This week was week 2 of my fall Blood Bowl league. I lost last week, largely due to playing poorly / too aggressively, and this week I was determined to right that wrong. I was up against Skaven, and those sneaky rat men had a pretty normal crew with one particularly dangerous rat who had both Claw and Mighty Blow. I was determined to smash that rat to bits to keep him from hurting my dwarves.
I won the flip and elected to kick the ball to the rats. Things went badly right away as the rat with the pointy bits on him immediately injured a dwarf but that was just the start of that rat's amazing game. By turn five it had injured out two more dwarves and KOd yet another! I sent blocks at that rat but it would always fall over, not get hurt, and then stand up and remove yet another dwarf. Thankfully I was taking out rats at a similar rate so the field was clearing out quickly.
Around turn five I cleared out all the rats in the midfield and was suddenly able to put pressure on the ball which had been kept deep in my opponent's territory. His only real play to get the ball to safety was a really long throw and it failed. I capitalized quickly and grabbed the ball, running it almost to the TD line. I had a choice - stay two spaces away from the line, and leave a possible blitz on my ball carrier requiring a double go for it and some dodges, or take a single go for it myself to get to complete safety. I had a reroll available, so taking the go for it to secure the ball seemed like the right choice.
I rolled a 1, rerolled it into a 1, and my dwarf fell down. This would *still* have been just fine and dandy if the dwarf was just prone as he could stand up and score next turn anyway. But he injured himself with his fall and was stunned, out of the play. This catastrophe let the ratmen grab the ball, double go for it, throw the ball, catch, double go for it, hand off the ball to the rat ogre (which, it should be noted, is TERRIBLE at catching and running with the ball) and the rat ogre ran in for a turn eight touchdown.
We started the second half with me fielding nine dwarves and my opponent having seven rats. I bashed his team around a bit and moved my pile of dwarves up the pitch, and was faced with a dilemma on turn thirteen. I could either just stick with the cage and lock in a 1-1 draw, or I could score and desperately hope to take the ball away from the rats and score again in the last three turns of the game to secure a victory.
I think the sensible play here is to go for the draw. I was in an extremely secure position and my chances of getting that second touchdown in three turns were not good. But I don't want to draw! I want to WIN.
So I rushed in for the touchdown and hoped for a lucky break. I got my break because the rat assigned to collect the ball developed a bad case of butterfingers and I was able to run the dwarves in and make his life really difficult. On the next turn the first rat assigned to throw a block knocked himself down and I easily scooped up the ball and ran in for a touchdown, winning the game 2-1.
I think my play was wrong, but it sure worked out for me.
The after game was pretty sad for the rats and pretty great for me. I got four levels and the rats got none. All three of the injuries on me were just Badly Hurt, so all the dwarves are still good to go for next game. The rats, on the other hand, had a Blitzer die and two Gutter Runners are missing the next game with serious injuries. Their position going forward is ... not good.
Their incredibly devastating rat petered out in terms of success after its amazing run at the start of the game. It managed to escape the game unscathed but also didn't succeed at taking out any more of my dwarves, in part because it was part of the ridiculous scoring run and in part because I kept bashing away at it to keep it facedown.
My levels weren't exciting but do seem good. I got Dodge on a runner which is solid and another random lineman got Guard. I decided to give a troll slayer Stand Firm so he would be better at pushing people out of bounds and not getting pushed out himself. I also gave my blitzer Strip Ball, as I think having one copy of that on a team is a fine plan as it can force the opponent to play around it. Still, the dwarves both got better at bashing and also at playing the ball, so I am pleased with the way the team is working out.
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