Opening Day

With the World Series getting underway tonight, baseball is coming to an end in 2023, but in my fictional nineteenth-century universe, we're just getting started. After the Canaries' devastating championship series loss to the Haymakers last season, will we see the Birds recover and end their title drought, or perhaps will the Blue Legs or Resolutes surprise us? The tenth season of my Strat-O-Matic league begins tonight!

Season 4 Championship

Season 4 of Blitz Bowl madness has come to an end! Who walked (or, rather, limped) away with the coveted Sigmar Cup? Read on!

After my debacle the other night with a miscounted score, I started the championship game over from the beginning. This time, the game couldn't have played out more differently: In my first attempt, the teams grappled in a gritty grudge match, while the rebooted game featured touchdowns on the game's first three turns! The Reavers connected for a passing touchdown during their first sequence, then the Giants ran for a score on their first possession, and then the Reavers notched a running TD on their second turn. Madness! The excitement didn't end there, however, as the Giants made some aggressive plays to rack up challenge cards, and we were all tied up at 9 before the dust had settled. Both defenses held firm for the middle portion of the game, and as the clock started winding down, the dwarves ran for a touchdown to open up a 15-10 lead. Their defense pulled back to guard against a big TD, forcing Reavers to go after challenge cards in the hope of picking up enough points to chip away at the Giants' advantage. By the final turn, the Reavers still trailed, 15-13. They put themselves in excellent position to score two points on a challenge card to tie the game and send it to overtime. It all came down to one dice roll: An armor saving throw by one of the dwarf players. If he failed the save, the Reavers would claim the points and tie the game, but if he made the save, the Giants would hang on for the win. The odds? The dwarf needed a five-up on a D6 check. Oh, the drama! I must have let that D6 rattle around in my closed fist for at least half-a-minute before I hurled it down on the board.

Five.

The dwarf held his ground, the Reavers failed to claim the points, and the Giants won the game and their second Sigmar Cup in franchise history. Congrats to the Giants on winning the most exciting game of Blitz Bowl I think I've ever played!

One Last View of Dragon View

After overcoming countless foes -- and one very nasty real-life game glitch -- I completed the Drakkhen sequel Dragon View today. Here's a photo of my character, Widsith, about to take on the final boss...

The game concludes with a lovely (and lengthy!) series of cutscenes showing what happens across the game world after the hero's victory. Spoiler alert! Don't look if you want to play through and be surprised by how the story turns out.

The defeated villain is redeemed, and the hero is proclaimed king of the realm!

Hail to the king, baby!

Next up, I'll be putting the world of Drakkhen aside and delving into a new Evercade cartridge dedicated to the "cinematic" games of Delphine Software International. I remember playing Delphine's Flashback on my Sega Genesis long ago and just being blown away by the story and the silky-smooth (rotoscoped!) animation.

Season 4 Playoffs

It's playoff time! Here we go!

Wild Card: Champions at Reavers

After being humiliated 11-1 by the Avengers in their first-ever playoff appearance last season, the undead Champions came into this Wild Card matchup determined to have a better showing. The red-hot Reavers, however, jumped out to a quick 8-0 lead. The Champions made things interesting on a rare five-point touchdown (three points for the TD plus a two-point challenge card) midway through the game, but they never threatened again. The Reavers put the game away with a late touchdown and the final was 15-6 in favor of the two-time defending titlists. The humans then set their sights on a threepeat, but first they would need to defeat the rival Giants -- who are, ironically, dwarves and not actual giants -- the only other franchise in this league that has claimed a Sigmar Cup.

Championship: Reavers at Giants

These two titans were meeting for the Cup for the third time in four seasons. Early in the contest, the Giants got the ball deep into Reaver territory, and it was all the humans could do to keep it out of their end zone. The teams picked up a few points on challenge cards over the next several rounds, until, around the halfway point of the game, the Reavers managed to heave the ball to midfield in the hope of mounting an offensive push of their own. The Giants briefly took the lead on more points from challenge cards, so it was 5-4 in their favor until the Reavers picked up a card that made it 6-5. And that's when I realized something was wrong, as I couldn't account for the score. Somewhere along the way, I had miscounted the points. (Either that, or Tzeentch is up to his old tricks!) In such a tight contest, a single point might well be the difference. With no clear resolution that was fair to both teams, I decided to toss the whole game and start again. We'll try again tomorrow!

Season 4 Recap

Tonight was the final regular-season game of my Blitz Bowl league. Here's how the five teams fared in Season 4:

• Giants (9-5-2): The dwarves set a new league record for wins and denied the Reavers a fourth straight first-place finish. This dominant team boasted the league's best offense (10.50 points per game) and second-best defense (8.81 points against per game), and tied the Reavers for the best point differential (+27).
• Reavers (7-5-4): Their quest for a third straight Sigmar Cup will continue, but first they'll need to get past the Champions in the Wild Card game. The Reavers didn't muster much on offense this year, but their defense (8.06 points against per game) was the best in the circuit.
• Champions (7-8-1): It took a nerve-wracking win in their last regular-season game to secure a Wild Card spot for the second straight year. With a point differential of exactly zero, this team is the very definition of average.
• Grasshuggers (6-8-2): The halflings remain the only team in the league that has never reached the postseason, but they made things interesting in the last few games and narrowly missed out.
• Avengers (5-8-3): They led the league in touchdowns (14) yet again, but there isn't much else I can say about this team. Last season's runners-up for the Sigmar Cup finished dead last this year, and their point differential of -29 was the worst for any team in league history.

Next up: The Wild Card game between the Reavers and the Champions for the right to face the Giants in the championship!

Quadruple Digits

I added the complete list of Troya Novan emperors to my Druid Cycle spreadsheet this evening, bringing me up to 1002 named characters. Quadruple digits, baby!

Back to Basics

My boys spent the early years of their D&D careers adventuring in the cozy little Shattered Realm campaign setting. The clock is ticking on their time with us at home, however -- Matthew is already sixteen! -- so I was feeling a bit of urgency to get them into the Druid Cycle world. They're now involved in two campaigns, one with their two older cousins and one just with the three of us. Although the campaigns are set in different countries, both are plugged in to a broader narrative about an impending succession crisis in Troya Nova. It's been a lot of fun to get back to basics in this game world, as I had been focusing on world building for the past several (many?) years; it was awesome to add new characters, locations, and cultures to this world, but I felt that I was shortchanging the "core" that has made the setting so special. It's been amazing to reconnect with the roots of this campaign world and share it with a new generation of players!