NAF Championship 2017 - How Not to Play Orcs!

So this bank holiday saw me go to the NAF Championships in Nottingham, taking my Orc team Orclando Magic and here is how I got on:

Game 1 - Halflings

The first game I lined up against Cornish and his halflings....I hate playing halflings! the masterchef kills me as I always seem to need my 3 rerolls and I lost two each half. the first half went as planned, I received the ball and proceeded to cage up away from the trees and work my way down towards the end zone, carrying the ball over the line on turn 8 making it 1-0 to me and feeling quite happy with how it went.....then came the OTTD....I set up 6 (or maybe 7) squares back with all except my LoS players, a touchback resulted in the halfling next to the tree being given the ball and then swiftly being thrown over the top to make his landing in two tackle zones on a 6!!! He then dodged out and made his GFIs to score! 1-1

Second half I was soundly beaten, he managed to tie up a lot of my players with his trees and run a halfling cage down against my remaining players and score late on! So the first game ended in a 1-2 defeat, I didn't do much wrong and was just soundly beaten by a better player.

Game 2 - Skaven

My second match was against Kurgol and his Skaven team, I was hoping for another squishy team that I could inflict some casualties on and try and grind out standard 2-1 bash win. I started off kicking and he then sent gutters through and swarmed behind me, I pushed forward and put some pressure on the ball and left his gutters reasonably free, figuring either something goes wrong with the ball and I can potentially steal it or he'll score and I have 7 turns to hit back, which is what happened 1-0.

So I start my turn 2 already down on the scoreboard and decide it's time to inflict some pain! I then played out the remainder of the half grinding down to the end zone and inflicting as much hurt as possible, unfortunately most of the pain caused was KOs but i managed to run the ball in in turn 8 to level it up at half time 1-1

Receiving the ball in second half I quickly caged up and bashed my way through the Skaven lines, at this point his numbers were getting thin and I managed to successfully stall and cross the line in the final turn. Then thankfully I wasn't the victim of another OTTD as his Sprint gutter runner never received the ball from his catcher. Phew!

Game 3 - Humans

Game 3 I came up against BSKing and his humans, I hadn't noticed before the tournament that humans were Tier 2 and was shocked to face off against a Block ogre and four Guard blitzers!

This game saw me schooled convincingly by a better coach, I didn't have any answers for his marking and positioning and had a real fight on my hands. After going 1-0 down quickly when receiving I managed to recover and go in 1-1 at half time. He then went through my team although i managed to put enough pressure on to force a score in around turn 5 giving me a chance to hit back 2-1. I nearly snatched a draw from this somehow, failing a 3+ dodge on turn 8 cost me a touchdown, but that's dice for you!

Game 4 - Halflings

Day two started with another matchup against halflings, coached by Lunchmoney! Oh how I hate the masterchef, I lost two rerolls each half again in this one! I received in the first half and failed to pickup the ball and thought I had it secure, then a tree punched a while in the middle which a flood of halfings backed up by Zara the Slayer and Willow Rosebark! They put too much pressure on the ball for me and eventually managed to steal it from me (or the ground in front of me anyway!) and run it in on my own drive! 0-1

The second half saw the halflings cage up and start to advance forward, I managed to avoid the trees this time and get in at the squishy halfling cage and the dice came up well for me with lots of Both Downs when using my blitzers and Block BoBs. A terribly unlucky dodge fail at the start of one of his turns left him exposed and I managed to knock his cage down and steal the ball in his half before running it in to level the score 1-1 in the final turn of the game.

Game 5 - Halflings

Game five saw me face halflings for the third time! this time the masterchef decided he wanted all three of my rerolls first half although was kind enough to leave me one in the second half! the halflings were coached by Verbal_HM, and whilst he had some good dice he also played a really good game.
First half I kicked and the halfling advance trundled forward, I managed to inflict a lot of hurt including a nice casualty on Zara the Slayer but it wasn't enough to stop them from scoring on their drive, so I went in at half time 1-0 down, but up against a seriously under strength halfling side (as if they needed to be!)
Second half the ball was kicked deep into my end zone, I quickly rushed my thrower, a blister and my goblin back to cover it, knowing that a halfling was sure to be thrown towards it and thrown he was! Nearly getting the ball and scoring which would have been a disaster! I started picking on the halflings left up field although in the process lost my only reroll and still couldn't pick the ball up! this became a recurring theme as the two halflings in and around the ball caused enough nuisance to hold me up before the might movement two tree arrived (the other was rooted thankfully). On turn 7 I was still ina  good position to score, with a two dice block on the tree that would free up my thrower who had finally got the ball and he'd be away, ready to make a short pass next turn and run the ball home.......Push/Push! Bugga! the Stand Firm tree was not for knocking down and then he smashed my thrower off the pitch and the ball comes straight in two squares away from one of the halflings that had been such a pain who then dodged away to grab the ball and score! 0-2!
(This was the only game I forgot to take pictures of, gutted as they were a really nice team made up of the Deadlings from Impact Miniatures which I've since added to my wishlist for the future!)

Game 6 - Chaos

 The final game i faced off against a Chaos team coached by CrystalMcDoll (who's blog can be found HERE, and review of Day Two including the game against me HERE).
This was a great game of bashing! The ball was there but was playing second fiddle behind who could hurt who the most! I started with a casualty on a chaos warrior  which I was very happy with until I lost my Guard blitzer (or might have been a BoB) straight after!

First half I had kicked and after the chaos cage moved about I manged to sack the carrier and steal the ball, although it didn't quite work out as a brilliant dodge, GFI, GFI blitz on my blitzer with the ball pinned him on the sidelines needed a 4+ followed by 3+ dodge to score, which of course he failed even with a team re-roll!
Second half saw the Orc cage slowly making progress into the chaos half, keeping the minotaur tied up with an unskilled BoB kept my ball carrier "reasonably" safe in his cage. I made my move to break for the end zone and managed to dodge another player out to provide the carrier some assistance, although it matter not as the beastman dodged into two tacklezones on his first GFI and then GFI'd again to smack the ball carrier down and cause chaos (no pun intended) to my offence! From here I couldn't recover the ball and she successfully managed to knock a player onto it and get it out of play and thrown 7 or 8 squares back in. A last ditch attempt at a long pass by a BoB nearly came off but it wasn't to be. A great game, never knew a 0-0 could be as much fun!

Summary - W1/D2/L3

Well I had a great weekend, so much fun and I enjoyed every game, thank you to my opponents for being so much fun to play against and I hope to see you all at tournaments in the future. I did also learn a lot from these games (other than the fact I hate halflings!) so will hopefully come back a better coach next year! I finished in 173rd out of 209 in the end, so that's my target to beat next time!

Thanks for reading if you got this far, may nuffle bless your dice with plenty of POWs!
smed1986