SKABB Christmas Gutterbowl 3

Yesterday we had our annual festive Christmas Gutterbowl event. This year, Damology stepped up to run the event, as part of our goal to get more SKABBers involved in running the league and tournaments.

With fun Christmas rules, involving Yhetees deciding to get involved, using scenery that was lying around at Chaos Cards and especially Ross' awesome 3d printed Gutterbowl pitch, along with the Secret SKABBer, it is always a fun evening.


With 750,000 to spend and no skill allocation, there are lots of different ways to play it. Previously for these events I've tried to Christmas theme my team taking Tomb Kings (We Tomb Kings of Orient Are) in 2023 and some definitely Christmas Elves (gnomes) last year.

I had been considering taking slann before they are potentially banished from existence (Slannta Claus is Coming to Town) but I instead decided to go with 4 Gutter Runners 4 Gutter Bowl as my last chance for super speedy skaven. There were three skaven teams all in all, with the other two taking rat ogres and a potion when I instead went for a bare 7 players - 4 gutters, 1 blitzer and 2 linemen - along with a team re-roll. Everyone also got a mascot if they wore festive attire, so it was a very lairy and easy to break team.

Round 1 v Ross (RedFacedGoose)

Playing on his lovely 3d printed pitch, I was up against Ross and his necro. My general game plan was to try to get one touchdown ahead before my team all fell apart to the cobblestone floors. As such, I grabbed the ball, handed it off to a gutter runner who ran down a channel. Unfortunately it meant that they were within rushing range of a werewolf who managed to get the pow and to grab the ball. Things weren't looking great. A 4+ jump with the blitzer to try to knockdown the werewolf failed and the wolf ran off to the middle alley to regroup with his teammates. At some point he needed make a break for it with a wolf and a rush ended with a 1 re-rolled into a 1, and I was very lucky to go in 0-0 at half time.

I can't remember exactly what happened in the second half, but I was somehow able to get the ball and run off with it for a 1-0 win. I felt like it was an undeserved win, but sometimes you need a bit of luck.

Number of gutter runners on the pitch at the end of the game: 1

Round 2 v Craig (hellbentginger)

A skaven mirror match! The potion granted a gutter runner an extra point of strength, which was obviously going to be an issue if it had hold of the ball. I received and scored as quickly as I could. We then had some yhetees decide to join in the fun! Mine was positioned to hit the rat ogre before it decided to double skull and kill itself, leaving me up against 2 strength 5 big guys with no hitting power of my own. 

I did get exceptionally lucky to be able to grab a second touchdown at the half, putting Craig under a lot of pressure. He was forced to score quickly which he did without much issue and had removed a good number of my players. I was however able to hold onto both the ball and a 2-1 lead.

Number of gutter runners on the pitch at the end of the game: 1

Round 3 v David (StarFerret)

As the only player on 2 wins, I was in a good spot, but up against another skaven team - again with a rat ogre and a potion. This time it went on a gutter runner who gained... big hand. Not the best for Ferret.

Again I tried to score quickly which I managed and then blocked the opposing rats in a corridor. They had a shot as scoring but after the blitz failed to knock down a gutter runner, it was a combination of dodges and rushes which didn't succeed. 

In the second half I was running low on numbers and when Ferret scored giving me 2 turns, I had just 2 players left. One was able to pick up the ball and hand it off to the gutter runner who dodged off and ran away down a corridor. He was just about in blitzing range, and was knocked down and removed resulting in a 1-1 draw and me being left with one solitary rat. 

Number of gutter runners on the pitch at the end of the game: 0

Conclusion

I won the tournament and a chocolate Santa trophy (which my daughter will love!) but I did encourage my leaguemates to boo me as I'd taken re-rolls which is frankly cheating. 

The team was very much a high risk high reward build. To be honest, I'd forgotten what team I'd gone for until the morning of the event! It could easily have imploded - and nearly did - but in this instance Nuffle smiled upon me and gave me the dice needed when it mattered. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nufflenomics S3: Picking up the Ball

Failing to pick up the ball at the start of your drive has been a source of annoyance for Blood Bowl players for as long as I have been playing the game. Now Games Workshop have decided to try to remove that annoyance by introducing a new Secure the Ball Action, meaning that Blood Bowl coaches will need to find something else to grumble about instead. Secure The Ball Action The Secure the Ball Action allows a player to attempt to make a 2+ roll rather than making an agility test to pick up the ball assuming there are no Standing opposition players that are not Distracted within two squares of the ball. This will end the player’s activation. A 2+ is an 83% chance of picking up the ball, which becomes a 97% chance if you use a Team Re-roll on a failure. It seems like this is designed to remove frustration and help less agile teams against teams that are likely to swarm in and take advantage of any failed pick up. When wouldn’t you use Secure the Ball? The obvious answer will ...
Read more

Brassbowl XXI, 13-14 December in Ostend, Belgium

Image
This last weekend, a band of plucky explorers from all over the South East journeyed under the sea to a mystical land known as Belgium.   Back in 2023 at the World Cup I had randomly started talking to one of the referees, Sjape, who it turns out lived in Belgium and had visited Folkestone for tournaments - in the days before I had joined the SKABB league. We've remained in touch, seeing him at the NAF Championship, and them bringing a team over for the Kent Team Championship earlier this year.  I decided it was time to return the favour and visit Belgium for one of it's flagship events, Brassbowl. This is held in Ostend which is a port town. When I was a child, it was still possible to get a ferry from Folkestone to Ostend, so I had assumed that Ostend was a very similar town to Folkestone. It is not. It is in fact a city, and much much bigger and livelier than I had expected, although that could partly be because the tournament was running at the same time as a Christma...
Read more

SKABB Season 11 Playoff Final

Image
Last night, was the playoff final for SKABB Season 11. This was been my vampires (Pitchfork Pines Preschool) and Oli's khorne (Stonefolk Skullhunters). Before I get into talking about the match, I want to add some context. Oli is the person who got me into playing Blood Bowl much more frequently and seriously. He was at the first tournament I ever played in 2017 that two school friends had convinced me to go along to. I took ogres as I thought I'd do badly anyway, and ended up with the wooden spoon. A week or so later, I go to collect a parcel from the post office and he's working there. We have a good chat and I say that I'll try to join up the league after my wedding is out of the way as that plus a long honeymoon meant I couldn't put a lot of time into playing the game for a while. We have played far more times than I can remember, both in person and online, in both competitive and friendly games. We've had games before tournaments where we've talked abou...
Read more