Written by Coach Mournival
The Welsh Open is one of the most anticipated events of the year, which helps a lot as it is held in January! As a semi recent tourney chaser, ever since I went to my first Welsh Open last January, I knew I had to attend again!
This two day event is set in Firestorm games in Cardiff, an ideal venue for a Bloodbowl tournament, with loads of numbered tables, TV’s to see the amount of time left in a round and a bar/snack shop.
Coaches gathering at Firestorm Games, Cardiff waiting for the Welsh Open to start
For this tournament I decided on taking my trusty Chaos Dwarfs with a roster of:
Two Bull Centaurs with Block
Six Chorfs; four with guard and one mighty blow for banging
Four Hobgoblins; one dirty player cause why not
Inducements; three rolls and a biased ref
Round One - Mankoach with Skaven (Draw 2 - 2)
My first opponent was a Spaniard named Danny, with a deep bench and a Skaven roster with a tonne of re-rolls.high re-roll Skaven roster. X4 Gutters with Stripball/Wrestle, Sidestep/block, Sidestep/block and sprint. X2 vanilla blitzers and 8 linerats! Plus 5 re-rolls! With no skills on any other piece! A bold play for sure, but did it pay off for him?
Mankoack and his rats!
All games played during this event was perfect weather, so on to Danny to receive, who then very promptly scored on turn 3, after some dangerous manoeuvres by the Chorfs. The rest of the half was a series of attempts to break my cage, all the while slowly losing linerats to general blocks/blitzes, however, I was forced to score turn 6 to prevent my hobgoblin from being sacked.
Setting up again, the kickoff decided that the ball should fly completely up the pitch to the line of scrimmage, only for the ball to bounce out of bounds! Thanks to that favourable event, a ball was swiftly given to a gutter, who despite my best attempts managed to walk it in turn 8.
End of the first half the score was 2-1.
To the second half, where the kickoff event for me was a high kick! I decided to play a bit risky here, and pop a bull centaur under the ball, who then promptly caught it on a 6! The rest of the half was very favourable to me removals wise, I was crushing rats all over the place! Vast majority of these were KO’s, which meant there was still a chance for Danny to receive most of his players back to attempt a 3rd touchdown. With this in mind, I simply walked the ball up the pitch until my turn 16 to make it 2-2.
Round 2 - Podnuts with Chaos Chosen (Draw 1 - 1)
(Ed: Podnuts' NAF name is Dingleberry)
After a dynamic first game, I settled down to face Jamie with his Chaos chosen. His roster was quite scary, four re-rolls, four block warriors, six beastmen with three guards and a surehands goat, and lastly, but not least a rookie Mino!
(Ed: Jamie looking worse for wear, having had a drink with him in the bar the night previous!)
First half I kicked to Jamie, who proceeded to slowly grind his way up the pitch, bashing my players all over the place, before scoring in his turn eight. On to my drive, I tried to burst through early to go for the equaliser to give me a chance with potentially bringing it back for the win. I had everyone marked, the ball screened and in the hands of a bull, I was feeling pretty groovy, until suddenly Jamie announced he was going to blitz the ball carrier with his mino. YES! Bold play, I thought to myself, until the unthinkable happened, Mino failed his wild animal, loner re-roll, success! 4+ dodge away, success! Rush to base, success! Rush to hit! Success! Pow! Ball carrier sacked!
The rest of the game descended to me trying to retrieve the ball to wall it in at the end of my drive, which I succeeded with a lucky hobgoblin dodge. The game finished 1-1.
Round 3 - Ceetee with High elves (Loss 0 - 2)
A familiar face greets me as I prep for game three, Ceetee played me in round three of last year's Welsh Open, in which he beat me 1-0 with his orcs. As soon as he revealed his high elves to me, I knew I was in for a tough game, not only is Ceetee a good player, he loaded up his elves with four re-rolls, two blodge blitzers, three catchers with two dodge and a wrestle, one thrower and six lineman with two wrestle and a block lino!
This game was intense, every elf dodge potentially spelt disaster, but with a cool head (and even cooler dice!) Ceetee ran circles around my chorfs to make it 0-1 at the end of the first half. I set up to try and grind my way up, the ball was secure in the hands of a Hobgoblin, but elf screen after elf screen kept stalling me. It went to my turn 14, and a dodge was all that was needed to secure the touchdown, Dodge! 2, reroll! 1, splat!. It didn’t take Ceetee long to swiftly snatch the ball to sprint up the pitch, despite my best efforts, he scored in his last turn to make it 0-2.
End of day one and I finished 0-2-1, after some consoling (and jeers) by the rest of the Scottish coaches attending, we left and headed out for some dinner and drinks.
Round 4 - Doglobro with Chorfs (Win 2 - 0)
Game four of the second day paired me up against Jordan with his Chorfs. An interesting matchup, with two completely different rosters! Jordan decided to double skill all his key pieces, which included Block and guard on the mino, and sure hands and block on both bulls! Finishing off with six vanilla chorfs, two vanilla hobgoblins and three rerolls.
This game was crazy from start to finish, Jordan was rolling 1 dice blocks like they were going out of style (and succeeding), whereas for my part my bulls made dodges, jumping, diving all over the pitch. Unfortunately for Jordan, my block dice were simply hotter than his, removing key positionals to allow me to take the game comfortably 2-0.
Round 5 - Rhys Jones with Undead (Loss 0 - 1)
(Ed: Rhys Jones' NAF name is Greenstone)
Sliding into game five I was drawn against Rhys with his Undead (Ed: proper Welsh name for this coach!). His roster consisted of two mummies with Guard, two wights double tackle, foul block Ghouls with block, four zombies and four re-rerolls. This was truly a game of two halves. I kicked to Rhys who proceeded to methodically grind his way up the pitch.
However, a turn four ball sack on the ball carrier halted his efforts. I could not capitalise on this unfortunately, as one of my bull centaurs was KO'd! I will spoil it now, he did not return to the pitch for the rest of the game.
Second half and I was receiving, my cage was moving side to side trying to find a way through the undead defence. Soon enough an opportunity presented itself, a brave ball carrying hobgoblin dodged his way clear and was heading to a corner near the endzone. My joy soon turned to sorrow, as I snaked my last go for it.
Quick as a flash, ghouls had surrounded the ball and were then sprinting down the field! Eventually it was left to a last ditch blitz on the Rhys's ball carrying blodge ghoul, I cleared a path to the target, my chorf made both rushes to make it to the target, two-dice, double skulls! This allowed Rhys to walk it in for a 0-1 loss.
Round 6 - Shaun Gray (Spooner) with Humans (Win 2 - 1)
It's almost a tradition that Scottish coaches are drawn against each other in tournaments out with Scotland, and we are continuing that trend here. Shaun is a staple member of the Aberdeen blood bowl community in which we have both played in for the last four years. This is only the second time we have ever played each other in a tourney, so Shaun was looking to settle the score.
His human team consisted of an Ogre with guard, four guard blitzers, two catchers one with block, a rookie thrower, two rookie halflings and five lineman sporting wrestle and dirty player along with four re-rolls.
First half I received, with not much happening until turn four, when I injured one of the linemen. Shaun did not take this lying down, with his ogre immediately killing one of my guard Chorfs in return! This, along with some intense dodging, forced me to score fairly quickly. In reply, Shaun equalised in two turns with a long pass to a marked catcher, who easily dodged away to the end zone.
Spooner taking is dicing like a champ!
Start of the second half it went downhill for Shaun. Sadly (Ed: surely it’s happily - die ogre die!), I killed his ogre and swiftly started to remove his team wholesale from the pitch. As such, he could not defend his ball carrier from my bull blitz. A trusty hobgoblin recovered the ball to walk it in to make it 2-1 to me at the end of the game.
How it went in the end
I finished the Welsh Open with 2-2-2. A perfectly average run. I feel that the biassed ref was a bit sub-par throughout, and that in this rulest, a minotaur is not a bad choice. The Welsh Open is a great tournament, and it was great to have the company of some fellow Scots travelling down together. I am eagerly looking forward to the next Welsh Open and can’t recommend it highly enough as a brilliant weekend!
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