After a long trip to Italy, the “Groovy Grass Blowers” entered the tournament and faced the scene. 912 people, all grinding to get that beloved 1st place trophy… or at least, try to get as high up there as possible. Mummies trying to make sure their bandages are right, Black Orcs discussing if they should need a tactic or not, Dwarves drinking, Amazons jiggling and the foul stench of Nurgle lingering somewhere below the table.
Before we even started BrocCooli popped up, making sure that all the fling coaches are well fed. Handing over a banana and mandarin that his flings grew in their part of the shire. “The Greenfield Asshuggers” were amongst us, and feeding up the other flings was nothing more then their way of saying, that they are a force to be reckoned with. It couldn’t be more on then this! (For the few people that have no idea what I’m talking about: “if they serve you, you better don’t serve them back… cause then, well, “it’s just ooooon!”, don’t you guys know anything?!?”)
In the far distance I could hear the roar of a chainsaw, probably from one of the older goblin teams… making sure their little jewl will not fail them on the pitch. Better to be safe then sorry, when a wardancer is in maiming distance. I heard a little worm was glowing up green again… he better makes sure the tool is well oiled up before he fields it.
In the dark alley some red eyed greenskinns were having their shrooms, while a troll is carrying their balls and chains around. Knowing full well when the psylocibin kicks in, that first rush of craziness courses through your veins… things will be getting ugly.
Yeah it was a weird day in Lucca… the masses were gathering, dice were getting warmed up… and some nice fella with a big Butterfly Tie and a very foreign accent, was explaining his tactics for the 100th time. Those boneheads just can’t keep the ideas stuffed in their head long enough… so no reason not try and explain it once more. The snotlings were just scratching their heads and try not to get mistaken for a small snack.
A nice looking girl was polishing some high heeled boots… I saw her once before, and I guessed her plan. She has hair now, it was pink… djeez things are going to be ugly this time around. And then I saw him… the big dutch draconian hermit… shooting his little snotling full of steroids. The Snot may still have ST1… but he will mighty blow some players away.
“The Croockback Cavaliers” were looking a bit ill that morning… it was probably because of a long night listening to Sjapies evening music… some peoples’ snoring can scare the biggest Ulfwerner away. And some very foreign garden gnome (GG for the friends) sold another 24 teams just to make the trip to the Old World.
I went to the organizer… delivering the cookies the master cheff prepared during the night… making sure, the best stunty wouldn’t leave without a price. Us st2 idiots know how to put some friendly pressure on. They decided we served them enough to send out a little message later on the day… announcing that there would be a price for the best stunty team. My fluffy little feet were already tingling… Like I said, you serve someone, then they serve you back… and by now, we all know what that means. … Yes, it’s facking oooon!
But this little post will not be about how “Ooon” it was… it will not be about my flings smoking up our “pot-plants” making sure no one had any rerolls left to use. It will not be about the big cherries that popped up in the first game. It will not talk about the wonderfull (and my god it was wonderfull) performance of the Italian organization (you guys were on fire). Or that lovely chap that pumped me full of expresso all day (I want you to come live with me, … please) or those nice looking girls that were almost naked and dressed up as something at the same time, and I’ll try not to mention the best ambiance I ever felt in anny tournament that I ever went too.
No, it will not be about all that good stuff, it will be about the crap… the once people just throw around and laugh with… the guys that get eaten by their own players. The guys that get stuck in the ground while they need to advance, the boyz that know that if they fall over… they die! Yes, this will be about the little guys, the true working class, the once that are at the bottom of the food chain. Yeah, the same once I wrote about earlier. It will be a short analysis about what they did, how they did it.
So again… for all you extreme guys out there, with your big bully centaurs, your saurusses and your wardancers… this article may not be for you, but I’m sure some of you will do the effort to wrestle through my bad English to find out what the small folk have done.
Here came the Goblins
Best Goblin Coach at the World Cup:
1. VinZ D – 3/2/4 – Place 583 / 912
2. Liberateur – 3/2/4 – Place 608 / 912
3. Casper – 3/1/5 – Place 629 / 912
Yep… huray huray, the dutchie finally did it. From the Netherlands, the “Croockback Mountain Cavaleers” came and crushed the opposition for “best goblin coach”. I congratulate VinzD with his title, and I know he’s very happy with it too. Me and Vinz (living so close) have a bit of a history together. He plays his gobos, and I do my flings. We are only a border apart, and we talk the same language (although mine sounds a lot better
). He has the oldest Gobos (most games), and my flings are the oldest running around in the scene also. So you guys and girls see… stunty blood goes way back in the Low-Countries. He’s also the only Gobo Coach to have won a game against me during an NAF sanctioned game (and my flings try to keep it that way). So Cheers Vinz!!!! And enjoy your victory!!!
It was tense competition in the Goblin faction though. Liberateur ended up at the same W/D/L record then VinZ but the tiebreakers decided about their faith. I think that if we look at the matchups and coach ratings they faced… Vinz won it by just a little bit more then a nose, and is therefore the well deserved holder of the title for the upcoming 4 years. I still want to congratulate “Liberateur” for his achievement, because he’s a fresh NAF- Goblin Coach. It’s also his 5th tournament… so ending up 2nd in his class is still pretty spectaculairrrrrrrr!!!! Give it some time… give it some practice, and Vinz will be having some more competition next time around!
My Danish friend Casper looked a bit disappointed at some point even though he never lost his crazy Danish smile… but having the 3th place is no shame at all. Going 3/1/5 really ain’t bad and he can also finish with some pride and let the Gobo’s rest for a while before he chases them down the field again. He’s the only guy that hired “Bomber Dribblesnot”… maybe, you just have to tell him that he makes his fuses a bit longer for the next tournament. What is amazing about Caspers’ record is the CAS-count. My god… Mr. Danish Dynamite is the only Stunty Coach that ended up having a positive casualty record… It’s not just “positive” it’s really really “positive”. 22 casualties made vs 14 against… HURAY for that!
He also seems to attract treehuggers
and zombies. 4x Wood elves and 3x Necromantic!!! He also lost the last 3 matches against… you would think, if you had some practice, it would get easier . But Caspers’ match ups where not really variated.
The Little Glowing Worm ended up 2/2/5 with his old Greenskinns… just like 2 other Gobocoaches. I guess only 1 coach needed to win the tiebreakers there… the guy that hired “Ripper Bolgrot”. Ripper and Scrappa ( a strange combo if you ask me) leaped Boggolegobbos’ team over that of the Worm and that of Roante. I’m glad that Hungary was there to compete!!! And even more glad they brought a stunty coach to the field. Hopefully we’ll be seeing more of them in the upcoming tournaments.
All the other Gobos went way down under, even Agingralcoholic who was once the holder of the highest NAF ranking with Gobos disappointed a little bit. But Leap on the chainsaw worked!!! That’s for sure!!!! Lol.
The last guy I want to shine a little light on is a Goblin Coach called Mrouge. His team “Bocktors without Borders” ended up 39th place. Because of this, he’s also the stunty coach that ended up in the highest ranked team!!!! Although he only ended up 864th place overall, he only has 4 losses. The problem was just that the “wins” didn’t come in, but if “not loosing” was the plan… he didn’t do a bad thing at all.
A lot more can be said about the Gobos… But I think those where the most important things that I noticed. Jopotzuki and Agingralcoholic were worthy contenders, but stranded all down there… But I hope they don’t give up the faith, and pick up some stunty guys from time to time… train up high in the mountains, and aim to destroy someone’s NAF rating (huray!!!).
Here are the results of the Goblin Nation… enjoy:
When the Fling hits the fan!
Only 8 people where courageous enough to bring the masters of cookery to the table. They are to short to run, to brittle to fail a go for it… sometimes you are just happy they are not all hiding in the KO box. But, they delivered this tournament. I’m proud to be in the group that has gotten a lot of bragging rights during the World Cup.
Best Halfling Coach at the World Cup:
1. Jeguan – 5/1/3 – Place 189 / 912
2. BrocCooli – 4/1/4 – Place 439 / 912
3. Kwèk – 3/3/3 – Place 499 / 912
When it comes to the “best stunty overall”… the flings delivered in an extreme way. Taking “Gold”, “Silver” and “Bronze”. I really thought the American Ogres would teach us some lessons, and he actually came really close. But in the end I lost my money. The cookery and smoke blowing little guys ran away with the prizes. Pug can be proud of the Halflings Nation!!!
First of all… there is this guy:
What part of the shire were you living in? I didn’t even see you before… you never popped up on my radar? Jeguan took the gold medal, and won the most matches. The Knaegten was probably hiding you for just the right moment… when the stars were right, the moon in the right position, to let the real beast of “Danish Dynamite” loose on the world. I never went to the Danish part of the Shire… but I guess, I need to come over for a talk (and prey for my liver).
Me (Kwèk) and Jeguan are the only guys that gave away 3 losses with their stunties… all the others did a little bit more. His casualty ratio was only -1. Jeguans’ team only ended up 130th place??? How did they do that? If they have such a starplayer? Not to mention Casper who also had a nice ratio with his Goblins. What were the other players doing down there??? Having such star stunties coaches, leaving them unsupported while they clean up all the dirty work? Knaegten??? Were you sleeping dude?
His flings ended up TOP 200, by achieving the 189th place!!! (WTF?!?) He's also the only person that hired Zarra for the Party... probably stripping away down the lane, while the flings folowed her pretty little ass all the way to the touchdown line.
There were some smaller voices, talking about the fact that Danish Dynamite kept playing at the lower tables… someone even said using “Zarra” is like cheating. But honestly… I believe they are all wrong. YES, playing in the lower tables (specially in this set up) helps you get better games (hopefully against lesser opponents), YES Zarra is not a star player that could be indentified as being stunty… but neither does “Morg N’ Torg”. His “average opponent rating” isn’t that bad either… so there is no reason to think that he stole his place!. Annyway… the fact is… you have to win your matches, even if they look easier. And Jeguan sure as hell did that. Most opponents will cheer when they see Zarra, but will go “bummer” when they see Deeproot. It really depends on the match ups. I’ve used Zarra… I used her 3 times… and I personally take the 3th treeman over the Amazon Blitzer everytime (unless some special rule kicks in). Zarra is usually better against AV7 Blodgers, having the opportunity to stab them instead of blocking them. But the Treeman is just a kick ass killer. So what ever anyone whispers… I believe Jeguan deserved to be where he is… He did it, he kicked ass, I salute him! HURAY! (He made the Fling Nation Proud Pug, better send him a Potplant)
Hakaa Pääla!!!, What ever it means, harbored another shire regular. I only knew BrocCooli from the picture that was send to me by PeterD who played in the “Fling Challenge” on the NAF-Championship. There you can see him smiling with his bag of Fish and Chips (or some other British thing… that makes us Belgians shiver). This was his 10th tournament with the little guys and as you might have read in the intro… he made sure everyone was served his/her vitamins before the big battle (Thanks dude… it has been a long time that I had Banana). He ended up with a 4/1/4 record overall… that’s one a lot of Fling coaches would sign for from the very start before 1 dice is thrown.
He seem to attract a lot of Dwarves and Wood Elves. I don’t really know how the games were, but they usually are pretty extreme in my book. Woodies are hard to play again, and you are just trying to have a good defence and hope the Wardancers end up in a nifty position, so your treeman can wack them off the field. Dwarves, you need to outposition and outrun… always really close games… But both are doable. I believe the dwarves are a lot less hard to at least “draw” against then woodies.
“The Greenfield Asshuggers” ended up with silver for the “stunty cup overall”. Only giving away 4 losses, and taking 4 wins. Before I left… I hoped to have 4 wins and 3 losses… and the other 2 games can be draws or wins… So I would be extremely happy with this result, just missing my target by a little nudge. Getting 439th place overall (ABOVE AVERAGE) is also really good
… I hope we can face the crowd together again… and have a little fight off soon. Keep grinding BrocCooli! Oh yeah, and I heard first hand “Frenzy” on the fling did it’s job too… lol. I wouldn’t put it in my playbook… but neither would I put leap on a chainsaw… but you are up there, and I’m just a bit more down here… so, who am I to say what’s good and what is not. I wonder how much Italian expresso that fling drank to be buzzing like that!While VinZD got the biggest “increase” during this tournament as a stunty (10,48), BrocCooli was the biggest scalp hunter this weekend!. He beat up a 172,68 wood elf team, gaining 10,25 NAF points! WOOHOO!!! Thank you Visnu for being a friend to the cuddliest creatures in Blood Bowl
.Next up… the Bronze Medal for the best Stunty Overall. Not reaching over the 50 percent marker, not getting the 4 wins… but getting just 3 losses. The oldest flings on the NAF ranking system… “The Groovy Grass Blowers”. My flings did a great job this weekend! Playing in the higher echelons when it comes to NAF-ranked opponents. Coming really close to crush a wood elf coach at 198,8 and getting a 2-0 head start after the first half but failing the dodge on a 3+. I also came close to loosing the game in turn 8 second half… but the frenzied wardancer failed his 3+ Leap after a sneaky fling forgot to use his dodge skill. Man, I was having Yena Flashbacks (Eurobowl-Denmark)… Olivier, that was an amazing game bro!
Anyway, my flings did amazing… but not amazing enough. They had the best defence of all the stunty coaches… only getting 9 touchdowns against. Only loosing against Undead, Lizardmen and Pro Elves (grrrrr NEIL!!!! grrrrr). Played against the higher NAF ranked coaches with a pretty high “opponent NAF-ranked-overall”. And we gave the U.C.L. some really nice points. We just came short on the 4th win… Most games (except for the Lizardmen) were really close. I had loads of fun, and have proven myself to be just below average yet again (HURAY). I had some amazing games… specially vs the Wood Elf Coaches. It was extremely tense, I hope people enjoyed the games as much as I did.
This is the part where the Halfling magic stops… The next fling coach can be found at place 826 from 912 people… there is a huge gap between the bronze medal… and the first follower. Maybe we should really start doing some Halfling Boot Camps… where we can train and harden the flings. It’s always cool to see someone tossing those players around… and Puggy B can work miracles.
Morg N’ Torg ended up 894th … I also tried him once. But I can only tell you that I believe Deeproot is just a bit better! Stelacero went for it… and maybe he can tell us his opinion on a later occasion.
Random, a local Italian picked up the Flings for the first time… a big Cheer for him! I hope you keep Flinging along the way. Going 1/3/5 on your first tournament ain’t that bad either… your defence seems okay. You need to start winning the Ogre, Halfling and Goblin matchups… I heard they are the easy guys
. It’s sad to see that grinding like that, and only having 5 losses still gave you a wooden spoon. I guess you were a starplayer for “Discepoli del Signore della Notte” you should ask a raise dude! Or at least apply for the masters of Tillea, I heard Farina is getting old and Beppe… he is better NAF president then a blood bowl player . With this record, you can grow and support the Italian nation, like I support the Dutch one! 
So here are the last Halfling contenders with their scores, thanks for supporting the Halfling nation! And keep them Flinging… and don’t listen to Pug to much
. Only trust in dodge… a little bit! .
I’m still wondering what happened to the AngryHobbit…. He seems to be the only person with 8 games listed in the stunty records this world cup. I don’t really get the story
, maybe I can bring you an update on that one later. What I can tell you… is that the Halfling Nation not only was the cream of the crop! But we also harbored the last ranked stunty player of the tournament. So if you gobos were trying to at least get that honor… we screwed you over on that one too. Take that!!!Whatz You Sayin’ Boz?
The Ogres… here they are… to big to tie their shoe laces, to small to snuggle in your bed, but what great players they can be. As long as they don’t go “Duh?!?”. The moment your ogre starts drooling and looking at how beautifull the fluffy clouds are, you here a big “damn you” through the entire crowd. But if they do their job… they can be crazy.
But we won’t be talking about Ogres, no, we’ll be talking about the “Snotling team”. Since the new ruleset their “titchy skill” has become a bit worst, but their big guys became lot better. There is still some discussion going on on what is a “stunty” team… but I made it clear in my last article… for me… Snotling teams (cause it’s not an ogre team) have 4 big guys, loads of snotlings, and access to the starplayers. That means that they COULD have a 5th star player ogre. But they don’t have to.
So for all you ogre guys, that think I’ll be writing about you… I’m sorry. But I’m writing about stunty teams… in this case, the “snotling team”… the ogres are just part of what make them “tick”. Just like I could be writing about “Skink”- or “Underworld goblin”- teams… but no one decided to bring them to the party. It’s a bit sad that these look-a-likes but stunty conceived teams are not seen as “different” in the rulebook OR in the NAF ranking. People would be more interested in trying them out if they would, cause now your lizardmen ranking could just plumbets if the skinks go to town.
Still, two players qualified for this weird mix of strength and … well… little green squishy thing.
I actually thought “Profgoldfinch” would take away the best stunty… cause I know how good the Ogres can be. But he ended up 5th place “stunty overall”. Still reaching up to a very respectable 607th place! He also ended up with his snotlings as 2nd Ogre player in the world cup. Only being beaten by the “Knaegten” (lol, the destroyer of dreams) who got 366th place.
For a stunty coach, his “Opponent ranking overall” is on the higher side… so he had to be doing something right for his team “Stars and Spite”! According to the NAF site, he was the stunty coach with the 2nd highest NAF ranked opponents. He was also the only (yes ONLY) player from outside Europe that played, what I would call, a stunty team.
There were some Ogres from outside Europe… one from New Zealand and one from Australia… but the stunties were running low when it comes from people outside the old world.
The last stunty guy of the article is Plt44… he tried the 4 ogres + Star, maximizing ogres that are allowed BUT loosing momentum on rerolls… as you can see… it didn’t really pay off. At least his matches will be revieuwed over and over and over again thanks to the sponsoring of BN Cabalvision!
The end result
I introduced all the players
, I gave all the stats… now here is the final line up.
Total touchdown overvieuw from the stunty races and how they scored.
I worked long and hard on all this information… I hope everyone that read it through to the end has enjoyed the article.
Before I end this… I want to thank:
The Italian Blood Bowl Community for giving us a great time, for organizing, and doing everything that needed to be done to help us with our needs. Also all the guys behind the scenes, the scripters, the once that helped organizing… thank you so so much. AND THANKS for giving us the first “stunty cup” ever on a world cup! (next up… eurobowl HINT HINT)
The Blood Bowl Community, for giving us an incredible time… this is the first time that I felt this energized. Amsterdam was incredible, but having 912 persons together, all joined in 1 fight… to score touchdowns and foul players that failed to score touchdowns. That was incredible. I think everyone that was there, can agree, that this felt special… and huge. Hopefully we can continue with this positive vibe.
The Stunty players and teams that allowed their friends to play their favourite races.
The people that lost against us… yeah, you guys are the best!
Oh yeah… there is one thing that I need to say before I end it all… you don’t have to be afraid! NO, NOT AT ALL cause… well…
Halflings, Snotlings AND Goblins DID DIE to bring you this broadcast and information!
And remember:
!!! Love the right Stuff!!!
) or my opponents (nice people all of them). I still had the greatest of times and will probably take another stunty team in four years.
