~D&M~ Preseason 5 Day 1

[eldaec]

Pre-Season 5 Drilling and Manliness - Day 1 of 6

The Results

Stir Fry	0 - 2	Going Forth by Day
Blue Line	0 - 2	Aery Faery's (sic)
Calidor Fancypants	3 - 2	F13 Pro Elves for Hoes
Wrong Games	0 - 2	Pound Pound Mantrain
Chanson Dada	1 - 1	Bridgeburners
Ermine Vermin	5 - 0	SPHINX
Midnight Bleat Train	3 - 0	Court of the Moon
Sons of the West	0 - 1	Sissyfaced Nancies
The Fantasticks	0 - 1	Howls and Bones
Fianna Chulain	4 - 3	~something crazy~
Lesser Immortals	0 - 1	Emporers of the Pitch
Kenosha Maroons	0 - 1	Festering Wounds

The Format

All matchups will be determined by shitty freeware chess tournament software I have on my PC.

Fixtures are generated according to these rules:

Day 1 fixtures are entirely random.
Nobody plays the same opponent twice.
On day 2-6 teams will be matched against other teams on the same or similar points total. One full point is awarded for a win, half a point for a draw. Leading teams within a score group are matched against weaker teams in the same score group.
Tie breakers for the purposes of matching are...
   1) Total score of the opponents you have faced.
   2) Head to head.
   3) Record against any common opponents.

After 6 rounds, the imaginary internet D&M trophy will be awarded to the the team with the most points. If two or more teams tie on points then the top two will face off in the ULTIMATE DECIDER match, if both teams fail to win the ULTIMATE DECIDER match then EVERYBODY LOSES and the trophy is awarded to Nuffle.


More Rules

No bitching about matchups, I don't care if you faced Khemri, Chaos, Nurgle, Norse all back to back - it serves you right for choosing elves.

Post your result ITT, because fuck you I'm not hunting through the feeder league results page.

Jesus fuck, all AndyDavos need to name their teams.


Who Is <insert team>?!

[Falconeer]

The part that sucks is that I am not playing in this. Blame Canada.

[Comstar]

Anyone know what Modern Angel's Steam name is? It would be handy if next season everyone lists their Steam name. His coach name is Brocktoon, so I guess that's his Steam name too. Now he just has to respond.

High Elves vs Pro Elves - who has the better thrower/catcher combo! I'm short 2 players, and he has 12 for the game, but my star Thrower and Catcher out-skill his. He'll need to use his superior block skills, armour and numbers to keep me down on the ground.

[proudft]

Festering Wounds defeats Kenosha Maroons 1-0 in a match filled with the inability of either team to pick up the ball.

Are we supposed to upload replays or is the score report sufficient?

[Sky]

Festering Wounds 1-0 over the Kenosha Moons

I played a typically horrid game, making tons of bad decisions, forgetting what turn it was in both halves, and getting caught in the bathroom when pft turned over to me, losing 30s. Probably should've lost that one (TO GOBS), got lucky. I did learn a few things, so overall it was a good game for that, anyway.

Proudft had pretty nice block dice, but we both had horrible pick up dice, the ball was maybe picked up 3 times in the game, most of it was spent on the pitch with us trying to mark it up. Thus the low score. edit - just checked the stats, my pick ups: 3/10, pft's were 1/11. Yipes. In clear weather.

[Ulysees]

Aery Faery's 2 - Blue Line 0

Giving up 480k in inducements to Bann's fresh Chaos team allowed him to buy a wizard and a halfling chef who let him down miserably by only stealing 1 re-roll throughout the entire game, though I did a fair job of wasting my rerolls since my agi 5 line elf failed the first pickup and once again I learn that leap is for rats not wardancer's and I had blown my 3 re-rolls by turn 4. Luckily that didn't really matter since I was able to score early and stall long enough to stop Bann replying in the first half.

Bann scored 2 KO's that woke up for the second half so I was at full strength going into the last half of the match but didn't get off so lightly on the casualty count on this drive as Bann badly hurt my thrower and managed to kill a line elf, which the apoth saved for me but I hurt a beastman and he had another sent off for a foul which meant that I was able to stall out and wait for an opening and when an attempted pass was scattered close to my own players with a bit of manouvering I was able to swoop in a wardancer to grab the ball, dodge away and throw a medium pass to my other wardancer in Bann's half who ran into a corner to run down some time and was promptly lightening bolted for such cowardly behaviour. A single chaos warrior was marking the ball in the final turn of the match but my wardancer had only been knocked down from the bolt and so was able to blitz him clear and a line elf scored on the last turn of the half.

I still suck at defending but am learning not to take so many uncovered risks and Bann suffered from facing a more skilled team compared to his freshly made one but I would have been happy to take a draw and sneaking a win is a bonus. No doubt the next match will make up for getting off so lightly in terms of the injury count for this one.

[Comstar]

Calidor Fancypants 3  over F13 Pro Elves for Hoes 2

My star thrower Twlight Sparkle with Strong Arm and safe throw never got a chance to show off...KILLED and killed again by the apoc on turn 3. I ended the game with 1 dead, 3 badly hurt, 2 KO'ed and a loner I couldn't buy got the MVP and a skill I can't use. Brocktoon used his better block and armour advantage to knock me down all over the place.

My Star +1AG Dodging Leaping Catcher was my star, but I failed 3 times to get a 1 dice block on the High Elf ball carrier to be able to use him to my advantage. My 2nd TD was completely Elven Bullshit, with the catcher dodging through 4 tacklezones to get a TD.

[Modern Angel]

There was no possible way I could have defended that 2nd TD. God, Elves... any other non-elven team and this thing was a blow-out due to Comstar's dice just completely turning against him on the injury front.

Still, he made a good game of it and it was looking like a draw until his lower numbers just turned against him in the final few turns.

[lamaros]

Played those bastard humans. Lost 1-0.

17 injury rolls for me.
12 injury rolls for him.

13 stunned, 3 KO, 1 injury inflicted by me.
3 stunned, 5 KO, 4 injury inflicted by him.

Was a fun game, apart from the stun frustration, with Ruvaldt's guard making a big difference at key points, and my number disadvantage and lack of a beast of nurgle counting against me.

[Ruvaldt]

Emperors of the Pitch 1 - 0 Lesser Immortals.

Lamaros and I just played a great game of Blood Bowl.

Lamaros elected to kick off to me and after some rather troublesome knock downs I managed to finally break away with the ball to score on my round six.  I kicked off to the Lesser Immortals and sent a booming kick that I tried desperately to capitalize on for a second score, but I was unable to do so.

The second half was where the game really found its character.  After our second rounds the game devolved into a mayhem infused melee of knock downs and carnage.  The ball stayed in relatively the same place throughout the half as we traded blows, and constantly failed to pick up the ball.  I wasn't too concerned with scoring, honestly, I just figured I could do my best to keep him from equalizing so I played conservatively, but towards the end I did try to pull off a bullshit play for a second TD which failed twice.

Lamaros also used a Wizard rather well, which is better than I could have done as I nearly always forget about them.  Guard really was the secret to victory on this one though, and I think if Lamaros had had a Beast of Nurgle things may have turned out differently.  Woe to his next opponent.

[proudft]

Ball Possession (%) :   15   23

Hey that only adds up to 38%.   Oh, right.....   

[Ruvaldt]

Yeah, that's the Nurgle thing, but also my only player with Sure Hands was KO'd in the first half leaving me with a pair of AGI3 catchers who were next to worthless.

[Sjofn]

Ball Possession (%) :   15   23

Hey that only adds up to 38%.   Oh, right.....   

Felt like you were khemri in the rain, eh?

[Sky]

To be fair, the dice were far more unkind to Mr. Ft. I made the mistake of trying to pick up the ball a few times when it was marked by a couple of his guys, squirting it out to where I only had one or no markers on it. He would then surround it, and fail to scoop it up. Rinse and repeat for most of the game.

Though there was that kickoff where my ghoul missed it twice with nobody within a mile of him...the second time fumbling out of bounds and bouncing it right in front of the main scrum, facing my wide open goal (because I once again over-committed...not compensating for Nuffle's knut shot in broad daylight).

Nobody was able to grab any of the bounces, either. Just a funny game.

[eldaec]

Regarding BBManager, I won't be enforcing it like we do in the serious business league, but it's still good form for the winner to upload in case others want to watch your match.

[Ulysees]

Stupid question but is the matchmaking league in BB manager, if not where do we assign the games to? Can check when I get home tonight from work but faster to ask here I guessed.

[IainC]

Stupid question but is the matchmaking league in BB manager, if not where do we assign the games to? Can check when I get home tonight from work but faster to ask here I guessed.

The feeder league is already in BBManager, you may need to scroll through the big list of all the leagues to find it though. Once you've added at least one game to it, it will then be in your favourite leagues section at the top of the list.

[Ulysees]

Thanks for the reply, will upload mine and Bann's game when I get home tonight.

[Sky]

I uploaded for the stats. I plan on following each day so I can keep track of them (so next game I'll upload as day 2, etc). Not sure it makes a difference, but can't hurt, eh?

Footnote to the game: no level-ups, I think half my team is at 5spp. MVP went to a zombie 

[avaia]

Err, my new nurgle team, Stir Fry, needs acceptance into the feeder league so I can play my match!

[Ingmar]

Going Forth By Day 2 - Stir Fry 0, in a match that would have had 3 deaths if it wasn't for regeneration. As it was it had 1 (a rotter).

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Plz to add coach names to matchup lists.

Who coaches the Bridgeburners? I got some gasoline right here!

[Ingmar]

Plz to add coach names to matchup lists.

Who coaches the Bridgeburners? I got some gasoline right here!

Click the spoiler...

[carnifex27]

Plz to add coach names to matchup lists.

Who coaches the Bridgeburners? I got some gasoline right here!

They're mine ICE, I figured I'd wait for you to get your playoff games finished before trying too hard to set up our game.

[Sjofn]

Lost 1-0 to Haemish. I have no idea how to play high elves (they're like better armored Norse, rite?), but I'm pretty sure they're supposed to succeed dodge rolls once in a while.   On the other hand, my elves feel so sturdy! Sure, a bunch of them got knocked out and stuff, but it took a while for that to happen, and all three of the KO's woke up for the second half! I had an embarrassment of riches.

The game should've been 2-0 but the game decided "ha ha, fuck you, Haemish" and he failed a hand off at the end zone. No SPP for his wight!

Happily, my MVP went to my loser 0 SPP blitzer (Jean Valjean) instead of one of my loaner guys, and Inspector Javert (my Other Blitzer) went up a level and got dodge. APPARENTLY HE NEEDS IT.

[HaemishM]

Howls and Bones 1 - The Fantasticks 0

The High elves spent a lot of time on the deck this game, but only 1 was injured and it wasn't even a miss next game. My werewolf proved himself my most valuable player (even though it went to the zombie Brootylicious) by inflicting that injury, picking up the ball and scoring in the first half even though the elves took the first kickoff. By the time I'd scored, Sjofn didn't have enough time to get the elves into the end zone before halftime. The second half went just as well for the elves, as in not at all. I made the kickoff last the entire half, and by turn 14 had my werewolf on the goal line with the ball ready to score. I did everything but score on turn 15, fucking it up by taking a 1d block that turned against me. I had blitzed a wight onto the one elf able to get in contact with the ball carrier and intended to hand the ball off to the wight so he could gain some much needed SPP. Unfortunately, he was looking around the field for someone to hurt and he dropped the ball, ensuring the score stayed at 1-0 as Sjofn couldn't get anything on the ball in the last turn.

[Falconeer]

A Miserables themed team? I am at a loss of words... 

[Ice Cream Emperor]

RED... The colour of the skulls!
BLACK... and blue is what you'll beeeeeeeeeee!

[Sjofn]

Ha, no, not quite, it's a musicals theme (hence their team name). But Valjean and Javert seemed like perfect Blitzer names. :P

[IainC]

Fianna Chulain 4 - ~something crazy~ 3

Action packed game with the ball flying up and down the pitch constantly.

Andy won the toss and elected to receive. His initial scrimmage started badly and the teams spread out to make some space. The ball was caged up near the centre line and I marked the corners then blitzed a Boudicca the Wardancer into the ball-carrier. Unfortunately I didn't know how to use the Leap skill so Boudicca tried to dodge into a square with 3 TZs on it with predictable results. Andy was easily able to clear away the markers and throw the ball to a receiver for an early score. The next kick off result was a riot meaning that the clock was put back a turn. I broke a hole in the line, forced a couple of receivers through and then in the next turn Caractacus threw the ball long and true right into the hands of Hengist, the catcher with nerves of steel. He easily dodged away from his marker and evened the score.

Andy's next drive started well. He knocked down all the Elves facing him and badly hurt Myrddin for the first casualty of the game. I cleared a path with Boudicca and put the other catcher Horsa in front of the Elf with the ball. This worked beautifully when he failed his dodge roll to get away and dropped the ball clear in the middle of the pitch. I wasn't going to pass up such a gift and so I cleared the marker on Hengist and then he picked up the ball and strolled into the endzone with it to take the lead again. I was in some trouble for the next drive, as well as the badly hurt Myrddin, another Line-Elf, Vortigern had failed to recover from his KO. With no spare bodies on the bench, this meant that I was down to 9 players. Andy held the ball back for a bit but failed a dodge that left his ball carrier open. I put a marker on him then went to blitz with Boudicca, somehow between single clicking on the ball carrier and double clicking to confirm the blitz however I managed to select the square behind him without realising so what actually happened is that Boudicca ran up to him then dodged for three squares around him for no good reason. I made a new blitz with a line-elf and managed to push him into a pocket where his back was to the sideline and three of the Fianna Chulain were blocking him in. I then threw a 'what the hell, may as well' block on an irrelevant player with my other Wardancer, Mab who promptly rolled a skull and then killed herself. Argh. Despite that, Andy couldn't break his ball carrier out of the hole he was in and I pushed him of the pitch. The crowd threw the ball back in to an unmarked square and I took the opportunity to make it 3-1 at the whistle.

For the second half, Vortigern recovered but I was still two players down thanks to Mab's suicide and, while I had a two TD lead I'd seen how easy it was to completely turn the score on its head. I decided that trying for bullshit plays was the best way to make up for my numerical disadvantage and so I set up a few deep receivers who Andy immediately marked. My ball carrier was without any cover in my half of the pitch and was looking nervously at a couple of hostile Wood Elves who'd strolled through my leaky defence. I decided that the best way out of this situation was to make a blitz with the deepest receiver that I had to get him out of the scrum he was in, he'd need to make one dodge and then I could park him in the endzone leaving Caractacus to run as far forwards as possible before throwing him the ball. Unfortunately this failed at the blitz when the Line-Elf Vercingetorix rolled a skull. Andy took advantage by pushing Caractacus into the pitch and grabbing the ball, a quick pass later and it was on its way to the endzone to make the score 3-2.

I was sweating by this time as there were still four turns to play and Andy was only one score behind, additionally I still had fewer players on the pitch than Andy and I was missing a key player in my Wardancer. This time I just went forwards. I made a hole and ran through it with several players. Msot of them got marked but in my next turn I was able to get Boudicca free and Caractacus threw the ball to her just a few squares from Andy's endzone. A lot of dodges and GfIs later, Andy managed to get a blitz on her and she went down scattering the ball. There was a bit of a scrum near the sidelines where the ball and a couple of players from each team were locked up, I got another marker in there and then made a desperation blitz, Boudicca sprang to her feet and blitzed through the player with the ball sending it flying. The Line-Elf Prasutagus was close enough to reach it and he ran it all the way to the endzone where he promptly tripped over his own feet. Andy swooped in to grab it and threw it away from danger but got an unlucky block trying to clear some room. I got the ball carrier surrounded and Andy almost got him clear but failed a dodge roll after blitzing away one of the Elves surrounding him. This time there were no mistakes, Caractacus grabbed the ball and threw it to Prasutagus who walked it in to make the score 4-2 with one turn for me and two for Andy left to play.

The final drive was the standard Elf two turn touch down, Andy threw four players down-pitch and, after his line of scrimmage blocks plus a blitz, I only had four players on their feet to mark them with so I resigned myself to letting him score while I did violence to one of his Wardancers. Andy cleared markers from one of his line-elves and threw him the ball before walking in the last touchdown on the last turn of the game.

With that it was 4-3 and I'd won, mostly through being able to stall Andy for most of the second half. Unfortunately for me, despite winning I don't have the gold to replace the dead Wardancer just yet so my victory was costlier than I'd have liked.

Match is uploaded to BB Manager.

[Sjofn]

Am I reading that right and seeing that Andy's version of "crazy" is a wood elf team? That's sort of adorable.

[eldaec]

Ermine Vermin   5 - 0   SPHINX

SPHINX win the toss and choose to kick. Mad Albert (Stormvermin) blitzes open a hole which Blind Eddie (GR) uses to head downfield, Crazy Eye Jim (thrower) picks up the ball deep, and the vermin knock over the skeleton LoS. SPHINX mark up but don't manage to knock over anyone in the SPHINX half. Crucially Mad Albert is pushed free of markers, so on turn two, he blitzes off one of Blind Eddie's markers, before Jim passes to Neville the Nose (GR) who runs up field, hands off to Blind Eddie, and Eddie scores.

Second drive sees a deep kick from the Vermin land one rank from the end zone, SPHINX form up narrow, and send Dean and Hank (Thro-Ras) back for the ball, neither can hold it and the ball falls loose. Following the turnover the Vermin are able to run almost the whole squad between bulk of the SPHINX and the thro-ra's guarding the ball. Hank manages the pickup, but is forced to form a limited cage amoung the rats. Mad Albert takes Hank out with a 1D blitz - then Neville the Nose bullshits around the melee scoops the ball and runs in the TD.

Vermin make another deep kick into a narrow SPHINX formation. This time Hank is able to pick up and cage mid half. Nibbler Harris (Stormvermin) takes Henchman 21 (Biltz-ra) out with a fractured arm, only to see it regenerate, and the rats surround the cage with minimal contact, slowing but not stopping the undead march. Hank takes the cage out to the right wing in order to gain territory more quckly, and by turn 7, the skeletons are massed on the right touchline in range of the endzone. But they are too close to the touchline, and Bubonic Barry (lineman) engineers a chain push to knock Hank off the pitch in a move that earns Barry the MVP. The ball is loose midfield, and quickly carried to safety and it's 2-0 at half time.

Vermin kick off the second half, sticking to a similar plan by kicking long. Dean grabs the ball, supported by Hank and Sovereign (Tomb Guardian) while Pinkeye Perkins (GR) and Blind Eddie run deep and the rest of the rats get themselves mixed into the Khemri formation. Neville the Nose is knocked out by The Outrider (skeleton), but despite that, the Khemri struggle to form a solid cage because of the number of tackled players - they rely on Hank to hold a corner, but he can't stand up to Pinkeye Perkins' horned charge. This breech of the cage forces King Gorilla and his fellow Tomb Guardians to deal with the Gutter Runners tackling Dean, but that leaves the far side of the cage open for Nibbler Harris, who knocks out Sergeant Hatred (TG) before knocking down the ball carrier and letting in Cheddar Persille (Gutter Runner) to grab the ball from a single tackle zone and run in the score.

The fifth drive sees a Vermin blitz. Pinkeye Perkins knocks over Dean, who was stood on the ball landing square, Cheddar Persille catches the ball, but hands it back to Pinkeye for the TD.

Final drive starts on turn 15. Dean grabs the ball, runs it forward, and tries a pass to Henchman 21, hoping to move in range of the score. The catch fails. Pinkeye Perkins knocks out Henchman 21 and Blind Eddie grabs the ball, before running in another TD.



Just watching the replay, I think the key thing I'd say to Celer is to cage well in your own half before doing anything else in response to a deep kick. The last drive of the first half you did that, and it would have led to a score if you hadn't been forced to push forward so quickly because the clock was running down.

[Celer]

Enjoy your boatload of SPP!

This was a story of rats being able to take advantage of every single mistake, and never making one themselves.  Mummies kicked off and backed off into a wide line.  The rats put a little crease down the sideline, and I saw I could get a couple 1d blocks to surf a rat and seal that off.  However, I took too much time positioning my other dudes back (safe moves first and all that) and ended up missing my chance to seal and surf.  That was instantly converted into a typical rat BS TD.  The rat kickoff was in the end zone, and the Throw-Ra failed the pickup, allowing rats to spill into the pitch and divide my team in 2.  I could not get enough players back in support and the ball was knocked into rat hands for a 2-0 lead by Turn 4.  The mummies tried to quickly lumber down the sideline themselves, and they had a modicum of success, until I accidentally put one too many players next to the ball carrier (I almost GFI'ed out of that) and the result allowed a chain-push of the ball carrier off the pitch.

The rats kicked off the second half with a 2-0 lead and AGAIN the ball landed in the end zone.  The undead did all they could to scramble backwards and managed to get into a tight cage.  However, eventually the rats got a body next to the ball carrier and the blitz to free him resulted in double-skulls; the ensuing 1d block on the ball carrier got a knock-down and popped the ball directly into rat hands for another TD.  At that point, the mummy objective turned to revenge, and lined up to inflict maximum damage on the kickoff.  However, that was a Blitz event and a medium-range kick, and rats were able to receive it successfully and survive the blitz to make it 4-0.  The final TD came after the Throw-Ra decided to attempt to salvage 1 SPP out of the day and my +AG Blitz-Ra decided to drop the ball.

The mummies feel cheated out of a chance to beat up on a squishy opponent.  The numbers look generally favorable for the rats, going 16/16 on GFIs and 5/5 on pickups (most of them in traffic), whereas the Khemri could only manage 43% block success and inflicted only one (late) KO and no casualties.  But kudos to the rats for not allowing many hits and always keeping a couple GRs in range for the BS!

[eldaec]

I think I see a Mantrain victory in the calendar - which would mean 3 more matches and we can draw round 2.

[drogg]

real quick since i have to get on a plane -- 3-0 bleat train over gruntle's moonies.  i completely destroyed him thanks to some lucky dice (especially in KOs) but in vengeance he killed drogg the minotaur (whom the apoth just dug a second grave for, alas) on the second to last turn of the match.  poor drogg was going to level up, too.  i can't afford to replace him yet, but maybe with my new low TV i can get grishnakh next round