A couple of weekends ago Christian (Silentknight), Dave (Dusher1) and Kevin (Camelchops) were in tournament action in the 2-day, 6 game Hawaiian bowl… but how did we do?
Rules and Rosters
This was an interesting rules pack. 1100TV and no tiers and no skills. At first. After game 1 you could add 2 primaries or 1 secondary and same again after each subsequent game. Its an interesting wrinkle, looking for a team that can cope early but progresses well through the mid builds.
Christian – Nurgle. Squelchy, 4 bloaters, 2 pests, rotters to 12 and 2RR. Early games would be tough, thereafter block, block, more block and maybe a wrestle pest.
Dave – Orc – Da Plan – After a reasonably good run on Orcs at the tail end of season 2 and the start of season 3 I returned to them for the Hawaiian Bowl in sunny Blackburn. The progressive nature of the tournament meant that I wanted something that would be able to handle itself with few skills in the first few games. In terms of the build there’s not a huge amount to say. 2 Blitzers, 2 Big Uns, 2 Throwers, 1 gobbo to be thrown and a troll to do the chuckin.
Given that we get 2 skills at the end of each game the progression seemed obvious at the start with the plan being Block Big Uns followed by tackle/guard and then block/leader on the throwers compensating for my poor 2 re rolls in hand.
Sounds like a plan I thought as I entered the first day and looked forward to seeing how it all panned out…
Kevin – OWA. I painted up this team after the new rules were teased and then chose not to play them whilst everyone else was taking them to the early tournaments Waterbowl and the Welsh National! This was the first time out of the box for these boys… immediately after the Treeman nerf (typical). The only choice really was between the (now loner) Tree and the Ogre. I plumped for the Ogre for the chance to keep mobile and as the extra 20k didn’t really give me anything extra. Ogre, all dorfs, human positionals and 2 human linos to 11 + fling. 2 rostered RRs. The build plan was MB human blitzer, Block catcher, Guard dorf blitzer, Leader thrower, and more Guard dorf linos thereafter.
Game 1
Daves Orcs vs Undead Don_Vito
A tough draw against a seasoned player in game one felt unlucky but as always the field in Blackburn was challenging. The first half I defended his drive and managed to gum up the field to get to 0-0 at HT and felt good. Then he got a charge!, got under the ball and my drive turned into another attempt at his drive. Game finished 1-1. Quite happy vs a strong opponent.
Kevin vs Greg’s Snotlings. What would you like if you need to play into stunties? Lots of Block, a smattering of Tackle… that would be OWA then. This was a pretty much perfect introduction to playing OWA. I took a little bit of time to get smashing, and I lost a dorf early to an errant bomb. However, by midway through my drive tmy oppo was down to 2 snots and 3 Big Guys. Those 3 became 2 as we closed out the half comfortably for 1-0 on T8.
In the second half the snots started with 11 but as the pressure grew and more snotlings popped, my oppo elected to chuck a stilty over the top rather than face more pounding. Stilts weren’t enough for him to get away though, as the human catcher hunted him down. Thereafter it was a long but largely uninterrupted walk down the field vs very few opposition pieces. There was some late casualties and a TTM consolation score v.late. I was happy to take the Win 2-1 (4-3 Cas). Full kudos to my oppo for fully buying in to snotling madness throughout.
Chris – Won
Game 2
Kevin vs Leipziger (Alex) Orcs. Alex runs the Waterbowl league, and with a casual 750 NAF tournament games he knows his onions, or orcs in this case.
I received and it all seemed to be going well with an early forced apo usage on captain blitzer 1 and a cas on blitzer 2 quite early. But then the pows turned to pushes and numbers parity was restored. Alex kept the pressure high, very effectively shutting down options. My lack of experience with OWA felt real here as I got bogged down and eventually needed to turtle out the drive to stay at 0-0.
Going into the second half at 10+ fling vs 10+ goblin, I still felt I had a decent shot. It was my turn to crank the pressure up and eventually I managed to split off some of the team, hurt some and use up activations elsewhere to force Alex into some very risky positions.
A great position presented where all I needed was an uphill block on the Troll to get pushes to chain push a box, and then blitz in to surf the ball carrier. 44% *69% with RR… However, I made a mistake and took a largely meaningless 2D block nearby, and had to burn my last RR on dub skulls. Then I skulled out on the -2D Troll hit. Sad times. [the Puzzle for this position is here].
Chance gone… but was the game gone?
Next turn Alex moved forward, surviving a Troll Loner RR to pow down and remove my catcher and get into another sideline cage. There was indeed another chance. I chucked the fling downfield and faced another quandry: 3+ stunty dodge for -2D needing pushes to surf (~40% for the dodge into surf, or ~61% for dodge into both down+) OR 1D needing pow/stumbles/bothdown (50% and then hope for a friendly scatter (3/8 for out of the field). I decided that if the ball wasn’t in the crowd here, then Alex would have at worst a 2D for 3+ with 1RR to score. So, I went for the fling. However, the little stunty that could turned out couldn’t… the hapless little fellow 1/9 the dodge into self removal. Loss 0-1 (3-3 CAS)
This was a really good game. I felt like I learnt a lot about OWA. I was close to getting away on my drive and extremely close to turning the ball over on Alex’s drive. However, Alex was very solid throughout, especially on defence. WP GG.
Christian. Win.
Dave: Lost game 2. Was sad. Can’t remember much about it.
Round 3
Kevin vs Liam Khorne. 11 mens Khorne with no Apo and only 2 block… This game snowballed quite fast. The Khorne were very keen to take their hits and kept running into frenzy traps or ending up giving up lots of blocks on subsequent turns. Over the first few turns I did some damage and then split off half the team to leave a handful of pieces downfield. They rolled all the dice but to force in an early score on T3. Already up mens, I pressed the advantage further sniping most of the marauders with my mb blitzer, ganging up on the S4 pieces, banging out the Bloodspawn and generally have a fine old time. HT 1-1.
The Khorne started the second half down to 9 on the pitch and that swiftly become, 8, 7, then 6… when I did eventually punch it in it was vs down to 3 lying in a heap the pitch. The blood god was satisfied, but not from Old Worlders blood. Win 2-1 (3-1 CAS)
Christian – Draw
Dave – Draw, 1-1, was sad but at least it wasn’t a loss. Vowed to do better day 2.
End of Day 1
Christian 2-1-0
Dave 0-2-1
Kevin 2-0-1
Day 2
Round 4
Christian vs Padster (Brets). Loss 2-0.
Dave vs Snotlings, Can’t remember the game, but it was pretty stupid. Won. I think the score was 2-1.
Kevin vs Ian (Stick_with_poo_on_the_end) Orcs. Stick is a 900+ NAF game veteran, rated 200+ with 63% win rate with Orcs. I knew this would be hard. It got harder quickly as the first block killed a dorf lino, and the second stunned another, while the fourth KO’d a human lino. Not a great T1 for the OWA. However, we did get the Troll off the field early in return, and with all the Guard and Defensive in the rest of the team were able to gum things up. So much so, that the eventual push down the sideline came on the back of two multi rush turns and eventually led to a sideline cage. With 1D, I was able to create the space for a 5+ sideline dive into ball carrier surf on T6. Sadly the ball came back parallel to the endzone and the Orcs recovered. We did get the chance to 2D it down again on T7 but 1/9 the dodge and ended up 1-0 down at the half. So close. The OTTD failed at the final dodge.
As the second half kicked off and with my tournament record on 2-0-1, I decided to push for the win. I Claimed a forward position early, chained a few guard pieces around and banged it in on T2. The whole game had been played in sweaty heat, and for the final drive Stick was missing a Big Un and a Blitzer… pretty big. Again, I was able to force the issue, until a sideline push with Goblins left a 3/3/2/2/2D on the ball carrier. Ball down, but RRs used and although we did get away with the ball from the scrum eventually, a failed rush meant my chance to win disappeared and it was the Orcs that looked most like scoring in the end. However, by this point both our dice had deserted us sufficiently for it to end 1-1 in what was probably a fair result . Draw 1-1 (2-2).
Round 5
Christian vs Kevin Nurgle vs OWA
With a relative small field, it was almost inevitable that we’d get at least one CLAW vs CLAW matchup. By this point both teams were pretty stacked with skills. Plenty of Block for the Nurgle, 4 guard for the OWA plus mb, leader, block.
If you haven’t played into Nurgle with lots of Block Stand Firm and Foul Appearance it’s pretty stifling. The first hit of the game again removed a dorf lino but after that it was pretty even hits wise and the Nurgle worked the clock the space reasonably well. However, eventually they were forced to stretch for a sideline cage.
Hero play time as the human catcher 6+ in to surf the ball on T7. The crowd threw it about a bit and eventually it made it back to the halfway line. Time for the Nurgle famed passing game… a casual 3+, 5, 5, 4 after a bunch of freeing blocks saw the one rotter downfield catch the long pass and dodge his way in to score. 1-0 HT. The OWA TTM failing at the Ogre pass.
Second half a perfect D brough the Nurgle into contact with a lot of the wide OWA but left an apparent hole centrally. The OWA took the bait and piled through looking for the quick score again. However, a final dodge to close off the backend failed leaving a chance for the Nurgle to pile in on all sides and 4+ dodge to get a bloater blitz on the ball carrier. Blodge kept him upright but utterly boxed in. A series on FA fails and 2D pushes meant he was still boxed in in the middle on the next turn and eventually resorted to blitzing into the Bloater and dodging free. A snaked dodge…
The next 6 ish turns was spent in a scrum of the OWA being chain pushed around while every so often making increasingly desperate plays at the ball. And. although the catcher did get to potato late in, we was promptly hunted down, wrestled to the floor and the ball yoinked away to secure a deserved win for Chris and his Nurgle. Chris Win 1-0 (2-2).
Round 6
Christian drew 0-0 with jordellfftb
Dave drew 1-1 vs Shaniepoo’s Snotlings
Kevin vs AngryGerbil (Bretts). By the final round my OWA had 5 guard and we aimed to bully the Brets by jamming in everywhere we could. However, 1D with Wrestle is quite disruptive and the forward momentum was hard to maintain on my drive. Eventually a double stun turn on the left Bret flank forced their hand into a 5+ dive for -2D on to my thrower. The thrower survived and the following turn we caged up in range. Now it was time for the 6+ dive with Steady Footing. 4 chances to roll a 6 for another -2D… scary but they all came up short. 1-0 OWA HT.
The second half was a cagey affair with the early interaction seeing more mass guard jam in, only for a 1D from the Brets to generate a load of 2Ds. I was confident that this approach would work eventually, as the dice were becoming increasingly essential with worse and worse fail state. I just needed to wait for the tempo swing.
And then the Ogre died.
But we had slowed the Brets down quite a lot by this point, with them sitting on halfway on T5 and again on T6. It seemed appropriate to pivot into a column screen. I’ve also posted a puzzle with the position needing solved on T7 . The line taken involved a blitz and a lot of gate dodge but ended with the ball-carrying blodge blitzer almost free. I was able to get 2D RR 2D on him though but he bounced off. However, with everyone else tied up it was a (4)(3) to score and he ended up face planting with steady footing again failing to save him again. Win 1-0 (1-1).
Final Records and Reflections
Christian 3-2-1 Good weekend with the stinky ones.
Dave 1-3-2 sad times. Orcs go in the bin. I’m playing Nurgle next and going to win 1-0 and be annoying from now on.
Kevin 3-1-2 and inaugural Bibble? winner (most points vs Blackburn league players). I learned a lot about OWA. They’re a strong team (no surprise), but the single blitzer/catcher limits the options they have and makes them somewhat predictable. In my losses, my oppos controlled those players well and I struggled to pivot to a plan B. Indeed, the dorfs being slow and lacking agility meant there wasn’t a plan B available most of time. I was committed in a way that most hybrid teams aren’t. I will play them again, but they are going back in the box for awhile.
Overall
Another fun 2-day tournament in Blackburn. Thanks to Gav Valen Sutton for putting it on.The progressive ruleset added some nice variation to proceedings and the field was strong, as always. Congrats to Craig Scouseboy for taking the tournament win. Commiserations to Andrew Waldorf… leading all the way… so close!
In case you didn’t guess…I (Camelchops) wrote up my games pretty soon after the tournament… Dave was keen to put it out of his memory… Chris might come back and update his notes later.
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