Back from DungeonBowl 2005...

[traveller]

Just arrived safe at home ( THX again , Tim ! ).
I will bring the picts online soon. I just have to sort out the 120 picts first..

Some informations and my personal opinion :

- The Guy , who won the tournament last year , won it again ! Congrats !! I heard, he played "nicer" and with no beeping stopwatch !

- Best painted team was a fantastic clean and creative painted team with the name "Arabian Nights". Really the best one IMO. There were quite a lot good painted teams.

- Best Dugout price went to a Skaven DugOut, which i didnt see. I hope, someone took a pict of it. There was also a very nice Khemri themed desert Dugout ... well, my dugout didnt win anything, but the GW stuff took some picts of it ( like from others) for one of the next White Dwarfs

I´m sorry, i just dont knew the names of the winners right now. Should be soon at the GW DungeonBowl site.

BTW... 98 coaches alltogether ... i finished 60th with my orcs. ( if the ranking is OK finaly, GW got some problems with this, too ) 1W 3T 2 L
I played 6 different races: Vampire, Khemri, Woodelves, Norse, Orcs, Human.

Hm, about this GW tournament ...
- ... maybe a bit better organised than last year, but still a tournament, where the rules ( p.e. skills development, handling of foul cas and ranking points) were not posted at the website and so not known at the beginning of the games. (Some coaches started the teamroster like a league games with extra high fanfactor to earn money for losses between the games !!!)
- The refs dont knew all the rules as they should...
- Also the way of handling some situations and persons are maybe better for 15 -16 year old 40k Kids than (mostly ) grown up adults. ... it could be better. IMO ! ( Or i´m getting old ? )
- The timepressure with just 2 hours per game wasnt funny at all, too ! I just finished 2 games in time !
- One of the the good things at htis tournament was a well filled BBminiatures shop. A good chance to get all missing minis !
- The setting up of the tables worked better.
- One of the things i realy didnt like was the pubquiz and the "seperation" of the english speaking coaches ! In my eyes not very polite at the end...

And pity, there was no special beer mug like last year and no Tournament coin. I guess no more BB coins at all... But we got a realy nice Tshirt again !

The venue was again a great clean location (a modern youthhostel including a bar) and offerd good food ( just my taste!)...

But the most importend thing at last ... I had fun playing all of my opponent coaches !!! Thanks a lot for this !!

Traveller

[Tim]

Back as well, I second everything Traveller said, esp. regarding organisation. I managed to finish all games within the 2h timeframe, but it was very difficult sometimes and we ran into the time limit on the last turn on 4 games.

Well, i had a stunning 6 games, 5 of them VERY tense and close, all great opponents, so i don't want to complain. 3 wins - 2 ties - 1 loss on a first time tournament with Humans not too bad, esp. considering the amount of bad luck involved in some games.

First game i went 2-2 against Chaos Dwarfs, after being 2-0 up and receiving at halftime, but i only had 6 players left for the second. 8 KO rolls missed in row ... Still both sides had a shot at a third touchdown and the tie was well deserved.

Second game i lost 1-3 to Woodelfs. 8 double skulls in the first half and 2 turnovers on the first dice rolls in the second half ... no way to beat this.

Third game i beat Tojurub's Dwarfs 2-1. Well, what would you expect from RCN vs. NBA Still a good close game. this win saved an otherwise unlucky day ...

Fourth game, i got to play Glorian's Dwarfs. What a game, again a hard fought battle. I forced him to score in turn 6, then managed a 2 turner to tie the game and then another score middle of the second. This left him with 5 turns to score the equaliser and he made it on the last turn with a lonely blitzer in the open space. I tried to cover him up, but failed the final GFI to get the third and all important TZ on him. So 2-2 final score.

Fifth game ... i still don't know what happened. Played Norse, got the ref, i had a dirty player. So fine so good, but he was KOed on the second turn and afterwards, i lost the edge and got completely mangled by them (suffered 5 CAS). A miracoulous score with 6 humans on the second drive made it 1-1 at halftime, but i had to kick and was down by 4 players (7-11). First turns were pretty even, and then something happened when his Mino doubleskulled out to the KO box. In the next 4 turns, i racked up another 6 KOs and casualties and suddenly i still had 7 players, but he had only 4 left and all of them lying on the pitch. Easy walk up to the pitch to make it 2-1. One of the strangest games i ever had i ... and the sharpest turns of in game luck.

Last game, vampires. Interesting, my first match against them. And another very tense one. started with a good turn in sweltering heat, so i went up 1-0, with 4 KOs and a CAS scored, so i was well up players. Well 3/4 of his KOs returned, sweltering heat dropped out my Ogre and a thrower, and it was 9-9 again. Weather from heat to a blizzard ... He started a really impressive drive, that ended in turn 7 ... with a vampire ... in my endzone, with the ball ... falling on the GFI Good chance to make it 2-0 ended on a skull on a 1db to free up the way for the passer. Second half, same picture (but nice weather now). A long drive with excellent cage play from his side, but i manage to hang on and finally had to leave some of his players behind. A good turn with a couple of successful dodges gave me a blitz at his ball carrying vampire and i finally got him down. Managed to get the ball up the pitch to a lonely catcher (with blodge), then he manages to get a player there, POWing him to the ground on a 2GFI blitz, but not getting the ball back towards my endzone, so final score 1-0. Excellent game, excellent coach.

After all 19th place (including painting and fairness). I'm very happy with that performance, and the Humans did well after all. Thanks to all my opponents, i had a great time.

And congrats to all winners, specifically including Dennis who successfully defended his title and signifantly improved his personal performance as well. After all the top tables looked a bit like Berlin vs. Botz

Dungeon Bowl Champion - Florida Boy (Dennis)
Runner up - another coach from Berlin ... missed the name, sorry.
German Champion (incl. painting and fairness) - Utakhai
Most TD - Sharky
Best Painted - what Trav said ... well deserved, awesome team.
Best Dugout, Most CAS ... sorry missed those.

[Grunt]

I have to agree, the organisation was much better than last year, but they have to do still a lot of work. Had no problems with the two hours, I like to play fast and at least my opponents hadn´t enough players on the pitch which forced them to do long turns
I played the Khemri with the dugout Traveller mentioned and won the Most Cas with only one foul, becauce they told me after the fourth match about counting them...

Over all it was a lot of fun and in my opinion it was better than last year, but far off perfect.

[Anthracis]

Had a some great matches at the tournament. Ended down on place 72 but who cares

First game against Hoomin's Skaven was really close. Lost 2:1 on the last turn. It was a really close and fun game.

Second game against Necros was successfuller won that game 3:0.

Third game against Utak's Necros. Got beaten 5:0. And got 6 Cas. which made only 3-4 orcs on the pitch for the whole 2nd half. But definitely a fun game.

Fourth game was agains another orc team (Dying Ronin) we achieved a tie, 1:1. Really close and fun...

Fifth game again against orcs this time I won 1:0. But that game showed my orcs have definitely the wrong armour supplier. Again was 4 Orcs down by the end of the game....

6th game against humans. Lost 3:0 had really bad luck on that one and an opponent with really good luck. He succeeded in almost everything he did. Well, that's part of the game...So overall still a fun game...

Organisation was not bad imo. The two hour time limit was no problem. Finished all games within 1 1/2 or 1 3/4 hours on day 1. Second day's games were much slower but all in time as well...

so much for now.

Anthracis

[kithor2002]

Have to agree with Traveller's statements about the tournament.
Afterall it was ok, but the most annoying thing was that the ref closed every game strictly after 2 hours. And that might have cost some guys the qualification for the final.
And even the quiz at the first days evening was very strange. First I found it very impolite to seperate all the english speaking people to one corner (because the ref wants to speak to them in english- what an argument ).And then he closed that quiz after 10 or 15 min. because he wasn't satisfied with the answer's the people shouted to him (and don't ask what the questions were ).
Also they didn't know the answers to some of their questions...

But I enjoyed to meet and play vs my opponents and to talk to many of TBB people.

[JaM]

I had a fun time as well, but the 2 hour limit was not so much a problem (well, maybe 5 minutes more) as well as the "judges" shouting/ordering to stop. Yes, we know it's time. We only have to play 1 last turn, STFU. I think some guy "ordering" (or trying to) you to stop is NOT the way to play a game of BB. Using some annoying music like they do in the Dutch Open is much better ! This is all just my opinion of course.

Overall, a good tight organization, but maybe a bit too tight sometimes. Still I had 6 good games, a lot of fun, and finished 55th place. Not too bad, I am learning more and more every tournament !!

edit: posted some pictures HERE, but somehow they got changed to 400x300... sorry !

As for the "language problem"; it would be good if some people realised that you've got international guests, to an international tournament... So all the anouncements would have been a lot better if they were in English instead of German.

[Geggster]

Well done to Denis. Not just for winning but for taking on board comments from last year.

I couldn't make it unfortunately, but will be there next year to stop a third success for the Berliner.

[UtakHai]

I fully agree with the points all of you mentioned, but still the tourney was better organized than last year imo.
I was glad to meet some new coaches which I only knew out of this or our forum, so it was worth the time spent
Thanks anyway to all my opponents, esp. Anthracis who really stayed friendly and calm, although I ripped his team apart
My dices really rolled fantastic, maybe something I can get used to
I hope some of you were able to take some pics of the fantastic dugouts and teams, I could only catch a glimps at some of them...
Unfortunately my game against Denis in round 4 was finished by the refs, because we reached the 2h limit, so we tied the game 1-1.
Not that funny if you're playing at table 1, I guess!!
But still I managed to reach a top position with 5-1-0 so I am very glad that all worked out very well..

At least a big Thank YOU to all the nice coaches I meet and talked to, see you next time...

cheers,
Utak

[Living]

I finished 3/0/3 and came in 50th according to the list after the award ceremony. All my opponents were fun to play against and I gave the full amount of fairness points to everyone. Two of my games where cut by time, a win and a loss, so I can't complain.

Regarding the judges: I did not care about the 2-hour time limit, but the way it was enforced was simply ridiculous. Cutting games mid-turn even if your opponent agrees to finish the turn is just bad style and has nothing to do with fairplay. So is announcing that foul injuries count towards CAS's after game 4 and bending the DungeonBowl-rules for the final to determine a winner.
I really was embarrassed by the refusal of the organisation to address things in German AND English. As the DungeonBowl is the GW Germany BloodBowl main event and destined to be an international tourney this was very impolite.

Nevertheless I really enjoyed the games, although my dice were still asleep during most of Sunday (my Norse were destroyed by Robertos Dwarves (0-4) and a 6-Ogres-No-Rerolls-team (1-4)). But Nuffle returned, as he always does, and handed me 2-0 win to close the day.

[PrinceMoranion]

I enjoyed it, too. I am very content with my 9th place, not bad for my first tourney with necromantic.

I had no problems with the 2 hours, I play very fast. But I don´t see the point in cutting games so strictly and then have a lunch break for an hour or longer. That doesn´t make sense.

Runner up - another coach from Berlin ... missed the name, sorry.

The name of the runner up was Ralf Wilke, he played Orcs.

[Flix]

Gratulation for the Winners

anyone know the list of the top 10 without paining und sportsman points ?

[Kheldar]

@flix:
No not yet. They will put them on the page in the next few days I think.

So now my 2cents to this years DB.

I enjoyed all of my games. OK the one against Sharky I was shouting all the time because of his luck, but hey its just a game, and Sharky is a nice coach. I want to thank all my opponents for giving me such sometimes very tense games. I would like to say sorry to Glorian Underhill and Blitzwing for my blessed armor. Both Khemri and Dwarf each only did one CAS to my Woodies.

About GW. What shall I say. Better organized then last year, but this strict 2 hours were quite hard. Most matches finished in the timeframe, but at least one or two importent matches would have gone in another direction without 2 hours rule. Next time better give out chess clocks. Every Player hast one hour of time. After this he gets only one minute per turn. So there is no possibility that one players stalls the game, even without intent.

Congrats to all the winners especially Dennis for defending his title and UTAK and Sharky for representing Frankfurt Power

[Thrawn]

I was very pleased with the tournament but maybe that's because I never ran into any time problems. My treeman and the lack of any RR might have helped always finishing way ahead. 3 times I even had the opportunity to play sudden death overtime so what are you complaining about?

Ok, cutting games short isn't really a solution. Although I hate to bring it up but if we had played with a 1h time limit for each player, we (or you) might have not run into this problem. But lunchtime was definetly too long. IMHO nobody likes to win that way.

My only wish now is to see the team that won the "Best Painted" award because I completely missed that one. So if anyone has any pictures of that patricular team please post them.

To all winners: congratulations! Well done.

Cheers
Thrawn aka Tom Brady

[traveller]

My only wish now is to see the team that won the "Best Painted" award because I completely missed that one. So if anyone has any pictures of that patricular team please post them.

I got quite a few closeups of this team and i found one pict of a skaven dugout, too. I will post them tonight or tomorrow...

Traveller

[MetallKopp]

Whoops, posted in the wrong thread...

Well, again it was a fun tournament...my games were 2/2/2, some lucky TDs, some bad luck on the other hand. But fun indeed! Imagine an Orc/Orc match with Pouring Rain...went better for the Dying Ronins than my Maniacs

That time management has, as most organisational decisions, two sides. As we came through with the whole tournament quite well (very comfortable for those who have a long way home), but I think it also encouraged some coaches to waste time in order to keep the opponent from making TDs.
I've been to quite a few BB tournaments, and usually you DO speak in English, well that's simply something about politeness and service to the foreign guests.
Finally, the personnel for the DB is something GW does not have a share in offhand. A John Cadice was missing this year, really, that's because he went back to the US. And some people working for GW want to take part in that tournament, on their free weekend, unfortunately these people know most about playing BB so the others don't have much experience with the real mindset of playing Bloodbowl.

Whatsoever, had a great time, and I'm looking forward to the next one.

Same time of the year, same number of cold ones and same team!

Rudi