Match Recap: Tree Hugging Fairies (Wood Elf) vs. Lokapojat (Necro)

New Blood Bowl league season has been opened!
First three games of the regular season were fought simultaneously, but the focus on this recap is on the Necro vs. Wood Elf match. The two other games were Chaos vs. Orcs, and Dark Elfs vs. Chaos Pact. Here seen on the background: on the unforgiving Stone Pitch Greenskin Lovers (Orcs) meets BMC Body Hammers (Chaos). On the foreground is the foam-core pitch with team Necro on the right and Wood Elf on the left represented with unpainted red plastics from the second edition of Blood Bowl.



Team Necro miniatures are still work in progress: one Werewolf figure is a vintage Citadel animal handler (blue base with "2") with greenish skin tone to cheaply imitate his Necromantic quality... Still a long way to go with this posse. Wight figures with Block skill are old Lotr Uruk-hai ("5") and 3rd edition Human blitzer. Zombies and the Ghoul runner holding the ball are closer to the final look of the team. In this match the higher team value of Wood Elf team gave Necro newbies a star player Inducement: J Earlice is chosen for the task. This fast (8 MA) piece with ball handling skills and Dodge is good addition to match the elven speed.

Game starts with the first Kick-Off: Perfect Defense gives the Elf team time to reorganize their players before the undead start to move forward. This does not help the Elfs a lot: Wood Elf defence is not the easiest to thing to manage in Blood Bowl. First turns are really fast and the 4 min time limit is not enforced: Necro fails to pick up the ball, and on their first turn Elf coach rolls "1 re-roll 1" in an attempt to Dodge... Elf Catcher falls down and the fragile armor brakes: Badly Hurt guy with pointed ears is carried of the pitch when game had barely started. With the undermanned defense line the game is relatively fast 1-0 for the Necros. Wight number 6 scores the first touchdown on the 6th turn of the first period.

With only two turns left in the period Elfs try to make it to the end zone fast - no such luck: Werewolf pushes the Catcher out of the Pitch and angry undead fans beat the poor Elf to a pulp. Another Badly Hurt Elf and even less players to put in to the play on the second period.



Second period and third drive of the game starts when Necros kick the ball very close to the Line of Scrimmage.

In this new league we are still using the good old House Rule of two free Special Play Cards (50k decks, drawn randomly) for both teams. First card to see the action is "That Babe's Got Talent" played by the Elven team. "Ball Clone" by the Necros makes the Elven attack disorganized: they have to divide their forces to catch both of the balls. This proves to be ill-advised tactic, soon both balls have changed hands and its team Necro with two balls and Elfs are left with desperate defense.



Now there are only five Elven players left on the pitch: they call on the services of "Rogue Wizard". Fireball finds its target with deadly accuracy: J Earlice carrying the ball is hit! And soon the fire spreads and all supporting Necro players in the loose cage formation are hit to the ground also. Werewolf had already took the false Clone Ball to the Elven Endzone and this thing that J Earlice was holding is the real thing. Elfs have their small window of opportunity, but alas - "1 re-roll 1" again! The Elf coach rolled four of these killer "1 re-roll 1" things in the duration of the game... so with better luck they might have capitalized on this Fireball attack but now it only slowed down the Necro attack.



On the 16th and last turn of the game Werewolfs celebrate the second touchdown: J Earlice seems pretty happy too.

Post match procedures see the touchdown making Werewolf leveling up too: now both Wolfs have the Block skill.

Team standings on the regular season ("Runkosarja" in Finnish) after the first three games. Chaos team BMC Body Hammers managed to pull 2-0 victory on the Orcs, so they are sharing the first place with team Necro. Half of the 12 teams are still without any games, so its too early to say anything about the league in general. But good start for the new Necro team: two games done with 5 touchdowns made, looking forward to more challenges.



The other teams have developed too, there is now AG 4 Line Orc in the Greenskin Lovers team and Chaos Beastman with Side Step. To wrap up this recap - here's a list of the latest skill upgrade picks for the teams in the league.

Blood Bowl Match Report: Red Anvils vs. FC Vislanders XII

It is the start of a new era: Chaos Dwarf team Red Anvils has opened Blood Bowl home stadium!

This playing field has been on the works for quite a while, it's a two part construction, first there was the Dugout and then the pitch itself.

The first visitor to the new dwarf stadium was FC Vislanders XII Lizardman team. This starting team had full six Saurus lizards and Kroxigor on the roster. With inducements they bought the services of Slibli - the infamous star player of the reptile folk - for this game.

The Hashut blessed the first game with huge blizzard - Sure Feet skill on the Bull centaurs would come in handy.

Red Anvils started with usual left hook wedge formation, but the dwarfs soon found out the hard way that even newbie Lizard team can play some mean ball with all those ST 4 guys...

Only the strong pills of the apothecary saved Minotaur from death after being fouled by Saurus gang. Soon after that the hired gun Slibli killed the most experienced hobgoblin: Xobt Evilstench, number 9 in midfield. The fast scoring greenskin will be missed - but maybe this was the blood baptism needed for the new pitch.
The game was just bashing all thru first half - no touchdowns but lot of casualtys. On the second half Lizards started to form the cage around the only surviving Skink with the ball - but it was busted by Bull centaur blitz.
After the Minotaur was saved by the apothecary the Anvils Injured box was kept clean - dead hobgoblin slave was buried where he fell, under the stone slabs of midfield.
On the 15th turn the Red Anvils hobbo number 10 made the matches only touchdown, winning the game for the dwarfs. MVP went to the Claw mutation Blocker (nro 3), he sure revenged the hell out of Lizards.

Foam board Blood Bowl Pitch

Glued the black foam board on top of thicker white board. Some turf detail with added Citadel Texture paint.
Some UHU Por styrox glue to hold the Turf in place.
Using pliers to start the right corners of chess styled board, and poking holes for some added grass. Black foam board that has grey backside and foam - nice astrogranite feel right out of the box. 30 mm squares, and made the usual first mistake with using old and dull blade... After some Dungeon bowl its gonna be nice to get back to the regular Blood Bowl pitch. But to make this return nicer started to build new pitch out of foam board, or "kapa-levy" as the material is called here in Finland.