Backbreaker, London 13th September 2025

This was the second time I've made a Backbreaker event. My first was in 2019, when I took orcs and managed to pick up the most casualties award.

This time around it was hosted at the Seven Dials club, the home of the DBL in London. It is a big bright room with a bar, and right opposite a great market for lunch. 

Not knowing quite how quick it would be from St Pancras, Ross (redfacedgoose) and I arrived fairly early and helped to set up the tables - even before TO SalonTiger arrived!

I decided to take wood elves. The rulespack allowed them seven skills and a good chunk of cash, so I had 2 wardancers (strip ball, tackle), 2 throwers (leader, dodge), 4 catchers (no skills) and 3 linemen (all with dodge). Thus making it a 10 dodge wood elf roster. I think this really suits my style of play.

I don't tend to put skills on the catchers. If they're getting hit, most people are getting 2 dice on them anyway, and you're not hitting with them, so block isn't a great choice. Sidestep is good for one turning and sideline cages, however I prefer max dodge. 

I did mention everytime that my one dodge-less player got knocked down with a stumbles that not having dodge on them seemed like an oversight on my part. 

Round 1 v Alex (vonleppard)

My first round draw was against Alex, who was arriving late due to going back home to pick up a team to lend to someone who'd forgotten their team. However, we both play quick so it wasn't an issue. We'd played a couple of months ago at the Condiment Cup where he had been victorious. 

This time he had chaos dwarfs with a block sure hands and a block bull centaur, with mighty blow and guard smattered across the rest of his team. 

I won the kick off and chose to kick. I think this was the same in every match up.  I will generally choose to kick when I'm playing a team which has a good chance of turning the ball over when they have 11 players.

Before I could roll a dice, I didn't have 11 players. Alex knocked out two linemen on the line of scrimmage. 

As I went up on the train, I'd taken my pitch from the Alicante world cup as it folds up nicely. However if you play side on, then dugouts are also on one side, so I finally got some usage out of the customised dugout that I'd bought at the same tournament. 

It wasn't looking great for me but I put a lot of players in front of the ball and on turn 7 I managed a 1 die blitz which worked - very few dice failed for me this game. It knocked out the sure hands bull who didn't return for the rest of the game, and the ball scattered favourably such that I was able to grab it and run off to stop him having any chance to score. I didn't have any players in range however, so we went in 0-0 at half time. 

On my dive, I flood one flank. He puts almost all of his team over to them, which allows me to blitz the one player who was marking my catcher on the other flank and clear them off the catcher. I hand off to a thrower who double rushes to make a 2+ pass and I run in for a quick score. 

A deep kick allows me to swarm his backfield but he manages to blitz a catcher and cage up. He decides to potato his ball carrier the following turn but with some dodges, I am able to get 2 dice on it. A knockdown allows me to choose the possibility of the ball going out, or a guarantee of it staying in. As staying in would potentially allow the bull to blitz me and run off again, I decide to push towards the sideline and the ball does indeed go out and over to the other side of the pitch. 

It is unfortunately recovered by a hobgoblin, but I knock it loose and I'm able to run away and screen. A desperation blitz fails and I am able to run in for 2-0. 

I put all of my players on the line for turn 16, and Alex finally gets the casualties that had not been coming all game for him. 

Round 2 v Jez (paganagent) 

I found out I was drawn against Jez who was playing Amazons during lunch and joked that my 2+ with dodge would beat his 3+ with dodge so I offered to shake his hand and call the game!

As it turns out, the prediction wasn't too far off. 

His blitzer failed the pick up and I was able to swarm and double tag her meaning she would have to dodge and pick up. She managed it and caged up. My cage dives didn't work so I resorted to a column defence, which managed to stop the amazon advance. 

We did discuss the best way to get through a column defence with amazons, and I think it is dodging past the first player on a 5+ to then blitz the player behind, which would then allow you to hit and run to freedom. I'd not considered this before as I don't think it came up in my time of playing amazons. I made the mistake of putting my catcher in the back, which would have allowed a 2 dice blitz if he had managed this. 

I receive and get the ball to my strip ball wardancer. I keep dancing back and forth and make a break up the right hand side. Jez over commits and I hand off to a thrower who is able to move round to a catcher with a pass that was caught on a 3. The catcher then dodges away to safety and out of range allowing me to score on the following turn, opting not to stall as the risk of a hit on the ball was high.

My team then revert to a column defence, which again stops the amazons from getting through and results in a 1-0 win to me.

Round 3 v Adam (cptoats)

My third opponent was again someone who I had played fairly recently. Adam had skaven and had 2 unskilled gutter runners to allow wrestle on 2 linerats. I was sceptical at first, but having seen how it works, and compared it against my own theory of not needing to skill up the wood elf catchers, and it made a whole lot of sense. 

My tackle wardancer suffers a casualty early, and is unable to be healed by my apothecary. I put a lot of pressure on and in turn 7 a cage dive works and pops the ball loose. If I can manage a 5+ pickup to hand off to a catcher, I will be able to run away and be uncatchable for 1-0 at half time. Unfortunately the pickup fails, and the rats recover and instead they are 1-0 up.

Without enough players for a one turn attempt, I just try to hurt some rats, which is unsuccessful, and all of the knocked out skaven players (a wrestle lineman and the 2 unskilled gutter runners) have returned by this point.

I make the decision to score quick to try to turn the rats over and go for the win. This requires a 4+ pass, but it pays off and gives the rats 7 turns to try to get the winner. 

The skaven form a meat cube. I try to chip away at it, getting 2 dice on the gutters, but usually all it does is manage to push the ball carrier back 1 square. The cube advances up the pitch but towards the end of the drive needs to separate a little. 

This does give me the opportunity to try to get into the cage and strip the ball, but using all my re-rolls it ends up with the rats having an easy score, meaning a 2-1 loss.

Round 4 v Leon (chillibandit)

My fourth opponent of the day was the first that I'd not faced before, although I'd spoken to him a fair bit on Discord. Leon had black orcs with Scrappa Sorehead. 

I kick and manage to get some hits on the ball. The strip ball makes it pop loose to the troll but I am then able to uphill it with strip ball on a later turn (with a re-roll) and knock it loose. It allows me to steal the ball and run away for the score. 

I get very lucky with casualties on Scrappa and a black orc on the same turn, and the game is quite one sided. I score quick on my drive and then try to go for as many as possible to have a shot at most touchdowns (which I don't get) and end up with a 3-0 win.

Both of us were quite tired and drained at this point - 4 games is a lot in a day, especially when getting up fairly early in the morning for the travel to a tourney. Hopefully I'll get to play Leon earlier in a tournament on another occasion. 

Conclusion

I ended up 6th on 3/0/1 which I was pretty pleased with, especially after having a losing record with woodies at Brighton Piers last week.

I think I'm getting small tweaks on strategy and playstyle which whilst little things, when you add them all together they can theoretically make a big change overall.