Pinback gets Thrudded

"If you go to any tournament this year, make sure you go to Thrud" Says the GlowFather.

This was what I was told way back in January and with ticket number five, I waited excitedly for the weekend of the 11th August to arrive.

The rules pack allowed me 1.2million to hire my team, which could include four star players that could either be from those allowed in the CRP, or I could build them (full rules pack can be found here). I kept it pretty simple adding:

1x Block Mino
1x Block, Break Tackle Centaur
1x Block, +1 Ag Centaur
1x Sure Hands, Leader Hobgoblin

to a rather standard 6 Dwarf, 3 Hobgoblin, 2 Centaur, 1 Minotaur and 1 re-roll team.

For those that don't know the ThrudBall event: Its a two day, six game, Blood Bowl tournament. Held on the south coast of England and all of the money made goes to The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation. 

Now this alone was a great reason to go and also one that helps grease the home life wheels, when you inform your better half that you will be off for the weekend to partake in a charity event.

However, Frank Hill the event organiser goes way beyond expectation and offers up a weekend of non stop laughs, awesome merchandise and an auction filled with items from pro-painted teams to foam rocket launchers.

My Thrud adventure started on the Friday afternoon, as I loaded bags, teams and three good friends into my car for the two and a half hour journey south.

Although camping at the venue (for free) was an option, I didn't own a tent and all the needed paraphernalia (yep I going with that being the reason),  so I opted for a local B&B which cost in total about £50.00 for the two nights, which in my opinion is great value.

After meeting up with with my room-mate for the next two days, an old friend who had travelled down from the the opposite side of the UK and who is also new to the Blood Bowl Tournament scene, we all grabbed some food (Fish and Chips of course) and them headed to the Thrudball venue to spend the evening drinking, talking bollocks and getting eaten to death by Mosquitoes, with all those that had manned up and come with a tent.

Tournament Day 1:

After downing my Full English breakfast we were off to the venue, I wont admit to being confident about how the next two days would play out for me and my Dwarves. But, I was relaxed in the feeling that following the Crumb-Bowl wooden spoon award, I could only do the same or better and no worse.

The round one draw matched me up against travel buddy Ian (Buggrit on TFF) and his Norse team. We had only played each other once before and that was earlier in the year at CakeBowl , where I had scrapped a draw versus him and his human team. I knew this was going to be harder as that was his first outing with humans. But, with Norse he was far more experienced.

Following the failure of Mr Rashnak at Crumb-Bowl, I had rehired my number 9 Minotaur. I would love to say he earned that rehiring on game one. But following his knockdown on turn one he refused to get up, only managing to remove one opponent in the first half and that was the result of them fouling him and rolling doubles. 

The game closed on a win for the Norse, which at the very least took the pressure off. looking back I spent way to much of the game panicking about all of his frenzy which resulted in me reducing my pitch by at least three squares on both sides.

After a great lunch, the round two draw was up, I was facing a goblin team lead by a player named Andy Don. His entire team was a made up of squigs playing the role of goblins. even the trolls were giant cave squigs.

I know I should have been over the moon with a match like this. But, as a Rookie I was totally lost and very unsure what to expect. I knew I would be facing Bombs, Chainsaws, Po Go's and Fanatics. How I was going to deal with them however was quite the mystery.

The game ended on a win for me, which I was of course pleased with and Andy was by far the most fun opponent I played all weekend. He truly embodied the goblin spirit of play all through-out and if there was a crazy play to be played, you could ensure he was doing it.

On the high of a win I bounced into my game three, only to be smacked down to earth by the horror that was Will's Undead team and his Mummies.

The two very first blocks of the game ended with a dead Minotaur and Dwarf and the hurt didn't stop till turn sixteen. I lost that game with only a handful of players left on the pitch, ending the day with me closing in on spoon territory.

With all the games over for the day Frank kicked off the auction. Allot of the items can still be seen on the website. But, in person they were even better. I was mostly interested in the unpainted models, as I really enjoy that part of the hobby (although I am slow at it) and I managed to win  some great new miniatures to add to my Chaos Pact team, along with some cool dice from a number of US events.

My favourite win was what will become my Pacts chaos ogre. Although he was painted, I just loved how he looked and the rest of the team will be modelled and painted to fit with this.

With all the items sold, we all head outside to watch the Sumo challenge. where players put on padded sumo suits and fight it out in two's, for a chance to be crowned Sumo King.

It didn't take long before I was squeezing my way into the costume and hurling myself at opponents, I didn't end up as the crowned champion, that honour went to a fella named Goran who had traveled with friends from France to join the fun at Thrud (which I found out they do every year). I also didn't stop laughing from start to finish.

Day one was rounded off with a few games of Zombie dice, a card game called Weed, some perudo and what may have been a couple to many beers.

Tournament Day 2:

Game four and I was facing off against another travel and also league mate, Stu aka CaptainSplat aka Bitch Stewie. He was playing a Skaven team built for speed and as many one turn touchdowns as he could fit into sixteen turns.

My plan was to let him receive, allow him his one turner and then grind him for 16turns allowing me a 2-1 win and leaving him with no living gutter runner to make the last touchdown for a 2-2 draw.

Well, a BLITZ action for the Rats soon put pay to that plan. But, that led to a hugely exciting game that ended up with a well earned tie.

Game five and I was once again up against Norse. I was pleased to see I had learnt something from previous games. But it felt like the dice just didn't want me to have this. 

With a late score from the Norse in the 1st half, I spent the second half working my way up field and then spent five turns with the ball in his end zone and my centaur and his dwarf buddy fumbling the ball while behind them came enough frenzy to surf two teams off a pitch. 

That game ended as a loss but I felt a little better knowing that I was not in the bottom four, resulting in me being free of the spoon spot. 

The reason for this is that at the end of round five the bottom four teams come together to play a game invented at Thrud, called DockBall. The rules for the games can be found on the Thrud site. From what I got to see, it seemed totally insane, with cannons being fired, masts falling and players travelling in sewers. The loser of that was then the winner of the most Thrudded award (the wooden spoon).

My last game of the weekend was against an Amazon team. I had everything (team skill wise) I needed to win this and win it I did. My opponent Mike was great and stayed sporting and smiling through every unlucky dodge and both down result and we ended the game on a 2-0 win for the dwarves.

So, where did that put me.... Well not bottom, so that was already an improvement. I ended up 25th out of 38 coaches and I was well chuffed with that. 

What was extra great was that this meant I also won the award for best newcomer (less than three tournaments and less than three years of play). 

All in all, the weekend was utterly amazing and every bit and more, the awesome event I had been told it was. For that I want to thank Frank and all of the other folks involved in bringing it together and in closing......

If you go to any tournament next year, make sure you go to Thrud.

Planning for life after the Milliners

The dream that is block, tackle, thick skull and a healthy offering of mutations, is one that cannot last forever and over the last few months, whilst completing my Chaos Dwarves, I have been building up some new teams, in readiness for me taking my first steps away from my big-hatted security blanket.

I think I already mentioned that I am still running on rookie when it comes to painting experience and this is most evident when it comes to speed. God I paint slow.... I also struggle with the "ooo shiny" syndrome, that means I spend way to much time looking at other pretty teams rather than getting my head down and doing some serious painting.

This has however got a little better. I think allot has to do with the deadlines of tournaments and new league seasons. My Dwarves have just embarked on their second season in the local League (CakeBowl) and with this ending near Christmas, it fits well with my "Play just 1 team for the 1st year" plan, It will have fitted even better if I round it all off by winning the league... But, lets not get ahead of ourselves.

With a few months ahead to get a team ready, I started to make up some tester models for my new teams, as inspiration. This early start should ensure I begin my 2013 Blood Bowl adventure off with fully painted models and have some team choices when it comes to the tournament calendar for that year.

My GW zombie and his new friend from Impact Minis (sculpted by Phil Bowen) are the first two to be completed. these will be players for Undead and Norse teams. 

I am also putting together a Chaos Pact team but this was slowed down a little, after receiving twelve marauders on sprues but no left arms.....  Perhaps they were all very optimistic about the blessing of a mutation.

As more things get put together and painted I will add them up. Doing so may also help me keep a good pace.

Lastly, if any skilled painters out there can offer up some constructive advice based on what they have seen that would be awesome. 

The Villainous Milliners

As mentioned in my last post. Here is the team that started it all for me, only a few months back. The mighty Villainous Milliners.

Just yesterday I finally got round to touching up the chips that had been caused by the two tournaments and one league season. I opted for Vallejo's liquid matt varnish which seems to be working just fine.

With the exception of my sideline items this is a Games Workshop team and I can stand proud and say I love the big hat Chaos Dwarf look.

After thinking long and hard I went for a simple colour and paint job. This is the highest number of models I have ever painted. Prior to this I can pretty much only count a handful of other items, since taking gaming back up. I was if I am honest quite pleased with the outcome and I already have two other teams on the painting table, with a third on the way. 

The team itself features only very minimum conversion. The other bull once sported a sword and standard. these where snipped away and exchange for knuckle dusters and in the spirit of recycling the Standard lives on as my turn counter. The counter next to it is for re-rolls and came about following me realising that rather than throw away that left-over blob of Green-Stuff I could instead make a little dice.

As this was my first ever team I also got very excited by the prospect of sideline characters. For the Chaos Dwarf squad there is nothing standard and so I set about hunting the web for suitable models. It wasn't long before I stumbled across the company Reaper who seem to make a model for every thing while also not forcing you to sell an organ to buy them.

My three gals were originally forge maidens. But with the help of some snips, bits and Green-Stuff they become my Babe, Apothecary and my Wizard. the conversions were pretty straight forward. the Babe being the hardest as the tankards were hand made, oh and the bloody tongue on the wizards staff. the originals can all be found here.

As first teams go I would advise any new player looking to try Blood Bowl to give Chaos Dwarves a try. They can be very forgiving while at the same time offer a great level of diversity.

I never get tired of seeing the shock on an opponents face when the Centaur moves nine squares, rolls two dice and pops free the ball which was thought to be well out of reach of my stunty legged team.

I am still to get that one turn touchdown with him though.

When the Pinback Crumb-Bowls

It had been a huge build up for the 1st ever Crumb-Bowl one day Blood Bowl event, organised by my good friend Glowworm and held last week in the village of Sutton Benger in Wiltshire UK. 

This was mostly linked to him asking me to knock together the trophy bases for all of the awards he had organised. Why did I admit to having so much spare timber....

As planned, I was sticking with my Chaos Dwarves, The Villainous Milliners (I will put up a proper introduction post about them next I promise). You see, had decided at the start of my Blood Bowl journey, that in order to learn the game I should keep it simple for the first year and so its all Chaos Dwarf for 2012.

But, with so many roster options I was lured astray from the simple roster build (that had served me pretty well at the Cake Bowl event only a few months back) by those shiny star players, leading me to taking the 200k and what i now realise, huge waste of gold, Rashnak Backstabber. 

The roster rules were pretty simple. 1.1 team value, 1 star player, 4 regular skills and 1 double (no stacking). with this I put together the following:

1x ReRoll

1x Fan Factor

1x Asst Coaches

1x Cheerleaders

2x Bulls: Both with Block. I know allot of people will be screaming Break Tackle at me. But, at the moment I like the dependability of Block on these guys and I am never too worried about that 4+ dodge.

6x Dwarves: 1 with Mighty Blow and one with Leader. Yep that's right no guard for me, which came down to me figuring that with one guarder I was always bound to be sticking him in the wrong spot, as I was often doing in league play.

3x Hobgoblins: 1 with Sure Hands.

1x Rashnak Backstabber: Much of the reason came from me simply having the model and a desire to field it, following its fresh new paint job. I was also keen to see what stab was like. 

On paper, to a rookie like me, stab seems awesome. "Whats that.... I just roll for your armour...... No chance of me getting double skulls????". I discovered over the course of my three games, that this is not the super skill that I had imagined it to be.

Game one was against local friend Be4ch (of Nufflelovesdoubleskulls blog fame). A mere week before we had faced off in a Crumb practise match, that had resulted to me winning the game and me dropping my Minotaur from the roster, after him doing little more than growl and snarl at the opposition. 

I will admit I was a little confident. But, it was not to be. Be4ch had nailed the tactics for all that Guard he had deployed and I came away from game one with a loss. 

However, I also came away with a lovely spot prize of a chainsaw Orc model, following Be4ch's first block of the game resulting in his chainsaw gutting poor Rashnak. Huh, i guess he was good for something.....

Game two and I was pitched against a league friend Kungfupanda, who's Norse simply managed to out pound and skill me, leaving me with my second loss of the day....

It was about this time I was starting to realise I may be in the running for the dreaded spoon..... So far I had only managed two touchdowns and two casualties. 

My last game of the day was against a new coach AlanRoy and his Orcs. I had never played against Orc's before and all I thought about was how full our KO and Injury boxes may end up with so much blocking and so few dodges.

Nuffle it seemed, had a different plan. For an entire 32 turns, not one injury occurred. In fact armour was only broken a handful of times. We ended our game on a 1-1 tie. We also ended our game last, which meant a few spectators had gathered to watch my final attempt to long bomb it to my Centaur for a turn 16 winning Touchdown... Thank you Nuffle for letting every dice succeed on that, excluding the very last one.

Even with the not so great results I still loved every minute and came away having learnt a few more tricks from the more skilled players that I was matched up against and those I had watch play. 

But..... What about the spoon? Yep I came home with it. On the plus side though, its my 1st Blood Bowl Trophy and there is no way I can do any worse at the next event......... Right?

As for next events. That will be Thrudball on the 11-12th August in Bognor Regis. Sorry Rashnak, no invite for you.

You can play games with these little guys?

It took me a long time to wake up to what the world of table top gaming had to offer. Its not that I had no idea, its just that I had spent most my youth buying, building, what can loosely be described as painting and then displaying my 28mm characters, rather than reading most of the rule books that accompanied them. There was simply not enough time to learn all these games, when all you want to read is the latest issue of Spider-Man.

It was only really five years ago that I discovered how much more was on offer and that's mostly thanks to a work colleague (and now great friend) who used to be a minion of GW and who at the time had run short of local gaming buddies.

It didn't take him long to persuade me. To be honest, when it comes to stuff like this I am pretty easy to convince. 


So, with a gap of over fifteen years, I leapt back into the table top hobby world, excited and thinking the same way I am sure most of us big kids think, which is that now as a grown-up you can buy all the things your shitty paper round earnings had denied you all those years ago.

This all meant that I started big and within a matter of a few months I had gathered together a huge Warhammer Fantasy Empire army. At the same time I had also convinced my younger brother to join in with the madness and he also ventured into the FLGS leaving with more models than he should have.

But, I could no longer get away with just sticking all these lovely new models on a shelf. I had committed to learn some rules and add to that I had discovered that I had become far more fussy about the quality of a painted figure. This is great if you know what you are doing. I however no longer did it seemed. Nostalgia was telling me I was a master at this. My sausage fingers where telling me a very different story.

It didn't matter to much though, you can still play games with primed models and if they had all waited for me to paint everything, I am sure we would all still be waiting. In fact I know it, as they to this day remain unfinished.

Grasping the rules was not so bad. I am more of a learn as you go person and I picked things up okay. As a kid I had played a little D&D (I realise now not so well). So things didn't seem to alien. But, that WHFB rule book ain't so small.

2010 ended with me moving away from what had become a great Warhammer gaming group. Luckily however, we had all started to look beyond Fantasy and the Cyanide Blood Bowl game had reminded that very same work mate what he should have got us all playing to start with.

I loved the game, I never got into the on line league side of things. But I love the fantasy aspect of it all (much of the reason I enjoyed WHFB) along with a simplicity and speed that is fantastic when compared to the Warhammer marathons I was used to. It also meant I could keep gaming with my now distant mates.


The only thing that was lacking however was that tactile interface. To me there is nothing that compares to rolling the dice and moving the miniature. So an evening on ebay later and I had won myself a Chaos Dwarf team, with no real idea if they were any good at all. I just wanted them, as they were a race I liked from the fantasy game. I was also ecstatic that I only needed to paint what seemed like a handful of models. 


It was at this point that I started reading everything I could find on line about Blood Bowl. It didn't take to long to find TFF, The NAF and most importantly my local league Cakebowl and I was soon finding every journey filled with the soothing tones of the Three Die Block guys or the  Zlurpcast crew (and now also Both Down).


In the roughly twelve months that I have been playing this awesome game, I have completed my very 1st league season, coming in 4th and played my 1st Tournament, where I managed what I felt was a respectable mid-ish table finish. 


What I have discovered, is that the community is hugely welcoming and great at helping a rookie like me learn the ropes and its those experiences that I want to share in this Blog.