Stylus and I have been playing Blood Bowl from time to time for three or four years now. It's all virtual, using Cyanide's Blood Bowl 3 game, and it's become something of a sore point for me.
This is because I have won zero of our games, and at no point has it even been close. The worst was seeing my veteran Chaos team, the Sucker Punchers, get clobbered by Halflings. When I close my eyes, I can still see star Minotaur blitzer Aberdeen Angries vanishing under a pile of wretched sandwich-munchers. I haven't played at all for over a year as a direct result.
As the Jimulthuan Campaign rumbles slowly onwards, Stylus threw down his gauntlet, and I reluctantly considered it might be time to try again.
This is the Tar Tanners (Dwarf) vs Bad Lads (Chaos Renegades), and crudely represents my Inquisition assaulting the Chaos Fleet in the campaign. I'll do the fluff translation later. We've both got reasonably typical teams - I have a lineup of stout dwarven bruisers, very tough and hard-hitting but slow and bad at anything resembling a throwing game.
Stylus's motley crew is more specialised, with a fast and nimble dark elf and skaven for the wings, solid human linesmen and an orc for blocking, a Rat Ogre for sheer muscle and a goblin for sneaking through my lines. Both teams are mildly experienced with a scattering of additional skills here and there, but they're pretty much equal in value, so it should be a balanced match.
Now, I don't like to brag about my gridiron skills. This is because I have none. There are days, however, when that is no bar to victory.
I've managed to record a couple of videos of the game. If you can put up with the low quality video and the fact that you're watching a digital board game, you'll see that the dice definitely decided to tell a story in this match.
The first half is almost a pretty decent game of Blood Bowl. There are some ups, some downs, some ballsy plays. Then Stylus shunts my ball carrier into the crowd and it all goes tremendously south, properly Antarctic, from there on in.
The second half in particular is spectacular. Not one single action goes in Stylus's favour. I'd feel bad for him were it not for the aforementioned halfling drubbing. Dice jail is too good for those bastards, bring back capital punishment.
Stylus - I salute you. If publishing these videos seems unbearably smug in victory, well, I am what I am. The bigger man would not be posting an extra clip of the moment when the Rat Ogre bites the head off his teammate, would he?
I definitely won't be watching this again if I'm feeling low in the future. No way.
At last my plan to tempt you back into playing Blood Bowl comes to fruition.
ReplyDeleteAll I needed was a Dark Elf that couldn't stay on his feet, a stray ball landing directly on my own touchline, and a Rat Ogre determined to eat every one of his teammates.