Clawbowl
The fact that I’ve chosen now to write my first substantial bit of writing on our Clawblog is not an accident. Yesterday we held the second iteration of our hometown tournament Clawbowl this year themed ‘Oooooh the Claw’ with a heavy nod to the Toy Story aliens hoping that the litigious Disney Corporation are not on the phone over the next few days.
The day can be summed up as a great success with 28 quality coaches (either as Blood Bowl players or just thoroughly great humans) getting together to play the game we all love this year at Aigburth Bowls Club having decided that last year’s sweat-fest at our local games store could not be repeated. This year highlights and bonuses included a top-quality lunch of pies and sausage rolls from the local independent bakery, a fully stocked bar to drown our sorrows (more of this later) and the added bonus of a cricket match outside to watch in downtime. An end of the day gathering on Lark Lane with a curry at the Taj and a few more beers meant the day was rounded off nicely with an appearance at the meal from quite a few familiar faces from our local rival Chorbowl league (which myself and Camelchops both play in) and other friends from the amazing community across the country.
Da Slump?
A lovely day was had by all so why the doom and gloom self-indulgent heading?
The fact remains that on a personal note the results where far from what I wanted. In fact, it’s fair to say that my recent Blood Bowl statistics in NAF tournaments are not pretty despite a creditable second place in the Chorbowl league last month losing the final to a dominant Camelchops. My last 12 tournament games have seen only 1 win against a Snotling team in Blackburn. These games include 6 with a supposedly broken and overpowered Orc team (1-3-2), 3 with a pretty handy Undead outfit (0-0-3) and 3 yesterday with the newly respected Nurgle Team going 0-2-1. It’s fair to say that I haven’t been just rocking up with goblins and halflings so maybe its time to consider what, if anything is going wrong? Is it just a downturn of luck or have I been getting it horribly wrong in the last few months?
So maybe a small amount of context is in order. I’ve had a pretty respectable and solid record for a couple of years now ignoring a host of rookie errors in my first few tournaments. A move to Dark Elves a few years back saw a phenomenal run in which I won 3 out of 3 at my first tournament with them and a non-losing streak of 18 matches that inspired the aforementioned Camelchops to hunt down every one of my opponents in any tournament to tell them very clearly ‘Dusher’s never lost with Delves’. He still does this any time I play a new team, at least for the first game in a tournament and I have to explain to a baffled opponent that this is because they’ve never been out of the cupboard before.
The end of the 2020 ruleset saw me try out an Orc build with pretty good success and moving into the new ruleset I resurrected (see what I did there) my undead team that had been my first tournament team which had an awful record largely through inexperience and wanting to pick stars from the cupboard after paying the ridiculous Forge World premium for them. It’s fair to say that the 2025 ruleset started well for me and a solid record in Cardiff and at Waterbowl where I acquired the Lineal Champion trophy meant that I was feeling good about my game and looking forward to the year.
As George Best was once asked by a hotel employee whilst sat drink in hand surrounded by supermodels and a wallet bursting with cash ‘So where did it all go wrong?’
The exact moment is easy to pinpoint. Day two of NAFc. Day 1 had seen a continuation of good form and a respectable 2-1-0 with an Undead team I was growing to love once again despite the loss of 2 ghouls. The Saturday night saw the three of us Kev (camelchops), Christian (silentknight) and myself blundering into a bar not too far from our accommodation with us all on the same record and acquiring some great food and drink whilst wondering if we could pull off a day 2 that might have us up at the healthy end of the table. For the other 2 they quite rightly achieved this but for me the day was an abject disaster. The results where a shitshow of epic proportions and 3 losses saw me plummet down the table. Maybe there was an element of bad luck with some pretty bad dice at the wrong time costing me game 4 and then blundering into two excellent coaches game 5 and 6 who were also having an unusually bad couple of days compared to their usual, but the fact is it was my worst tournament day ever. Next up was the Hawaiian Bowl in exotic Blackburn where a record of 1-3-2 with Da Orcs despite 2 games against stunties was underwhelming and then to yesterday’s 0-2-1 ticking off Nurgle who will be returning to the display case in shame and despair.
Where do we go from here?
So, if you’ve got this far into my indulgent wallow in misery, what have I learnt? What do I think are the reasons for this apparent slump and what next?
I think the first thing is that I need to return to basics and look carefully at the fundamentals of my game. Am I sticking to the core principles of ‘safe moves first’ etc or have I developed a bit of hubris after such a strong start to the year? I think the painful fact is yes, my fundamentals have been flawed in recent tournaments. I can think of a number of times in the last 12 games where I’ve taken a 1/36 block before moving the ball safe not considering the failure state and paying for it. Even yesterday the decision to leave a 4 up dodge to sack my ball carrier with a 1d hit vs OJ’s High Elves is a baffling one? I knew what I was doing and I relied on the dice to get me out of bad position hoping for the best and that he would fail it. Obviously, he rolled a 4 into a pow to leave the ball on the ground and elf bullshit did the rest securing him a win when I had the upper hand. Apparently its OJ’s first ever win against me and being a Newcastle fan that must be a strange feeling to process for him. (I’m not bitter…)
The second thing I will be looking at is preparation for the tournaments I’m attending next. This is not Rocky IV and there will be no running in the woods and punching meat in freezer, but when I look back at my record with Delves it doesn’t seem as lucky and accidental as I often make it out to be. Firstly, I did my research and played with them. A lot. I remember a multitude of practice games in person with the Claw players and a real consideration as to how I approached them in terms of set-up, style of play and what my offensive and defensive drives looked like. I remember declaring that I was planning on playing 50 games on BB3 with them to really get a handle on how they play. In the end I didn’t play 50 games I played over 100 and no other team got a look in. I knew what I was going to do in most if not all match ups and despite some questioning from Kev regarding why I was so passive in my play it paid off. The simple fact is that I haven’t been doing that recently and there has been no preparation with either the Orc’s or the ill fated Nurgle team and despite a strong Orc start this has showed in my results in tournament Blood Bowl against good players.
PPPPPP!
I’m not going to lie and say that this current slump isn’t getting to me but actually sitting and writing about it is to some extent the first step in getting it back together.
Until I started writing I’d not really considered why it was going this way and I was putting it down to a combination of bad luck and unfamiliar teams, but the fact is its much simpler than that. PPPPPP. Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. I know this. My real-life job as a teacher instils this in my pupils every day but I’ve clearly been ignoring my own teaching. So the deal is this. If I’m going to let myself be affected negatively by this stupid game moving fantasy creatures around board, rolling dice in a game of chance then I should at least be properly prepared to put the work in beforehand. Otherwise I might as well just play Flings…
Dave – (Dusher1)
Note: I will be at Home Nations next returning to Delves with the Claw on Tour Team and will be returning to Chorley with…Flings..
Hope to see you there.
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