Thunderbowl Home of the 40mm board

"Welcome to B-League" indeed. Three straight draws of which 2 potential wins were lost on Turn 16.

Beastiality have already clinched a lower standing for season 7 than they managed in their rookie season. When questioned why his team had suddenly stopped being able to eke out a win in their sophomore season, Coach Warpstone could only say "karma, Nuffle always gets you in the end" as he walked away rubbing his sore backside.

Game 1 - Home to Frengard Foxes: 1-1

Completely stymied on offence. Double Penetration (the Minotaur) kept eating blitzes with failed wild animal rolls.

I then managed to get 1-0 up and intercept Wedge22 not once but twice (once with the minotaur) AND yet stil couldn't play keep away or score to seal the win. Instead the crafty humans got the ball back and tied it up. The ensuing two-turn drill for me went badly with Reacharound (the Dark Elf) failing animosity on the winning TD pass attempt.

Game 2 - Away to Dead Menace: 1-1

Punkpogoer made the brilliant decision to kick to me and then played a "cover-6" defence for the entirety of the first half. I kept wasting actions by knocking down his flesh golems and he kept standing them up and picking off any downfield marauders with his zone-defending positionals. One particularly stupid move by me saw a rookie marauder get killed on a simple werewolf crowdpush. Oi.

I lucked out on the Necro drive when Punkpogoer was gripped by a moment of elf-sanity and failed a pass to a werewolf around midfield. Scored on turn 15 and left him with only 2 turns to tie it up.... he did. He triple dodged a ghoul (4,3,3), GFI'd and then threw a long pass with another ghoul for the equalizer on Turn 16.

Frack.

Game 3 - Home to Malicious Intent: 2-2

I lost the win on turn 16 here too. However, in all fairness, Dr. Evil completely outplayed me from turn 1. He bashed the crap out of me for 7 turns. But the then a touchback gave my Ogre and Goblin a chance to get some jungle fever going and with every roll resulting in the 3+ or 4+ I needed: voila, one-turn TTM TD!

I was even at the half and that suddenly had me back in the game. A sudden loose ball in the early second gave Reacharound (the Ag5 DElf) a chance to, well, reach around, grab the ball and huck it to a downfield marauder for a surprise score! Sitting at 2-1 with 3 turns for the Orcs to equalize. I managed to pop the ball out of a sideline cage, but it was thrown in three times until the ball was back in the Orc side of the pitch. I really couldn't do anything then to prevent Evil's long pass or the TD on turn 16.

Life's tougher in the big leagues. Powerbowl or Underbowl, here we come!

Interview: The FN Givers first match is against Nightsiders, the first Underworld team in Thunderbowl History. We got a chance to speak with the Givers team captain Jeff Leppard about their plans for this historical match up.

Q: So Jeff, this is a huge game for you. Skaven and Goblins don't play well together, what is your plans on keeping them down and off the score board?

A: Huh? ......(Long pause) What? ....(Another long pause).

At this point Jeff started nodding off and when I tried to wake him up and ask the question again, he jumped up and told me "Suck my bag, you fuckin' fag!" And then he threw a lit cigarette at me and told me to get out of his trailer. It's going to be a good season.

Ted Willis - Block Magazine

I've looked at my opponents for Season 22 and I feel a bit out classed. I'm playing Underworld and the word squishy is beginning to make me fearful.

First up is Norse with Tyler. I've played Tyler once and I learned alot about how to play and all about stalling. The Norse are nice and bashy I played them at Thunderkrunch with little success though i have my own dice luck to blame for that. I expect at least 3 casualties. The only things that may save me are the Stunty and Dodge. I've got to work those to make a win the slightly faster skaven should get me some TDs. I'm not a great player as of yet so I hope to win and I'm not counting on it.

First Match Report: If 1's and 2's were the coin of the world I would be a wealthy man.  About 65% to 70% of my rolls were bad resulting in Turn Overs or bad plays. I got so desperated that I tried braking cages with goblins... note I will try that later when they have some skill but to start off with it was suicide. I managed to Kill a player with the Troll and throw a teammate into position to score. It was great though it didn't make up for the laws of probability leaving me at the alter. Tyler played a great match, didn't stall to long and deserved to win.

Second is Lizardmen. I've wanted to play this team for a while not really looking forward to playing against it. Skink speed and Saurus strength will be punishing vs the gobos. I'm looking to tie this one.

Second Match Report: This one a was dreading after my first game. In the end it turned out to be ok. Sure I took 5 casualties and two of those were deaths but I did get some skills and I did win which was not expected. I have to say the Liccalottapusses are going to be pretty nasty once they start getting some skills on them. I had a 2 goal lead on them in the early part of the second half but sortly there after I didn't have too much team to play with.

Third is Woodelves... need I say more. I'm going to try and put the hurt on the WD or another skilled player. Hoping for no Treeman.

Fourth is Pro Elves. Less scary than the Woodies but I feel they will have a a bunch of TDs. No Big Guy is a plus! I hope to still have mine by this time. I've never played Mike so I'm looking forward to this game.

Fifth is Chaos Dwarfs. Tackle is going to be a killer as well as the Dwarf toughness. This game will be close if I can get the ball to a skaven player and manage the gauntlet. I like playing Steve for the endless humor of the moments. Regardless this game should be good times. I hope to have Tentacles on the Warpstone Troll at this point or by the end of this game.

Sixth is Chaos. Paul has been talking about a ball handling team... lets hope its still in the works at this point. Regardless I will get bashed around not much i can do about it here I'm marginally faster and have skills for the running and throwing game in place. It could go either way. Also very much looking forward to this game.

Seventh is Orcs. I predict a win for me but it will be close and I will have 5 guys on the field by the end.... making me wonder if I really did in fact win.

Eighth is High Elves. This will likely end in a score of 4 to 2 for the elves. I foresee a loss here. I've played a lot of elf teams and I never seem to do well against the High Elves.

Ninth is Dark Elves. I will say 3-2 for the Delves and many losses on both sides. God help me if he's got assassins.

Game Ten is against the Chaos Pact. Another team I wish to develop in the future. I have a feeling as long as the marauders are not to developed I can pull out the win here. The Gobo, Delf and Skaven don't really hold much threat for me. The 3 Big Guys however will be pounding me to hell.

 I am predicting a 4W-2T-4L for this season. Better than that and I'll be ecstatic, less than that and I'll likely bring in a new team for the next season.

What do you think?

For Spike! 2009, I coached an Undead team called Doom Doom Doom!  Here's the lineup, and I've included the advances I took:

1. Implode, Mummy - Multiblock
2. Explode, Mummy - Piling On
3. Boom, Wight - Guard
4. Bang, Wight - Guard
5. Dash, Ghoul - Sure Hands
6. Flash, Ghoul
7. Gnash, Ghoul
8. <unfilled>
9. Black Hole, Skeleton
10. Super Nova, Skeleton
11. Earth Quake, Zombie
12. Tsunami, Zombie
13. Hurricane, Zombie

2 Re-rolls, 4 Fan Factor, 2 AC, 1 Cheer leader

Record was 3-3-0 and I scored about 10 casualties.  Of the casualties I suffered, 3 were ghouls and there were 6 others of which 4 regenerated, worked out pretty darned good :D

All the games were pretty close and excellent matches.  I wish I had written down stuff, because I've totally forgotten most of the salient details... A few beers will do that to you.  But here's what I remember.

Game 1 was with Ryan S and his Humans.  What a great match!  Hard fought, tight score, but he cheated like a dirty son-of-a-gun and won by a TD.

Game 2 was Mike M and his Chaos...  A rock 'em sock 'em match and I came out just ahead of him in a real nail-biter.  When that last phase was played, but we both were just glued to the board as the diced bounced around deciding our fate!  Very intense and a great match!

Now I get a bit hazy as to who I played when, but I think I played Damien's Dwarves in game 3.  Those effing Dwarves!   I forgot about their Troll Slayers, specifically Frenzy, so I started a Ghoul too close to the side-line and he got frenzied off the pitch right off the bat ... Boy, I didn't make that mistake twice!  ... Well, at least not intentionally.  The Dwarves fought hard and I think he beat me 3-1 in that match.

Day 2 started out againts Neil's Ogres (maybe) and what a grind-fest that was!  Holy smokes!  Rocking bopping smashing crashing!  The first half was the Ogres drive and they spent all 8 phases grinding up the field for a TD.  The second half we rallied but there was much rocking and socking in the course of doing so.  In the end, the casualties were brutal.  He injured a skeleton (regenerated) and I injured a Snotling ... Apothecaried.  The rest were KOs, but very brutal KOs.

Game 5 would be ... More Dwarves!  This time I was ready for them Troll Slayers... But Cale didn't have any.  That lucky son-of-a-gun managed to score twice with Blockers.  The first time, my Ghoul had just blitzed his ball-carrier and gotten the ball right on my line, so natually, he blitzed that Ghoul with a Blocker and lo and behold!  The ball bounced onto the Blocker, he rolls a six, and then does a go-for-it to get into the end zone!  I mean, what the hell?  So then natually, in the second half, through similar circumstances, a lucky bounce, etc, he runs in the tie-breaking TD with a Blocker.  What the heck?  Did this guy just drive from Alberta, and go straight to the Commissioner's house with a pot of gold?

So finally, game 6 was ... More Dwarves!  There outta be a rule somewheres saying "Fuck Dwarves!  Fuck them in their stupid asses!"  This time it was Chris S.'s Chaos Dwarves.  I was only able to win through cunning strategy.   I stragecially rolled great, or at least not too bad, and cunningly had Chris roll lots of 1s and Skulls.    My cunning strategy worked and we shut-out the Chaos Dwarves.  Hoorah!

Ah, the Undead, so much fun!

Congrats to the various trophy winners and the Spike! 2009 Grand Champion Johnny Mac!  Thanks to all the organizers and the league commissioners a thank you all the great coaches who showed up.  Everyone was a good coach and a great sport!

- Arch