Greetings sports fans, and welcome to Blood Spatter, your weekly look at Blood Bowl! I'm Bill Billingham, and alongside me is Erin Eventide. Hello Erin!
Hello again, Bill!
So last week, you said you were really excited to see the match between the Banshees and the Glenwood Okes, did it live up to your expectations?
It really did, Bill. Both teams are fast, excellent at passing, and can pull off complex strategic plays. The Banshees won the toss, and as usual, decided to kick. They have a lot of faith in their ability to defend well and force turnovers.
The Oaks were looking like they would score very early, as their catchers easily dodged past the Banshee's forwards, while their thrower went for a long-bomb pass. But then centre forward Daala Darkleaf pulled off an amazing airborn intercept, passing to runner Kori Starfire, who made a break for the touchline. She wasn't fast enough to outpace the Oakes though, who quickly converged on her.
Yeah, it was looking pretty bad for Kori - until she threw a dump-off to Avele Rainjackal, and the Oaks were suddenly out of position, blocking a player who didn't have the ball, while Rainjackal scored.
It was a real back-and-forth game after that, both teams nearly scoring on multiple occasions. The Banshees struggled to keep the Okes under control, who dodged away from blocks over and over again, and outran the slower Banshees. And here we saw an interesting tactic - they couldn't do much against the wardancers, so they avoided them, and concentrated on cutting off their support instead, whilst keeping to a 7-4 formation in case the Oaks broke through the front line.
The Oaks are not as tough as the Banshees, who made full use of this by stunning as many opposing players as possible. Then late in the second half, the Okes showed some of their strategic genius, by forming a cage with their wardancers at the corners, forcing the Banshees to commit players to tackling the wardancers - only for the Oaks to disengage and run the entire cage across the field to the right wing!
The Banshees suddenly had to send most of their back line in to defend the right wing, so when Okes lineman Aric Foxblade broke though, the only player left between him and the touch line was kicker KJ Blackthorn. The Banshees had been outsmarted, and it looked like Foxbalde was going to score.
Blackthorn is a favourite amongst Banshee fans, and the familar cry of 'BLACKTHOOORN' rose up from the crowd as she blitzed into Foxblade right at the touchline, knocking him down and snatching up the ball, before throwing a long bomb to the captain, Tess Ravenblade, in centre-field. It looked like the Banshees were going to pull off an incredible last-minute touchdown, but again they were not able to outpace the Okes, and the game ended 1-0 to the Banshees.
Looks like Blackthorn is really becoming a thorn in the side of the opposition!
Stop that.
But, sadly, the game will be remembered more for the death of Okes lineman, Legolas Moonglove, than the heroics of Blackthorn. Legolas was badly injured after a crunching tackle by Kori Starfire, and died a few days later.
Look, I don't want to minimise his death, but this is Blood Bowl, Bill. Everyone wears armour, but sometimes things go wrong and people die. We know this. I think the media has been very unfair to Kori. And Greens player Shellee died in the match against the Orange Rats on Sunday, and no one seems to be talking about that! Are dryads more important than goblins? Do you even know which Rat it was that killed her?
Well, no, but that's only because half of the Rats team don't actually have names, Erin. And because no one cares about skaven anyway, whereas Kori is a pretty high-profile player.
-sigh- Can we just talk about Sunday's match between the Green Unseen and the Orange Rats?
The Greens were sporting some fancy new kit with red hats that has earned them the nickname 'Redcaps'. Last week, we called the game between the Rats and the Banshees a bloodbath, but now it looks tame in comparison.
The goblins came up with some decent strategies, only to have them all go horribly awry. They tried to counter Fluffy the rat ogre by sending Pog Stevo at him with a chainsaw, but that backfired as the rat ogre kicked him over, and the goblin was injured by his own illegal weapon.. Then their squig, 'Speedy' Zug grabbed the ball and sped down the left wing, protected by Burt the guard-troll and a a screen of redcap goblins. However, and a blitzer who seems to go by the name of Punch broke through the screen and stripped the ball away, setting up a turnover and touch down.
The game went from bad to worse, as the Skaven fans invaded the pitch, stunning the better goblin players,which allowed them to score a second touchdown. The scored again in the first half, and three times in the second.
All told, there were nine casualties, five goblins, three skaven, and Fluffy the rat-ogre, two pitch invasions by the fans, and four goblins were sent off for breaking the rules by sneaking weapons onto the field or committing fouls. But the worst casualty was when Burt the troll attempted to throw Speedy, but instead managed to do nothing but slam him into the ground.
The skaven team didn't come out of this too badly, Fluffy the rat ogre and one of the skaven gutter runners are out for their match against the Okes on Wednesday, but the Greens took a bit of a beating - the death of Shellee, smashed ankles, a shattered skull and various long-term injuries meant that they were short on players for their match on Monday against the Banshees, whilst the Banshees fielded thier new player, witch-elf Hecate Shrike. Again they chose to kick, leaving Starfire on the sidelines, Banshee manager Keith Gammage having stated that they would save her for offensive drives.
That match started off with quite a bang, Bill!
Right as the Banshees kicked the ball to the Greens, Laalia Tyrin-Stillwater made a completely unexpected break down the right wing, scooping up the ball before the goblins had even realised what was going on.
I think it even took her own team by surprise, Bill. The right wing blitzers had to scramble just to keep up her, let alone protect her from the back-line goblins. The only person on either side who showed any presence of mind was the Banshee's captain, Tess Ravenblade, who took advantage of the confusion to blitz into Pog Stevo, who had pulled out his chainsaw and was obviously planning to try and injure the Banshee's centre-forward. But he was the one suddenly being rushed back to the dugout with severe injuries instead.
Tyrin-Stillwater's tactics paid off, and she scored an early touchdown for the Banshees.
Damn, if it wasn't one of the most spectaular plays I've ever seen, Bill.
In response, the Greens were far more careful on their second drive, forming a cage. But they underestimated the Banshee's speed, and Tess Ravenblade managed to dodge into the Green's half and tackle the ball-carrier, before breaking away to score her first touchdown.
The goblins' offense was struggling a bit, showing how much they relied on Speedy, who was still injured from Burt's botched throw in their previous game. The trolls did manage to injure Daala Darkleaf, and after some though, they decided to send in Starfire,, who made a great drive down the left wing, but the Greens were prepared for her dump-off pass, and stalled the Banshees until the half ended.
The goblins kept up their stalling tactics in the second half, making the Banshees work very hard to gain ground, and towards the end of the half, both teams seemed to flag a bit, missing easy passes and pick-ups.
Yeah, we saw it in their game against the Orange Rats, and to a lesser degree against the Okes, but the Banshees do seem to run out of power toward the end of the second half. They did win 2-0 however.
They are still undefeated after four game, and currently lead the league by a good margin, though the Rats could close the gap if they beat the Okes on Wednesday, and then the Rangers, a game that hasn't been scheduled yet.
I'm excited to see the Okes and Rats play, the Rats are the only team faster than the Okes, but the Okes have near-flawless passing skills, something the Rats can do, but don't excel at. I suspect it might be quite a high-scoring game Bill!
Well, that's all we have time for folks! Join us later this week for in-depth looks at some of the teams and players. She's Erin Eventide, and I'm Bill Billingham, and this has been Blood Spatter!
Images from Games Workshop. More info on the Blood Bowl game at www.bloodbowl.com.
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