Breaking rocks in the hot sun...

I fought the Laws and...one Law won, I fought the Laws and...the other lost. ;)

[/Clash]

So, inaugural matches for the Marienburg Stealers last night, and a lot of fun was had. Touchdowns were scored, skills were earned, players were killed, and laughs were...er, laughed.

First up, I played +Lindsay Law's human team, including Bert the Ogre! Eek!

The game began well, with a quick score from the Stealers; man, Skaven are fast. +Lindsay's team put a real hurting on the rats, though, killing two linerats outright, and keeping 1 to 3 players knocked out throughout the game.

Despite being outnumbered (and facing an Ogre!) the rats were just too damned fast and too damned nippy (Gutter runners proving to be the real stars of the team, despite their paltry strength of 2), and while the Humans were able to score a touchdown of their own, the Stealers also managed to sneak in another. Another three!

In true rat form, after scoring the spectacular final touchdown, I set up for the single remaining human turn in a classic "cowardly lion" formation:

Stealers to the left of the picture: minimum 3 linerats in the line of scrimmage,
the rest of the team out of blitzing range!

 So, final score 4-1: a solid win, but having lost two players, my team value barely went up, despite gaining a fan factor and buying an apothecary. Two of my Gutter Runners gained skills, too: Skreekit took Guard (rolled a double!) and Snikt took block. Nice.  I rounded out my depleted numbers with a Journeyman linerat to take my numbers up to 11, to play against +Andrew's high elf team.

These weren't all painted yet, indeed the catchers are still sporting stumps instead of mitts, but the conversions look great. The game initially went all my way: I got lucky with armour and injury rolls, killing an Elf early on, as well as knocking others out. I took an early lead in the points, and was accruing SPPs: Krikt, a Blitzer, killed an Elf and scored a touchdown, meaning he was going to get a skill roll, and in a foolish demonstration of hubris, I gave him the nickname "Elfkilla".

Of course, next restart, having just scored (taking it to 2-1), the Kick Off Table result lead to a giant rock being dropped on his head, killing him. "No worries," says I, "that's what the apothecary is for." I reroll and...of course...he's still dead. Nuts.

As the game went on, it grew closer and closer. Both teams were below 11 players now, and we took turns being a man down (well, an elf/rat down). The second turn, in particular, degenerated into farce, as the ball seemed to be coated in butter: nobody could pick the damned thing up, or pass it worth a damn.

We ended up in a swirling melee in the centre, with all bar two players in base to base contact. It was 2-2, in the bottom of the second half. The next score was almost guaranteed to win. +Andrew executed an excellent an excellent manoeuvre, and needed a 2+ to go for it to score...and rolled a 1! With no rerolls, the ball bounced loose: turnover! I ran a gutter runner in, against the odds, he picked up the ball, and successfully passed it into the melee...only for the receiver (ironically, by only remaining thrower!) to fail the catch.

The ball bounces all over the place: Andy has some poor luck, as do I; nobody can do anything with the ball! I try an audacious plan, blocking Andy's players to shove mine closer to the end zone...but fail the dodge out. Andy shoves one of my gutter runners around, needing 4 separate 2 dice blocks before he finally knocked him over, freeing the ball. A gutsy pass and the pointy-ears scored, taking the final score to  3-2 defeat for the stealers.

Great fun, classic Blood Bowl! :)

The Stealers, newly colour coded

One thing that became apparent during the games, was that it was hard to tell my players apart. I found the gutter runners easy enough to spot, being black, but my opponents struggled, possibly because from the front the brown skin is more visible. The throwers were the real issue for me though: from the rear they really were just linerats, as the ball they were carrying was tucked in their waist.

Unfortunately, I don't really have the time (or the patience!) to do a more ambitious conversion, to give them raised throwing arms, but a discussion of 2nd ed BB led to the answer: colour coding. It would feel wrong to to that to a Warhammer army, but Blood Bowl is much more of a board game, so colouring in the sides of the bases to indicate a player's class was a simple solution.

So now Blitzers are red, Gutter Runners black, Throwers brown, and Linerats green: hopefully that will help them be more clearly identified.

We did the post match stuff: Skreekit got another roll (having scored again) and rolled a double 5, meaning he had the choice of a skill from any table, or +1MA/+1AV. As tempting as extra armour was, a Gutter Runner with MA10 was just too tempting, so that's what I took.

Skreekit! Skreekit! Skreekit!

I lack the funds to replace my fallen Blitzer, so I'll probably round out the numbers with Journeymen Linerats in the meantime, keeping the value down and hopefully getting some inducements. Or I could get a 4th Gutter Runner...

;)

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