Jundheim Jugulars: Blood Bowl League Round 1 Game 5

 *BRRZZZTTT- News from 'the Warden of the North' as ' Coach Right Stuff ' plays his fifth Blood Bowl League game with Vampire team, the Mighty Jundheim Jugulars, against Halfling team "The Chode Pirates":*

Aaaaaand We're back with the weekly match report from the League in the Northern Wastes, this time the hungry and confident Vampires of the Jundheim Jugulars take on the much smaller, but much more stout scallywags of the Chode Pirates and their halflings! Coming off what is most likely the most dominant game of Bowl Bowl I have seen in years, the Vampires are clearly catching their stride after the rocky skill-less start to the season. Both the Throwers came out of last game gaining the Block skill and are keen to try it out by smacking some stunties to the ground. The Chode Pirates are also feeling quite good after giving the league leaders, the Disturbingly Dank Denizens(Underworld), their closest game of the season by far.

The Haflings hosted this game at their stadium hidden amongst the ports in the Border Princes, and the Coastal weather made the Vampires all the more uneasy with all the sunlight and life in the stadium as opposed to the cosy dark manor they call home. The coin is tossed and yet again the Vamps are losing said toss and kicking to their opposition. The vampire staff were smart enough to think ahead and pay some petty cash for a Budweiser Keg to help any knocked out thralls get back out there. The Halfling staff were just as busy as they set up their food stand of massive salty pretzels and rum in an attempt to distract the remaining vampire coaching staff. Hah! Vampires can't be lured by such mortal vices such as regular human food! right? guys? aaaand there they all go. (The Halfling Chef stole all 3 Vampire team re-rolls).

After setting up for the start of the game, Piotr is handed a rather juicy looking BLT instead of a ball to kick to the halflings. Not wanting to cause a fuss for his glorious vampire overlords, he kicks it anyway and we start the first drive with the Stacked Lunch Ball.

The rules for the Stacked Lunch Ball are as follows:
 - Five Second Rule: Both teams get +1 to pick up the ball
 - Lunchbox Jealousy: The kicking team gains the Strip Ball skill for the drive 
 - Mid Game Snack: When a player scores with the Stacked Lunch Ball, they need to pass a 2+ test in order to avoid eating the sandwich ball. If they do, they soon keel over with a tummy ache and that player misses the next drive.

The game begins with the smackdown
laid down by the massive wall of Treemen

The drives starts with a kickback and sets the tone for the vampire team's dice for the duration of the game. While the ref brings the ball back into play, the massive lineup that is the Treemen "Ship Wreck", "Driftwood" and the famous Deeproot Strongbranch waste no time in absolutely pummeling onto my sacrifical thralls on the line of scrimmage(one of which was knocked out). Behind this terrible and tremendous line of treesmen, the halflings create a hafling cage to protect the ball carrier and call it there. The Vampires, doing their best to hide the fear of the treemen, do what they do best and apply pressure, pressure, and more pressure. Baron Gregor von Kraus enjoys finally getting to use his Tackle skill and punches the crap out of the ball carrier named "One-Eye Yoghurt Slinger" and spills the ball....right into the hands of another halfling. Count Edgar and Piotr run up to mark the new ball carrier, and new treemen sacrifices are moved up. Viscount Friedrich is moved further up to block the way and Lady Striga stays back in fear of a potential teammate lobbing. The Duke gets in the face of some trees with appopriate thrall support to make it advantageous and knocks down Treeman "Driftwood". Deeproot uses his block and lack of Take Root(despite his name, ignore that) to pound onto the Baron and get him off the ball.

Baron Von Kraus employs his new Tackling skills to lay a return
smackdown onto the  ball carrier!

Unfortunately for the Halflings, the trees are too tied up by poor thrall sacrifices or are too busy standing up to help the new ball carrier get to a safer spot on the pitch. The Vamps take the chance and spill the ball again. Count Edgar manages to snap it up and bolt it up the pitch to the now open Viscount Freidrich, who takes a thrall escort and makes a run for it. The halflings tried but couldnt catch up with enough bodies to make it matter, and after dodging the weaponised throwing of a downed halfling as a desperate last attempt to knock him over, The Viscount Freidrich Freudenburg V scores the first TD of the game on turn 6 of the first half!

Viscount Freudenburg V makes a break for it down the left sideline!

Luckily he didn't feel too peckish and left the sandwhich ball alone. The referees however couldnt resist the snack and took it for themselves, replacing it with a league regulation ball for the rest of the game.

The celebration was short lived however, as despite the employment the "Picket Fence Formation" (which is entirely made up of lining up across the pitch a couple rows short of the end zone), the Halflings simply lobbed #6 "Yurp" to run in a one turn touchdown.

Eager to punish them for allowing them time to try and score, the Vamps line up an aggressive offense and prepare for "Air-Vamps" to take back the lead. Unfortunately for them, failing all 5 bloodlusts in one turn swiftly put a stop to that. To really drive home the point, Deeproot MNG'd #13 Vasyl, and Treeman "Ship-Wreck" Kills #11 Demetrius! For the folks counting along at home, this does keep the count for the season so far to 1 dead thrall per game(I'm suprised the Vampire nobles even name them at this point).

Half Time: 1-1.

Second half kicks off which the vamps head coach a bit nervous as he realises that no matter what, the halfling coach will have a chance to one turn touchdown again at the end of this half,. Even if the vamps score on their last turn. Respecting this, the vamps go for a hyper aggresive approach to this half, in hopes of scoring once early and then either shutting down the slower paced halfling offence or having enough time to score again after another one turn touchdown.

The rest of the Vampire coaching staff is left in food comas after feasting on all the goods the Halfling chef had to offer. (The chef takes all 3 rerolls again).

The Vamps attempt to push up hard along the left flank, and feed the runner, Lady Striga Drachenfeld down the right flank in an attempt to make them split the slow team in half and not having enough bodies to deal with both threats. Naturally, they fail 3 bloodlusts in the process and lose several thralls to casualties and knockouts. This results in a half baked protective bubble that any faster team could comfortably break open or stop from moving forward at all. 

The vulnerable offensive attempt of the Vampires after they've
snacked on nearly the entire rest of the team

Luckily for the vamps they are versing halflings and the massed 5 MA and several 2 MA pieces allow for such vulnerabilites to go unpunished. The pint-sized pirates do their best to put tackle zones in the way and try their best to get the trees to a relevant part of the pitch, but luckily its not quite enough. The Duke von Dragoslav(Vargheist) gets knocked out while keeping the Treemen busy and tied up, and Lady Striga occupies 3 halflings to herself which significantly aids the already dwindling numbers on the vampire side be on equal footing on the other side of the pitch. The bubble manages to move forward and away from the 'flings and up the pitch but takes a turn or two to do so due to a record number of failed hypnotic gazes, and losing more thralls on the way between the Treemen and the incredible number of failed blood lusts per turn. 

Lady Drachenfeld is nearly killed when the halflings marking her manage to get her down and gutter-stomp her into the casualty box. In order to be safe, the Apothecary dives into action just in case the natural regeneration abilities of the Vampire isn't enough. Thank god a good apothecary was hired because he managed to reduce the injury into a Badly Hurt result when the regeneration failed to kick in. The halflings on that side of the pitch are happy with their work, but arent fast enough to make it across the pitch in time as Viscount Freidrich Freudenburg V runs in the ball for the teams second touchdown for the game on Turn 7 of the second half.

The dwindling numbers of the Vampire team manages to break away and score the 
2nd touchdown for the game, despite the numbers disadvantage.

Knowing whats coming, the Picket fence is employed again but to no avail as the Halflings just soar overhead and score for a second touchdown.

Getting one last turn to try to score some SPP, Duke von Dragoslav goes to try for a fun block on a tree to see if his claws will get through. Double Skull. Re-roll from Brilliant Coaching kick off table result. Double Skull. Brilliant. 12 on the Armor Roll. 10 on the Injury Roll. Even better. Suffers a Niggling Injury. Regeneration? 1. *Deep Sigh from the Coach*.

Full Time 2-2 Draw, 1 casualty for, 8 against(4 self inflicted)

The Vampire teams casualty Box at full time, half of which is self-inflicted.

This last photo is of the last 4 players left on the pitch for the side of the Vampires... but what's that they're standing in front of? That's the brand spanking new scoreboard as provided by the team's biggest fan south of the northern wastes! A big thankyou from team management to that very special fan, heres to hoping it gets to display some more impressive scores in the near future!

The score at full time surrounded by what was left of the team at full time.

Aaaand thats the game for the week! Thanks to my opponent for a close game despite my record-breaking horrendous dice luck the whole way through. I look forward to meeting him further down the line with more developed teams on each side where im hoping the vamps can perform a little better with some more skills.

Speaking of skills, after receiving the MVP for the game due his imposing use of tackle, Baron Gregor van Kraus gains the Block skill. He's got his sights set on more exciting skills in the future along the lines of Mighty Blow or the dreaded Blodge, but Block is too good to pass up any longer.

As for you bloodbowl fans, you can catch us next week as we follow the progress of this promising up and coming Vampire team when they take on the Tomb King team of the Musty Mummies.
 - Right Stuff

At 3-2-0, the Jugulas remain at 2nd place in the League on TDs scored

Rediscovering Thunderbolt Apache Leader

Got some hobby supplies sent up from the Canberra Strategic Reserve, including a few games. Amongst them was this gem by GMT Games in 1992: Thunderbolt Apache Leader.

Comrade James introduced me to this in 1994 when it was only a few years old, and I got my own copy at the time. It was my first of many GMT games and that we played together, but I always loved how immersive and narrative TAH is. We played a particularly good set of campaigns together while at sea in 2007 but sadly the war diaries have been lost.

Contents are all still in great condition!

Interesting Fact: This game was the first one that veteran games artist Roger B McGowan (you'd recognise much of his work) did entirely on Computer - revolutionary at the time! See more of his work on Twitter @RBMStudio1

There wasn't a lot of additional material brought out for it at the time, but I did manage to track down this little article from a small wargaming magazine Called Panzerschrek,- this article is from Issue #7 in 2001

TAH has since spawned a whole array of games in the Leader series. The Game's designer Dan Versson left GMT Games, started his own games company (DVG) and released a revised version of TAH a decade or so ago, taking the game's mechanics in a different direction. 

More to follow as I rediscover this gem

More Civil War

Alan, John and I played another game of our Roman Civil Wars game this week with To The Strongest

As much as we enjoyed our previous games at 250 points, the table felt rather crowded with no room to manoeuvre. We scaled this game down to 150 points (which was hard!) and the additional space really enabled turning movements, flank actions and break aways. It also added space for more terrain, making light troops far more effective in rough terrain dotted around the battlefield and breaking up big formations of legionaries.

The additional space really allowed the game to more dynamic and break up around the terrain

For games at 250 points with additional players on both sides, we are guessing another 50% table space would be give the same experience.

I learned a few additional points of the rules, especially in terms of Missile fire priorities. Clever use of light forces can really draw fire away from the main line - must remember that for medieval era games when facing longbows! 

Back in the ancient era, the effective use of missile troops continues to elude us. We also keep forgetting that ancient cavalry are javelin throwing units best used for screening and exploitation, NOT lance carrying shock cavalry or Panzers!

Also, the impacts of trying to flank and having the 'victims' turn to face and applying a ZOC- this forces the formerly flanking unit to either turn to face in turn (and attack) or retire directly to its rear, shattering the impetus of the intended movement. Lesson is to leave a square between if you want greater surety of slipping past to savage the enemy rear. Or better yet, have another of your units to its front

All that said the game look great, but we felt equally frustrated at the turn of the cards so it must be well balanced!

Thanks for hosting us again Alan, and for another epic feast!

Jundheim Jugulars: Blood Bowl League Round 1 Game 3

 *BRRZZZTTT- News from 'the Warden of the North' as ' Coach Right Stuff ' plays his third Blood Bowl League game with his Vampire team, the Mighty Jundheim Jugulars, against Orc team "The Git Krumpers":*

Aaaaaand We're back with the weekly match report from the League in the Northern Wastes, This time the hungry and bloodied Vamps of the Jundheim Jugulars take on the big green stinky Orcs of The Git Krumpers. Coming of the back of a solid win, the Vamps were eager to prove themselves and beat the team that introduced them to the league with a preason beatdown. Now that Duke Viktor von Dragoslav(Vargheist) had picked up a major skill in block, he was eager to show those Orcs how its done.

Vampires were the home team for the game and the stands were packed with fans for such an exciting game. Unfortunately the league hadn't approved the used of an special stadium and no fancy balls were able to be snuck past the ref so normal pitch, normal ball. It was all down to the players themselves. The Orcs were allowed a small package of inducements being some extra team training before the game, a keg of Budweizer to help any players snoozing on the job, and an addition assistant coach with some insider knowledge of the Vampires and how they operate.

The Vamps win the coin toss and elect to kick off the Orcs as they feel more comfortable ruining the plans of their opponents. Setting up either side, nice perfect weather ready for a perfect day of Bloodbowl. The new assistant coach hired for the game by the orc side paid off as his knowledge of their aggressive defensive strategies gave the orcs an extra reroll as they prepared for the rush. 

The insider knowledge from the hired assistant coach
wasn't enough as the vamps rush the ball!

Orcs begin by living up to their name and get krumpin', knocking down my front line. Curiously however, instead of trying to pickup the ball, he decides to just surround it with some tackle zones and hand over the turn back to me. My Vamps were chomping at the bit to get at em and SLAM into the orc lines. I rush a few thralls and the Baron Gregor von Kraus(Vamp Blitzer) in and knock his zones off the ball while setting their own onto it, making sure he wasn't getting his hands on it anytime soon. Lady Striga Drachenfeld(Vamp Runner) tags a blitzer, the Duke gets smacking right back. He struggles to get across the board in time for me to snatch up and ball.

Baron Gregor von Kraus makes a break for it!

After allowing him time to move into the forming moshpit and tie his players up (mostly), I go to make a dash for the endzone with the Baron around turn 5 due to the fact that a sneaky orc by the name of  Hook took the opporutnity to lay the boot into Lady Striga after a failed dodge and she was seriously injured(MNG). Unfortunately, the Vamps had clearly planned to have a picnic around this very same time as I failed 5 Bloodlusts in a row... followed by a double skulls on the Vargheist... which I tried to reroll but got a 1 on that also. Just to point out how insane this is, its 1 in 1,679,616 or 0.0001%. A handful of Orcs seized the opportunity to break free of the moshpit and sack the Baron. Demitrius(Thrall) and Count Edgar Diedrich III(Vamp Thrower) push their way toward to ball to help him on the ball. In the background, the Blitzer by the name of Uppercut, kills Goran(Thrall), nothing of value is lost. Seeing the 3 tacklezones on the ball, Count Edgar and Baron Gregor share a glance and know what must be done. The Count runs up to the big figure of the orc big 'un "Tuff" and utilizes his hypnotic gaze to render him useless for a turn. Demitrius runs up and distracts the Line Orc. Baron Gregor shoves the Blitzer out of his way(and onto his ass) as he moves onto the ball and manages to pick it up, avoiding the smacks of the lineorc as he walks into the endzone on turn 7. 3 tacklezones be damned.  A turn of punching back and forth of no result and halftime is called.

1-0 Vamps at the half.

The Baron, The Count, and a bloodbag navigate a
tricky scenario with excellent teamwork to score.

Both teams set up again after the break and the Vamps are eager to try to score a snappy TD and secure this game for good. They go for a running game with some short passes now that the runner eliminates the "Air Vamp(tm)" plan is sitting in the Casualty box. Leaning heavily on the right side, Count Edgar catching the ball after a particularly high kick flys all the way to the rafters of the manor, the Baron opens a path for the Duke to get into the thick of it from the get go. Making a loose protective bubble just back from half pitch and feeling pretty safe and ready to weather the storm. The Orcs get krumpin and start turning my bubble into an arrowhead as the push the front half toward the sideline. I push up for another turn enjoying my cosy 3 space wide bubble along the sideline and both the Vargheist, Thrower(non-ball carrier) and Blitzer get knocked down and stunned.

Vamps recieve the kick and prepare to weather the storm of the Orc assault

The protective bubble around Count Edgar getting pressured hard
along the sidelines by the Green Horde

 I decide I need to take a gamble cause Im never gonna last against all the bash of the Orcs. I double back and shift with the little space I have to start going down the centre now his team is all on one side. Predictably his whole team shifts over to the middle to stop the potential leak.... and this is what I had gambled on. He forgot about my stunned vamps and I stood up Viscount Friedrich Freudenburg V ready to receive a pass as I double double back again. His Big Uns are all tied up on thralls in the Midfield trying to take advantage of my numbers advantage, I will have plenty of time to run it in and be home free.

Count Edgar Diedrich passes the bloodlust... 

Tosses the ball into an effortless long pass.... 

and riiiight as its reaching the fingertips of the Viscount and the lineorc "Mincemeat" slips in an intercepts with 3 6's in a row!

The orcs having taken the bait, the Count lines up the perfect pass...
just for it to be intercepted by a pathetic lineorc!

Now panicked and desperate to not turn this near 2-0 shutout into a 1-1 draw, the Vamps scramble to swamp the orcs before they can set up properly and convert this opportunity into a TD. The lineorc hero that saved the game hands its off to a more trusted blitzer and the blitzer gets as much protection as he can. Fortunately for me, a well placed blitz with the Vargheist and a effective hypnotic gaze lets the Baron, a bloodbag(thrall), and the Count get revenge for their excellent plan gone awry by all getting onto the ballcarrier. The orcs manage to worm the ballcarrier out of that mess with the strength of the biguns, but no one else to protect him. Now enjoying the near elf-like agility of the Vampire nobles, they all dodge out and surround the ballcarrier with 3 vampiric bodies. The Orc ballcarrier, inspired by their agility, decides to give it a go(without rerolls) and dodges out on a 5+, a 4+, and a 3+ and back to the safety of the big un Ruff who managed to get downfield to help his teammate. The Vampires continue to hunt as a pack with the Baron and the Count continuing their excellent teamwork from before, hypnogazing the Big 'Un and smacking the ambitious blitzer to the ground. The Duke(Varg) decides to end off the game by casualising a Big Un and a Blitzer to ensure the orc side can't score before the whistle.

Full Time: Vamps 1-0, 2-3 in casualties(with only 1 being self inflicted).

The mother of all moshpits forms as the Vamps scramble to
 recover after the pivotal interception. 

Aaaand thats the game for the week! Thanks to my opponent for a brilliantly close game, and I look forward to meeting him further down the line with more developed teams on each side where im sure I won't fare as well.

As for you bloodbowl fans, you can catch us next week as we follow the progress of this promising up and coming Vampire team when they take on the Chaos Renegades of the Howling Hill Hellions.
 - Right Stuff

This week's win keeps the Jugulas in third place on the League Ladder