ArisiaBowl IV, 18 January 2009, Boston USA

Mo · Post by Mo » Mon Dec 29, 2008 12:07 am

Arisia has finally confirmed that we will have the space to run the ArisiaBowl on the Sunday of the convention again this year. Arisia is a science fiction convetion running Friday-Monday over the Martin Luther King weekend. There's a 24-hour gaming room, open Blood Bowl gaming and pick-up games can be arranged at any time.

We're in the same room this year, Paul Revere A, just inside the front doors of the hotel. But we have much more limited time, eek. So this year it will be a three-round tournament. 2-1/2 minute time limit per turn; once per half each player can extend their play for one turn by an extra 2-1/2 minutes. Timers will be used to make sure we can vacate the room in time.

Once again this will be a Grand Minors Tournament. 7s rosters, pick a home pitch type of your choice: Beach, Oz Sevens (regular), Sevens, or Street. Everyone who played last year loved the format. Download the tourney rules from the website:
http://www.geocities.com/arisiabowl/

Scroll down the main page a bit for the rules link.
You can also sign up for the tourney there too.
Click the Photos page to see the astounding legacy trophy!

Registration for Arisia itself is separate from registering for the tourney. Con registration includes access to all con functions, including the Con Suite with free snacks and drinks 24 hours. There is no additional cost for the tourney.
http://2009.arisia.org/

Cheers,
Mo

Colin · Post by **Colin** » Mon Dec 29, 2008 12:55 am

Sounds like fun Mo, wish I could afford to go. Hoepfully you'll get enough people from your neck of the woods.

Melifaxis · Post by **Melifaxis** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 4:06 pm

You should allow the three "experimental" teams that are NAF sanctioned. I wanna try em out.

Mo · Post by Mo » Tue Jan 13, 2009 4:17 pm

Sure!

I'm in the midst of typing my seminar paper which is due tomorrow. Eek. Could you send me the link to the x-teams please. I haven't been keeping up with the boards.

This semester has been buusy; plus I've been learning how to roller skate so that next Fall I can try out for the roller derby league! Can't wait for this season to start -- I'm getting a season ticket

http://bostonderbydames.com/

Cheers,
Mo

Melifaxis · Post by **Melifaxis** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 2:38 pm

This is what I get for posting a question on TBB and NAF and forgetting I posted it in two places.

I went with orcs becuase I didn't see this.

Thanks for another fun day of Blood Bowl, Mo!

Gang Green escaped with a lucky win in their first match against Blazepoet's "Double Skulls" when the ball bounced off the wall and into the waiting arms of my thrower who had spent three turns unable to pick up the slippery bugger. I was down to four guys on the pitch from the beating he was handing out (three casualties aginst me in the first three turns). My chucker rolled out to his right and found an open blitzer to net the early lead. From there I evened up the number of players on the pitch with a key KO on a blitzer that just refused to come back and play and a casualty of my own. Josh had to take a few risks he rather wouldn't have once we were playing 5 on 4 and ended up turning over the ball on an interception. I escaped with a 2-0 win, in a match that I was sure I was going to lose.

My second match was against Shane, who has been DODGING me in tournaments for far too long.

Shane saw that the new teams were allowed and had a Chaos Pact squad ready to go. We both quickly agreed with a laugh that whomever won our first tournament match could always just say it was only sevens. Things went well for me early. I intercepted a bomb, but when my troll went to throw it back he fumbled it at his own feet! Despite this, I smashed Shane's other goblin into pieces so the thrown TD threat was eliminated, and I was able to grab a 1-0 lead and defend for the remainder of the half. But, then I need to kick again and it sailed out the back of the end zone. Suddenly, I found myself staring at an ogre ballcarrier in a cage fronted by a troll, a maurauder with a claw, and a big handed one to boot (who had earlier grabbed the ball in three tackle zones!). Luckily, I was able to wear down the cage enough to blast the ball free and start it up the other way with a hand-off to a blitzer (Shane very politely reminded me that I didn't need to pass and risk the extra roll). I escaped our first meeting with a 2-0 victory, but it was only sevens...

The Championship match would be against the defending champs. Mo's very own Valholl Swanmaidens. Unfortunately, for them they were the number two seed and playing on my street. The psychological advantage of this seemed to do the trick as her snow troll failed 4/6 Wild Animal checks in the first half. This coupled with AV7 let me get a numbers advantage that lead to a 1-0 lead at the half. I was on my heels the entire second half and was sure that we were headed to overtime. Mo drove the ball deep into my end, but I managed to blast it free and start moving it the other way. I should have passed it downfield to an open space, but decided not to risk the fumble. This almost cost me the match. Mo blasted the ball free on the blitz and was poised to score. It was my turn to have a big guy standing around doing nothing and the Swanmaidens had most of my orcs eating turf downfield. A black orc risked a GFI blitz to knock the ball free again and my thrower managed a pick up roll for the second time in the tourney. Again, I should have thrown but elected not to. Time expired and Gang Green escaped with a 1-0 championship victory.

The shortened tourney detracted from the fun, but this is something we'll provide feedback to Arisia for doing to us with less than a week's notice. Next year, my gray-primed orcs shall be fully painted and ready to defend their legacy!

Yeah, I am totally jazzed to have my name on such a damn fine looking trophy! Scott Lefton did an AMAZING job on this.

Norse · Post by **Norse** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 2:58 pm

I'll have to try and make this tourney some time being just a 2 hour train ride away...

pity to come to Boston for a short tourney though.. shame it is not 2 full days..

anyway, when is the Beantown Brouhaha Mel?? if I can make that one I surely intend to..

Melifaxis · Post by **Melifaxis** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 3:44 pm

I am trying to figure all of that out still. I definitely want to get it back on track

Norse · Post by **Norse** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 6:17 pm

you'd better, I'm dying for a few easy games against poor opponents..

Mo · Post by Mo » Mon Jan 19, 2009 8:27 pm

It would be nice to see you Norse!

The only way we could get 2 days of space at Arisia (which is packed with events) would be to go Sunday & Monday, and we'd lose players who have to work on the Martin Luther King holiday. Most businesses put that on the 'optional holidays' list which employees get to choose a small number of.

At this point I'm hoping I can squeeze enough time back out of Arisia that we can go back to 4 rounds next year. I'll be going to the con staff debrief meeting next weekend to see what I can do.

The Chaos Pact team worked well. After a bit of discussion, we decided to treat their 3 big guys as one overall specialty position of (0-3), and for the short roster rules, halve that and round it up as we usually do for each non-Liner position on teams. So they were allowed a choice of up to 2 out of 3 of them. That worked out fine this time.

I was happy to honourably defend my title, losing to Melifaxis in the final, and glad that he gets his nam on the trophy too now, and up on the top tier. For year V, I'll be adding the second black block of wood to hold the next round of victors' name plates.

Cheers,
Mo