“Now this was a fun game of Bloodbowl! It had action, adventure, plenty of touchdowns, some great conversation, and even some musical recommendations.

Ohwatch came to the game with a battered team, having been beaten up in his previous game by (surprisingly) more wood elves. For my part, I was playing with 5 journeymen, so it was likely to be a bit messy.

And that's certainly what it looked like at the start, with sunny weather messing with the passing game, then a blitz result on the kick off, then a failed block, then a KO on my thrower, then a snakes on a pick up...all of which unsurprisingly led to the skaven's first TD.

Right, reset. This time I got rid of the ball nice and quickly, got it as far downfield as I could and scattered a few spare players around as cover. It wasn't a great position, and I was lucky that Ohwatch failed a 4+ dodge on his strip-baller, allowing me the score.

After that things slowed down a bit. Both teams were hitting well, but the players were staying on the field for the most part and whenever Ohwatch managed to make some space for his players, I was always able to get a lucky block to close him off. But those gutter runners...

Eventually the rats scored and I decided not to waste time going for a 1-turn TD (in a newly-arrived blizzard) so instead I went into the second half a score down with the rats receiving.

The rats scored quickly, and then the wood elves scored quickly, and then the rats suddenly started to collect all the bad luck, with four catastrophic turnovers in four turns. I pulled back a touchdown after the first two, and then looked set to do the same and win a most surprising victory after the second two, but Ohwatch mounted a superb defence which got his rat ogre right in the middle of all my players (and the ball) and although I had the catcher waiting in the endzone, there was no way I was going to pick up on a 5+ and pass from two TZ without a seriously unfair amount of luck... which I didn't get.

So 3-3. It's a good result for me as Ohwatch usually walks all over me without much effort and I was pleased with my fighting comeback in the second half. Of course, it all came down to his terrible dice really but even so, a draw has given me back some of my lost fans and enough gold to buy a wardancer.

It was a quick game. Ohwatch plays fast and seems to know exactly what he's going to do right from the start of the turn - maybe that's because he has plenty of time to work out his plans during my (much slower) turns. Anyway, there wasn't much planning for me to do. Once my thrower was sent off to the KO box, he stayed there for the next two drives so mostly I was getting the ball to the fastest guy as quickly as possible and running him down to just outside the endzone, relying on my thin web of players or some skaven bad luck to keep him safe. Not a great strategy against a faster team, but it was all I had.

We also found the time to have a nice little chat as well. Ohwatch's English is much better than my French, but I did try. We talked about which music we liked and he recommended Alain Souchon to me. So while he was setting up after one of the scores I nipped over to Spotify and finished off the game listening to a couple of his most popular songs. They're good - you should give them a listen.

And when it came to naming my new wardancer, I broke with tradition and named him after one of the Souchon songs.

What a great way to spend a little bit of my Saturday night.

Merci, Ohwatch. Merci pour le jeu, et pour la musique, et pour être un si bon adversaire.”