El Dorado Tyrants, Lizardmen (TV 1530, 8-1-3)

[rolo]

My league plays a Rookie Division. Every "season", anyone who likes rolls up a brand new team, we play about 10 rounds, a rookie champion is crowned, and the rookie teams are promoted to an higher league and the process starts again.

This is becoming a problem for me, as all of the races which I have figures for are already represented by teams. At some point I'll have to duplicate a race or something ... but for now, it's an excuse to make a new team!

My brother and I bought several boxes of Warhammer Fantasy back in the day, when two High School students could afford GW boxed sets. Whatever the edition with the Brettonnians and the Lizardmen was. There were still plenty of lizardmen lying around, which have now spent the better part of two decades packed in boxes and resting up for some Blood Bowl!!

So this is going to be a true start-to-finish team blog! I'll change the title when I name the team (suggestions welcome).

Here's what I have to work with:

Saurus:

I have more than enough plastics, and a few pewter models. One of the Pewters is definitely going to be Slibli, although if I'm fielding a 250k star player during a 10 game season, something has gone seriously wrong. The other pewter models will either become coaches or Saurus warriors, still have to decide.
The plastics will be simple enough to model. They aren't super detailed but I should be able to make at least a few poses.

Skinks:

I can already tell that the skinks are going to be a huge pain. I need to carve off the quivers and bows, hoping that my putty skills are good enough to at least smooth out the worst of the hack job. The figures themselves aren't particularly detailed, but I'm hoping that if I slap on some shoulder pads, nobody will notice
I was originally going to make 10 skinks, in case I needed a few journeymen. But heck with that. I can use unpainted skink archers for loners.
I can probably get away with only making 6 skinks (13 players max) but making 7 for a 14 player roster is probably safer.

Kroxigor:

Sorry buddy. I bought this guy decades ago and I owe him a decent paint job.

Bases:

I bought "Dark Temple" bases. I'll be putting the Saurus and Krox on 30mm bases, and the skinks on 25mm.

Rerolls:

With the money I saved by not having to buy new Skinks and Lizards, I bought some skulls.

And a babe!

What was I supposed to do, NOT buy this figure? Now you're talking nonsense!

[JaM]

Cool. I probably have a team like that somewhere, ....

Anyway: I just cut off the top of the bows. The figures are small enough already, painting them in some type of skin-tone was (back then) enough to cover them up.

Thunder Lizards..? Reptile Dysfunction? Snakeoil Sidesteppers?

[rolo]

Haha! That's exactly the kind of lame pun names that I'm looking for.
I had a Lizardmen team online called Kicking Jurassics. But they weren't that good (refuse to admit that coaching was the problem) so I might not want to recycle the bad mojo.

The plastic is soft and surprisingly easy to carve accurately, it's just a question of patience for me. I've done two skinks so far. I can't imagine how people manage to work like that with metal.

Anyway, while I'm sure nobody would complain if I just snipped the bows (heck, I doubt anyone would complain if I just flat-out left them as they are), I'd rather put more effort into the models now, than spend the next couple of years wishing that I had, if that makes sense.

But now comes the easiest step of all: Not working on the models for a solid two weeks as the wife and I take some vacay!

[Axtklinge]

Nice start, and very clever use of those "old" plastics (I have a team of those myself, like you making use of "leftovers" from those days...).

Looking forward to see those growing as a team!
Cheers,
A.

[rolo]

Slow progress, interrupted by vacation and then life and then a week and a half of apathy.

But I've finished the weapon removal, and added putty shoulder pads:

Saurus:


Skinks:


Kroxigor and Slibli (already on their final bases):


Still to do: File down the shoulder pads, add more putty details (optional, I kind of like them as they are), base, spray, paint, play.

Still hoping to at least be mostly painted by mid September.

[rolo]

Well, I overshot my goal of finishing in early September, but the lizards are done!

Fortunately, some coaches were a little slow finishing up the previous rookie league season, so right now the season is just getting started. I still need to think of a name (either going with some obnoxious dinosaur or lizard based pun, or based on the team colors, some Gold / El Dorado theme).

My starting roster is almost certainly going to be Krox / 6 Saurus / 4 Skinks / 2 Rerolls. Anyone else have success (or problems) with that setup?

Here's the team, anyway:


El Dorado Tyrants. Has a certain ring to it.

[rolo]

The team is assembled and ready to roll!

First a note on our Rookie league:
Our tabletop league has three subdivisions.
The "Open League", in which coaches make as many teams as they like, play whomever and whenever they want.
The "Premier League", which has a schedule, at most one team per coach, seasons, a playoff, and a super bowl. The Premier is designed for experienced teams which have been built up in the Open League.
The "Rookie League", now entering the second season. Every participant makes a brand-new rookie team, plays a schedule, there's a playoff at the end, and at the end of the season, the teams are promoted to the Open league (or the Premier if their coach is feeling delusionally optimistic).

I played the first Rookie season with Pro Elves, agonizingly just barely missing the playoffs with a 5-2-3 record. Now for my second try with Lizardmen.


Here's the Tyrants' starting roster:

Code: Select all

No.  Pos.     Name
1    Saurus   Ko Kang
2    Saurus   Zoatl
3    Saurus   Kratos
4    Saurus   Azagor
5    Saurus   Tlarek
6    Saurus   Zorig

8    Kroxigor Helios

10   Skink    Ziziane
11   Skink    Rakatikou
12   Skink    Niniaga
13   Skink    Avadoatl

Players will gain titles as they skill up. Rookies haven't made a name for themselves yet.

I have also purchased two Rerolls. Two isn't enough, as nobody on the team has Block, they'll probably never get Sure Hands, which makes starting Lizardmen very unreliable at Blocking and Ball Handling, the two most important aspects of Blood Bowl. But frankly, there's no perfect 1000k Lizardmen roster, so I have to decide what I can best do without. Starting with all six Saurus is a no-brainer, so the choice was essentially between a fifth Skink and a third Reroll, or a Kroxigor. I went with the Kroxigor because he's effective against both agility and bash opponents, he's tough enough to mostly take care of himself, and of course, he'll skill up so slowly that he needs all the games that he can get.

First purchase is going to be an Apothecary, no matter what, hopefully after game 1. Second purchase will be a third reroll unless something drastic happens (like 2 dead Saurii or something, in which case my season is probably shot anyway).
Then I can start adding skinks.

Schedule isn't set yet, teams are still signing up, but so far there's an Undead team, Skaven, two Orcs, another Lizardmen team, Ogres, Necros, and Chaos Dwarves.

[Axtklinge]

Really nice looking team there, congrats on the conversion and paint jobs!

I like your take on the fluff side of their names getting "titles" as they progress. Might go for that my next league team.

I'd leave the krox out untill you can trust the Saurus to block properly (aka with a few "block" here and there).

[rolo]

Thank you Axtklinge! They were a lot of fun to work with and I'm looking forward to the upcoming season.
I am still going with the Kroxigor, even if I know I'll regret it at times. Look at my schedule, I need all the strength I can get.

The World Cup is over, the schedule is out, and a new Blood Bowl year starts with the rookie league!
(Schedule is out but some coaches are already behind on creating teams. I'll edit this post as people enter rosters in OBBLM)

The schedule is out:
Week 1: "Itza Iguanas" (Lizardmen)
Week 2: BYE
Week 3: "Super Sexy Swingin` Boys" (Orcs)
Week 4: "Orcitektz" (Orcs)
Week 5: "Gylfaginning" (Necromantic)
Week 6: "Rat'n Roll" (Skaven)
Week 7: "Bauchspeck Puchheim" (Ogres)
Week 8: "Dead Connection" (Undead)
Week 9: "Leichburg Leechers" (Necromantic)
Week 10: "SPECTRE Phantoms" (Skaven)
Week 11: "Hashut Gamblers" (Chaos Dwarves)

Analysis:
Week 1 is against Lizardmen with exactly the same roster as I have. I should be playing this within a week or so.
Week 2 is against a new coach, I'll probably win this one but it's going to take a while. We're "breaking him in" and I expect to spend some time coaching him on the rules.
Week 3 is against the defending rookie coach (he won it all last season with Khorne). "Super Sexy", his models are well painted at least. (Because it's our league legacy team)
Week 4 is against Orcs. The coach claims he sucks with orcs, but I'm not sure I buy that. He's done well with every team that he's played, and it's not like Orcs are super complicated.
Week 5 should be a fun game against a fun coach, no idea how he's going to build up his Necros but it'll be interesting. He will most likely try to blitz a lizard with his Wolf, so if I keep them in groups together I should be able to get a few hits in afterward. One way or another, this might be over quickly.
Week 6 against Skaven. And a coach who usually plays more bashy teams - we'll see what he has left of a team by week 6
Week 7 against Ogres. And a really good, aggressive coach. This will probably depend on how my players develop. If I don't have much Block by week 7, this could get ugly. Sorry, it WILL get ugly, but without skills it'll be REALLY ugly.
Week 8 against Undead. I don't think this is going to be easy for either of us. I've played this coach 12 times in the past couple months, 5 wins, 6 ties, and one loss (my rookie Goblins vs his rookie Pro Elves). This is one of those games which feels like it's going to be a 1-1 tie.
Week 9 against a coach who hasn't even picked a damn team yet!! But I beat him twice in the last rookie season, so he might just be looking for blood ...
Week 10 against a Wood Elf coach playing Skaven. It's more of a switch than you think. He'll be fine, but might be undermanned by week 10.
Week 11 against another newbie, although by week 11 he really ought to have figured out how to play Chaos Dwarves.

We play with a normal table (3 points for a win, 1 point for a tie). Top four teams make the playoffs. With 12 teams, I assume that it'll take at least 7.5-8 wins to earn that playoff berth. We'll see.

[rolo]

Tyrants win season opener, hire medical staff

El Dorado Tyrants got their season off to a running start with a hard-fought Blood Bowl match against the Itzla Iguanas, another Lizardman team (whose uniforms looked suspiciously like primer black).

Tyrants won FAME, and the cointoss, choosing to defend on the theory that defense is hard, and I should do it while I still have both rerolls.

A mostly static scrum broke out on the line of scrimmage (They stun one of ours? We knock out one of theirs. They knock us down near their cage? We blitz the corner away and mark their ball carrier. That's the El Dorado way!).
Eventually, the Iguanas coach lost patience and broke out with two skinks (including the ball carrier). A quick-thinking (well, relatively so) Saurus got blocked free, blitzed the skink next to the Iguanas' ball carrier, and threatened them both. I couldn't get many more players back though, but the pressure was enough that the Iguanas coach chose to dodge free for the score.

Tyrants 0 : 1 Iguanas.

Left with four turns to score, and both rerolls, the Tyrant's offense went to work. A second Iguanas' Saurus joined his teammate in their KO bin, but that pissed off their Kroxigor, who saw Skink #10 Ziziane running down the left flank. BAM. Ziziane is expected to make a full recovery by next week.
But that left the Iguana's defense well out of position. The best they could do was a 2 dice against blitz on my ball carrier (#13 Avadoatl). A pushback left him pinned, but a 3 die block freed him again for the turn 8 score.

Tyrants 1 : 1 Iguanas.

Neither of the Iguanas' two KO Saurus returned from the KO box. They were soon joined by a skink, who knocked himself out during a Blitz turn, a third Saurus, Knocked out on the line of scrimmage, and eventually another skink. During all of this, yours truly made a terrible mistake, not realizing that an Iguanas Saurus could be blocked free, and had a clear path to my ball carrier, #11 Rakatikou. Two go for its later, the ball was bouncing around, and Rakatikou was being carted off of the field on a stretcher for treatment. He, too, should be available next game, it wasn't that hard of a hit and might only have knocked out a larger player. But I have to be more careful than that.
Fortunately, the Saurus was blocked away from the ball, #13 Avodoatl scooped it up in his little hands, Blockers converged to protect him, and the next turn they settled in front of the end zone for a nice relaxed stall while the opposing Saurus stood pinned at midfield.
Wanting nothing to do with this, an iguanas skink ran free, dodged into the cage, and took an uphill block against Avodoatl, succeeding in pushing him IN to the end zone!

Tyrants 2 : 1 Iguanas.

Iguanas got two KO Saurus and one Skink back, evening the game to 9 on 9, with three turns left to even the score. The kick boomed nice and deep. Iguanas picked up the ball and started to move forward, but their receivers were easy to cover. The ball carrier was shortly threatened by a pass rush, but it mostly served to force the Iguanas to pull some players back and use their blitz. On their turn 15, a brutal turnover prevented them moving receivers forward and exposed their ball carrier, and an ugly pigpile on the ball ended with the final whistle.

FINAL! Tyrants 2:1 Iguanas!

Both teams earned enough to purchase an apothecary. Who will likely be critical in the upcoming season!

Avodoatl learned Sidestep and will now be known as Avodoatl the Swift.

Up next! As-yet unnamed Dwarves!

[Pedda]

Great team, nice match report and I also like the idea of naming your players as they skill up (I'll steal it).

Keep it up!

[JaM]

Well done! Keep us informed, and change the topic title

[rolo]

Our newbie realized that he didn't have time to learn the game and play. He hadn't made a team yet and was holding up the timetable.

So my week two match goes from "Newbie Dwarves" to "By week". (It's just a game not played, no benefit or anything).

So El Dorado won't play until week 3, when we get two Orc teams in a row. Yay?

[rolo]

What with the week 2 bye, the holidays, and some people just playing slowly, the Tyrants had a bit of a break after a strong week 1 start.

But week 3 was a semi-scary Orc team, the "SuperSexySwingin' Boyz". While neither of us have many skills, the Orcs had important ones - Blitzer #4, "Krulf Kreitl", had Mighty Blow, while Blitzer #5, "Panik Sepp", had been trained in tackling technique. Worse, the figures were from our league's legacy team last year, and I had painted #4. I was not looking forward to being splattered by my own figure!

The Swingin' Boyz won the cointoss and chose offense. The kick boomed deep, and the Orc coach, obviously showing respect for skinks' speed, sent several players backwards to protect the ball and thrower "Ulftwist". Fortunately for me, this left El Dorado enough room at midfield to establish a solid lizard wall at the line of scrimmage. By the time the ball cage arrived, both sides were firmly entrenched, and busy blocking each other back and forth.

The half ended with a 0:0 score, neither team ever coming close to threatening a touchdown.

Second half, a lucky turnover left the Orc defense out of position and their left flank exposed. A quick blitz and a lot of skink running and Skink #12 Niniaga was holding the ball, about as safe as a Blood Bowl player can be. I was just starting to get stuck in for a nice long stall, but some aggressive dodging, blitzes, and many go for its left most of my screen marked and a Saurus knocked out. Niniaga looked around nervously at an oncoming horde of orcs and wisely decided to run in the score, and prepare to defend the orc four-turn score attempt.

Tyrants 1 : 0 Boyz.

The Orcs picked up the ball and slowly started to move downfield. Not even bothering to show a Throw Teammate look, they sent their one remaining goblin deep as a receiving threat. El Dorado walled off the ball cage and the game was running back-and-forth again. Things started to look scary in turn 15 - Kroxigor Helios just needed to block a Black Orc out of the way to free a Saurus to plug a hole on the sideline, making a score nearly impossible. Instead, both players hit the dirt and the Orcs had a chance. Remembering that he was actually hired as a passer, Orc Runner Ulftwist heaved a desperate long pass toward Goblin Fremdo. However, he put a little bit too much juice on it, and the ball whizzed over the goblin's head and into the crowd!

The crowd tossed the ball out nowhere near anyone, two skinks moved in to cover, game over. And another win for El Dorado! Amazingly, neither team caused a single casualty for the entire game (although a Goblin was badly hurt by the crowd).

Up next: Orcs! The Orcitectz are currently leading the Rookie League table with two wins and a tie (7 points to my 6).
Coach Rolo must now decide whether to hire an extra skink for the bench, or save up for some extra team training (that all-important third reroll!)

[rolo]

Coach Rolo must now decide whether to hire an extra skink for the bench, or save up for some extra team training (that all-important third reroll!)

Checking the league table, the Orcitectz are so much more advanced that the League is offering 120,000 gold pieces to induce us to play! Got to love revenue sharing. This could either convince an extra skink from the Practice Squad to play for a game, or perhaps a Bloodweiser endorsement contract. Apparently having two beautiful young ladies serving up beer in the dugout is very helpful in convincing players to leave the dugout and keep playing on the pitch. I'm not quite sure how that works, but Blood Bowl players aren't exactly known for intelligence and social graces. At least Coach Rolo will enjoy it.
Or maybe that cash could tide us over with extra practice training sessions until we can afford that reroll.