 2+ pass to score the half ended 1-0.
In the second half I scored with Gil-Galad in a fairly routine rushing play, leaving Muffin 6 turns to win. He took his wolves and his ST5 golem and went off elf-killing in the right wide zone, and caged up in the centre with zombies only. Seeing that he'd separated his key players from the ball I flooded the cage and marked up his zombies and the ball carrier ghoul. Although he was able to clear away my players, Muffin was unable to get the ball entirely safe, and Vanval dodged into two tackle zones to surf the ghoul on the right touchline and free up the ball.
The crowd threw it back into the centre, and Gil-Galad scooped it up and sprinted off to the left. Muffin tried to get players back and here I had the decision as to whether to take two turns to score (which would probably have involved allowing the killer wolf to get some sort of blitz in on Gil-Galad although 1D at the absolute best) or to run a player into the end zone and try a 2+ pass 2+ catch to score. I chose the latter option and again the pass failed - this time the catch was dropped.
Again the ball bounced out and it was a simple matter for the wolf to recover it and walk in a turn 16 touchdown.
Bear Hunters (Telorast, chaos) v The Grey Haven Guard (high elf, me)
So, my first ever game against the Boss. I took a wizard, Eldril and a babe as inducements against the 2700TV chaos team.
I won the toss and elected to kick, whereupon the chaos team removed four elves from the pitch in their first turn. Matters progressed in this fashion throughout the half, and in truth I was never in with a sniff of preventing a turn 8 score. By the end of the half my two remaining players were staying on the ground.
The big mistake I made in the first half (the only one) was that I used the wizard. True, I rolled a 1 and so the lightning bolt failed anyway, but still even if it had been successful I had little chance of stealing the ball. It was really poor play from me.
I had no chance of a one turner given the fact that Telorast can field three stand firm players on the LOS, although I did manage to foul off one of the chaos warriors who sat out the next drive.
In the second half I ran the ball through the centre with Anduril - there were a couple of minor positioning errors in the drive, but otherwise it was a decent rushing play and I scored on turn 12. My only criticism of the drive was that I could perhaps have scored on turn 13 if I'd been braver and stalled another turn. It would have needed a pass though, which given my recent luck with passes I wasn't really willing to chance.
On the final drive of the game Telorast this time removed three players on his opening blocks, including Vanval with a MNG, leaving me in desperate trouble. This time howerver Eldril (who had a fine game, never missed a gaze and was a real asset) opened the way by hypnotising a cage corner and Gil-Galad sacked the ball carrier with a 1D block. The ball bounced loose and Cirdan scooped it up and threw it back to the Bear Hunters' end zone.
Both Cirdan and Gil-Galad were smashed off the pitch in retaliation, leaving me with I think 4 players at this point. The Bear Hunters recovered the ball with a rookie beast but were forced to try a pass to move it quickly enough to score a TD. The pass failed, and Eldril dodged through 2 TZs, scooped up the ball and sprinted off to the end zone!
There was one chance for Telorast to recover the ball, and failing to do so would lead to an elven win! It was not to be however and Eldril was hauled down using a reroll by the legendary beastman Pa'Nogors (who died in the next game to a wizard - ha!) and there was just time for the ball to be handed off to a legendary AG2 beastman who ran in a T16 winner.
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Two defeats then in the first two games, and both could have been wins with better decisions from me and without the catastrophic dice that were rolled in both. If my passing dice had been less appalling in game 1, or Telorast's armour and inury dice had been more reasonable in game 2, I could have been sitting here with at least 4 points. Now I have zero, and have to play a high TV wood elf team in MD3 with no tackle (both are MNG). Vanval being missing is a huge blow and I'll have 400k of inducements again to spend. Decisions decisions...
Update - I now have actually played the game and finally I think I showed what I can do and played a really good game of Blood Bowl. It was very tight indeed, and I'll write it up when I can.
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