NAF 2013 Trumptonshire Ogres by MrHannah

I was asked by the NAF to put together a few words on my strategy in coming to the championship and coming away with the most casualty trophy with 36 casualties. The problem is I did have a strategy planned over several months which was to take Chaos with a minoclaw, 2 blocking warriors, 2 tackle warriors and an extra arm beastman with the aim to come in top 30! In the end I took Ogres and came 156th out of 156 and didn't even get a wooden spoon. So how did I end up taking Ogres and bringing back a nice piece of glass wear?

It started as most things BB do wandering through the GW shop in Newcastle and coming out with the WH Ogre box set thinking I could convert them to BB. I did this and played a human team using my Gobbos as snotlings - I learned 2 things; boy are these guys hard to play with and Gobbos don't look the part so web searched a bit and found the coolest Greebo buggers. So after all the conversion and paint effort had a nice looking team!

Then where to play them? Well certainly not in the GBBL league so that left the NAFC 2013! Choices then are you're not going to win trophy so it's Stunty cup (difficult) or most Casualties (could be fun) so that was how it was decided. Now what team? It was a pretty simple choice - 6 piling on big guys, 7 snots which left 1 RR, with a plan to go for most Cas.

Next thing planning and researching best way of doing it and how many casualties would do the trick, or go for a beer so again simple choice and beers it was, so turned up Saturday morning with no idea what I should do or how many Cas I needed.

GAME 1: Driesfield's Norse.
Don't remember too much about it except I had on piling on guy and Norse with little dodge go down pretty easy and are fairly soft so 7 Cas and beaten easily. The first game I pretty much ignored the ball but learned a couple of lessons, first once teams get past the Ogres it's hard to catch them to hit them and secondly every time a team scores I get 3 free hits on the line for next kick off.

GAME 2: NoNumber's Skaven.
Lessons learned! Encourage opposition to score and hit hard. Game started well with a kill first go, then realised using Snotlings to assist gave 3 block dice against gutter runners or 2 snots against line rats. Casualties piled up as did TDs against, then road to Damascus epiphany! Start using that elliptical leather thing, when the rats got past the Ogre line I picked up the ball on my TD line with a snot and threw it back to Orgre's lucky catch and it was 'ok Mr Rats you want ball come and get it'. Game ended 6 CAS, 7 against me with snots going down easily(price of 3block dice) and a stunning 8:0 TD to NoNumber. One surprise was the snots had took to the idea of killing and one titch 1/2 diced and killed a skaven blitzer. Additional lesson it's hard to knock over dodgers, you need a POW as both down ends my turn.

(editor's note - NoNumber ended up with most Touchdowns!)

GAME 3: Pete_Delafield's Undead.
So lessons so far, dodgers hard to knock down, Snots great to assist and use the ball to lure opposition back to big guys. I now had 3 piling on Ogres so front line a killing machine and chose to receive as usual. By now I knew the type of player I wanted to hit! No skills, especially not dodge and moderate armour so with undead it's pretty much zombies and skeletons everything else more difficult, however not many of them so I started the killing, then another Damascus thing when you kill undead they can regenerate! This was great Pete was pleased when every zombie I killed came back and I was over the moon. I think I killed 1 zombie 4 times! End result 8 Cas.

END OF DAY 1: no wins but 21 casualties and I thought perhaps it might come off. Great evening in hotel meeting up with other coaches and learned there was talk going around of a mad guy not interested in winning games but killing loads and had 21 casualties. It was nice to hear and explain it was me but it added the pressure.

DAY 2:
Quite nervous as now some coaches were aware of what I was attempting, especially having to wear that blue cape.

GAME 4: Buggrit's Goblins
This was a tough game the hard thing was knocking Gobbo's over once that was done they were easy meat but with 4 piling on some turns I had to pick 3 up and stand and blitz with 4th so it limited my hits. Game ended with another 7 CAS and a loss. So by now I had 28 casualties after 4 games.

GAME 5: brocCooli's Flings.
This was really tough as something dawned on me, what if I fail to win most casualties as I was heading for wooden spoon and humiliation. So decided to change tack and go for a win! Bad mistake! Managed a TD but against good flings with skills to enhance their play and everyone with dodge killing was hard and game ended with a miserable 4 casualties and a 2:1 loss.

GAME 6: Armydave's Skaven
Before the game the nerves were kicking in I felt if I could get to 40 I would be safe but the poor game before had me worried as I only had 32 CAS on the board.
Must admit don't remember a lot just nerves when the kills didn't come. I took turn 4 first half to get first one then they dribbled in slowly one was a rat ogre which was a nice surprise but game ended again a loss and only 4 casualties so total 36 after 6 games.

THE WAIT
people who know me couldn't understand why I was very nervous, I hadn't hit my target of 40 and thought a miserable 8 in the last 2 games meant I'd thrown it. Then came the announcement I'd won, it was a great surprise and thanks to all of you for the applause and to Jervis for his kind words on the stage '36 casualties! That's brutal.'

THE AFTERMATH:
I later looked up the most CAS for majors and realised 36 was the highest ever in either The Blood Bowl or The NAF, so if I'd researched a bit the nerves wouldn't have been so bad but then again it added to the whole tournament. Would I do it again? Don't think so, next year it will be Chaos I think. If anyone wants tips I'd suggest same team but share the piling on with tackle so the dodgers go down as well because once they are down you generally don't need piling on.

Anyway it was fun and hope you enjoy a bit of the inside info on my tournament.

MrHannah