31 January 2012

Blood Bowl Australian National Championships

The Man Cave experience of them anyway...

One of the many events at CANCON is the Australian National Blood Bowl Championships and this year saw 57 coaches enter.  It is progression tournament, starting with 1.0 million gp, playing 7 games over the 3 days and chosen MVP after each match.
The Tourney in Progress (Right Stuff in lower right foreground, obscured)
Of course, I couldn't enter because we were committed to running our Dark Ages participation game (more to follow on that later).   A few days before hand I got an email inviting me to sit in for a few games so there would be an even number of coaches (and thus nobody would miss out on a game).  Right Stuff was dead keen and took along his new Norse team (in this case named "Thor's Thunderers") for his first ever tournament - indeed his first game of Blood Bowl against anyone but me.  To be honest I was a bit concerned he would be utterly crushed (noting he was at least ten years younger than the next youngest player, and much then that for the majority of coaches)  That didn't turn out to be the case...

Game 1 vs Matt's Team Carnage (Orcs)
The Lad's face was a picture of concentration as he setup to kick, and he couldn't have had a friendlier opponent then Matt who had a very mentoring approach, offering advise upfront.  That naturally started to dry up after Reilly blocked down his ball carrier, snatched up the ball and dodged away to scored the first TD of the game.  Great I thought, at least he wont get smashed without scoring.
Right Stuff's first TD of the Tourney
Right Stuff went on to hold off the Orc grind for the rest of the half, received in the second half and went on to score again! Matt squeaked a TD in in the last turn of the game to make it 2:1 TDs and 1:0 casualties to Right Stuff.  A Win to the Lad! Wow I thought, at least he wont be going home having lost all his games...
Winner are Grinners!
Game 2 vs Darren's Blu Funda (Orcs)
This game started as a replay of game 1, with Right Stuff up 1 nil at half time.  He got ground away more during the second half though, with his opponent scoring late in the match to tie it up 1 all.  Right Stuff won the casualty battle 2 nil (no deaths).
The look says it all as he fumbles a catch next to the end zone! (he scored next turn though)
Game 3 vs Linda's Lady Dwarves (Dwarves)
Hmmm...Dwarves are a difficult for Norse as they do everything the Norse do, but better and tougher.  OK, a loss coming up I thought but going home with a 1-1-1 record is a great feat!  He kicked off to the Dwarves, rode out their grind, dove on the ball when the opportunity presented itself and was off like a shot.  Outpacing the stunties and out of rerolls he played it safe and didn't go for it, stopping 1 square short of the end zone when he ran out of MV.  Cue Dwarf lightning bolt - ouch!  Nil all at half time.

The second half saw Right Stuff receive, get messed up in a scrum around the midline, then manage to dodge out with the ball and shoot through to score.  The last few turns were insufficient for the Dwarves to score and Right Stuff pulled off his second win of the day!  He also inflicted an unbelievable 5 casualties to 2, with each team suffering a death.

Game 4 vs Cody's Barak-Var Sea Dragons (Dwarves)
So Right Stuff started Day 2 with a remarkable 2-1-0 record.  He was up against another Dwarf team, but had less trouble with this one, winning 2 nil and inflicting 2 casualties, receiving one himself. It started off the same as the first two games 1-0 to him at half time and 1 casualty each. Then in the second half Right Stuff scored again quickly and just tried to kill dwarves the rest of the half (he wasn't lucky enough to kill a dwarf but casualized a Runner).
Yes, the helmet did bring him Thors' blessings...and 5 casualties!
3 wins! I just couldn't believe it!

Game 5 vs Leigh's 'Sinned Bad' (Undead)
For this game Right stuff moved up to table 4 - which meant he was placed 7th or 8th at the time and starting to get some very serious opponents.  Leigh killed one of the Norse Lineman in the first turn, and rubbed salt into the wound by bringing him back as a Zombie.  This really threw Right Stuff and he went after the 'traitor' with a vengeance - charting him twice (he regenerated after the first time).  Headhunting aside, the Undead ground away the first half to be up 1 nil, then Right stuff struck back to tie it up with only a few turns left.  Leigh pulled off some great combo moves to score in the last turn of the second half and take the win 2:1, while the cas score was 4:3 in the Undead's favour and with 1 death apiece.

At this point one of the other coaches had to pull out of the tourney and thus Right Stuff wasn't needed as a sub anymore.  He was disappointed over retiring after 5 of the 7 games but his match record was something to really be proud of (I would have been stoked if it was me!) and we bought some Tourney swag to celebrate.  Overall he recorded:

3 Wins, 1 Draw, 1 Loss
TDs For: 7, TDs Against: 4
Casualties: 14 for (incl 1 death), 6 against (2 deaths)

Other highlights of the tourney for us included:
 a very cool Cthulhu inspired Beast of Nurgle
Meeting Paul Deacon, who has been interviewed on a few 3DB podcast episodes.  Here is a picture of his Beast of Nurgle "Jervais Johanssen" (just for you Chance) converted from an old Warhammer Fantasy Battles Great Unclean One.
Paul informed us that the beast's nipple chains double up as his tentacles!
This awesome Chaos Dwarf team, all converted from plastic beastmen, and which won the Conversion Prize

Watching a Halfling coach send a Yeti corwsurfing with one of his little fellows, and follow-up in a later game with an uphill 3 die block on a Troll and charting him!

...and Leigh (from Game 5) showing up on Day 3 with a new zombie fig named Reilly, including a Norse helmet on the base!

Overall Results for the Nationals were:
Champion- Iain Fisher (High Elf)
Runner Up- Bradley Milner (Norse)
Third - Anthony Williams (Undead)

I would like to most sincerely thank Gavan the Tourney organiser for giving Right Stuff the opportunity, his opponents for being such great sports, and for everyone there who generated an incredibly friendly and welcoming atmosphere.

30 January 2012

CANCON 2012 Eye Candy

Here are some of what I thought were the best looking games on display around CANCON 2012:
The very impressive Alamo participation game
6 March 1836 was a bad day for the Texan Rebels...but a fun game nevertheless! 
The also impressive Battle of Borodino

English Civil War participation game
A massive FoW urban sprawl table 
Another FoW table, the airfield looked great
I must say that of all the tables, none beat the Infinity setups for detail.

GW's EPIC:  great game you don't see much anymore
Lots of traders were too as you can imagine, and it was great to catch up with Nic from Eureka Miniatures, Mike from Battlefield Accessories, and Glynn from Fernvale Scenics

I'll make separate posts for our own Dark Ages participation games and the Blood Bowl tourney shortly.
Thanks to everyone who had put in such a big effort to make CANCON a very enjoyable event!

29 January 2012

A Feast of Fun!

I make no apology of being too busy having fun to have posted much in the past few days, during which we:

- had a very special Australia Day and appropriate celebrations,
- enjoyed four days at CANCON,
- played a stack of games, including a mini Pulp campaign,
- watched Right Stuff complete in the Australian National Blood Bowl Championships...and do very well!,
- ran a day of Dark Ages participation games,
- purchased an unmentionable number of awesome gaming things (receipts have been destroyed ...), and
- ate a shed load of food and consumed an un-numbered quantity of beers and other beverages!

Lots of pics and game reports to follow, but yes its been an awesome 5 days!

26 January 2012

Happy Australia Day

I hope my fellow Aussies had a great one - I know I did!

Its gonna be a BIG week...

Lots going on in the Man Cave this week, so updates are likely to be sparse for the next few days...

First of all the basing is going well - 110 figs done, 30 to go.  Plus some terrain.. And some scenery.  But I think I'm on track to make it for CANCON.

Our mates Pete and Ken arrived from Melbourne today and Comrade James from Adelaide in Thursday, ready for CANCON which will be Fri-Sun.  We are running our Dark Ages participation game on Saturday, and the rest of the time is for us to play and have fun.   Part of that will be the "Man Cave Bowl" a Blood Bowl 7s tournament on our homemade board.  Lots of gaming fun to be had - already enjoyed some Zombies!!! Cthulhu Dice and Poo! (and maybe some beer,,,) in the Man Cave.

Plus Australia Day celebrations and a trip to the Australian War memorial. Let the good times roll :-)

25 January 2012

Dinoshark

Every bit as wonderfully cheesy as you might fear, but way better than Megashark vs Giant Octopus!  The dialogue was rather painful but worth battling through for the last 30 mins which has some great scenes and a wonderfully high bodycount.  Cheer as Dinoshark goes for guys on parasails and jetskis, tears through a girls water polo match and takes a general dislike to anything over, on or in the water.  Actually, just watch the trailer below and you've seen most of the best bits.

24 January 2012

23 January 2012

Training Your Opponent

My copy of Wargames Illustrated 291 arrived today, which has my article "How to Train Your Opponent" at the back.  I was chuffed to see how well it came out.  Thanks for all the positive feedback, I'm pleased it came across as an interesting and different piece rather than just gamer Dad propaganda! Featured in the pics are not only the Lad but me, and fellow Man Cave Gamers Comrade James and Oberst Owen.
http://www.wargamesillustrated.net/Default.aspx?tabid=221&art_id=3083
I also really enjoyed the Kelly's Heroes article- particularly and the Lad and I had just watched the movie on the Man Cave TV the day before!

22 January 2012

Iron Siege

I'm not one for comics, graphic novels or suchlike, but I came across this the other day and really enjoyed it.
All I'm going to say is GIs, Nazis and Gouls...
http://www.comicvine.com/iron-siege/49-37473/



20 January 2012

More Blood Bowly Goodness: Odinn's Champions

Hey all, Right Stuff Again.  Remember that post about the cake for my Birthday? Well here's what I got present wise: an epic Norse Team AND a Slann Team!
Odinn's Champions

Like last time I will do the roster then games(there's only one so far) and then pictures.

First of all here's the Norse roster:
Angry Agnarr - Yhetee   5 5 1 9 Mighty Blow,Wild Animal Claws,Frenzy,Block
Sven Forkbeard - Blitzer 6 3 3 8 Frenzy,Jump Up Block
Hafstein - Blitzer 6 3 3 8 Frenzy,Jump Up Block,Guard
Fafnir Bearclaw- Catcher 7 3 3 7 Block,Dauntless,Dodge
Gizar Greyclaw- Catcher 7 3 3 7 Block,Dauntless,Fend
Hagbard the Hairy - Thrower 6 3 3 7 Block,Pass,Sure Hands
Redver - Lineman 6 3 3 7 Block
Sigard the Paranoid Viking - Lineman 6 3 3 7 Block
Dag the Dangerous - Lineman 6 3 3 7 Block
Vikur - Lineman 6 3 3 7 Block
Orm - Lineman 6 3 3 7 Block

Norse Werewolves(Being Saved up for):
Hagbard the Hairy
Angrin the Agitated

Norse Game 1 Result
Against:Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys(Undead)
Score: Norse : 2 Undead : 2
Casualties: Norse : 1 Undead : 2

Blitzers
The Catchers
The Throwers

Linemen
Odinn's Champions
Yes, the Snow Troll is on loan from the Deathstars, but we have a new one coming for this team from Willy Miniatures
Some epic rune stone Turn and Re-Roll markers we made for this team
The whole was once again painted by our mate Ken (in the colours of the Minnesota Vikings) and based by us.  It was the first time we have tried to do snow basing but I'm happy with the way it came out all patchy and frosty.  I'll post some pics of the Slann when they are finished.  Till next time, have fun Blood Bowling!

The Blob

I got the kids back for those horrible Shark movies - the 1958 Steve McQueen version of course!
In the meantime 30 more Vikings were based, as well as a Blood Bowl team...

The opening music was a major highlight!






19 January 2012

Dark Ages preps for Cancon

You may recall that the Man Cave Gamers are running a Dark Ages participation game at CANCON.  Of course moving house, Christmas, the Lad's birthday etc all got in the way of my preps but having just realised I have only a week to go, I'm now going full bore.
The majority of my Dark Ages figures
Mostly, its about basing the additional figures we will need, which Ken has already painted up. So I have to base about 20 figs per day to make it, as well as finishing off some terrain like the palisades and the church floor.  I'm sure I can do it though!
Men (and two shield maidens) of the Vik - thirsting for action!
Defending hearth and home - the Saxons (minus 25 already on the workbench)
That is probably enough chaps to form some decent SAGA warbands too!

18 January 2012

British Heavy Assault Tank: A39 Tortoise

Commissioned mid war for maximum protection, deliberately sacrificing mobility and speed, this beast had no less than 17 designs. Massive tanks weren't just on the Eastern Front...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortoise_heavy_assault_tank
http://chrisshillito.tripod.com/a39/a39txt.htm

And yes they have one at Bovington!

17 January 2012

15 January 2012

Man Cave Brewery back in Action!

Today I bottled the first brew fermented in the new Man Cave: a draught with lager style hopps, so should be a good, full bodied beer.  I'll try to hold out for two weeks before I give it a taste!

14 January 2012

Pingu's THE THING

In the spirit of Zombie Penguins, here is Pingu's rendition of The Thing!  Incidentally, this inspired me to watch the 2011 remake last night, not bad but I prefer the Kurt Russell version from 1982.
(

13 January 2012

Happy Blood Bowl Birthday

This week saw the Lad's 11th Birthday: he was rather delighted with his cake!



11 January 2012

Just nasty!

Looking for a horror/beast for pulp gaming, which can double up as a Blood Bowl "Beast of Nurgle'
Maybe this one! A "Son of Yog-Sothoth" from Tengu Models: its about 6inches high so it will tower over 28mm figures


http://www.tengumodels.co.uk/userimages/procart2.htm
Assembly Guide: http://migobrainsoup.blogspot.com/2010/10/son-of-yog-sothoth-assembly.html

You can check out one by Fran (aka The Angry Lurker) here:
http://theangrylurker.blogspot.com/2010/12/28mm-painted-tengu-models-son-of-yog.html
Matakishi's version: http://www.matakishi.com/unspeakablehorrors.htm
And others from the Lead Adventure Forum here:
http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=24738.0

UPDATE: Yes, I caved in and ordered one...