World Cup - Poetry in Motion - Nurgle

[Dr. Von Richten]

Game 2 against Necros (Dutch coach). Managed to CAS both Werewolves on turn 2 (only 1 Regened). Won the game with a turn 15 TD.

Oh yes, I remember that one.

If there's one thing I learned this tournament, it's that Werewolves are great, but very fragile!

Good play though, and congratulations on your strong final scores.

[Smeborg]

I think it was a very tough tournament format for Necros. There was not enough money to get a satisfactory roster (7 or 8 positional players) and 3 Re-rolls. Also, it is not clear what is a good doubles skill for Necros. The Necro coach in our team came last, and he was ranked no. 2 in the NAF rankings going into the tourney.

In contrast, the tourney format was ideal for Undead, and they duly came 1st in the averages.

All the best.

[DoubleSkulls]

Necro did perform a little below average in the tournament (.499 under LRB6, .452 at the World Cup). Nicodaz and Topper both got top 25 finishes, so good coaches can obviously do well with them.

[Smeborg]

FINAL WORD
--------------------
I am well pleased with the tourney. An excellent and curiously fair team result (both teams that beat ours finished above us, the one that beat us by 3.5 to 2.5 was one place above us). The competition is tight, unsurprising after 9 rounds of Swiss, half a point more would have seen us in 6th place.

I hope I have managed to show that Nurgle can compete at this level (we bounced around between 6th and 20-something out of 80 teams for most of the tourney). The 3 games that I lost were effectively lost on turn 1 by the dice, although I managed to keep 2 of these games alive for a while, one of them into the second half. I got Blitzed 3 times, with none in my favour. I did have some more quiet luck on the kick-off table, mainly via silly fan rolls (5 extra RRs in the first couple of games, not all needed of course) and IIRC a couple of thrown rocks in other games.

I played most of the tourney at board 1, this worked out well enough for the team, but probably I would have done a bit better in the individual standings (185) playing at lower boards. We will never know. There is a lot of paper/scissors/rock in this format, not only as to what team you meet, but what day you meet it on.

As is often the case, my best games were the draws, where I came from behind to draw on turn 16. 2 of the 4 wins were won on turn 16, one on turn 15. Of such stuff are tourneys made. The draw against the top ranked DE team is something I will savour for a long time.

All the best.

[Smeborg]

Necro did perform a little below average in the tournament (.499 under LRB6, .452 at the World Cup). Nicodaz and Topper both got top 25 finishes, so good coaches can obviously do well with them.

And Undead and Lizzies took the top 2 slots in the team averages, which is what I would have picked before the tourney (based on the house rules). Orcs were not great, I think Azza in our team got the highest placing with them (41)

All the best.

[JaM]

Well done, somehow never met you there though. My games went on too long... I always have slow opponents I guess .

Kudos for going there with Nurgle. Well done!

Cheers,

JaM

[spubbbba]

The 3 games that I lost were effectively lost on turn 1 by the dice, although I managed to keep 2 of these games alive for a while, one of them into the second half. I got Blitzed 3 times, with none in my favour.

So all your victories were down to tactical genius whilst the losses were due to the cruel vagaries of the dice? Funny , I have found that too in my Bloodbowl history. All my losses and draws have been to dirty luckers whilst each victory is a testament to my skill at the game.

Seriously though is good to see someone taking Nurgle to this thing and doing well, I am a little disappointed no one else did out of 480 coaches. Plus travelling half way round the world to play BB for 3 days shows quite a bit of commitment too, or did you do it for the promised weed and hookers? I hope you got there before Sillysod killed them all.

[Smeborg]

So all your victories were down to tactical genius whilst the losses were due to the cruel vagaries of the dice? Funny , I have found that too in my Bloodbowl history. All my losses and draws have been to dirty luckers whilst each victory is a testament to my skill at the game.

Yes and no. I had my share of luck in the wins and draws as all the turn 15/16 TDs (5 of them) involved rolling dice, mostly at good odds, but once or twice at poor odds. But at least the games were fun and went 15/16 turns. By contrast, the games that I lost were all as good as lost on turn 1 and involved silly dice. Example 1: Blitzed by Skaven in a blizzard, rolled 7 double skulls in the match, 3 out of 4 armour rolls by my opponent during the match penetrated armour etc. Example 2: played a whole match against Undead with 9 or fewer players (mostly fewer) on the pitch. Even if I am going to lose a match, I prefer to do it at the last ditch, at least the game is fun for both coaches that way.

I had poor luck on turnover attempts when defending, for example in the famous DE game, I had better than evens chances of turning him over (or shutting him out) during the first half, potentially creating a famous victory. But it did not happen - indeed I only got 2 turnover scores in the whole tournament (in the 3-0 victory against the Dwarfs), notwithstanding that I had good chances of turnovers scores in nearly every match. Likewise I had only 1 shutout on defense, normally a stock-in-trade of Nurgle. So while I am very pleased with the results, they happened in far from orthodox fashion.

[Edit: for spubbbba's benefit, I add that I did play badly in 2 of the games that I lost. I am pleased with my play in the other 7 games.]

All the best.