Blood Bowl: Violent PreSkeletons 2, Lambs to the Slaughter 0

The third match in my Blood Bowl season was slightly better than the Lambs' previous rout at the hands of Citizen Change. I knew I had to rely on my inducements to get me some chance of at least a draw. Now I'm getting the hang of the rules again, I also realised that you only have 16 turns in a game of Blood Bowl, excluding possible extra blitz turns at kick off, so need to make the most of them.

The Lambs in all their glory - ready to be slaughtered...again!

In the case of this match, against the undead Violent Pre-Skeletons, there were two bonus blitz turns at the start of each half, but it didn't do me an awful lot of good. But inducements-wise I picked up a star player in advance, Lewdgrip Whiparm, who agreed to play for the Lambs for one fixture against the undead team. I had a misplaced idea about bringing a better passing game into the match than I might usually have.

Flesh golem to the fore!

Violent Pre-Skeletons are a diverse team, with a handful of zombies, a couple of flesh golems for the extra muscle, a brace of wights, a ghoul (Daddy Starbucks) and a pair of necromantic werewolves. These last proved particularly dangerous, as they are quick on their feet, although not extremely strong, so easy to knock down.

The Pre-Skeletons tried to play as open a game as possible, relying on the aforementioned Starbucks to provide the key full back role, as the ghoul was quick enough to pick up on any threatening beastmen break throughs, not that there were many. Although the werewolves were fast, it was the ghoul who was obviously designated the primary ball carrier for the undead.

I was quite pleased with the ability of the beastmen to defend in depth in this game - they are quick enough to cross the field to intercept even fast movers like werewolves. The undead did manage to score their first touchdown by building a 'cage' of sorts with the ghoul running with the ball down one side of the field, screened by the wights and a werewolf. But after this I began to get the hang of breaking up their drives by marking their key play makers like the werewolves more closely.

Necromantic werewolves - bands designate skills and injuries.

This was the first team I played that tried fouling some of my players. I did not retaliate because it was pointed out to me that it was not worth risking having a Chaos Warrior sent off for a foul on a zombie.

Beastmen break free of the line in an effort to get clear for a pass.

If the undead have a weak point, it is that the zombies and the flesh golems are very slow. I did not fully appreciate just how slow, and how much the undead would be relying on their ghoul and the lycanthropes. Once I did it became a bit easier to mess up their drives.

And the ball is loose! It happened a lot due to the rain.

This was also the first team to successfully push one of my players into the crowd. I quickly realised just how deadly a tactic this is in Blood Bowl. With the flesh golems dominating the centre of the field, the course of play naturally drifted towards the side lines. While I had a beastman shoved into the crowd (where he was violently assaulted) it was not long before a werewolf found itself in a similar position and a chaos warrior (Mikkel Ironfist) took the opportunity to shove it into the terraces. Sadly there are no player points to be earned for this.

Lambs' losses mount...

My strategy to set up a pass using Lewdgrip did not work sadly - I don't really have the receivers which would warrant this kind of approach at the moment, plus both teams were hampered by torrential rain sweeping the pitch, which made passing very hard. And then Lewdgrip was knocked out early in the second half, ending his participation. More consequentially, Big Jim was also taken out by a flesh golem, which was a first for the minotaur.

Towards the end of the game I was down to about eight men, including three chaos warriors, but that's just not enough. Numbers were starting to tell, even with one werewolf and a zombie in the dug out. The Pre-Skeletons were able to easily run the ball in for the second score on the last turn of the game.

Lessons learned? I think it is time to abandon the passing game entirely and perhaps take a look at the cage tactics we saw the dwarves execute in Week 1. With Big Jim and the chaos warriors, the Lambs will soon have a formidable front line. Big Jim now has a claw mutation which makes it easier for him to dish out the hurt. Gerhard Grunter has also just been promoted to star player status, as befits his #1 shirt and Rudiger the Cruel is not far off.

The fast movers - wights with Daddy Starbucks the ghoul.

So time to go away and reconsider the tactical situation. Sadly #6 Helmut Hooves has been badly injured with a broken leg and won't be able to perform to 100% of his ability going forward (AG 2). I've been advised to sell him, so will have to look into that. He's currently on injured reserve anyway.