Eucalyptus Bowl! My last run at this tourney was in
2013, with the disastrous
Vampire team, Bite Club. This time, I took my freshly-painted
Chaos Dwarves, the
Thumper Lumpers. I had another commitment over the weekend, so only played five matches.
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| Eucalyptus Bowl 2016 under way |
The format: 6 games, resurrection, 125kgp*, up to one skill per player, no doubles, only two matching skills from non-General types.
The Thumper Lumpers were pretty solid:
- Two Bull Centaurs with Break Tackle
- Six Chaos Dwarves: two Stand Firm, two Mighty Blow, two Guard
- Four Hobgoblins, two with Sure Hands
- Three rerolls
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| The Thumper Lumpers- Blood Bowl Chaos Dwarves |
Match 1:
I played Peakie's Pro Elves, Lateralis. Pro Elves are my favourite team due to their flexibility, and Pete had a good roster with plenty of Wrestle. I had some below-average dice rolling, and couldn't break his armour even with mighty blow. I went down hard, 3-0.
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| Pro Elves swoop into the Chaos Dwarf backfield |
Match 2:
Another Elf team- Sumbloke's Dark Elves, Fifty. This time, things went my way and despite only causing one casualty I won this one with a traditional Dwarven 2-1 grind.
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| Bull Centaurs corral a Dark Elf Blitzer- she still managed to score! |
Match 3:
More Elves for me to hit! It was Vimes and his High Elves (The Js) this time around. I seem to play Vimes at every tourney, which is great because he's a fun opponent and always a pleasure to play. This game was no exception, with a prolonged tussle over the ball leading me to a very close 2-1 victory. I did inflict 4-0 casualties, including killing one of his elves.
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| High Elves pour into the Chaos Dwarf grinder- the ball is an afterthought! |
Match 4:
This was against Redcard and his Goblins, Grots-a-Lot. He was secret-weapon heavy, with two ball-and-chain players, three Trolls including Ripper Bolgrot, a chainsaw, and a pogo-stick. He received, and I had to rely on my armour and a lot of luck to weather the storm in the first half. Somehow, I survived and stopped him from scoring! Then all his secret weapons got sent off (he failed a bribe roll against the referee) and he had a shocking second half, with hiss Trolls going Stupid at key moments, and multiple 1s being rolled. I scored, leaving him a slim chance to score by throwing a Goblin downfield, but he was tackled by a Chaos Dwarf leaving me the 1-0 win.
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| Chaos Dwarves sustain a Goblin battering- the pogo jumper has the ball! |
Match 5:
Another Elf team! Irgy had his High Elves, the Golden Unicorns. I repeated my poor ability to break armour and was swiftly 1-0 down. I aimed to equalise and drag the game out to a draw rather than let him score again and win 2-1. Against a dogged defence, I got myself into a position to score on the last turn. Without getting technical, I had a 98.7% chance of success- which I failed! Leaving Irgy with a 1-0 win, and myself with a 3-0-2 W-D-L overall result.
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| Chaos Dwarves crash into the High Elf defence, but can't reach the endzone |
The tourney's overall winner was JoeKano with Amazons. I was pleasantly surprised to receive an award for 'Toughest Defence', and came 27th out of 46 overall, despite playing only five games.
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| The glittering prizes |
Loot I picked up: Eucalyptus Brew beer, dice and stubby holder; a copy of the fun abstract game
Qwirkle, and a Eucalyptus Bowl shotglass!
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| Spoils of war! |
I was happy with my team roster. Break Tackle was more useful than Block would have been on my Bull Centaurs, and the other skills were all much used. Three rerolls was almost too much for my playstyle, so I might consider making a few tweaks around that.
As with so many Australian Blood Bowl tournaments, it was a lot of fun and great to see old mates again.
With this tourney over, I have played nineteen of the official twenty-four teams! Almost there!
* There was a tiered budget for this tournament- previous winning teams were penalised 50K, and multiple winning teams (Orc, Dwarf, Necromantic) 10K. Stunty teams got a 5K bonus!
