“FUMBBL CUP IV Round of 16 Match!!!
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This match report may contain language that you find distasteful.

If you are easily offended, sensitive, have no sense of humour, or have had something tragic happen to yourself or a loved one then look away now in case you have a reaction to something in the report.

The following terms may or may not be used in the following match report:

Assault
Bad coaching
Bad luck
Bash
Block
Bloody
Crap
Crud
Death
Dice
Dice rape
Hit
Kill
Lucker
Lucky
Murder
Smash
Splatt
Unlucky
Useless
Whiner
Whining
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Was a great game with 92 specs watching, most going for my opponent heh.

First half I played rather slow and made at least one silly mistake as I was distracted by a visitor who had never played Bloodbowl before sitting next to me asking me lots of questions about the game. He was also trying to tell me how to play too LOL. I had to explain a few times that I couldn't just throw the ball to someone in tackle zones etc... anyway...

Things started off excellently for me with the handicap rolls:

Knuckledusters
Extra Training
Duh Where am I
Bribe the Ref2
Buzzing

Both teams made all their niggle rolls too (3 for me, 1 for him). Fortune was certainly smiling on me at the start, with no super nasty handicaps and all my Legends turning up. A very lucky start!

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The Boyz won the toss and elected to receive just as it started to pour down with rain. They started strongly, causing a KO and a stun as they flattened the Falcons line of scrimmage, then caused a second KO with a foul (+2 before DP modifiers).

However, they failed to pick up the ball in the wet conditions (needing 3+) and it lay enticingly near the sideline surrounded by three of their players including the mighty freebooted Morg.

The Falcons surged forwards, leaving only two players in their backfield. One of their Witch Elves blitzed a Boyz Blitzer near the sideline, and sent him out of bounds (I rolled Pow and Push on the first block, chose Push to get the second block from Frenzy to surf him).

The Falcons got a player to the ball but it was too hard to pick up (AG5 with mud and two Boyz players nearby (needing a 4+).

Both teams fought for several minutes trying to get the ball. Then fortune smiled on the Boyz as their player picked up the slippery ball in a tackle zone (4+) and then a short pass ball in a tackle zone (needing 4+) to an Lineman in my half (needing 4+ in the mud) who then ran 5 and GFI twice.

As luck would have it, I rolled a 5 for an intercept too which would normally be enough, but the rain modifer seemed to be affecting only me in this crucial turn heh.

Anyway, all was not lost as the Falcons sent two Diving Tackle players back to harrass the Boyz lineman.

During this turn I made my silly mistake whilst distracted by my visitor and dodged across the tackle zone of a Diving Tackle player needlessly. Ooops. Looked like a very stupid move to the specs I imagine, but no major damage.

The Boyz Lino with the ball dodged away from the two Diving Tacklers (needing 5+ and using one RR) and scored what just two turns ago looked to be an extremely unlikely TD to take a 1-0 lead just before half way into the opening period.

The Falcons on offence surged down the left flank with most of their team whilst sending one down the right flank.

Wary of the wizard hired by the Boyz, the Falcons carefully kept one player as a shield against a possible lighting bolt whilst delaying a reply score with the ball to run the game clock down. The Falcons knocked out one Boyz player with a block, then a second with a foul to have strong control of the ball deep in Boyz territory. Dreadclaw said something jovial to the effect of me being lucky there and I agree I had some nice rolls. Nothing match turning though, just allowed me to stall one extra turn.

The Boyz responded by stunning both Falcons witches, and with the position starting to become vulnerable, the Falcons decided to score even though it gave the knocked out Boyz players a chance to recover and an extra chance to smash and foul.

The Boyz had one short kick off to do as much damage as possible. Their Buzzing player was drawn next to one of my big hitters thanks to Sidestep. My opponent wanting to avoid the free hit on his Black Orc Blocker (with AV8) tried to do a Break Tackle dodge to get away but fe;; over trying. Unlucky roll for Dread there, a 1 causing him to lose his Turn 8 foul as well.

This was probably good for Dread as I then did my own Turn 8 foul instead with the ref on me. Rolling a lousy 3 for the injury and getting sent off. So overall, probably what Dread wanted anyway, one of my players off the pitch for the rest of the match due to fouling LOL.

The second half had the Falcons starting in offence and striking some awful luck. I had only thrown two blocks and when I went to pick up the ball, I rolled snake eyes. None of my players apart from my Thrower had moved from their spots and thus I was not in a position to threaten a quick score. To top things off, the ball of course scatters forwards closer to my opponent heh.

I can't roll 2+ on two dice, but my opponent makes a 2+ GFI, a 3+ pick up, a 2+ GFI, a 2+ Dodge, a 3+ pass and 3+ catch to put the ball in a respectable cage situation. Shows you how biased and unintelligent some of the specs were when they said after the match the dice sucked for my opponent :).

With this major run of bad luck, the Falcons resorted to using their Wizard there and then. Three players were in the blast area. An AG1 Black Orc, an AG2 Black Orc and the AG3 Blitzer with the ball. Only the AG2 Black Orc was knocked over leaving me limited access to the ball carrier, certainly Dread was happy with that outcome.

The Falcons managed to get a two dice blitz on the ball carrier and the ball spilt free, ending up next to two Boyz players. The Falcons had one of ther agile leapers nearby (who rolled a 1 for his leap, but made the 3+ pickup and 2+ dodge away) and soon the ball was in the hands again of the Falcons star Thrower, Valdrek Bloodgaze who was in scoring range.

The infamous Valdrek, only player in FUMBBL to hold both a Perfect Thundercall and a Thundercall, and the highest Trippler (see the Recordopedia Spluttanica) added 'Lightning Bolt Dodger' to his resume as the Boyz' Wizard took aim and missed with his attempt to fry him (needed 6+ on two dice, and he rolled a 5).

The Boyz responded by knocking out one Falcons player with a block, then another with a foul. The Falcons advanced the ball forward but with no RR left for the turn, did not try a GFI to score. The Boyz then had another great turn, seriously injuring my AG6 Blodge Guard player (apothecary failed), and badly hurting one of my Witches. A foul with the ref on the Boyz stunned another player.

With only 7 players on the pitch, the Falcons scored to take a 2-1 lead leaving the Boyz 4 turns to take the game into overtime.

The Boyz advanced a short way into the Falcons half and formed a cage on the line with the mighty Morg holding the ball. The Boyz fouled with the ref watching them again and this time did not break through the Falcons armour (3 was rolled, +3 for assists, +2 for DP = 8, lucky me!).

The ref blew his whistle to send the offending Boyz player off, then remembered his pre-game bribe and over-ruled himself, saying he blew the whistle by accident!

The Falcons pulled back and tried to slow the Boyz juggernaut. The Orcs surged forwards and knocked out one of the Falcons as they formed a cage down the right wing. One of their players fell over trying to run a bit too far (snake eyes on GFI, but I thought that was fair with all the pows the non tacklers were getting on me heh).

The Falcons kept pushing players into Morg to force him backwards, hoping to make it dificult for him to score. Valdrek sacrificed himself by sidetstepping forwards after being flattened to block up one of Morg's blitzing lanes to slow the Boyz advance earlier.

Valdrek took a boot to the head for his troubles but luckily for the Falcons, he was only stunned. The Ref was watching the Boyz already, but didn't send off the fouler.

The other Falcons did their best to block the lanes and it all came down to a crucial final play for the Boyz. It came down to a 3+ hand off, a 3+ dodge and then two 2+ GFI to send the game to overtime. Luck ran out for the Boyz when they failed the dodge and the Falcons went through to the quarter finals.
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A fun game against a very good opponent.

Dread played a good game, with no mistakes and there was not much more he could do. He bashed me all over using his superior Strength, Guard and Mighty Blow and whilst he got a lot of pows, he did not do much damage apart from some stuns and KOs for most of the game.

I made a couple of mistakes, including an easy chance to push his player out of bounds, but that would require pushing him onto the ball first and I didn't want a bad scatter. However, generally I think I played a good game.

Luckwise, it was pretty equal. I think Dread had a little bad luck failing the early pick up, but failing a 3+ with RR does happen 1 in 9. He then had some awesome luck picking up the ball, throwing it, catching it and then dodging diving tackle to score.

Then second half I had the snake eyes to pick up the ball to start the drive and he had another awesome string of luck (in comparison) when he picked up the ball and passed it back.

My Wizard was crud.

But I had some luck picking up the ball in two TZs (3+) and then making 3x 2+ rolls without a RR to get the ball to Valdrek.

More luck in dodging the Lightning Bolt (though I had a better than 1 in 3 chance of dodging it anyway - 15 in 36 chance in fact). It was unlucky for Dread, but not a super unlikely outcome.

Bad luck for me failing the apoth roll.

Then bad luck for Dread trying the final score.

All up, there was a spread of good and bad luck for both of us. Whilst my opponent had two runs of very very good luck and I had the crud snake-eyes, I had a lot less obvious good luck through most of the match - the lack of heavy damage done to me by all his blocks and fouls. So overall, I don't think either of us would say the other had much more luck than the other.

Anyways, it was a good close game that almost went to overtime. Glad it didn't, but it would not have been undeserved if Dread did manage that tying score.





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