Winter Tournament 2014

Greetings,

Last weeken we had a small tournament in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. This is a brief photo report of the tournament itself and a detailed presentation of 8 turns of one of the games.

 

The teams are unpacked, coaches are editing their rosters. Hard time for both of them!

There were five of us playing using custom league rules. I'll not list all of them, but the main idea is that coaches get 200 team value before the first match and 150 before the second and third, which they can spend almost freely for levelups. There were some limitations, but the system was flexible enough to allow all sorts of dirty tricks. Another significant change was that stunty teams fot lot's of "free" enducements, which resulted in lots of starplayers, bribes and cards.

 

Orcs ang goblins walk into the field before the first game.

Necromantic and undead teams are ready to start. 

This was the first time we tried this scheme, but it worked out great. Just look at this ... goblins. A fanatic leading 3 throlls into the battle. More like a "5+ STR"  only party.

 

Black orcs run in terror from this mess crying like little girls. 4 STR? Pheww...

With three bribes, fanatic staplayer and the Ripper goblins felt quite confident vs orcs. A card that they bouts from Dirty Tricks set made it even more fun: "at the beginning of a drive turn any player into a bomber". Cool, eh? So three trolls, five secret weapons, lots of substitutes - not something orc were really ready to meet.

On the other pitch undeads met their necromantic cousins. The game was a disaster for necromantic team. 0:4. Undeads were quite lucky (or skilled?) to quickly break into the necromantic cage, get the ball and score quickly. 

  

Necro start their attack by forming a loose cage on their left flank that gets cracked easily

Undead ghoul grabz the ball and is running away with the ball to the touchzone

This made necromantic ghould to risk during their attacks trying to perform them fast, which resulted into two more ball lossese.  

 

Necro ghoul fails to get the ball into safety, the 2nd touchdown is inevetible

Injuries suffered by necro didn't help either.  

Undeads blocked like crazy berzerkers during their both matches. Just look at the results of these dices, it's just the first turn of the game (top four - undead, bottom five - their opponent): 

A usual thing for undead that day: 

POW+Defender stumbles and 6+6 armor roll vs three skulls and 5+2 armor roll

Do I need to say that it was the undead team that won the tournament? :D 

This was a very good weekend. There were several fun matches played, and here is just an example of one of the halves of Orcs vs Dwarves match.

This is a second half of dwarf vs orc match. Dwarves lead 1:0, they have a deathroller and one more bribe available. Dwarves got two mighty blo + piling on troll slayers, AGI 4 runners, guard on each of the blockers, and a Block + Multiple Block deathroller. To get the bribe dwarves had to avoid taking 5 levelups to save some TV for 100r inducements. Orcs have blocks on all players, guard on black orcs and fend on each black orc and blitzer.

 

Dwarves are set to recieve the kick off. Orcs aim near the runners.

The ball lands near the deathroller and the match begins.

Dwarves push the lines, drive deathroller forward and secure the ball

Orcs get up and bravely stand into contact, trying to push with black orcs and their guard

Dwarves answer with an attack on their left flank supported by the deathroller...

... while trying to get as may orcs tied up as possible on the right flank

A desperade blitz by a troll brings some pressure on the cage while orcs regroup

Noone blitzes the deathroller without being injured! Troll's out.

Dwarves secure the cage again, but can't move forward.

Orcs bring enough support to stop and press the cage

Dwarves fight back, but fail to knock down even one orc.

Dwarfen blitzer dashes into the gap and runs forward.

Orcs show that strength and guard superiority means something and break the cage.

Dwarven runner is blitzed and removed from the field injured, the ball is on the ground.

The only chance dwarves have is to push orcs away, pick up the ball and pass it forward. 

That works! Blitzer is running free into the touchzone.

Orcs still have 3 turns to score and dwarves lack two players. Is it a chance?

Orcs start agressivly, marking dwarves and sending blitzers forward.

Dwarves try to defend both flangs at the same time...

...but their numbers are just not enough. Now another blitzer runs forward and is free!

Blocker tries to catch him, but fails GFI. Early turnover and no chance to protect the touchzone

Orc passer hands off the ball and orcs score. 1:2 is still better than 0:2, isn't it? 

Thus ends the half, the match and the weekend.

This was a fun tournament for us. I hoped you enjoyed the reading. Next time I'll try to not forget making photoes to provide more match reports.

See you and good luck in the pitch!