Blood Bowl: Ars Maledicta League - Cup/Match Day #1

With the Ars Maximus league having come to an end, another rookie team league was quickly created ... Ars Maledicta. This time around I decided I'd take in an Orc team, promptly named the Orkago Boars after my favorite NFL team the Chicago Bears.

Match Date: 11-25-2011

Orkago Boars vs. Flaming Geckos Replay

My first match was against a Lizardman team called the Flaming Geckos, and my strategy (after some good advice) was going too be too blitz a Skink every turn no matter what in the hopes that I could take them out of the game. Without those sneaky Skinks running around, I figured I'd be able to pull off a victory!

I was going up against one Kroxigor, six Saurus, and four Skinks, versus my four Black Orcs, four Blitzers, two Linemen, and one Thrower. With the coin toss lost, I kicked off too my opponent to start the game. I kept my Black Orcs, Linemen, and one Blitzer on the line, and three Blizters, and my Thrower in the back field to hunt Skinks.

On my first turn, my opponent had made a costly mistake, leaving one of his Skinks on the edge of the pitch, naturally one of my Blitzers in the back field quickly crowd surfed him. On my opponents next turn, he managed too take out one of my Blitzers, I opted not too use my apothecary since it was just a knock out, I figured I'd better save that just in case one of my players got killed instead.

My second turn one of my Black Orcs blitzed his ball caring Skink knocking him out cold, and causing a fumble. Another one of my Black Orcs injured a Saurus on the line as well. Unfortunately the fumbled ball landed right next too one of his other Skinks, which managed too pick up the ball, and hand it off to another Skink, which then ran the ball in for a touchdown. The score was now 1-0, however there was still plenty of time for me too make a come back!

I received the kick off, and quickly formed up a cage around my Thrower, and started a slow push up the right hand side of the pitch. My opponent again made the costly mistake of leaving a Skink at the edge of the pitch, and again I crowd surfed him taking him out of the game. Oddly enough, this mistake was made again. So by turn five I'd crowd surfed three of his four Skinks, removing them from the game!

I continued my cage drive up the pitch, and by turn eight I was in a position to score. I had three Black Orcs protecting my Thrower, and the only player my opponent had any chance of stopping me from scoring was the lone Skink, who would be come known as the bravest Skink the world had ever seen. The lone Skink dodged through the Black Orcs, and attempted to tackle my Thrower, but failed, and only managed too push him. Unfortunately the little guy didn't have much movement points left too get clear of the upcoming Black Orc beating. 

Luck was with this Skink, because he was surrounded by two Black Orcs, and the third Black Orc was blitzing him, somehow he managed too only get knocked down instead of seriously injured, or killed which is what both my opponent, and I thought for sure was going to happen. With the beating over, my Thrower ran the ball in scoring the touchdown, and bringing the game to a tie at 1-1 at turn eight.

The Bravest Skink

Half-Time was over, and I received the kick. My Thrower quickly grabbed the ball, and again I formed a cage around him, driving up the right side of the pitch once more. However this time, Sweltering Heat struck on the kick off, and Nuffle was going to make sure it hurt, and hurt bad! As I continued too drive my cage up the pitch, my Thrower found himself surrounded by the opposing team, my opponent was doing a damn good job at stopping my cage this time around. The only option I had to continue too move the ball up the field was to hand it off too a Black Orc, and naturally that clumsy Black Orc fumbled the damn ball!

The Lizardmen were quick to capitalize on the fumble, as a Skink grabbed the ball, running it back near the end zone, as a lone Saurus guarded the Skink with the ball. Enraged at having fumbled the ball, the Black Orc blitzed the Saurus, injuring him, and taking him out of the game. The Skink with the ball fearing that he wasn't going to be able to make it through my defense tried too run the ball to another Skink, and hand it off. The Skink that received the ball had butter fingers, and fumbled the ball right in front of one of my Blitzers.

Ball in hand, and guarded by a Black Orc my Blitzer had a clear path too score another touchdown, bringing the game too 1-2 in my favor. With the touchdown scored, Sweltering Heat finally kicked in, and it was a bitch! I had one Black Orc faint due too the heat, my opponent however had his entire team faint except one Skink, and two Saurus. I honestly felt bad for my opponent, there was nothing he could do at this point, except take the slap in the face that Nuffle had issued him.

There was only one turn left, so I wasn't able to capitalize on the Sweltering Heat, and score another touchdown, so I opted too just go for some more star player points by causing some more injuries, but wasn't able too get anything good. With that, the game came too an end, and I'd won my first game in the new Ars Maledicta League. It was a fun game, and I really enjoyed it.

Current Standings

1) Sneaky Jerks (Skaven)
2) Horn 'n' Scorn (Chaos)
3) Orkago Boars (Orcs)
4) Bro Elves (Elves)
5) Full-Field Press (Ogres)
6) Night Dragonnes (Dark Elves)
7) Ashes & Dust (Undead)
8) Graveyard Hex (Necromantic)
9) Flaming Geckos (Lizardmen)
10) Bestigor Freebooters (Chaos)

Next game I'm taking on a Chaos team named the Bestigor Freebooters, should be a grudge match, as it's already been named the Battle of the Beasts!

Lack of updates?

For those of you following my Blog (if there is actually anyone following my Blog), I'd like too apologize for the lack of updates since September. I've been really busy, and just haven't had the time to sit down, and write like I'd like too. Now that the Holidays are here, it's probably going too be even worse, hopefully after the New Year I'll have lots more time.

A quick update ...

My Fort Zombie story, is on hold for now. I've still got Fort Zombie installed on the computer, and at some point I will come back too it, and finish the survival story of Benjamin Lucius Riley.

The Ars Maximus Blood Bowl league has ended. I'll finish the write up on that league as well. So don't worry, you'll be able to read all about how well/bad Pestilence Storm did.

A new Ars Technica Blood Bowl league called Ars Maledicta has started, and I've taken an Orc team called Orkago Boars (similar to my favorite NFL team, the Chicago Bears) into it. I'll begin writing on it here shortly. 

Fort Zombie: The Beginning

To whom ever may read this, my name is Sergent Benjamin Lucius Riley. I am a former solider in the U.S. Army, part of the 173rd Airborne Brigade deployed to Indianapolis Indiana to contain the Zombie outbreak there. To my knowledge my unit was wiped out, and I am the sole survivor.

I’ve decided to keep this journal as a record of the passing days. Why? Well perhaps it will become a historical book that future generations will read, or maybe some other survivor will find it, and use it as a guide to keep himself alive should I fuck up, and get myself killed. Hopefully it won't just become another blood stained book discarded along with all the other trash. So long as I am alive, I will keep writing.

You may want to know how this madness began? It's hard to say really. Some scientists believe that it's a disease, and that our friends, and families are not really dead, they are just suffering from an extreme case of poor hygiene that makes their flesh rot off, all the while giving them an insatiable hunger for human flesh. I call bullshit! Folks wore their masks, and got their immunization shots, but it didn't help. People still died in clinics, and hospitals by the thousands!

Then you've got the holy rollers, the Preachers who say it's the Wraith of God! Judgement Day came upon us when the sky turned black, and the moon became blood red, because we turned our backs upon our savior when society embarrassed so called sinful acts like homosexuality. Again I call bullshit! Folks said their prayers, and lit their candles, but it didn't help either. People still died in churches, temples, and shrines by the thousands! 

Me, I don't care what you call it. All I know is this isn't a war you fight with prayers, and petrie dishes. That isn't God looking out through the rotten eyes of the people you once loved. These are Zombies, an enemy that you've got to shoot in the head to kill, an enemy that sure as shit wants to kill you, and eat your fucking brains unless you kill them first!. So unless we start fighting back, the inevitable tsunami wave of corpses that is coming is going break over the lands, and take the rest of us with them.

I've been squatting on the outskirts of a city called Piety, located in Indiana. I figured staying well outside of the city itself would be my best chance for survival as most cities were crawling with hordes of Zombies. However survival has become increasingly harder as each day passes. My food supply is running low, there are no more stores I can raid on the outskirts of Piety, and the only animals I'd seen available for hunting are Crows that have been feasting on rotten flesh, and I'm not going to risk getting infected by eating one of those bastards. If I want to survive, I'm going to have to enter the City of Piety itself, and look for supplies.

At dawn I will enter the City of Piety ...

Blood Bowl

Let's start things off shall we?

One of my oldest, and latest gaming hobbies has been one the greatest games ever created, Blood Bowl!  Like many older (and wiser) gamers, I started playing the tabletop version of Blood Bowl back in the early 90's at my old gaming haunt, All Star Games. Assembling, and painting the miniatures, and finally being able to play with them on the pitch was an absolute blast. I loved it!

However, I eventually joined the Army, and as time went on, time ran out. I just couldn't find the time to play, let alone paint miniatures. It also didn't help that no one played at any of the duty stations I was assigned to either. 

Heck even when I finally found myself here in Huntsville, Alabama. I still couldn't find anyone that played. Which I found odd, because there were several stores at the time that sold Games Workshop products, such as Blood Bowl. Who knows, maybe I just didn't look hard enough? The point is, Blood Bowl was becoming a distant memory, which fucking sucked. Many years went by, and I never got to play tabletop Blood Bowl again unfortunately, however things would change for the better in the year of our lord 2008 I believe it was!

I was searching for the old Blood Bowl PC game to get my Blood Bowl fix that I'd been drastically missing in life. That day it was as if some angelic force guided my fingers during that Google search, as I happened upon a link for Chaos League! Some brilliant folks over at Cyanide had made an amazing looking game that played just like Blood Bowl, and just named it Chaos League.

Praise be to the baby Jesus, I'd finally found the Holy Grail that I'd been looking for all these years! Little did I know that Satan himself had already defiled all the cookies in the cookie jar long before I reached in to grab myself the fat chocolate chip cookie that was Chaos League!

Turns out Games Workshop wasn't to thrilled that Cyanide had created a game based on one of their most successful game titles. From what I understand, any differences between Games Workshop, and Cyanide were amicably settled for an undisclosed sum of phat cash, but as part of the settlement the Chaos League title was assigned to Games Workshop! 

What did that mean? It meant that no matter how hard I searched for a copy of Chaos League, I couldn't find one. Not on eBay, not on Amazon, NO FUCKING WHERE! Apparently Games Workshop had pulled ALL the copies of the game, and burned them in a huge lake of hot magma! However all was not lost, it also turned out that Games Workshop had given Cyanide a license to develop another computer game based on Blood Bowl that would soon be released in 2009!

When Blood Bowl was finally released in 2009, I didn't purchase it. Why you ask? Despite the fact that I'd gone through all that trouble, and my love for Blood Bowl, the game itself apparently sucked hardcore at the time from everything I'd read about it. It was riddled with bugs, and only released with eight of the famed teams, instead of the known twenty. Eventually Cyanide would release Blood Bowl: Legendary Edition that included all the teams, and tons of bug fixes. However I still didn't pick it up at the time, extra gaming funds were lacking, and I just couldn't afford it.

Then the glorious online gaming entity known as Steam had Blood Bowl: Legendary Edition on sale for $10 bucks earlier this year. Did I buy it you ask? You bet your sweet candy ass I did! And I've been loving it like the hottest piece of poontang to walk the face of the earth ever since! Can I get a witness? Jesus Christ Hallelujah Amen!

I had been playing the single player a lot, however I wanted to dive into a league. I couldn't wait to get into some that action as I'd heard it was a ton of fun. I've been a part of the great Ars Technica gaming community since 2007, and one of my long time friends there Squrf the Angry Albino Squirrel alerted me to the fact that a new  Blood Bowl season was starting up. So naturally I joined, and created my team, Nurgle of coarse, and called called Pestilence Storm, and entered the fray!

So from this point on I'll be documenting my Blood Bowl season games, and include some screenshots hopefully, along with the replays should anyone care to actually watch them!

Until next time kids, and remember Nurglites Unite!

Where to start?

So I've had this blog for several months now, and yet I've never written anything in it. I guess because I've really never felt that I had anything interesting to write about. However that has now changed, being an avid Gamer for many many moons now, I've decided to jump on the bandwagon, and write about my gaming experiences. Which I'm sure my wife will enjoy, since she just loves how dedicated I am to gaming!

I'm sure it'll be boring, as I'm probably the worlds worst writer, however I'm going to give it a go anyhow! Stay tuned for a not so exciting, horrible blog that you'll probably regret wasting your time reading!