Blood Bowl match report: Only Fangs versus Ithildin Avengers

 So, after a 5 week hiatus due to spring break, it was time to get the ball rolling again on the pitch.

 

And this time, we are facing the Wood Elves, meaning bar Treemen, my Claws are useless.  Tackle however...

 

 The Wood Elf team has been near the top of the League in the rankings, while I still remained in 3rd place after the break, so all is okay.  The fact this will be my 7th game versus his 12th also means he has quite some skilled players already.  Team Value wise though, my 1600 outweighed his 

 

The plan would be simple, use my Tackle players to take down his key elements of War Dancers and Catchers as soon as possible, while Sabrina Sabok and the warrior blockers would aim to deplete his stock of linemen. I already was the underdog by a measly 5k, but as he bought two kegs from his treasury, I could spend some more.  I took a Team Mascot, a Keg and three Prayers to Nuffle, the rolls resulting in Fan Interaction, Treacherous Trapdoor and Bad Habits on 3 of his linemen.

 

I new he would be dodging around all the time, and escape probably a lot of the time, but if I could pull this game off even while losing without suffering casualties myself, but be able to "level up" the two unskilled Chaos Warriors Val Steele and Proxy Paige, plus scoring the bonus point for 3+ casualties caused, it would be good enough for me.

 

The teams set up, Only Fangs chosing to receive.  The first half didn't have that much of thing going on though, as a lot of pushing and bowling over was done, but bar knocking out a single lineman I didn't manage to cause any harm to his lines.  As expected, he started dodging away and shifting play from left to right over the field, while infiltrating with single or maximum double players into my half.

 

However, we had managed to secure the ball, and had began to drive up near the right side when his elves started tickling in to recover the ball.

 

 

And when they managed to push my ball carrier, Katty West, over, of course the ball scattered due to strip ball right in the hands of his lineman and the only one around that could have picked it up... and that was after it had been kicked in the field from the crowd by 11 squares.

  

In the meantime, my minotaur Sabrina Sabok had a horrible match day.  While she managed to keep his treeman mostly downed during the game, she also managed to roll an incredible amount of 1's today on her Unchanneled Fury, which would amount to no less then 9 (!!!!) failures over the course of the game.  That way, I won't be getting those casualties for the bonus point I fear...

 

All this resulted in one of his linemen making off with the ball, putting the 0-1 lead for the Wood Elves on the board.

  

Both teams took to the line of scrimmage again, but it kept going the same way: a lot of pushing away and breaking armour at times, but not getting anything better then stunned results except for that same lineman being KO'd again.  Seems that bloke didn't want to be around for this game.

  

Raven Black went to pick up the ball near my end zone, looking for a hole to make the drive.

 

Protected by two of her companions in a threesome she started to move towards the midline, as a lone wardancer was marked by Kleio Valentien.

 

But the elf dodged and jumped away, and managed to push Raven Black over, helped by the other wardancer that appeared seemingly out of nowhere.  

  

In order to get one of the dancers down, one of the tackle skilled beastly women blitzed in... only to go down herself by a roll of double skulls. 

  

And this left the road wide open for the elves to score the 2-0 right before half time unfortunatly.  We set up for one more round of blocks, before the half time whistle blew.

 

For the second half, and knowing we wouldn't be winning today, I decided to switch to the pure violence style again, and as such the patented FemDom deployment was taken up again by the ladies, out to inflict as much injuries as possible in hopefully an orgy of blocks for the second half.  The ball had scattered of the pitch, so his thrower started with it in his possession.

 

 Oh yes, and Sabrina Sabok kept rolling these ones on her Unchanneled Fury, not getting up to blitz the now isolated treeman on the front line after a push over in his first turn...

 

A huge brawl was erupting around the stiff piece of wood, as the tacklers of the team did their best to keep shadowing his catchers around the field.  At least we had scored our first casualty for today, as a lineman was carried off badly hurt after a block by Tanya Virago.

  

As the treeman was down, Sabien DeMonia went in for a foul with a big amount of assists... only to roll double one on the armour.  Followed by a 1 for using the Bribe we had gotten from the kick-off.  Followed by a 1 from the Argue the Call... and to the showers she went.

 

The thrower, still in possession of the ball, was hanging out in his back field protected by the other elves, but Proxy Paige took down one of his wardancers after he found himself in the crowd through the trapdoor.  And thanks to the Fan Interaction, scored points for it as well (we read it over a few times, the Trapdoor causes an injury exactly as a Pushed into the Crowd, and Fan Interaction grants SPP if it is caused by a Pushed into the Crowd injury roll).

 

The elves started to shift their line a bit more to the center, as Sabrina kept the treeman still in check while the girls tried to take out his key players and keep the line closed.

  

But as the minotaur kept standing out of the fight moaning loudly at erotic looking clouds, the elves couldn't find a safe passage as the girls kept boxing them in, but not getting any of the lightly armoured elves removed unfortunatly.

  

His thrower managed to make a completion to a wardancer that had snuck behind the lines,  Sofi VonDoom just missing the interception on a 5.  Abella Danger smashed a lineman so hard he had -1 passing from now on, while Val Steele badly hurt another one.  At least the casualties started to mount now, but to little to late for that, and my final effort to stop his scorer resulted in another double skull roll just like in the first half...

 

This made his wardancer to run in and score the 3-0 for the Wood Elves,  and only two turns remaining to try and do some more damage unfortunatly.

  

The elves opted to pull everything bar some linemen back on their end zone, and after the kick off Sofi VonDoom fouled another lineman into the badly hurt box.

 

The final action of the game saw Veronica Rose go pick up the ball, and throw a pass to one of her teammates to sneak in that one star player point as a result, but the game was done for.

  

So, those woke elves proved to be just to much to try and grab, not helped by the fact that my minotaur was just flashing herself at the crowd over half the game, taking out my Mighty Blow chances for extra casualties.  Add to that two times a roll of double skulls when going for the lone escapee to prevent a goal, and the casualties really starting to happen only late in the second half, and you have a result that is to be expected.

 

Most Viewed Pornstar

 

After the match, the Only Fangs paid subscribers elected Proxy Paige for the trophy, her action of shuffling a wardancer through a trapdoor into their perverted hands swinging the vote into her favour! 

 

Still, even with all that, I managed to get all my goals reached: both my Chaos Warriors got the wanted Block skill, I didn't suffer any injuries and at least got that bonus point as such.  The team dropped from 3rd to 4th place in the rankings after the game, and the treasury is well filled, even though I don't have anything to really spend it on at the moment as my CTV is way above most teams in the league and I don't want to give them more chances for star players to be fielded against me.

 

Now there will be once more about a month before my next game, which will be against a team of Chaos Dwarfs, at least that is an opponent where all my claws can be of use once again.  As he is playing almost weekly though, I hope his CTV rises during those games, as he will have more played games then me at that point, and hopefully a small difference as a result.

 

But first, time to take the girls to the spa to recuperate from a frustrating game of rolling 1's and double skulls at critical times... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Tour to the Frituur 23: Friture-Eethuis 't Plein in Maastricht

 So, a while ago I was in Maastricht to play in the Warhammer Open, and during the second evening, after a long day of gaming, we went to a close by frituur.

 

Located at 10 minutes from the university, in a calm neighbourhood, Frituur 't Plein can be found. 

 

It's one of those typical cosy little frituur places, with some seating spots for eating in.  Ran by a very friendly asian lady, they have a big selection of snacks, as well as grilled burgers.  The later seemed to be their speciality, but I didn't try them out this time, I didn't want to stuff myself TO full considering how late it already was after the event.

 

My Order

 

I was there with Nico, another player at the event, and I opted for a large fries with mayonaise, a bockworst (which turned out to be something completely different then what we know here in Antwerp) and a meatball of the house.  Nico had a medium fries with mayonaise, and a sate with curry.  And two softdrinks to go with it.

 

The order arrived pretty swiftly and brought to the table, and I must say I was impressed by those sate's.  Less with my bockworst, but that had nothing to do with the quality, just here it is a smoked, thick sausage while there it is like a long hot dog sausage.

 

It was all baked according to the art, nothing fancy or exceptional (and of course, the mayo was the sweeter dutch variety).  The price was okay, we paid 29.60 for the whole order together.

 

Conclusion

 

It wasn't a bad place at all, though not something that makes it stand out from previous places I visited.  So we are scoring it our baseline of 6.5, nothing to complain about, nothing to remember.  

 

Maybe I should have tried their burgers?

 

 

Yoroi Shin Den Samurai Troopers

 One of the most iconic shonen anime's is back after 35 years, with a new series of Samurai Troopers!

 

And it isn't a reboot, it's an actual continuation!!!

 

Though also in the series, 35 years have passed by, but there are references and returning characters from the original (as well as Ryo's original voice actor taking up the role again).  The demon infestation was never fully resolved, the original Samurai Troopers had it contained though, and since then the government has been running a program to form next generations.

 

Which initially turned out to be a fraud, when faced with a human boy that was possessed and now returned from the demon realm, Gai, and who becomes the new Samurai of the Fire Element.  Ryuusei is one of the previous generation and leader and mentor, but sacrifices himself during battle, passing the baton to his friend and former collegue Shion.  Yamato, Kaito and Musashi are the new troopers, drawn into the battle by fate... or weren't they. 

 

The series follows the growth of this team of Samurai Troopers, who, if you don't count the imposter posterboys from the beginning, are the third generation.  The first where of course the original heroes, while the second team, which contained Ryusei and Shion, fell when they entered the demon realm to free the originals.  But they learn that Ryo, the original fire samurai, is being held as the host body of the Emperor and go out to set him free.

 

This succeeds, but as the Emperor still has power, the original team is freed and this allows Ryo to summon the original Armour of the Emperor and nearly defeating him, before the newer generation manages to finish him off, though at the ultimate sacrifice of Gai.  Or wasn't it...

 

A great fun series, and like Saint Seiya Omega did years ago, pays a great tribute to the original Troopers, while at the same time passing the torch to the newer generation.  I can't wait for the next season to air for sure!

Space game objective markers on a budget

 So, we build and painted the final three objective markers "on a budget" for the Warfleets day the 10th of May.

 

And "on a budget" is basically totaly free on the materials levels.

 

All where made using old compact discs, whom at fleamarkets often end up in the boxes "take away free" neat the end of those.  For the rest, nothing more was used then sand, grinded stone and pebbles, all from the garden and park roads.

 

To that end, they where glued on the compact discs, and all painted with, apart from a light drybrush on the top layer, with cheap acryll paints from the dollar store, in my case Amsterdam paints from Talens. 

 

And so, after a paint job taking about two days, most of the time paint drying, we have a solar flare, a dust cloud and an ice asteroid field to put on the table.

 

Now let's get ready for the battleday, and check back for the report around the 12th! 

The Old Guard 2

 Okay, so I found the original film of a bunch of immortal mercenary warriors actually enjoyable, so when Netflix released the sequel, me and Noshi sat down to have a look.

 

After all, brainless entertainment was welcome at the end of the holiday season and to many busy evenings...

 

And it begins with the introduction of Quyhn, another immortal and seemingly love intrest of Andromache.  Who, like every lover after 500 years, kind off forgot about her and just moved on instead of combing the seabed.  And Booker is also brought back, keeping up our Belgian pride.  Even more immortals join the fray, with Tuah, a sage and who saved Andromache when Quyhn was tossed into the sea.  Inside an Iron Maiden just to keep her down.

 

But of course, the lover has an issue with Andy now, and decided to work together with Discord.  A mortal now, it turns out that Nile can remove people's immortality when wounding them, and that is what happened to Andy.  Luckily, another seemingly can pass his immortality willingly to another immortal, and Booker does this.  Which gives me a loop issue: if when Nile wounds someone, which Booker tried out, and so removes their immortality, then how can he pass it to Andromache a short while later while his wounds don't heal????

 

When they go to stop Discord in a nuclear plant, Booker, now a mortal, sacrifices himself for Andy, who finds an injured Quyhn after a fight with Nile.  Nile and others have been captured by Discord, who wants to reinstate her immortality through Nile's powers, while Andy and her lover reconsile and set out to free them...

 

... and there it ends.  No third movie so far has been confirmed (luckily Matthias is busy getting his driver's license back, bit of a celebrity scandal here in Belgium as he drove without a permit, and Booker is dead now), so no idea if we ever going to learn if they succeed.

 

Was it fun brainless entertainment?  Definitly!  Was it as fun as the first one?  Definitly not! 

The Haul Report 435

 Time for another report of the additions to the collection, and we begin with a real "swag box".

 

These boxes where included in the 50 euro ticket for Warhammer Underworlds's Grand Clash in Maastricht, and contain some goodies.

 

Now honestly, I'm keeping of course the voucher, as well as the d6, but all the rest will be tossed on my trade pile...

 

But that is not all that I got, as I finally got the hard copy of Frostgrave 2nd edition.  Nice and cheap on Bol, it was herereally swift after ordering.

 

More Frostgrave material arrived with this blister of Giant Frogs from the DnD range, found cheaply on Vinted. 

 

As well as some more cheap figures from the WizKids ranges for making the Random Encouter table a reality. 

 

And we got some more Efteling pins for our ever-expanding collection as well. 

 

Now, all that loot of course requires strengthening of the inner person, so we're a happy camper that our Frontaal subscription box arrived again.

 

So there we have it, a nice pile of stuff once again for the collection, check back in a few weeks for more goodies!

Warhammer Open Maastricht 2026

Veni, Vidi, No Vinci!

 

Or, my trip to the Warhammer Open Maastricht 2026, the first ever organised on the mainland of Europe. 

  

But what did I get myself into?  A two day of gaming against some of the best Warhammer Underworlds players in Europe...

 

 But, it gives a good impression of about how hard I will be whoopied at the Worlds in Barcelona...

 

I took my Shadeborn with Blazing Assault / Raging Slayers to the event, in what would be their final outing before desleeving the deck and putting the warband in the cabinet.  They did me proud, but to Worlds I will take Elathain, no matter what the status of the game is by then, first loves and all you know...  

 

Day 0: Let's see where we are!

 

I left on the friday around noon, in what due to traffic would become a 2hr drive.  But Maastricht is only about 100km from my front door.  I reckoned, if you really love the game, you just have to be there, as it is a unique opportunity to have it this close-by after all.  I had booked a studio about 10 minutes walk from the MECC venue, and it had free parking to boot to leave my trusty workhorse behind. 

 

It was located in a calm part of the city, in the suburb Heer, Sher's and Ser's BnB, and after a quick lunch I was off to the venue.

But not without crashing into an aula first where lessons where given, as I had walked into the WRONG building on the university site...

 

 

When I finally arrived, the hall was buzzing as the other events, being Warhammer 40k, Age of Sigmar and Kill team, ran for three days.  

 

And little brother Underworlds was at the side of the hall, as the Heralds watched over the table where the battles would take place tomorrow.

 

 

I picked up my Swag Box, and of course did a little unboxing afterwards as well, and spend my voucher to get the limited t-shirt from the event as a souvenir.  The Swag Box though, not really anything usefull for me in there.

  

 

The first disappointment was at the bar, they didn't get stock in for the Boltgun Pale Ale, so I took the next best thing I found instead.

  

And then my buddy Nico arrived, who would be playing Elathain's Soulraid with Blazing Assault and Pillage and Plunder, so we sat down for a warm-up game.  Which I duly lost 20 to 15, not a great start for the weekend, and the wiffed attack rolls would come to haunt me. 

  

 

In the evening, we went to a greek restaurant in Heer, Elias, for a good meal, and then it was time to wrap up day 0 and tuck under the sheets.

 

Day 1: The Maastricht Open Grand Clash!

  

And then the big day arrived, the first of the two day event with a Golden Ticket and Aircharges on the line.  After grabbing the obligatory club cap from the bag, it was time to walk the halways of the MECC to the venue.

 

And my first game was against Jaroslaw Kwasniewski, who also happens to be the reigning World Champion of Underworlds.  Talk about an entry to your first ever Warhammer Open game... He played Rippa's Snarfangs with Deadly Synergies and Blazing Assault.

 

I actually won the first round, going 25-16, but then in the second my attacks failed and a 6-16 loss was my part.  We went into round 3, and just like in round 1 I managed to table him.  But a few bad card draws had stuck me early with Annihilation (which I scored in the end), but denied me my surges for some more glory along the way and I still lost 19 to 21.  Still, glad I wasn't totally trashed and the game ended after 3 rounds on 48 to 53 (as we miscounted, it was actually 50 to 53)!

 

 For round 2 I was paired against Luba K, who was there with her son, from Austria.  She played Ylthari's Guardians with Cataclysm and Pillage and Plunder, and here I learned for the first time of how impactfull Utter Conviction is now against my Raging Slayers.

 

Those 4 dice on shields are very hard, if not to say as good as impossible, for my warband to overcome, and this results in after cannoning them one last fighter, before being munched through piecemeal.  I managed to win round one with 27-20, before going down 16-19 in the second.  So another third game, and now I luckily went through the Conviction early on, grabbing a 23-10 win in the final round and at least I wouldn't end the tournament with 0 wins.  The final result as such came down to 49-66.

 

Round three paired me against Jacek Jasinski, who brought Borgit's Beastgrabbaz with Deadly Synergies and Countdown to Cataclysm.

 

And this game, I really started to hate Utter Conviction.  Twice it saved him from being wiped, the first time Ugluk on a measly wound fleeing away (because the move booster), the second time the same, but now it was a goblin who could bunker up.  As a result, I lost both games, respectively with 17-18 and 18-19, so a lot of cursing was done.  Four dice defence shields and counting flanks as being united for being the last man standing, it was just to much for my poor ladies.  A close 35-37 loss was my part after two games.

 

To give an indication, at this point I was 29th in the ranking, but had scored more glory and only 2 less differential from the guy at the lead at that moment.  Where my losses deserved? Of course, but at least I learned I can stand my own against some top echelon players as well like Jaroslaw.

 

 

But during this game, the judges approached me.  I was somehow selected for the Showcase of the Underworlds event, being amongst the 8 bands picked for the best painted price.  And then I was judged by some people who really know how to hold a brush (ofc I didn't win btw, it was Honza's Dread Pageant who deservedly took the trophy).  had I won that, I would have ran butt-naked through the venue...

 

Time for some fries afterwards, and off to bed as it was very late.  And day 2 would become very, very special...

 

Day 2: The Mutiny!

 

Okay, so this probably never happened on a Warhammer Open. After arriving at the venue having already loaded my car, and some breakfast, the polish and czech players approached us.  The organisation wasn't optimal, and they started what we laughingly called The Mutiny.  Everyone that wanted was asked to drop, and a new, 5 round best of 1 tournament would be held instead of 2 rounds best of 3.  That way, you got more opportunities to meet new players, and it wouldn't interfere with the players for the Golden Ticket anyways.

 

 

Now, I'm not going to type it all, but here is the whole Discord explanation of what excatly happened, and why they proposed this.  Please mind, it was talked over with the TO and the judges, it's not like it was a bloody revolution with shouts and snarls, but The Mutiny sounds better then "let's play some casuals in another format then the schedule states". 

 

Anyways, after considering it for a long time, in the end I decided to go for it.  It's not like I could be doing much anyways, and I rather had the shorter breaks between games then playing 2 hours, wait 2 hours thing.

 

And round 1 paired me against... Jacek again!  Could my ladies get revenge?

 

Well, no, not at all, they weren't even awake, missing attack after attack even with 4 and 5 dice.  So it was a short affair, and losing 10 to 15 as a result.

 

For round 2, I came against Michael Kisly from the Staggerers blog, and he brought Cyreni's Razors with Hunting Grounds and Countdown to Cataclysm to the table.

 

And once more Utter Conviction saved him, as he had one remaining fighter with a single wound thanks to Great Fortitude left in the end, who ran away to the other side of the board in the final activations.  In the end, I lost 15-16, another close one none the less.

 

Round 3 put me against a relative new player, Gijs Timmer, who brought The Grandfather's Gardeners with Countdown to Cataclysm and Emberstone Sentinels.

 

Now, this is a band I know how to play against, working his clock in his own disfavour to prevent the 3 damage strikes and making the heals negatable.  My leader managed to overcome Utter Conviction for once on his final model, and it became a 27-6 victory for the assassination squad.

 

For the 4th game, I was paired against Filip Karkowski who brought Kamandora's Blades with Wrack and Ruin as well as Countdown to Cataclysm.

 

And you can by now already guess what happened I think.  I cannonaded through the band in round 1, and then the Utter Conviction goes up and one survives while my ladies kept going down to counter attacks.  The result was an 11-14 loss for the game, so yet again a close defeat due to the one card shutting down my possible big scorers.

 

So that brought us to the 5th and final game for the event, and it was Timothy Lemmon from Thunderworlds, the guys who organise the monthly tournament at Warhammer World.  He had brought The Exiled dead with a pairing of Blazing Assault and Deadly Synergies.

 

Now, this is one warband I don't fear thanks to my teleport shennanigans, and he soon found himself without his leader and Marcov, even though it had costed me both Sylarc and Valyssa to get those initial hits in.  But an inspired Slythael and an inspired Drusylla with a cleave upgrade was just to much, and they mowed through the remaining minions, scoring a 24-12 victory to round out the weekend.

 

This all resulted in a 16th place on 29 registred players in the end, not the greatest of results, but seeing how many times I faced Countdown to Cataclysm, it could have been far, far worse...

 

Conclusion

 

And that was Warhammer Open Maastricht 2026, a great fun event, some strange things taking place on day 2, and even though I lost more then I won (that has been ages I must say), I could live with it.  I was afraid I would be smacked around like a ping-pong ball, but it wasn't that bad at all, and I am looking forward to Worlds to see the people again.

 

Now to build something to counter Utter Conviction and go get some revenge at the next tournament, which will be in Halle the 13th of june.  In the crypts of a church, so I am grabbing a Death warband for certain and bite some people.  Hard.  I need to bump up my statisctics again a little lol...