Last week I played another round of Blood Bowl in my real league against a bunch of people I am connected to IRL. My dwarves were 2-0 so far, but both of my previous opponents were Dark Elves, and that is a great matchup for early progression dwarves. This past week I was up against Undead, who are a much more difficult matchup.
In theory.
In practice I smashed the Undead from one end of the pitch to the other.
The Undead received the first kickoff and KO'd one of my dudes on the first turn. It wasn't a good start, but I returned the favour, KOing one of them. Then I got a couple of dwarves next to the ball carrier and knocked down a bunch of their team. My opponent decided to run a Mummy over to rescue the ball carrier but they failed a Go For It, used their reroll, and then the dwarf knocked the Mummy down on a double Both Down result.
That sort of thing is rough. It meant that on my next turn I got the ball away from the opponent, scooped it up, and knocked down most of the enemy team. My opponent tried a crazy Dodging Mummy play (roughly 7% to succeed) and it failed and he left the rest of his team on the ground. I ran the ball to the end zone and my dwarves spent the rest of the half standing menacingly over his prone players while we each hit End Turn. I scored on the last turn of the half and was up 1-0. I had KOd two of his units and injured another, but he had a huge bench so he was still fielding a full team.
We started with me grabbing the ball and knocking down a few of his dudes. He tried to fight back, but ended up in a terrible position where I pushed one of his two Mummies off of the field and injured or KOd another two random dudes. I had the ball in a safe position and was definitely giving him the beatdown and my opponent said that he thought he should concede.
This was a difficult spot. I was up 1-0, in scoring position, and clearly dominant in the hitting game at that point. My opponent had only a tiny chance to win. However, even if he was a real long shot to win, staying in the game would give him 5 experience from earning an MVP and would also get him the cash from the game. Conceding gets him out without any serious injuries but left him without any experience from the game and still broke.
I wasn't sure how to respond. I wanted to continue to play, and I really wanted to play in a league where people fight to the bitter end, but his position was terrible and the most likely result is that I beat his dudes up for another five turns and beat him 2-0. I think my opponent would be better off fighting on, mostly because he had lots of cheap linemen to spare, so if I injure them it hardly matters. Getting more experience on his important units was critical enough to stay in and take the beating, I think.
But I don't want to be pushing people to play if they don't want to play. If a person wants to duck out, then I don't like harping on them to fight on. I did well with his concession - I got 17 experience in total, tons of cash, and a win. You can't ask for better, especially since I took no injuries.
Now I am 3-0, like two other teams in the league. I am among the highest in team value, and my team has a max bankroll and no injuries. I am in a great spot to compete for the trophy, and that makes me happy.
I am of two minds about this week overall. On one hand I like winning and doing well in a tournament. On the other I like games that are hard fought and tight, and this one felt like a blowout where I just smashed my opponent. The concession two thirds of the way through cemented that. I don't exactly know if I want other opponents to go the same way or not! I want to win... but I want to win *just barely*.
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