Eucalyptus Bowl 2019

I took my Slann team to Eucalyptus Bowl 2019 last weekend. This was the 15th Euc Bowl, and there were 61 coaches over the weekend.

The Dunwich Hoppers

Details: 125kGp including skills, 6 matches, resurrection, 2 days, Swiss format. My team: 4 catchers, 8 linefrogs, 4 rerolls.

The winner's trophy has been reimagined in this spectacular shield. The logo is fully 3D. Spoiler- I didn't win.

Day 1.
Match 1. Redcard's Undead.

Redcard is a strong player, with a strong team, and I wasn't surprised at taking a 2-0 loss. I finished with only two players on the pitch... I did kill a Mummy, but it regenerated.

Frogs try to stem the Undead advance

Match 2. Gergiy's Vampires.

Gergiy flew his nerd flag high, dressing as a vampire in evening wear with a white bowtie and cape. His team was a mixture of manufacturers, with some old-school vampires and victims. Vampires can be challenging to coach (as I found at Euc Bowl 2013) and I was a little bit surprised to lose 3-0.

Vampires and Thralls and Frogs, oh my!

In these first two games I just couldn't seem to succeed in any of my dice rolls, which happens occasionally.

Match 3. Luis' Slann.

It's a frogathon! I was looking forwards to this frog-on-frog action, but again, the dice seemed to betray me. I hesitate to blame the dice, as to an extent you place yourself in positions where you need to roll them, but compared to the ease with which Luis was hopping about and hurting me, I was just tripping over and hurting myself. Despite the 4-3 scoreline, it felt a lot more one-sided. I hadn't met Luis before, but he was a good bloke. After three losses, roll on Day 2 and a reversal of dice karma!

It's a Frog-Off!

Day 2.
Match 4. Rabid's Goblins.

Rabid is a very strong coach, and was running the tournament. He had a lovely pirate-theme goblin team. He gets to play the poor inexperienced sap at the bottom of the rankings if noone else is available- and that poor sap was me! He asked me what had gone wrong for me, and I shrugged that the dice weren't really working. Then he watched amazed as I then failed at least half a dozen basic dice rolls... and he took me apart. I suffered a crippling ten casualties... another 3-0 loss.

Arrr! Pirate goblins against all four remaining players on my team...

Match 5. Hypnotoad's Khemri.

Finally, the dice gods got bored with me and wandered off. I had a much more 'as expected' game against Hypnotoad, which was very enjoyable. It was a good match between his slow but strong team against my faster but weak side, and I pulled out a 3-1 win with a cheeky two touchdowns in the final two turns.

Mummies surround the ball

Match 6. Pronax's Humans.

Like the previous match, my dice behaved in a more average fashion and I had the kind of game I had been expecting. I was 3-2 up and got a bit overconfident at the end, and almost gave away a touchdown. I was very relieved to pull out a second win.

Sharknado!

So, two wins and four losses. Overall, I came equal 40th out of 61 coaches. I would have expected better but was relieved it wasn't worse! I don't like blaming dice, but when you literally fail everything you try to do on a 3+ over and over, you get a little demoralised...

It was great to see old friends again. I haven't played Blood Bowl since last Euc Bowl, and was a bit rusty. I'd consider Slann again with some changes- in particular, taking a Blitzer with the Guard skill. I really needed all four rerolls.