By StripeyDave (Chris Noden)
Going into the last tournament of the Scottish season - Jingle Bell Bowl with its Christmas theme StripeyDave decided to mix it up by embracing the lore of an all Hob Goblin team. Read on for the tales from his day.
Why should I play the Hobgoblin Team in a tournament?
By all rational metrics: you shouldn't. Really. They are based on the Chaos Dwarf roster and will be tiered accordingly - so fewer skills and likely less Star Player access compared to similarly disadvantaged teams. You have access to two positionals, one isn't very good but cheap whereas the other is still below average, and even then slightly over costed.
The Starting....15? Hodgman's Hoboes
Why should I play a themed team?
It’s fun. It really is. It gives you a refreshing look at options outside the meta and poses a really interesting challenge. A quick glance at Blood Bowl lore gives you some inspiration. There's the Bright Crusaders whose gameplay is based on honesty and fairness - or, on the opposite side of the coin - the Dwarf Warhammerers - renowned for secret weapons and general cheating. How you interpret these traits is up to you. Alternatively you could play the most historically bad team in all of Nuffledom. The Hobgoblin Team.
The Hobgoblin Team in lore
As research for getting into the mindset of playing Hobgoblins, I did some research on the team upon which mine is based. "Boasting" two of the "top 3 worst players of all time", the Hobgoblin Team was a byword for sporting incompetence on an epic scale. In their one canonical season they played in NFC Western Conference with the Orcland Raiders, Galadrieth Gladiators, Lustria Croakers (back when GW still recognised Slann), and the World's Edge Wanderers finishing with a record of 0-0-16 with a TD ratio of 3-48. They also allegedly hold some interesting records including most spectator fatalities after their multiple (Monty Python inspired?) stadium mishaps - the first one fell over. The second one caught fire. The third one caught fire and then fell over. The final (documented) stadium collapse was caused by an over-exuberant performance by the Oldheim Ogres's cheerleader squad.
The Hobgoblin Team then promptly disappeared - thought subsumed by Chaos Dwarf teams.
From plan to pitch
The first decision was which team to get. I settled on the Torchlight hobgoblins who covered my two main requirements: they look reasonably good and seemed easy to paint. A quick discussion with an etsy seller gave me extra hobs in exchange for the Chaos Dwarf players and I had a team. Initially I was going to play 13 vanilla hobs and a minotaur but settled on 13 plus the 2 stabbers in the end. All hob or go home.
For inducements I toyed with bribes, rerolls, biased ref and so on. Going reroll heavy seemed to go against the team ethos, so went with 1 reroll, bribe and the super-expensive chef. Whilst having a "Halfling" chef may not be appropriate, I figure having some sort of expensive "Heath Robinson" reroll-stealing mechanism of dubious efficacy was at least Hobgoblin lore-adjacent...
In the end we rostered 13 Hobgoblin Linehobs, 2 Sneaky Stabbers, 1 reroll, Chef, Bribe, 2 coaches.
Skillswise there were only 6 primaries on offer, so figured a few block and wrestle were key - so two of each - and one dirty player (DP+1) for removal. For the last skill I took kick. Kick was quite a random choice and was done in a hurry just before roster deadline. I intended to give it some more thought, but time ran out and I was stuck with it. As it happens it ended up being quite useful, so I'm glad I kept it. Check out the roster on Tourplay.
The name of the team and its players came from John Hodgman's book: "The Areas of my Expertise" in which he names 700 hoboes. And so, “Hodgman's Hoboes” was born.
So: how did it go?
Game 1 vs L0rdgibby’s Undead
Fairly typical undead roster: Guard mummies, guard wight, mighty blow wight, block/wrestle ghouls. Only 2 ghouls though, so prime stab targets...
My very first tournament Chef roll!
I received first and drove up the left. I managed to avoid the worst of the MB in the opening exchanges. Early on one stabber found himself next to a mummy and speculatively jabbed at the towering monstrosity. Two rolls of 11 put the beast down. Unfortunately for me, the dice decided to continue bestowing their blessings and gave my opponent a 6 for regen. Pushing aside the scrambling defence, the plucky hobs scored for 1-0. Easy, right?
Unfortunately, that was the high point of hobgoblin achievement in this game. The roused Undead with their restored mummy turned to their strengths - grinding down the field through the rapidly cooling bodies of the opposition. I couldn't prevent a reply at the end of the first half or the inevitable score in turn 8 of the second. The final kick off didn't yield the Time Out that would have given my 5 players a mathematical chance of scoring. The game ended 1-2.
The Undead took their revenge!
Game 2 vs FaerieQueenofAlbion’s Gnomes
The kick-off brought a change in the weather - a Blizzard. Snow descended from the sky along with several flying Gnomes. Turns out jump-up wrestle is a potent combination as long as the plucky chaps' armour holds. Lots of dodge made the gnomes particularly slippery characters and Grombrindal brought some extra steel to the line-up.
Gnomes took the ball first, but made little progress. Eventually, the hobs got a shot at the ball after a failed hand-off and took their chance on a 4+ pickup, 3+ dodge. 1-0 at the half and receiving gave the hobgoblins confidence. Reality intervened after a sneaky fox downed the ball carrier on a 1D pow. With a screened fox unwilling to give up the ball, desperate measures were called for: namely 4+, 5+ dodge and a 2DB on the fox. Despite the hobs' reputation for rank incompetence, the move was executed flawlessly with just one reroll used. The fox went down, the ball was covered in tackle zones and time thankfully expired to give the Hobboes a 1-0 win!
Game 3 vs LordGarlack playing Vamps
Hovering around mid-table brought the real risk of another game against a non-stunty team and so it proved being drawn against the Vampires of LordGarlack. The Vampires had a fairly traditional line-up: dodge on the runners, leader & block on throwers, a strip ball blitzer and a couple of wrestle thralls.
In previous games against Vampires, I’ve found the “target the Thralls and hope the Vamps roll ones” strategy has proven a sound one - so that’s how the Hoboes approached this one.
Again, the weather gods determined that normal weather was boring - and so both teams lined up in the sweltering heat! With consummate ease, the Vampires quickly took control, turning over the hapless Hobgoblins to score. Knowing it’d take something special to get anything out of the game, the hobgoblins launched a desperate scheme to draw level – the 2DB uphill and GFI blitz cleared the ball leaving the way clear for the 3+ dodge, 3+ pickup, 6+ throw and 3+ catch. Putting some of my previous elf experience to shame, the hobgoblins executed flawlessly and the score at the half was a scarcely believable 1-1.
In the second half, stabbers and the heat had whittled down the Vampire team’s numbers a little, but they still managed to break through and score to take a 2-1 lead. Luckily, with rerolls gone a couple of fortuitous (for me) snake-eyes and double skulls from the nefarious nosferatu meant the hobgoblins could break through and screen to score the game tying TD on turn 8. Game ends 2-2.
Some last gasp action to lock up the 2-2 draw versus the Vamps
Reflections – The “Worst Team in the Game”?
Their reputation of being the worst of the worst is unfounded based on their stats. A real challenge (one I’m not intending to take up any time soon) would be the Scarcrag Snivellers: Eleven at the start of the match – no Trolls, no Secret Weapons… Maybe one day. Essentially, they’re just (much) worse humans – so the usual rules for humans apply, but more so. If you can roll 3+ dodges, pickups and catches (and the occasional 6+ pass helps!) then you’ll do OK as long as your (worse) armour holds. Some days it will, some days – less so.
I was lucky I didn’t run into more pure bash – there was a MB-heavy Orc team I was dreading – or pure speed – like Skaven. I get the impression either of those matchups would be a long day at the office.
So the hobgoblin experiment wasn’t a complete disaster - although even if it had been, then that would have been thoroughly in-keeping with the lore of the team. Regardless, I had a great time and even won some “nerd points”. I managed more TDs in 3 games than the historical Hobgoblin Team managed in 16 and certainly more success. I have some successful rolling on my part and more than a few flubs from my opponents (and some fortuitous weather) to thank for the over-achievement of the hobgoblins in my charge.
What does the future hold for my hobgoblins? Given I doubt there will be a decent tournament rules pack for a pure hobgoblin team any time soon, I may use them as a teaching tool. I’ll pilot the hapless hobs against new opponents to allow them a game or two against a more forgiving opponent before going full T1 meta against them.
Will they see a tournament pitch again? Well, never say never…
Resources:
Roster on Tourplay:
53 minutes, 50 seconds of John Hodgman’s 700 hobo names (featuring Jonathan Coulton):https://archive.org/details/700HoboNames
Sources of Hobgoblin Team lore:
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