Dreadball 2014 – The Year Of Pete

 Fast forward 9 months and the one day Dreadball tournament returned this week!  The less than dingy room behind the bar was utilised for the second time, and 8 participants brought their teams in the hope of glory, riches, and a free cake courtesy of Mr McKee.  Most had to settle for cake.  Last year’s Locusts head coach, Pete, returned with a bunch of walking cassette players and took on the mantle of tournament organiser.  Notable absentees were James’ Marauders (bird flu), last years organiser Mr Blom and his vertically challenged forge fathers, and the SmAshes 2013 tournament champions the Hollywood All-Stars and their head coach Andy. 

New face Dafydd and his corporation team ABC joined some old faces fielding some new teams, with Paddy favouring a 1980’s cartoon, Ian being unable to resist risking the wrath of GW and changing his teams name into ‘Skaven’, and Adrian forsaking his best painted award winning Marauders in favour of the mysterious nameless.  Chris retained his Marauders, but had sold the naming rights to a local company, and finally I kept with the Corporation side The Carbis Bay Buccaneers’.

The Players & Their Teams:

Pete – The Chromium Chargers (Robots)

Adrian – Mythos Maniacs (The Nameless)

Chris – OrkChester Man-Booters (Marauders)

Mark – Plague Bearers (Veer-myn)

Paddy – Teraton Titans (Turtles)

Ian - Skaven Foundation (Veer-myn)

Rick (me) – Carbis Bay Buccaneers (Corporation)

Dafydd –ABC (Corporation)

Most of the teams at the end, some were too ashamed to appear before a camera.

The Rules:

The tournament consisted of four rounds in a league format, with the result to be decided on the day.  3 points were available for a 7-0 wipe-out victory, 2 points for a run-of-the-mill victory, and 1 for a draw.  Nowt for a defeat.  The matchups were drawn randomly from a small bag, procured for just such an occasion, and any reoccurring matchups were redrawn to ensure players only met once.  Teams that ended on the same number of points were then separated by score (added together from each match), and then kills for and against.  Games were to last for one hour each.

Round 1:

Kick-off began remarkably early thanks to my work commitments, with the Teraton Titans facing last year’s runners up the Carbis Bay Buccaneers’ on the Thursday evening before the Saturday event itself.  A few dry runs a couple of weeks previously had provided the Titans with some much needed playing time, but an overly defensive outlook eventually cost them.  The Buccaneers took until rush 11 to register the first points for either side; striker Hector Barbossa stealing the ball and slamming in a 3-pointer before star player Dirk Pitt chalked up a 2-point hit, and it was over bar an exchange of un-pleasantries.  The Titans took their revenge for the earlier elimination of one of their player by taking out the Buccaneers’ resident nancy boy Will Turner.

The tournament kicked off properly on Saturday morning, and there would be no repeat of the previous outings point-shyness; two 7-0 wipeouts and a victory for the washing machines against hard-hitting Corporation side ABC.  The Plague Bearers gave a hint of what was to come with striker Influenza picking up all 8 points scored for the Veer-myn side.

Teraton Titans Vs Carbis Bay Buccaneers (0-5)

Plague Bearers Vs OrkChester Man-Booters (7-0)

Mythos Maniacs Vs Skaven Foundation (7-0)

Chronium Chargers Vs ABC (2-0)

Round 2:

12pm dawned, I arrived to virtually no cheers, and the Plague Bearers charged onwards, dispatching ABC by the less respectable score of 2-0 as the Corporation side discovered there was a ball in play on the pitch.  Influenza once more made his/her/its mark with 4 points, and Pox weighed in with another 3 against the scoring human team who had to undergo a lengthy decontamination process after the match.  The Carbis Bay Buccaneers were held to a draw by a delighted bunch of toasters, who had equalised late on after Dirk Pitt had grabbed a spectacular 4-pointer.  The Buccaneers coach was left kicking the nearest under desk heater, and would be even more dispirited in round 3.

In the other two games the enigma of the nameless Mythos  Maniacs fell to a narrow defeat to the turtles of the Titans, who found their hero power tactics worked better against the fast moving rats than the skilful humans.   The nameless head coach bemoaned the “last action, last rush” strike by the turtles, and while claiming they “was robbed”, he fruitlessly denied feeling bitter.  The Skaven Foundation, having overcome (ignored?) GW copyright issues to be allowed to play, banged 7 past the OrkChester Man-Booters.  The Marauder side, despite having clearly the wittier team name, and such wonders as Bob, Bobba, Bobo and Lord Faffington playing for them were handicapped by a failure to remember exactly why they had come to this less-than-dingy room in Deeside.  The head coach was adamant something about a real sausage and an actual photo had been mentioned as an incentive.

Mythos Maniacs Vs Teraton Titans (0-1)

Plague Bearers Vs ABC (2-0)

Skaven Foundation vs OrkChester Man-Booters (7-0)

Chronium Chargers Vs Carbis Bay Buccaneers (0-0)

Round 3:

Lunch was mostly eaten on the hoof, and for some off a table, and the microwaves went straight into action against Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo.  The turtles won, clearly comfortable playing without their sports physiologist, Splinter, who instead turned out for the Skaven Foundation, and promptly killed Plague Bearers favourite Influenza.  Luckily for the walking CoSHH nightmares it turned out that you can never fully eliminate an infectious disease, even if you thrash its team 7-0 and bash it with penicillin and Windex.  Sars gained more immediate revenge, killing Splinter to prevent more ninja jokes, if not any rat-on-rat jokes.

In the battle of the ‘what are we playing?’ against the ‘theres a ball, why is there a ball?’ teams, the Corporation side ABC came out on top against Lord Faffington and co.  Meanwhile the Carbis Bay Buccaneers and Mythos Maniacs played out a quite bizarre game, especially noted for a rather fortunate nameless scoring a 3-pointer in the Buccaneers own rush via an incredible sequence of slamming, bouncing and striking.  They then followed this up by the strangest way of winning a game; missing a 4-point strike only for the ball to improbably bounce off the wall and straight back to their striker, who made no mistake second time around before the Buccaneers’ could dream of intervening.  In between the kickoff and this final strike the nameless had opened the score, Jack Sparrow had equalised, and the aliens had missed several excellent opportunities to put the game to bed as the Corporation side proved completely inept at any task whatsoever.  Accusations regarding greased gloves, and the hostile crowds use of laser pens, was rife in the disbelieving ‘Buccaneers dressing room afterwards, but it would take a miracle for them to come top now.

Teraton Titans Vs Chronium Chargers (5-0)

Plague Bearers Vs Skaven Foundation (0-7)

Mythos Maniacs Vs Carbis Bay Buccaneers (7-0)

OrkChester Man-Booters Vs ABC (0-6)

Round 4:

At the start of round 4 Mythos Maniacs were in a winning position at the top; 1 point clear with a far superior score difference, and they were not about to let that slip.  It did, however, take until the last turn for them to achieve the wipe-out victory that would give them the title on clear points, with the OrkChester Man-Booters having a good go at that most Ork-like of tactics; giving them a good kicking.  Elsewhere the Plague Bearers did their best to put pressure on them, dismantling a group of typewriters on their way to a second wipe-out of the day.  The coffee machines made it a bit more difficult by scoring a few times, but Ecoli struck, and collected a personal haul of 12 points and a food standards agency warning label.

The ‘Buccaneers finally got into their stride, and ABC were blown away by Dirk Pitt and his team.  Pitt bagged two 4-pointers, the second one at the second attempt, before being justifiably blindsided by an ABC guard and taken out of the game.  ABC score two 2-pointers of their own after each 4-pointer, and ‘Buccaneers striker Jack Dalhgren committed a classic error of forgetting to duck as the ball was re-launched before Jack Sparrow put the game to bed in rush 9 with a 3-pointer.  Finally the Skaven Foundation, who had stood an outside chance of the title at the start of the round, were gradually worn down by the stone-wall tactics of the turtles, losing 3 players killed in the course of the Titans 3-0 victory.

Carbis Bay Buccaneers Vs ABC (7-0)

OrkChester Man-Booters Vs Mythos Maniacs (0-7)

Skaven Foundation Vs Teraton Titans (0-3)

Chronium Chargers Vs Plague Bearers (0-7)

The Final League Table:

Pos	Team	Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Points
1.	Mythos Maniacs	3	0	3	3	9
2.	Plague Bearers	3	2	0	3	8
3.	Carbis Bay Buccaneers	2	1	0	3	6
-	Teraton Titans	0	2	2	2	6
-	Veer-myn Foundation	0	3	3	0	6
6.	Chronium Chargers	2	1	0	0	3
7.	ABC	0	0	2	0	2
8.	OrkChester Man-Booters	0	0	0	0	0

 The Awards:

Tournament Champions – Adrian with his nameless Mythos Maniacs

Best Painted – Rick (me!) with my Carbis Bay Buccaneers’

Carbis Bay Buccaneers - Winner: Best Painted.

Mythos Maniacs - Tournament Winners.

Plague Bearers.

Skaven Foundation.

OrkChester Man-Booters.

The Tournament In Numbers

·         16 - Matches produced a total of 8 wipe-outs, more than 2013, 3 of which came in round 4.

·         0 – No team managed to end the tournament unbeaten, all suffered at least one loss.

·         9 – The number of points the Mythos Maniacs needed to win the tournament, the same as the Hollywood All-Stars achieved.

·         2 – The number of Chromium Chargers players left on the pitch at the end by the aggressive Teraton Titans.  The turtles also claimed most kills with 6.

·         21 – The number of Cheers the Teraton Titans gained during the tournament, much higher than the Mythos Maniacs. 

·         +20 – The best scoring result, unsurprisingly gained by the nameless, while the OrkChester Man-Booters claimed the more unwelcome title of worst scoring result with -27.