Blood Bowl, the Halflings

There's no more apt description of the underdog, as least in Blood Bowl, than the Halfling team.  They are smaller and weaker than most other teams, but they're also faster and really good at handling the ball.  For blocks and tackles, the Halfling team fields treemen players.  These hulking giants are placed right on the line of scrimmage and provide a nice defensive line for a ball carrier.  They are very slow, not that great with ball handling, and will sometimes root in one spot.  They are also very resilient, being able to take hits from multiple opponents with their Stand Firm skill.  The next two story matches would definitely be interesting.

The first was against a Skaven team, and as usual the goal was not to win but complete a particular objective.  This time it was two successful passes, which sounded easy enough, especially since Halflings have such high agility.  We kicked off first, they received and quickly rammed it down our throat.  The rats were really good at dodging and rolling out of tackles, around my defenders and scoring a touchdown on their first possession.  Now it was our turn for possession, so after receiving the kick off I immediately tried for a close pass with little risk.  It was successful, but the receiver got knocked down attempting to dodge an ogre.  They picked up the ball on the turnover and scored again.  Thankfully I needed only one more good pass to complete the goal, no matter how bad the scoreboard looked.  I think it's interesting they were running the ball instead of passing.  The Skaven obviously have good agility, passing should be a natural part of their offense.  I guess the computer was playing it safe, though I'm not sure why.  We still hadn't managed to score, and even if we did it certainly wouldn't have made any difference.

Another kick off and another successful pass and I could now rest easy.  The rats scored again on their possession, taking their lead to 5-0.  At this point all I had to do was wait until the match was over, but I felt I owed it to my portly team to at least try and score one touchdown.  Sadly we just couldn't make it happen, as every time we'd get the ball we'd either fumble or get knocked down for another turnover.  I honestly think the dice were working against me here.  The Skaven players would move in and surround whoever recovered, and it's easy to guess what happened next.  The game ended pretty quickly after one more touchdown, then I was able to move on to the next match.  This put us up against an Ogre team, which initially had me rolling my eyes.  I wondered how on earth the Halflings could stand a chance against such a strong, offensive team.  To my surprise, they held their own quite well.

 

The Ogres consist of not only the brutes themselves, but also small greenskins called snottlings.  They are very fast and good with the ball, which complements their bigger teammates quite nicely.  The trademark of this team is their ability to toss a snottling, with the ball, down the field and into the end zone.  I kept waiting for this to happen, as they had several opportunities, but they never even tried.  This time the goal was not only to complete two passes, but also dodge successfully ten times.  That wasn't a problem, as I already knew how good stunty players are at blowing right through a tackle zone.  We kicked off first, and I tried to put it as far down the pitch as possible.  It really didn't matter, as a snottling snatched it up quick, with his ogre teammates then surrounding him for protection.

 

Ball in hand, they marched down the field, pausing only to knock each of my defenders out of the way.  A touchdown seemed imminent, but luckily their snottling fumbled the ball right at the end zone.  One of my players was close by, so I moved him in for a quick.  At least three ogres were close enough to reach him next turn, so I took a chance and passed to another player down field.  That high agility score came through with a perfect pass, and luckily a perfect catch to go with it.  With most of their players on the opposite side of the pitch, I easily ran into the end zone and scored.

Somehow we were now in the lead 1-0, but the game wasn't over yet.  I had completed the ten dodges and two passes, so winning at this point really didn't matter, but I was emboldend by my first touchdown.  We kicked off with the rats running the same offense as before.  This time they didn't manage to get very far before I was able to use my treemen to tear down their defense.  An ogre fumbled the ball while trying to break out of our tackle zone, but of course we also fumbled trying to pick it up.  That turnover was all they needed; a snottling grabbed the ball and scored a touchdown just before the game ended.

We didn't win, but a tie is better than a loss, especially with the Halflings.  Given my limited experience with the game, I felt like I had really accomplished something.  It was pretty obvious after reading the post-match news that we wern't even expected to score, let alone tie.  Maybe the Halflings aren't such underdogs after all?  Regardless, my tenure as their coach was complete.  After my success I was offered the chance to coach two different elf teams for their next match: regular run of the mill Elves, or their distant Wood Elf cousins.