SPALDING WARGAMING CLUB
Strange Apparitions is a local comics, graphic novels and geek culture merchandise store that set up in Spalding nearly a year ago. The shop was based out of a cosy corner in the Spalding Lifestyle And Garden centre (a building rejoicing in the acronym S.L.A.G.). It was nice enough there, but a bit off the beaten track. Along with fellow traders Uptown Vinyl Records, Strange Apparitions have just relocated to the Baytree Garden Centre and held their re-opening today. A bit of context for the out-of-towners: Baytree is is local institution. It started off as a roadside stall in 1970 when Reinhard Biehler and his British wife Yvonne went in to business together. Now it's a 16 acre site that hosts a massive garden centre, cafes, children's entertainment, an owl sanctuary and various small traders selling antiques, witchy art and, latterly, comics and records. So this is a great gig for Strange Apparitions, who now offer a sort of comics-creche for lost souls whose partners are off selecting dahlias and compost. Wanting to show solidarity with a local retailer like this, I popped along to the re-opening celebrations along with Spalding Wargames Club vice-chairman Craig Jackson. Then, you know, lunch in the sunshine with our Other Halves. It took me a while to track down the retail space itself - it's right at the back of the site, to the left of the (excellent) restaurant. It's a good space: nicely carpeted, bright and airy, without the vague presentiment of being within four feet of a rat that you felt back at the SLAG Centre. This is a sweet place to browse! I stole a few moments of shop owner Alex's time. He's delighted with the move and the new premises - as well he should be. He's built a loyal consumer base and promotes the store today with Deadpool and Ghostbusters cosplayers. I'm only a minor comics fan, but I rarely found myself out at the SLAG Centre (love that name) unless I was visiting the adjacent hospital - but I'm often over at Baytree and frequently killing time while my Beautiful Gardener inspects the roses. I doubt I'm alone in these regards, so Alex will get a lot more impulsive purchases from people like me. Like that lovely hardbound edition of Planet Hulk... Alex stocks a few board games as well: I caught sight of some expansions for Dark Souls: The Card Game and Resident Evil. If Keyforge decks turn up, he'll clean me out. Hopefully, SWC and Strange Apparitions can promote each other. The move was only possible with the support of Uptown Vinyl Records, who cover an even larger space. It seems only right, as the father of a vinyl-consuming daughter, to share some images of their busy trading space too. We wish both stores the best of luck and promise to be back soon with bulging wallets. You can follow them on Facebook by clicking on the links below:
0 Comments
I drop in Black Lion Games whenever I go back to my old home town to visit family and friends there. It's an easy-to-miss shop on Buccleuch Street, near the University. Seemingly following the tradition of FLGS (Friendly Local Gaming Stores), as established by Newark's Wild Ways, the shop front is completely unadorned. However, it does break with convention by announcing its identity with an ageing notice board beside the door. Argh. The Grocer's Apostrophe seeps into Gaming... On the sunny afternoon in April when I turn up, the shutters are down. Have they closed? No, assistant manager Stu has just been next door getting a coffee and hurries back to let me in. It's nice inside. Airy and bright, with well-stocked shelves - though Stu is at pains to point out that, had I turned up the very next day, I would have found the shelves overflowing with the haul from Conpulsion, Edinburgh's very own Games Convention. It's heartening to see stock like this. When I first discovered Black Lion, it was a set of shelves in the basement of a retro-fashion store called Flip. What was I doing in a retro-fashion store, you might well ask? Well, I was younger then and had delusions of vintage style consciousness. I think I was looking for a leather jacket. I found Liam's stall instead. It's not been a stall for a long time (and Flip closed in 2007) but there's still one shelf that commemorates those humble beginnings: the vintage roleplaying games and the cardboard boxes of second hand modules and indie rulebooks that demand to be browsed. There were lean years in "the new premises" (as I still think of it). I remember coming in to nearly-bare shelves when stock had to be sold to fund new orders. It's not like that now. Business is holding up. There are evening clubs for Magic: The Gathering and Keyforge. Not a bare shelf in sight - and this is before the arrival of the Mighty Haul. I chat away to Stu for quite awhile. He's immensely friendly and knowledgeable, speaking with equal enthusiasm and insight about Monopoly (further to our evening of playtesting the world's most popular boardgame) and unknown (to me) indie RPGs like Apocalypse World. Stu (on the right) helps out another customer You get a real sense from Black Lion that the hobby's in good shape. A youthful enthusiasm has given Liam and his friends a livelihood, perhaps a vocation. They outlasted Flip and its vintage T-shirts anyway. After all that, it only seems right to buy something. Here's a thing on a high shelf, out of the shrinkwrap and unpriced: a game I've never heard of by Donald X. Vaccarino, the guy who devised Dominion. It's a timey-wimey worker placement game called Temporum. Stu looks it up on BGG, checks out the reviews, counts out the components to check they're all there, then baggies up the cards and meeples for me.
What a gent. That's how to make a sale! Recent blogs have bemoaned how commentators faced with the gaming hobby invariably fall back on lazy quips about Monopoly. I thought it was time to put to the test the hypothesis that Monopoly is a uniquely fractious and tedious game. So: I sourced an old (1960s) edition of the game on eBay, rounded up some veteran gamers, checked up the CORRECT rules (auctions and all!) and gathered together the Dirty Half Dozen for a journey into the dark heart of Capitalism... We have been warned that Monopoly is deeply boring and lasts for hours. Popular lore tells us that we will all fall out and go home with sore feelings. But at the start, spirits are high and the tokens are on the starting space, anxious for the off! The first 20 minutes pass merrily. This is Phase 1, where circling the board carries only trivial penalties and you get to buy the properties you land on. The randomness of dice mean some people get lucky, assembling near-monopolies very quickly. Others are less lucky. I get 3 Stations on consecutive turns, but Oliver gets the 4th. I pass on buying the Electric Company, wary of the bad reputation of the 'utilities', and Ray pays over the odds for it. Karl takes this tactic to an extreme, passing on several properties, triggering auctions and driving up the price so that other people pay more. Later, he will come to see this approach is misguided. Once most of the properties have been bought, the game enters Phase 2, which is negotiation. Everyone wants someone else to trade them a property, but no one wants to allow someone else to get a monopoly too easily. Sweeteners are added. Eventually, deals are made, monopolies are acquired and the first green houses start to rise on Richard's pink monopoly. I must say, this part of the game was fun. Realising that 3 Stations were a modest earner but offered no way of competing later in the game, I paid through the noise for Brown properties from Karl and Richard to acquire my first monopoly - the most rubbish monopoly on the board. Nevertheless, I figured I could grow from here. Then people start going bankrupt: first Alex, then Oliver. Their departures bring fresh auctions to the table as their portfolios are sold off. This bidding is very different. People know what they are after and the bidding is fierce, even reckless. Whole monopolies are up for grabs and there are vicious hate plays and, yes, over-extension. I fall victim to this, spend too much money, trade away my Stations to Karl to expand my properties even further then get brought down by those very Stations when I cannot pay the rent for landing on them. Irony! Karl is floundering, with Stations and money, but no monopolies. Ray is in a strong place. He has built hotels on the Oranges to rival Richard's Pink empire - and the Oranges are more likely to catch out players leaving Jail. But fate has a different tale to tell! They call it Death Alley..... Alas for Ray, his empire goes down like the Bastille: first he has to mortgage properties, then sell his hotels, then go bankrupt. It was mostly unlucky dice rolls landing him on expensive rents. His property portfolio is extensive and Karl and Richard carve it up between them. We're just over 90 minutes in to the game and down to the Final Two. Everyone else has been knocked out in rapid succession (in the last half hour) and still spectates with interest. Richard has the stronger portfolio and the deadly hotels in Pink, but Karl now has a monopoly (finally!) on Yellow which could be lucrative if he can build there. Unfortunately, everything that has made the game compelling so far disappears now that there are only two players left. There will be no more auctions. The two have no incentive to trade. They just circle the board, round and round, Karl slipping past Richard's hotel-strewn power base on blue/pink/orange time after time with lucky rolls, while Richard lurks in Jail, collecting rent but paying Karl only small amounts. And this goes on for another hour! Eventually, it ends as it must, with Karl finally landing on Pall Mall's hotel and being crippled by the bill. Richard is victorious, but by this point the interest is gone. The knocked-out players are tapping on their phones, the still-contending ones are numbed to the endless dice rolls. The endgame span on for far too long. Closing Thoughts First off, I was surprised by how much fun we had for the first 90 minutes of this game. You can see why families and old school friends bring Monopoly to the table. Phase 1 is good-natured and full of promise. Who doesn't like circling the board buying things? At this point, the rents are modest and the rewards significant. It also feels rather like modern resource management games: you are building your 'victory engine'. Phase 2 is much more competitive and, for hobbyist gamers, very fulfilling. Working out what to trade and how to persuade, these are fulfilling skills to use. Staying in Jail becomes a winning practice: you can still charge rent and bid, but you don't have to advance round the board for a couple of turns. When players are knocked out, more auctions are triggered and these are psychologically charged affairs. The knock-outs happen close together: when one player goes bankrupt another won't be far behind. It's hard to imagine families and casual gamers enjoying this though. How can children aggressively bid against their parents or strike coercive trade deals with their older siblings? Why would friends and lovers enjoy a game where their partners bid against them ruthlessly to drive up the costs or refuse to trade with them while agreeing to trade with someone else? Monopoly is simply a bit too hard core, in a psychological sense, for family fun. This of course is where house rules creep in: kitties of money being paid out to people landing on Free Parking and players in Jail being unable to charge rent. These 'fixes' make the game feel less unfair, but they only prolong the inevitable. Most of my work colleagues who claim to enjoy Monopoly are surprised to hear about auctions and property trading: they just don't use these rules, robbing the game of its only strategic choices and stretching out the play time even further. The real problem for us was the spinning endgame. Once it's down to two players with all the properties divided between them, there are no further choices to make but a lot of dice to roll before the final bankruptcy occurs. There's no value in playing this far; instead a timer is needed to stop the game at (say) the 2-hour mark, with victory going to the player with the most wealth at that time. A worthwhile experience then and perhaps worth repeating, with time limits in place. The official rules contain a Shorter Game variant and I think it would be fun to see if that retains the fun while bringing then to a conclusion before fatigue sets in. I'll report on that in due course.
Martin (Jackson, Chair) recapped on the last meeting's decision to amend the annual fee to quarterly payments of £5. There has been no resistance to this. Chris (Peat, Treasurer) reviewed the Club's finances, which are in a healthy state. There is a quarterly financial statement available for members who contact Chris for a copy. Jon (Rowe) has been in touch with other clubs in the area. The opening of more dialogue between clubs is considered a good thing. Grantham Friendly Gamers is excited about holding a future joint-event with Spalding Wargames Club. They would love to set up a Keyforge event with us Jon has also been in touch with Wild Ways, a club/shop in Newark run by a lady called Lucy (see blog for more on Lucy's club). He described the Newark club/shop as a 'very cool shop'. Jon said they would love to get us over there, gaming against them. He suggested a trip to the store, followed by a tour of the pubs in the town. It was agreed at the meeting this would be a good idea, with the majority agreeing by show of hands that they would be keen to take part in this. A Saturday in May/June was the time suggested for arranging this. Craig (Jackson, Secretary) mentioned that plenty of advanced notice would be given. Jon said that now the website is up and active, we now have a very big digital presence. Martin reiterated his ambition to expand the Club as far as possible, to form what could be called, for example, the 'Anglian Gaming Society'. “The first step would be reaching out.” Wargames shows were mentioned by Martin, with the possibility of attending them as a group. Jon suggested if the Spalding Geek Con event is on again, then we really should do it. He said he would be happy to give up a Saturday to help out with the Club's presence there. There were some concerns that footfall was poor at the last edition of the event. Martin mentioned branded merchandise. He envisions polo shirts with the emblem embroidered on them. Martin's research indicates a polo shirt could cost £15 each. Burgundy is his suggested colour for the shirt, because he has not seen any other club use that colour. He said it would be great to turn up to wargames shows and events in the Club's branding, especially if we hold something like the Blood Bowl season 2 final at Warhammer World. Jon said it would be nice to get the Club's emblem redone. It was also suggested getting the Club's logo on dice. Those gathered at the meeting stipulated the logo should be over the 6, rather than the 1. Martin said the Blood Bowl League is achieving its goal of inflating attendance and engaging various members of the Club in games with each other. Karl (McMichael) was announced as the winner of the Best Painted Blood Bowl Team competition. Congratulations to Karl. Further Club events were announced, including:
Jon mentioned the possibility of a merger with the Saturday morning Spalding Youth Games Club. The club opens between 10am and 1pm and costs £3, as well as the option of spending another £3 and getting half a Domino's pizza. It only operates during school term time. On the day of the General Meeting, Jon reported the club had a slack day, with 18 kids turning up. The merger would see the youth clubs' funds merging into Spalding Wargames Club's coffers. Jon asked for a commitment from Club members to attend the youth club, perhaps once every two months, to help him run it. As long as Jon is there, DBS checks should not be a problem. However, it may be desirable for members to have them done. Martin said Club members could help with the wargaming side of the youth club. He stressed the point that even if the merger takes place, there would be no youngsters turning up on Wednesday nights. The plan would be for it to be the Spalding Wargames Club junior division and investment would be made into the youth club's equipment once taken over. The decision to merge with the youth club was put to vote. The vote was passed unanimously. The Spalding youth gaming club is to merge with Spalding Wargames Club.
Weeeeeeeeellllllll here we are back again for more Bloodbowl League action. After a short break for boring real life reasons [surely, 'raising my family' - Ed.] I'm back to bring you the SWC Season 1 weekly league round up Two huge games this week. We'll start by looking at my own Dark Elf System of a Touchdown taking on the goblin team Kannon Fodderz BBFC (Ian). The dastardly goblins kicked off and the elves looked pretty nervous. A bomb throwing lineman and an enormous troll made the vertically challenged greenskins appear significantly more daunting than their frail frames would lead you to believe. The Dark Elves cleared a path down their right wing, moved the ball out to the white haired runner who narrowly avoided the hail of shrapnel from the gobbo bomber and ran home a touchdown. At 1-0, the usually high scoring dark elves suddenly got a case of nerves. The goblin bomber was sent off and on came a fanatic. Swinging a ball and chain round his head like a tiny green whirlwind of destruction, the fanatic downed the elven line of scrimmage and generally meandered around. As the Dark Elves cautiously backed away, the opportunistic goblin coach Ian 'Doomsday' Davison waited for a gap in the line and his goblins levelled the score. 1-1 at half time. The fanatic was sent off and the second half was underway. The Dark Elves kicked off and managed to break into the goblins cage, grab the ball and run it home for 2-1 Late in the game, a goblin fumble let the dastardly demonic dark elves to grab the ball and score again. 3-1, with barely a turn left. The goblins went on a rage-induced fouling spree, led by their troll, and two elves were KOed while another was in the casualty box The Dark Elf coach reflected on his opponents like this: Tell you what I really enjoyed about goblins, they are completely random. Special weapons mean they can (if the coach's dice don't decide to be pointless) kill basically anything. With dodge and OK agility, they're a good team, but so so fragile. The Goblin coach had a different view: The crowd came baying for blood but all they got was heavy petting and iron feather dusters. After a nail biting first half leaving the score at one a piece and one a piece in the morgue, the second half held promise.... Those prancing emo fairies spun their magic and danced a merry jig into the end zone two more times while the Gobos were picking their noses and inspecting their warts It was an epic comedy encounter. The dark elves are slowly crawling up the league table and now must face the Dwarven Donkey Punch and head coach Alec "the" Bell next week. Also in action, we saw The Fancy Dandys gaining a hard fought win over the Nuln Oilers. Oilers head coach Chris Peat cut a forlorn figure after recording a defeat in this human-on-human mirror match. 2-1 was the final score and the Dandys head coach 'Danger' Dave Coley has shocked the league with a strong start to his rookie season.
I've discussed Black Orchestra on the Fen Orc Blog but on Thursday I had a chance to play it myself with Karl. I chose Dietrich Bonhoeffer (radical Christian) and Karl chose Claus Von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise). Bonhoeffer (left) founded the anti-Nazi Confessing Church; Stauffenberg (right) led Operation Valkyrie to depose Hitler With the rulebook to guide us as we go and the setting on 'Easy Mode', we swing into action... The board shows an abstract map of Europe, before the War, with Hitler and his Deputies in Berlin (plotting) and us heroes in Berlin Station (also plotting). You've got two traits to manage: your Motivation (we start as 'Timid') and Suspicion ('Medium'). Increasing Motivation is a priority: your special powers kick in once you become 'Motivated' (e.g. Von Stauffenberg gets an extra action and I deliver electrifying sermons) and once you get to 'Committed' you are allowed to carry out Plots against Hitler. You also want to keep your Suspicion low, because of the Gestapo. The other priority seems to be to wander round the board collecting Items. We get off to a flying start. Karl collects the necessary explosives for a Suitcase Bomb to blow up Hitler in Berlin. It doesn't work. Not enough red successes to kill Hitler, but not enough 'eagle' suspicion symbols to arrest Stauffenberg. The Suitcase Bomb Plot fails. Stauffenberg miraculously escapes suspicion and meets me on a train heading south. We start discussing engineering a train wreck to kill Hitler instead. Then we realise that, with Hitler's military support as high as it is, we're never going to snuff him. We need to start sabotaging the War Effort. Now we realise the importance of the Conspire Action, to lower Hitler's military strength. We roll really well, but the War is opening out and Hitler just keeps winning: Anschluss, France, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Norway... Karl has another daring plan while pretending to do War Work out in the East. Why not kidnap Hitler? He visits Auschwitz, just to get his Motivation really high, then rushes to snatch Hitler from Nuremberg. This time we're well-prepared with tons of Weaponry and Hitler is super-vulnerable. Sure... surely... But no. Look at all those Weapons and a Signature too, plus tons of dice: roll well Karl. Ah. Hide your face in shame, young man. This time, Stauffenberg goes to prison. I'd like to rescue him, but I'm way too suspicious. You see, Hitler keeps dropping in on me for surprise chats. It's very unnerving. I decide to fly to Zurich to prove my loyalty and leave Karl to get himself out of prison, which he does by resisting torture. Well done. We're back out East again, sabotaging the War Effort. I've had enough. I'm sick of being the timid cleric. I've got a Poison Gas Plot and shedloads of poison. I've been to Treblinka, I've seen what they're doing. I'm ready. This time. T h i s ... t i m e ... We've got Hitler cornered. We've got all the poison left in Europe. We've got the dice. We roll the dice. Bonhoeffer is sad. It's Fortress Europe now. Hitler is in the bunker. The regime is doubling down. There are almost no resources left on the board. Karl talks about another Plot. Something about a Sniper. One last push and we can end this. C'mon. One last time. Then the 'Documents Located' card finally shows up. We are exposed. The firing squad awaits. How did we do? Well, we wasted time at the start, not realising you need to bide your time during Hitler's periods of military supremacy and strike when he's weak. Once we figured that out we had two solid, well-resourced strikes at him that should have, damnit, should have worked.
But the Führer is only lucky, lucky man. He went to the destiny allotted to him by history: 30 April, mid-afternoon, the smell of burnt almonds and the sound of a gunshot from the study. A fun outing to Newark: wandering round the market, the big church, admire the Civil War era architecture, lunch at Strays jazz cafe - and then my True Love must spend an hour sniffing out bargains in charity shop. How shall I amuse myself? Google tells me that Wild Ways is a games shop in Newark. The Facebook page shows a really active gaming community based out of it. Catch is, there are two address. The first is in the town centre Arcade, but I draw a blank there. Perhaps it's out of date? So I go to the other, which turns out to be a residential estate on the edge of town. DEFINITELY not the right place (and don't go there, BTW). Back to the Arcade and I happen to glance up and see this: First floor, eh? But how to get there? The lady in the posh art shop is very helpful. She thinks she's seen people using the Green Door. Don't know what they're doing, she says, and I resist the urge to sing back like Shaky: but they laugh a lot behind the green door. No sign on the Green Door, but it's unlocked and the fantasy pennants are encouraging so up I go. Upstairs there's a lovely room where Wild Ways owner Lucy greets me. Some lads are playing Magic: the Gathering. Her son is on the couch playing a video game. There are shelves of second hand books and games and some new stock. Big folders bulge with out-of-print Magic cards. A chalk board advertises drinks and snacks. A sunny bay window overlooks historic Newark. Lucy explains what's going on. This isn't a secret society. It's just that they've recently moved into these great premises, but because the building is historic, they can't put a sign on the door until they have one that's been approved. And the premises are great. As well as this cosy room there's a larger space upstairs just for gaming tables. You see, this is more of a permanent club than a 'shop'. Lucy broke free from early years teaching to be a second-hand book seller, but this morphed into selling comics, graphic novels, RPGs and trading card games - until the gaming side took over. Wild Ways charges a modest yearly subscription if you want to use its premises, take advantage of the lending library and participate in its tournaments and events. The second hand stock is still there (lots of glorious 1st edition D&D, old GW stuff and Warhammer caught my eye) and Lucy buys in new stock to cater to the interests of her members. I had a great chat with Lucy (who used to be from Spalding - SHOCK!) and she's got a ton of experience and advice for our fledgling club. Wild Ways is well worth a visit if your Beloved is ever antiquing in Newark - and more than that, we should organise a Club Trip out there because as well as this great gaming community, Newark has sublime real ale pubs all around. Well worth the adventure it took to find! I could only express my feelings by asking Lucy to sell me something. No, not Scythe, something else. Cobra Paw, you say? It's a deal!
Blood Bowl experts have all had their say and the overwhelming opinion going into the Saturday night fixtures was that the Nuln Oilers and their coach Chris Peat were buoyant after their first league win and were ready to take on the despondent Dark Elven System of a Touchdown who let a commanding lead slip against the Fancy Dandys earlier this week. But it was the System of a Touchdown who came out swinging, grabbing a touchdown two turns into the game and a second two turns later. A fumble from the Oilers catcher let the elven Blitzers Jeff and Buckley pounce, pick up and score. Half time arrived and the Dark Elves were 3-0 up brimming with confidence. To make matters worse the Oilers suffered three KOs and one casualty. Could a second half comeback be on? Had the elves burned out too early? Had a small amount of low strength beer made the Elven coaching staff delirious? The answer to all of the above was a resounding No. The Oilers managed fumbles, trips when going for it, failed blocks... even the Ogre managed to catch the ball (literally a miraculous event, altars to Sigmar will be built in the pitch in remembrance) only to be overwhelmed, fall over and release the ball leaving the dastardly dark druchii clear through. Adding insult to many literal injuries, the Oilers thrower fumbled gifting a fifth TD to the elves. The speed and trickery of the pointy-eared, pale-skinned players was too much on the day and they ran out winners with a ridiculous score line. 5-0 it ended. In a complete contrast, Craig Jackson's Hazhuts Blue Bulls squared off against Alec Bell's Dwarven Donkey Punch. Dwarves pitted against their Chaos-worshipping counterparts. It was a violent grapple fest. In the second half it was six turns after kick-off until the ball was received. An enthralling 1-1 draw in a game of grinding, pummelling and slowly driving. The tackling prowess of each team cancelled each other out. What the game lacked in free-flowing movement and touchdowns, it made up for in intense tactical battles with the Dwarves riding their luck against the Blue Bulls and successfully hitting blocks to contain the devastating centaurs. Can the Warpstone Wanderers be taken off their perch, can the elves repeat their high scoring shenanigans, can the Oilers bounce back ...? Find out all the answers after the Wednesday Night Fixtures and the subsequent review. I've been Action Jackson ... and I need to sit down because the nail-biting, fist-fighting, point-stealing, violent-feeling, crowd-rumbling, player-fumbling SWC Blood Bowl championship is just too much!
Well, last night saw two of the most dramatic games we've had this season. A high scoring end-to-end rampage and a battle between two vertically challenged powerhouses of the game. These games had some extra spice prior to kick off and we'll see why in Martins Midweek Review (coming soon). League topping Warpstone Wanderers took to the field against Nurgles Rotters in what proved to be a clash of styles. It was the risk-taking, hand-shaking, dice-rolling, newbie-trolling, blog-writer, rat-fighter Special K Karl McMichael who came away with a 2-0 win. We got a word with the victorious coach below and he was in high spirits. Karl, how do you feel about the match? Daunting match tonight squaring up against the Rotters, those lads are tough to put in the ground proper. Nuffle was undoubted on my half of the pitch today. The Wanderers got away very light on damage, with 7 K.Os and a single death. Lightning speed and fearless ferocity in attack, but ponderous and flexible in defence. Any highlights for you? Chirable bought it, a sound clout to the skull in the closing minutes of the match. Monstite the rat ogre couldn't be kept down, returning to the field after being out cold twice. Vapskit's first time in the field saw him cruise to a touchdown after blitzing the ball carrier! All in all, we're looking good but it’s a long way to the top. Wise words... except for the part about a long way to the top. The Wanderers are top but have played more games so there's time for a reverse in fortune. Elsewhere the Nuln Oilers recorded their first win against the newly-named Robs Raiders. A glorious 1-0 victory. Head coach Chris Peat was buoyant and confident looking towards his next game against the dark elf "System of a Touchdown". The elves themselves were a somber bunch after allowing the Fancy Dandys to pull back a 3-3 draw after the pointy-eared pale-skinned purple-clad pretenders were 3-1 up. A lack of game management cost them dearly. Did these results effect the weekend fixtures? Can anyone stop the Rats? Have you honestly read the entire blog or just looked at the pictures? All this and more in our weekend review.
Hey there sports fans. It’s been a blistering start to the SWC Blood Bowl League. There’s been two solid weeks of heart-racing, groin-grabbing, high intensity Blood Bowl action so without further hyperbole lets get to our round up. The Warpstone Wanderers needed to bounce back from a shock draw at the (miniscule) hands of the Dwarven Donkey Punch and their Rookie Coach Alec “Blue Beard” Bell; but fear not Rat Fans! Head Coach Karl “Special K” McMicheal motivated his team to a superb bounce-back win, thoroughly trouncing the Nuln Oilers 3-0. The Oilers just couldn’t deal with the pace of the scurrying Skaven. Seven short days later and the Rats take the field again, this time against head coach “Bob Bobson” and his “Nameless Humans”. Another win for the Wanderers after conceding early. I caught up with Head Coach Special K after the game: The Wanderers put in a great display tonight! Yeah, we conceded early, but, at the end of the day it's about the game not the drive. Strong scrimmage presence was the order of the day, hard plays down the flanks and some canny passing. Opposition took quite the battering mid-game, after a quick pow-wow they conceded the half to avoid more carnage. So everything's going according to plan? I think the lads got a lot of experience from the win, Sneech is back on the pitch after the stamping he took last game and Vapskit dons orange for inaugural fixture next week. The Warpstone Wanderers are back up to 11 after a rocky start to the season. Fascinating insight into the mind of a man who coaches five foot tall vermin to play a life or death game of grid iron for the entertainment of the masses. The Nuln Oilers not only suffered at the hands of the rats but also suffered defeat in their league debut against Hahuts Bluebulls. The Chaos Dwarves, sporting traditional massive hats backed up by hulking centaurs and hobgoblins (they’re like goblins but smell worse and again, love a weird hat) were just too much as they overran the Human Defensive line. The Oilers nearly had a touchdown on the stroke of half time but the Oilers Blitzer couldn’t keep his feet. Head Coach of the Bluebulls Craig Jackson was in high spirits as he moves up the league table. Tune in next week for an update on the rest of the week's results.
|
This month I am mostlyClub members discuss their gaming month Archives
April 2019
Categories
All
|