4 Diamonds Cup 2019 - Blood Bowl AAR

This past weekend I drove out to Dillsburg, Pennsylvania to attend this year's 4 Diamond Cup tournament. It's a long-standing Blood Bowl event that raises money for the Penn State Children's Hospital! 

The event was held in a fire hall with plenty of space for the games, and the ticket price included a catered (and delicious) lunch.

And the prizes! Attendees could buy raffle tickets to try and win a variety of items. There were playmats and teams...

A really nice painted Lizardmen team, a fantastic looking dugout and a carved wooden box with the tournament's logo...

And a ton of miscellaneous items!

I ended up with a pint glass, a dice tray, and dice with logos for Keystone Kup 18 (looks like another central PA event that happened last year. I may need to keep an eye out for this year's event).

I decided to bring my Human team to the event. I've already played with the Chaos Dwarves and Slann, and I needed to play with the Humans and Orcs before moving on to other teams. And since I've already played with the Orcs in a league, I thought trying the humans out wouldn't be too bad.

In hindsight, well...

My first opponent was Ken and his Dwarves. It was a clash of older edition teams, and the Dwarves came away with a 1-0 win against my Humans. Ken ground out a goal in the first half, which I couldn't follow through to even get a tie.

As Ken pointed out, however, I was playing too conservatively and not using the Human's better speed against the Dwarves. He gave me some advice that I hoped I could use against Dwarf teams in the future.

However, my second game was against Jason, who had brought Pro Elves/Elven Union (depends on the age of the player). This was a rough game for the Humans, and even though I was knocking elves off the pitch left and right, the pointy-eared lads and ladies ended up with a 2-0 victory.

It's always impressive how elf teams and coaches are able to exploit mistakes with that AG 4, as Jason demonstrated with a pickup, hand off, pass and dodge that took the ball from one end of the pitch to the other.

With my expectations shattered, my final opponent was Ezzard and his Dwarf team! I was hoping to put some of my previous experience to good use. I managed to keep Ezzard from scoring in the first half, and scored myself halfway through the second. However, I wasn't able to keep the Dwarves from opening a line in my defense, which Ezzard was able to push through and clear a lane for a late second half score to tie the game 1-1.

So, two losses and a tie, which meant I ended up in 54th place out of 58 players. Not exactly a good first impression for the humans, and I expect they'll be gathering dust on my shelf for some time.

Unfortunately, while each of my opponents were fantastic both in and out of the games, some extenuating circumstances and the frustrations I was having with my coaching really got me in a bad mood, which affected my overall tournament experience. It's a shame, and I hope I didn't negatively affect my opponents' time too much.

On a more positive note, the event did raise for $6,500 in donations!

I'd definitely like to attend again next year and give a better accounting of myself.