Match Day 7 - Matches

[Barmution]

After a hard struggle and a nice portion of luck the Material Ghouls becomes the first team this season to snatch a victory from Mr. B's seemingly invincible Khemri. Helped by some rather excellent armor the Undead was able to run off and score in turn 13 in the second half, leaving the ancient desert warriors with a tough task to equalize in 3 turns without rerolls - a daunting task for an ag2 team if there ever was one. A seriously deep kick almost put an end to B's hopes but some excellent positioning later and a super throw he was very close, only to be foiled by a failed GFI.

Thanks for a super-exciting game, Mr. B! One of the most fun matches I've had in a while (and not only because of me winning)  ;D
-Barm

[Mr B]

hehe, congrats Barmy.
Still think a draw would have been more what we had  ;)
That 1d block/blitz was a pain to see  :P securing 0-0 in the first half.

And yet it was quite strange to see 5 results above 8 in 54 with 2d.
But it was a good game as you did not have the best armor dice either, 11 above 8 in 54 tries.

But it was fun indeed  ;D

Cheers!
/B

[Gnaarkill]

Sunday would probably suit me best. 21 is a bit too late today since I need to start early tomorrow.

Is it OK too come back to you later with a time? Right now I think I'm free the whole day.

Hey Golden!

What time suits you best today?

How about 15.00? (CEST)

/Gnaarkill

[The Golden Arrow]

OK, now I'm kinda woken up... 15.00 should suit me fine, lets do that.

[Gnaarkill]

OK, now I'm kinda woken up... 15.00 should suit me fine, lets do that.

Cool, see you then!

[J-Reedy]

Excerpt from Blood Bowl Gazette vol 534 issue 16, p. 20:

NUL match week 7 recap by Fagronkey Nagrumbundyme.

Results from the week 7:


Welcome to recap of week 7 games of NUL! If you don't know what NUL stands for, this week it's Nobody Undefeated League! I'm of course referring to the fact that this week the previously undefeated Khemri side Drop Dead Gorgeous met their match and suffered a 0 to 1 loss to Material Ghouls in the exciting all-undead slugfest. All right, exciting might be a bit of an overstatement, as crowd pleasement numbers from this match are under the average. This is probably because the people who had come to see bloody - well actually bloodless, considering the teams – bashing witnessed only 2 casualties and 2 knock-outs. One possible explanation for this uncharacteristic result might be that most of the Khemri players probably are ex-royalty and Material Ghouls are a rare all-female undead team. It is understandable that after you've laid buried under sand for centuries, then brought to back to life and suddenly put against females who truly understand what you've been through – as they also probably have been buried down under at some point before their Blood-Bbowling careers – your noble upbringing rears up and you really don't want to ruin your chances of getting a date with the first female you've seen in ages by bashing her unconscious. This theory is supported by the fact that the Material Ghouls were the side that scored the 2 casualties. AND both of the casualties were scored by Grim Cashdarian which actually supports this theory. You should remember that in her previous – more lively – life this former queen of scandals notoriously preferred her men a bit more tanned. So she probably didn't like the whiteness of those two skeletons that made advancements towards her and decided to put some hurt on them. Fortunately for the DDG, neither of the bonesacks had no trouble regenerating, so both undead teams will be at full strength in week 8.

Despite their loss the DDG remain at the top of the standings, as the second place team Cougar Kittens managed to narrow the 3 point gap between the top teams only by 1 point. This was of course based on the amazon team having to settle for a 1-1 draw against the wood elf team The Partly Animals. Actually, I should say that the amazons were lucky to get the draw. The jungle women had a chance to delay scoring their tying TD to infinity in the 2nd half of the match but they decided go for a broke and scored early. Naturally this decision almost bit them in their lovely behinds, as the wood-elf fellows had a chance – not very likely, but still a chance - to score at the last seconds. Luckily for the amazons, the freebooting line-elf whom The Partly Animals had hired for the match proved to be too much of a ladies' man, as he decided he didn't want to leave the company of three of the amazon women guarding her and fell to their feet (probably one of those foot fancier fellows, can't say that I understand them but anyone has their own taste). Casualties scored were 2-1 in favor of the Cougar Kittens but none of the casualties will have any effect to week 7 games. Interestingly the 2 casualties that the Kittens scored came from the same wood-elf player: Amy Winemouse was hurt badly twice, but after she suffered her first boo-boo the wood-elf apothecary managed to put her back into play. However, according to sources miss Winemouse's rehab from the injury wasn't that effective as she seemed somewhat dazed and confused when returning to field and actually shouted "Back to Black!" every time she saw her team-mate Black Adger and then tried to rub her back against him. Fortunately she was soon taken out from the field, as the Kittens' blitzer Scavo Huffman blocked her down and out. It should also be noted that The Partly Animals introduced a new big guy player – treeman Timber Wolf – to their ranks. Mr. Wolf got rooted into the game right away, dropping the average speed of the wood-elf side closer to the average human levels.

Speaking of humans, the human side Getingarna emerged victorious from their match against the high-elf team White Fire. TDs were 2-1 but casualties were split 1 all. White Fire's injured line-elf will miss the team's week 8 match but Getingarna will play full-strength. The low casualty numbers on the field were somewhat buffered up by the crowds. This was mostly due to the misplacement of the injured Getinarna ogre Mar Skin-Tearer who wasn't still able to take the field but traveled with the human team and followed the game from the stands. The misplacement issue was that he was supposed to sit in section S5, right behind the Getingarna bench. However, the stadium officials mistakenly guided mr. Skin-Tearer to section 5S that had been reserved for the autumn party of the Registered Association of Suicidal and Over-Confident Halflings. Mr. Skin-Tearer ended the match with at least dozen casualties and extremely full belly. The Getingarna are still in the race for the top play-off spots, as they have a whopping three teams only a point ahead of them. If the humans manage a win from their last game against the Partly Animals, they could climb as high as 3rd place after week 8 depenging on the results of the other games. And although the White Fire share the last place with the norse Vinterlegionen, both of these teams are still weel within the play-offs race.

Speaking of the norse side, they got a visit from the Nurgle team Sweet Sweet Decay. The Vinterlegionen have one of the few players - werewolf Ylar - who can match the strength of the SSD's Nurgle beast Josix the Unclean. Unfortunately for the Vinterlegionen, only part of the match was decided by the actions taken on the field. The Sweet Sweet Decay had some very effective support from the crowd, who happily knocked-out a number of norse players pushed into the crowds and also seriously injured the above mentioned werewolf Ylar who will have to miss the Vinterlegionen week 8 game. Curiously there also was a fireball that hit the field, and more curiously only that part of the field that had a number of norse players standing there. The fireball only took out one of the norse but this was enough as the Nurgle side managed to dominate to sideline-play and the enthusiasm of the crowd. The final result was 0 to 1 for the Nurgle side in touchdowns and 0 to 3 in casualties. In addition to Ylar, the Vinterlegionen will also be missing blitzer Skald-Torfuson in their week 8 matchup.

The highest scoring affair of the week was the 4-0 beating that the Chaotic Dudes suffered against the pro-elf Elfy Way. Literally speaking the chaos side was of course the team that took care of the beating, winning the casualty race 2 to 0 and knock-outs 4 to 0. But this didn't help the chaos side as they reportedly seemed to have the most horrendous luck in all the technical aspects of the game. It should be noted that this is the second week in the row that the Chaotic Dudes have been disfavored by Lady Luck, as last week they had almost identical game against the Cougar Kittens. I didn't have time to check with the local clergy whether any of the chaos gods have had run-ins with the Lady Goddess of Luck and forgotten to call her next day, so there's no certainty why the Dudes have been so unfortunate lately. On the other hand, the Elfy Way seem to have finally almost recovered from their unlucky game against Drop Dead Gorgeus. If you remember, the elf side lost two of their players in that match which were severely hampered their chances. But after this week the Elfy Way managed to expand their roster size to 10 men and more importantly their blitzer Many had developed into one of those über-agile elf-bastards that can dive in smack-in-middle of a bunch of oiled-up Blood Bowl players guarding a prone ball, grab the ball and then dodge right out. On the other side of the spectrum, the Chaotic Dudes have now a beastman – Far-Nogor – who has developed a taste of hard-fisting his victims and then belly-flopping on them if they aren't knocked out. Can't argue with either of those tactics, each to their own taste as I always say.

Looking at the week 8 matchups, it's going to be a whopper of a week. Topping the calendar is the duel in the sun, where the current top-two teams Drop Dead Gorgeous and Cougar Kittens will meet on the Khemri lands. Then there's the White Fire versus the Chaotic dudes game that could prove to be deciding factor in the playoff-race. Then we'll see if the Elfy Way's recovery from their acute death-tolliatus will take a turn for the worse when they travel to play the hard hitting norse-side Vinterlegionen, although the elfs job is made a bit easier by the absence of two norse key-players. The Getingarna will be try to catch the teams 1 point ahead of them and also trying to make sure their week 8 opponent The Partly Animals will stay behind them in the playoff-seedings, as currently these two teams have only 1 point separating them in the standings. And finally, the Sweet Sweet Decay and Material Ghouls will try to break the tie of the three teams holding the tied 3rd place with 11 points, Elfy Way being the third team in this race. This will definately be an exciting week. Try to hang in there when we wait for the week 8 games to finish and remember to pick up your copy of Blood Bowl Gazette next week for the results!

Standings after week 7:

[Luiggi]

Nice write-up, J, as usual.

[Gnaarkill]

Yea great reading J!

Thanks for this summary, i love these reports =)

/Gnaarkill

[Mr B]

The never ending story machine  ;D
Thanks J!

[hakos]

Mar Skin-Tearer is currently a very happy ogre, lets see if that means good or bad things for the partly animals.

As you say, J-Reedy, the matches are becoming more and more important now, nice analysis.

By the way, will the play-off be seeded, 1 vs 8 2 vs 7 and so on?

[The Golden Arrow]

I can only agree, always like to read these.

And yes the play offs will be seeded like you described.

[Barmution]

Nice and wise words, J ;D

It's going to be some tough and vital games from now on, so let's make 'em count, lads!