Everybody gets one of these, right? I want one. I’ve been here for the better part of a year, and played the better part of 400 matches. This is a good point of departure for those who (accurately) think 400 matches puts me right in the ‘average Fumbbler’ category, and were hoping for a more dynamic protagonist. I don’t have a 100-game team, a tournament victory, or a legendary player. So if my ‘ho-hum-iversary’ (381? You couldn’t wait 19 more matches for 400? What an ass) doesn’t interest you, and my indulgent use of a 1x2 area of your homepage offends you, hit that shiny 1, I won’t mind ;)

In the last 10 or so months, plenty has happened in my life. Complex interpersonal situations you, as strangers, could never hope to distill into anything meaningful. Fortunately, Blood Bowl is played a match at a time. I have the opportunity to provide anecdotes that I think tell the story well.

Ginocoolowski is the guy who first got me into tabletop Blood Bowl. He’s the best guy I know, and we always had a blast playing. He’s since become busy with school and sculpting models (for other, traitorous mini games, no less), but he’s still the most important part of my tale, because without him, you wouldn’t be reading a 900-word account of a ho-hum board game enthusiast (lucky you, right?). He played Dark Elves, I played Skaven, and we were both awful. It helped to have a buddy to commiserate with, and discuss our grand plans to someday rebuild our terrible squads. We both drifted away for a time, I drifted back.

For a long stretch, I engaged in the all-too-common vitriolic arguments about how everybody was a jerk but me. Orcs aren’t fair, Khemri coaches are jerks, etc (ho-hum indeed. Stop me if you’ve heard this one). Thank Nuffle for Tymless.

Tymless is the coach who was kind enough to actually teach me to play, and more importantly, enjoy myself. Our first encounter was my Orcs (I’ve changed, I swear!) vs. his Ogres. It was a fair match, and naturally, even with the inferior team, he rolled me up and put me away. I was furious. All his guys have st5. The goblins were too well-protected to blitz. It’s been awhile, but the way I remember it, he passed every Bone Head roll (don’t check, I implore you). Ogres, as I saw them, were another unfair total-jerk team. I said as much in chat, and he shrugged it off. After I cooled down, I apologized to him in IRC, and he was gracious enough to accept. Little did he know that he -having shown me kindness- would become the whipping boy for all my irrational little frustrations over the coming months. He took it all with his trademark grace and patience, and slowly, through subtle suggestions, did end up teaching me how to play. For those unimpressed by the 40% win ratio his tutelage earned me, keep in mind he’s only human, and I possess unnatural levels of failure ;)

Mixed among his practical hints (don’t follow up every block, it does not help) were the truly valuable tidbits that I’ve only recently truly grasped. That Blood Bowl is fun. You know, to play. This leads me to ‘Dark Tymless’.

‘Dark Tymless’, of course, is my personal misnomer for PurpleChest. It’s not that he’s particularly evil (make your own judgment here), but that he said the things Tymless said without any frame of friendship. PC doesn’t know me, and doesn’t have any incentive to protect my feelings. My ‘Orc v Ogre’ game against PC came embarrassingly recently in the box. My shiny, noble Necromantic side against his filthy, overpopulated Chaos Dwarves. Not just CD’s, mind you. FAN FACTOR TWO CD’S! My God, he’s going to wreck up my poor positionals and leave me broke! What a bad person. I again, voiced this frustration in chat (while fouling every turn, naturally), and he simply wouldn’t have it. Some time later, I faced the horrifying reality that I hoped to never encounter: I was wrong. I sent him a message via the slick new PM system (I told you, embarrassingly recent, this was). I, like my Orc v. Ogre game many months prior, expressed my contrition. If you’re keeping track at home, this was my redemptive moment. I’ll forgive your ignorance of this if you missed it, it’s not a particularly triumphant moment, but it’s the best one I have.

I’ve played my share of matches since these incidents, but these are the ones that frame the story. I, a hotheaded nerd, have finally reached a point where –beyond all expectations- I actually like playing Blood Bowl. It is fun. To play. Finally.

So… our hero (me) never won a tournament, never had an impressive team, was largely rude to some of the best assets this community has, and never really did anything worth writing about. I suppose it’s less of a narrative, and more of a list of people I should thank.

So thanks Gino. Thanks Tymless. Thanks PC. Thanks Christer, mods, admins, and anybody else who’s made valuable contributions to this site.

The final gratitude is yours, fair reader. I end my blog posts with ‘Thanks for reading’, and that phrase is in fact my forum signature. I am always astounded and grateful when somebody actively decides to read something I wrote. You’ll get your ‘Thanks for reading’ shortly, but you deserve a double dip for this one. It was long, very likely boring, and not of much use to anybody. So thanks.

Thanks for reading,
~pubstar