This Monday I came home from the NAF championship, tiered but satisfied. It was the 5:th tournament this spring and my Orkish Blood Bowl voodoo have really gotten better out of is.

In January I went to Doubt-IV in Umeå with the Orks and finished at 3:rd place out of 22 coaches with 7-2 in TD:s and 3 wins, 3 draws and 0 losses.

In March I arranged and participated in NärkeBowl 2013 in my own hometown. I played 3 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss and finished 6 (or 7!) out of 26.

At Easter I travelled to Gothenburg but played with my skaven team White Rat Trashers as Dragons borrowed my orks. It didn’t go that well, 2 wins and 2 losses. I really have to practice at my ratplay.

In the beginning of May we held a tournament in Malmö: Malmö BloodBowl Masters with 20 coaches. New orks on the block ended up in 9:th place with 2 wins, 2 draws and 2 losses.

So came the end of May and the NAF championship, the real challenge. It was the first year for me and no other coaches from Sweden had prior years travelled to NAF of my knowledge. This year it was 9 Swedish coaches participating. That shows that the tournament scene in Sweden really is growing fast. 
I had a great stay at the venue, even thou the food was a little bit to English for my taste (come on NAF, give us a proper lunch next year, and a dinner with enough food to fill up) and played six close BloodBowl games, all against new opponents. 
My goal was pretty high set: place top 12 or best of the Swedes. I played agains Orcs, Undead, Amazon, Goblins, Chaos and Skaven, in that order. After the dust had settled I had 4 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss and the loss was off course against Geggster and his annoying Goblins, a game I screw up my chance to draw. I came in on place 9 out of 156 coaches, best of the Swedes, a result I am really happy with! For the full result visit talkfantasyfootball.org

As I have done this five tournament I also have kept a close eye on my fellow Swedish coaches to assess they play style and to get information to make a informed decision on the members of Team Sweden for Eurobowl. At the moment 5 coaches are chosen and 3 more plus 2 reserves will be decided after Low Cash Cup in Stockholm.

The team so far:
Lard – Orks
Dragons – Chaos Dwarves
Jammydodger – Dwarves
Ozt – Norse
Mago – Wood Elf

New Kids on the pitch

Biggest news in my world is that Impact are producing teams in plastics for $35. That’s really cheap for a full team. Check it out here.

Willy miniatures kickstarter Chaos team is now possible to buy, and it is really beautiful. Shows us the power of 3d printing.
Willy miniatures has also completed there Khemri team, our as they call it the Egyptian team

Greebo miniatures Nippon Goblin team are now possible to buy.

Neomics has been bought by Gaspez and have a new Prince Elves team 

Black scorpion have a new great Vermin team and a elf team

Meiko miniatures has acquired a lot of Franarscillas miniatures and have released two teams: Wood elves with tree man and
Goblin team with 2 trolls 

Ready Steady Go!
The Nun Shall Pass team are finally finished in the Amazon setting. I will complete the team with an Ogre (for the human variation) and some coaching staff at some point but for now they are done. The painting is very simple; I saw this bunch of models as a practise in human skin tones. I didn’t make a real effort with the cloth and just kept it black. Nothing fancy but good enough to play games with. The models from Shadowforge are nowdays on Eureka miniatures but I bought mine from Impact.

The team: "Nun Shall Pass"

Linewomen:

  Blitzers:

Catchers:

  Thrower:

The New Orcs On the Block has gotten some more coaching staff; a hooligan and a ref that will work as reroll and turn counter.

I have some more orc staff waiting to be painted but they will have to wait for the EuroBowl to be completed. There are as always a lot of models for different project laying around and the following teams are on my to do list:

Prioritised
1. Old Ma Chaos – a chaos pact farmer team
2. Little team of Horrors – A team with pink horror as Slann
3. Pact of Underachievers and Low Performance – goblins and troll to make a underworld team with the Skavens from White Rat Thrashers.

The rest
* Willy XXL – a nekro/undead team – needs different zombies
* Impact Sarcos – Lizardmen
* Impact Scottling + Maiko Ogres – Ogre team
* Greebo Nippon – Goblin team
* Slanesh pact team – old slanesh 2:ed models for a chaos pact
* Uscarls scots – Norse team
* Dwarves of Anarchy – Neomics Biker Dwarves, but don’t have the team yet.

To complete it as all the 24 different teams I will also have to find modelling projects for High elfs, Pro elves, Dark Elves, Khemri, Halfling and Chaos, but that isn’t a hurry as I first have to finish the 10 teams above.

I will be back in a month time with the progress of the Old Ma Chaos and the selection of team Sweden.

Best regards
Coach M.

NAF:Lard

In the old Dalarna calander the year as you now as 2013 is actually the Year of the Orc. To celebrate this great festivity I have decided that I will play Orcs at EuroBowl in oktober. That was a hard desistion to make but nessesary as for me as the team leader of team Sweden I have to be very clear to all coaches in Sweden as of what blood Bowl teams team Sweden seeks. To get that great luck I need I painted the Ork soccermum model I had laying on my desk:

If we look at the 12 team types that placed best Eurobowl 2012 we find:

• Undead
• Wood Elfs
• Chaos Dwarves
• Lizardmen
• Amazons
• Orks
• Dwarves
• Norse
• Skaven
• Elfs
• Nekromatic
• Dark Elves

Out of those team I look to find eight coaches to represent Sweden. As I are an ok coach with two of them, Orcs and Wood elves the choice was easy. It is after all the year of the Orc.

That leaves 11 team types and seven coaches (and two reserves) to find. It will be some tough desitions if I will have to do them all alone. I need a sidekick, or a goblin, to help me. Last year was the year of the Halfling and in THAT movie we all got educated that Goblins speak with that nice English accent. As I only now one coach in Sweden that could do that the choice of my sidekick was simple (he was also the coaches who last Euro Bowl was the best of team Sweden coaches with 4,5/7 points in the tournament, he is experienced at international tournament, and Sweden NAF representative). Offcourse wanted he to play Orcs but after I pulled rank on him, he chooses the stunties instead. That is two out of eight coaches chosen. For teams we have left:

Chosen teams

• Orks Me
• Dwarves Coach D

Availible teams

• Undead
• Wood Elfs
• Chaos Dwarves
• Lizardmen
• Amazons
• Norse
• Skaven
• Elfs
• Nekromatic
• Dark Elves

I have a third coach in mind. In Sweden we do not have that many tournaments but we have one coach who during 2011-2012 won 4 out of 5 he participated in. It is outstanding in so many ways. But most coaches will be picked after two qualifiers and a look at the tournament scene.

Tournaments in Sweden are there for you to give it your best and prove that you are the chosen few to fit the norm set for team Sweden. I hope that I can find seven coaches who all are clearly better than myself on this game. Here is where I will look:

Doubt

Twinmountain bowl

Denmark vs. Sweden - Round 3

Qualifier Malmö

Qualifier Örebro - NärkeBowl 2013

GothBowl

To get myself into the orc way of playing Blood Bowl again, I will try to play as many tournaments with the orcs as possible. For Doubt this weekend I even have painted up a coach and a doc to follow mum around:

That exactly what my Wood elf team lacked. But offcourse, all you know that I still lack this important miniature: the heart of every ork team.

/Coach M.

2013 was my "best" Blood Bowl year this far. In this recap I will look back and see what happend.

February

Finished the painting of my Nurgle team Likröta BK. 15 miniatures.

Mars

Painted a Weather goblin. 1 Miniature (16 in total)

April

Played at GothBowl with the Nurgle team but got trashed. Read this recap. Conclussion: Nurlge is a hard tournament team.

In the last weekend of April I tried my luck in StockBowl Cup II and got second place with Wood Elves out of 16 coaches. Never met the one who got first place.

June

Organized an participated in a selection tournament for Team Sweden for EuroBowl. I ended at place 3 out of 22 coaches with Wood elves.

September

Finished the painting of my Chaos Dwarves team Ziggurath Showstoppers. 15 models (31 in total)

Also in the late september I organized the Blood Bowl tournament NärkeBowl 2012, see this pictures.

October

Team Sweden went to Copenhagen to participate in EuroBowl. Team Sweden ended 8/14 and I got 66/112 in the individuall standing. Se this recap from the tournament.

November

Finished the painting of my Skaven team White Rat Thrashers. 15 Models (46 in total)

December

The last month of 2012 I painted 4 reinforcement thralls for my Vampire team - Pennybridge Super Suckers. 4 models (50 in total).

I also bagun painting a amazon/human-team for my fiancee. 6 models (56 in total). The team name is undetermined but "Nun shall pass" is maybe the hotest candidate at the moment.

Lastly during December 2012 I got elected as the new Team Leader for Team Sweden 2013. It is a great honor and I hope to be able to chose coaches for team Sweden during the Spring 2013.

I hope 2013 bring as much great Blood Bowl experience as 2012 has. For tournaments GothBowl and EuroBowl is mandatory. I will go to DOUBT next week and I think about going to the NAF championship (25th & 26th May 2013 - Nottingham).

For organizing I will organize a selection tournament for Team Sweden during the spring and a practice weekend for the team in September.

2012 I painted 56 models in total. That aint so much but it doubled the number of finished teams. Now I have 6 painted teams. For 2013 I hope to finish 2-4 more, beyond the rest of the amazons.

Happy New Year!

Lard / Coach M.

It is always like this. You have an ambition to write often but then it gets less often and more not at all. But hey, now I am back with allot to tell you.

New kids on the pitch

Team Snö from Greebo is a new beautiful Norse team and if you are in the mind frame to buy a Norse team this is one of the best on the market.

UsCarl miniatures have released a Renegade elf team that could work for dark elfs.

Gaspez have some mummies for ther Egyptian warrior team - Khemri.

Willy miniature is about to kick start a Chaos team   that also looks really great. They have no miniatures yet but the pictures look top notch.

There is also this kick starter for some goblin secret weapons with a Halloween theme, and maybe a robotic troll...

I might have missed some of the new miniatures due to the long "blog writers block" but in the case I find newer teams out there they will be added in future Side Line recaps.

Bowl overview

This section will be mostly about EuroBowl but first I will mention the upcoming tournaments in Sweden. Next year has a great start of the tournament scene in Sweden!

Choose from:

Landskamp Denmark vs. Sweden - round 3.12 January in Copenhagen. RES/SWISS 1100K + 3 skills.

DOUBT IV 12-13 January in Umeå. RES/SWISS 1200K +4 skills (+2 more after game 4) 6 games in total.

TWIN mountain cup, 26-27 January in Sundsvall. RES/SWISS 1100K + skillpacks.

I am sure I will go to DOUBT and then we will see if can join any more tournament.

EuroBowl report

I was in team Sweden and went to Copenhagen to play some Blood Bowl. I had a Wood elf team with 2 wardancers, 4 catchers, 5 linemen and 3 rerolls. In hindsight can I see that it wasn't that optimal... It was great fun to hang with Team Sweden and to approach the game as a team. That was totally different from regular tournaments. The arrangement was also super good. The Danes had really made an effort to make it a perfect blood bowl tournament and I think they were pretty close to perfection.

 Team Sweden in all its glory

Game 1

We meet Belgium first and I was up against another wood elf coach - Da great MC. He played 2 wardancers, 4 catchers, 1 tree, 4 line and 2 reroll. Sure hands on a catcher, strip ball on a wardancer and one more skill I do not remember.

After a brutal Pitch invasion traded we TD:s for 1-1. He had the ball for a second try first half. I got a leap/sack chance with my strip ball wardancer, got the ball lose and then after a bunch it ended in my wardancers hand. Sadly he couldn't get away with it as he was out of moment so The MC just rolled a POW and scored in turn 8. In second half no one was able to stop the other one from scoring so the result was 3-4 to MC. He was the better player and had a little better time management so he was up 2-1 till the second half.

         The Belgium team gave us a great treat to eat. 

Team Sweden over all draw agains the Belgium team - 4-4.

Game 2

Next up was England and I was up against a Chaos Dwarf team played by Lycos. This was my 6:th NAF ranked game in my life. It was his 807:th...

I got the ball and the offense but wasn't able to stall enough as I had to score in turn 4. That meant that he had 5 turns to even things out. He got a high kick on a bull centaur that cached the ball and ran the Bull in a cage that was really hard to stop. 1-1 after first half. In second half he picked up the ball with a bullcantaur and ran it in a cage. It was hard to stop also this time. My one turn attempt failed.

As a curiosity was the only player that failed a roll in the Chaos Dwarf team the Minotaur, he rolled both down 4 times during the game. Due to this had Lycos not used a single reroll during the whole game.

1-2 Loss.

Over all beat the English team the crap out of Sweden. I think the result was 2-6 to England.

Game 3

A little discouraged I went into the next game against Scotland. To my surprise I meet a Swede - Tribble - that played as a freebooter for Scotland. To my joy was he playing Goblins.

It got even better when I rolled Blitz! for the first drive, stole the ball and scored on my turn 1. I then proceeded with another Blitz! roll, another TD and all the Bribes gone. Let's summarize the rest of the game with this: Tribble had really bad dices and I rolled great. Nuffle gives and Nuffle takes.

End result 5-0. Win!

Sweden vs. Scotland went in our favour as we won and Team Sweden got back some steam for game 4.

Game 4

This was a game against Finland (or minor Sweden as we think about it). I was up against a freebooter from Denmark so I had two of our neighbors in the same match. I was facing Kneagtens Humans and as he has his own playbook I thought I had him scouted pretty well.

This was a crazy game in all regards. Kneagten played as he writes in his playbook and fouled, 13-14 times during the game. He was evicted 2 times. He succeeded to score in the first half with a crazy play #pick up, pass, catch in tackle zones...# and evened things out to 1-1. As second half come along so did "get the ref" and the fouling continued. In the end I did not have the man power to stop him so I had to play for a draw with a desperate play. Let's call it Nobody puts side-step wardancer in the corner without the ball.

And yes, you can see my whole team at that point in this picture. Kneagten did that 5+ dodge with a catcher and blitzed both players out in the audiens before he scored. All without reroll.  

2-3 loss.

The important thing is that Sweden won over Finland. 6-2

Second day

Game 5

After cleaning our cabin we faced of against France. I was up against Elyoukey who played Lizardmen.

It was a good game. I scored 1-0 in the first half and succeeded to prevent Elyoukey to equalize. Second half started and the wood elf team had forgot to put on their armor... In a few turns the whole team just vanished to the knock out, injury booths. For the last 2 turns Tribble went for a clearing of the pitch but I succeeded to have one player standing. The game ended 1-1. Draw.

All my players on the pitch and some of his.  

As a whole was France better than Sweden that day and won 5-3 over us.

Game 6

Spain was our next challange and I was facing Barrys Norse. A very nice looking team.

I scored easy in first half leaving Barry with two turns to equalize. He rolled well and we had 1-1 after first half. For the first game in a while my players stayed on the pitch so I could slow Barry down in the second half. It was a tight defense and Barry couldn't find any cracks. On the other side, I couldn't get to the ball.

The game ended 1-1 Draw.

Over all Sweden got another beating and Spain won. 5-3

Game 7

Final game was againstSwitzerland and I was facing BDG and his Skavens.

He started with the ball and tried a pass that fell short. I could take the lead and after the next kick-off sack the ball high up on his court. After first half I had a 2-0 lead. I attacked second half and got 3-0. He suceeded to do a TD. I failded my last 2+ roll for 4-1 and he scored for the end result.

3-2 Win.

Sweden won over Switzerland. 6-2.

As the dust settled It seemed that Sweden came on place 8/14. With my 2 won, 2 draw, 3 losses I placed 66 out of 112 coaches. The total experience was a blast! I will definitive do it again if I get the chance. All the coaches and the staff where really friendly and by far this was the best tournament I ever been to.

Next year it is in Austria!

Ready steady go!

At last have I finished the White Rat Thrashers - my new Skaven team made to be possible to play at tournaments that just will accept miniatures from Gran Wendy.  So I give you:

The team have basecolor as follows: white - thrower, yellow - gutterrunners, red - blitzers.

What will i do next? Undead/Nekro i think...

/Coach M.

NärkeBowl 2012 results

 /Coach M.

This weekend I went to Stockholm on a short vaccation, and to play som blood bowl at Stock Bowl Cup II. The tournament was held in the outshirts of stockholm in a little dark youth revreation center but even thou the facilities wasnt top notch the coaches and people was great. The tournament was smooth without any hickups and I think all 14 coaches enjoyed themself (with one exeption that I will get to).

Team setup

2 wardancers (with stripp ball)

4 catchers (2 block, 2 wrestle)

5 linemen

3 rerolls

  
Match one. Skaven.

I got the ball kicked to me and tried to get a fast score. Missed my dodge (those ones!) and a gutter runner scored. I had Cased 3 players fast so I wasnt unlucky. Got the ball kicked to my again and scored fast. Then Skaven Cased 5 of my players before the half. he just rolled insane injuries. The game was close non the less but ended 2-3 to the vermin as I hadnt the players to pressure him enought.

Pictures from game 1. Second picture show my dead and injury both 2nd turn 2nd half.

Game 2. Undead. Team name "Streatfighters IV"

The second coach was a childhood friend that I hadnt played against in years. He hadnt played that much Blood Bowl this last years but I remember him as a solide coach from way back. I rolled a blitz against him after I had scored a quick TD with ment that I had a 2-0 lead after the first half. As he didnt CASed enougth players I could keep the pressure and won with 4-1.

Picture from my first drive down the left side and a second picture when he is struggling to keep the pieces together after my blitz.

Game 3. Orks.

The third coach was kind of grouchy when we started the game. His prior games had been awful and, well, I keep on rolling high. Wardancer harrased the ball and he didn´t get a break. 4-0 was the score in the end. He then left the tournament and went home.

Game 4. Orks.

I got a little taked aback after the last coach disappearance and felt a little guilty. This last coach was, on the other hand a real pleasent coach to play against and even thou he was a little enraged as he couldn´t get his CAS the first half (at games end he had 5 so it wasnt bad in any way) and his goblin couldnt land on his feet in his one turn attemts, it was a pleasent game. 3-0.

 Goddiebag content.

In total 13-4 in TD was the most TD:s in the tournament and 3 wins, +9TD got me the 2:nd place of all coaches. I got a miniature for my effort and a goodie bag as I had signed up early. The Stockbowl scene seems to have a lot of fast dodge teams: 4 Wood elfs, 1 dark elf, 2 skaven teams, 1 slann, 1 amazon. Next time I will bring some more tackle, maybe my new Chaos Dwarves, and wreck havoc.

As Stockbowl Cup was a qualifier for the Swedish team for EuroBowl 2012 and the winner didnt think he could go I hope that my 2:nd place will grant me his spot, but we will see...

One thing about Stockbowl that I would like to nit pick about: The tightness of the tournament. With 7 blood bowl fields in 7 square meter and just 2 hours per game without any pause between the games you where kind of fatigued at the end of the day.

The Easter came and went. As holiday I went to GothBowl and got trashed. My Nurgle team came in at place 24/34 with a 1-1-2 (w-d-l) record. As my defense I have to state that Nurlge stink in that kind of format that GothBowl runs. Non the less I got a price for best painted model, saken - The thing, number one in Likröta BK took that trophy. One of my black orks in New Ork On the Block won the same price last year so im really happy.

Pics from GothBowl

Match 1 lizardmen 1-2

match 2 high elfs 1-1

The High elf coach was the runner up in GothBowl 2012   

match 3 Norse 2-1  

match 4 Undead 0-1  

This is in my turn 2 first half, 1 CAS 3 KO, sick!

"The Prize"

Now the pressure is on, I have to win the same price next year, and place my team higher in the rankings. Even thou it is nice to win a painting price, the real trophy is the first place. To be able to stand a fighting chance I have decides to paint a skaven team.

   Raw material for a cheap skaven team + numbered shoulderpads from impact

It is many skaven teams available on the market but i do not think any of the teams are that great so i bought some models to convert on the convention. A pack of clan rats and a pack of crypt ghouls from Gran Wendy has enough nice parts to make a full Skaven team, without a rat ogre. The cobblestone bases fit nicely for the ratpeople.

clanrats: 

Blitzers:    

Throwers:

Runners:    

I will make some balls for the throwers hands, otherwise it is almost done. They will be painted in albino skin and some other color. I have played around a bit on color scheme designer but have not decided yet. I have to paint my chaos dwarf first, but then the skaven will get their colors.

Team name? I am working on it: "Närkes underjord" , "Toilettrunners", "White Trash Rats", "Underrats", "Bettstörda gnaggare", "Den Svenska Under Horden".

For rat ogre I think about franarscillas or willys.

/Coach M.