The NAF Blood Bowl World Cup IV: Dornbirn To Be Wild

If you’re reading this I assume you at least know vaguely what the Blood Bowl World Cup is all about, so I won’t bore you with the details. If you are in the very small venn diagram of knowing and caring about the Blood Bowl tournament scene but not knowing about the World Cup, it’s basically an enormous 1400-player 6-coach-team event. LOTS of blood bowlers, lots of fun, much insanity.

I wasn’t able to attend the third NAF World Cup in Luca sadly, so I was determined to make it to make it to Dornbirn. I sold all of my warhammer, took on some painting commissions, saved up all my pennies, and before I knew it was waiting for my 06:30 bus to shepherd me away to some full on, hardcore nerding.

Travel and Lodging
The travel was, in my opinion, fairly straight forward. A bus to the airport, a plane to the bus, a bus to the venue. Granted each leg took a good 2-3 hours, plus faffing around time, but it wasn’t actually too bad. I coached from Newport to Heathrow, flew from Heathrow to Zurich, and then got the bus from Zurich to Dornbirn. The shuttle buses were much appreciated, and it was great to just make sure I was in the right place at the right time, and I knew I would be picked up and plopped down in the right areas.

We found it hard to find a good place to sleep all six of our team for a non-crazy price, so we ended up splitting into three splinters. Thankfully we were all fairly close, so we were able to meet up in some capacity on each night – in theory. More on that later…

I stayed with Dreamscreator (Hugo) in a nice little two-bed apartment in the centre. We agreed to play a match to determine who got the sofa bed and who got the normal bed. I set it all up on the iPad, quite happily letting him play Orcs… little did he know the Orc team he was playing had only three BoBs, three Blitzers and a goblin/troll combo. Har! Lizards ftw!

6am bus on Thursday

Sunrise over the Severn

Start as you mean to go on!

The Team
My team was BUBBA Legacy. We’d all at some point or other lived in or around Bristol (except Sam), and we decided to add Legacy as only two of us did currently. Eski (Steve – Necro) was our Captain, with Hugo (Orcs), HungDonkeyman (Dave – Chaos Pact), scs.sam (Sam – Slann) and Hawk (Andy – Undead) comprising our six. We collectively had only one tier one team, with the rest solidly tiers two and three. None of us were man enough to bring any  stunties!

http://nafworldcup.sbbm-turniere.com/1/B66.html

The Squad

My Roster
I brought Khemri, because #KhemriLife. I have had a lot of fun with them and I would say at this point they are my strongest team (geddit?) My roster was: Tomb Guardian x 4 (Guard Day One), Blitz-Ra x 1 (Tackle Day One/Mighty Blow Day Two), Throw Ra x 1 (Block Day Two), Blitz Ra (Guard Day Three), Throw Ra (Block Day Three), Skeleton x 6 and two rerolls.

http://nafworldcup.sbbm-turniere.com/1/B66/B66A02.html2

My opinion with Khemri is that if you’re not going four Guard Guardians on day one you’re doing it wrong (my mantra is – Guard Wins Games). Then again, I didn’t finish as top Khemri so maybe I’m way off the mark. (Top Khemmers took a Break Tackle Guardian and a frenzy Blitz Ra, so who knows!)

After that, the next most important skill is Block on the Throw Ras. I’ve had many games where a single die block or -2D on the Ball Carrier has dislodged it. Cake Bowl taught me that Block on the Throw Ras is absolutely vital. However, with only one skill allocation left, I elected for Tackle instead. Tackle is just as important in many ways, so it’s a toss up. My thinking was that if I come across a Zon team or some nasty Woodies day one, or even some unskilled Ghouls or human Catchers, that Block/Tackle combo is going to make some people very sad.

Day two gives you an extra 50k, so I blocked a throw ra. I didn’t want to block the other one as it would waste the remaining 10k, so instead of using a double (I don’t think Khemri particularly care for doubles anyway) I stacked Mighty Blow on the Tackler to make him even more popular. Last day I slapped Block on the last TR, then it was a case of what to buy with the last 20k. Dirty Player is a nice skill, especially with a 14-man build, but I elected for more Guard because I’m tonnes of fun.

Fourteen players seems like a lot, and it is, but I had games where I needed them all. AV7 is bad, and even with Regen they like to stay off the pitch. I completely abuse them as well, throwing them into all sorts of nasty situations. Again, you can obviously go 12-man build and bring the third reroll (again with a random 10k to spend on what, Fan Factor?), but I’m not a fan of this. Rerolls come and go, and can be wasted so easily, gained and spent with nothing to show for it. Players are never wasted. Even if he dies in turn one, knowing you have another ready to join in next drive is a great feeling. With 12-players, you only need to be two skellies down before you’re sticking positionals on the LoS, and with the amount of Chaos and Undead, that’s not a good idea… Plus Khemri should (ideally) only throw 3d or 2d with Block blocks (important ones anyway), plus Sure Hands – Rerolls and for when things go wrong. Khemri are a team that can easily go wrong for the unprepared player, so you have to play safe safe safe. Balls to the walls is for other teams Your browser does not support the audio element.