Matt Starr's Nerdling Glory

I love bets and dares. Especially against Matt Starr. Especially when I know going into it that Matt is going to be receiving a dose of humiliation. So it goes without saying that I was thrilled when in early January this year, Matt proposed the following bet:

He will learn to play Blood Bowl, and compete in my local league, with the end goal of playing competitively this year at Eucalyptus Bowl (which I was helping to organise). In exchange, I agree to return to the blog.

That's right, Matt loves me soooooo much that he volunteered to put himself through more than half a year of nerdy torture in exchange for my posts about dental appointments and video games. I agreed immediately, we hammered out the terms, and by the end of January his training had commenced!

One of the many games where Matt got thrashed. I took this picture after catching him laughing and enjoying himself. He later denied it.

For those who don't know what Blood Bowl is, it is a boardgame where two "coaches" control their teams in a game best described as "american football chess". It is a Games Workshop game, and includes teams such as Undead, Orcs, Humans and Elves etc. On first view it is extremely nerdy. Ok, on ALL views it is extremely nerdy, but underneath the veneer of lame there is an extremely complex and enjoyable strategy game which has a small but extremely social community here in Australia. It also recently had it's 20th Anniversary, so this isn't a new game by any means.

This year I agreed to assist with the organisation of Eucalyptus Bowl (which if you recall my original Nerdling Glory post, was the tournament that I won in 2005). It blew out into the largest tournament of it's kind in Australian history, with 46 coaches playing over 130 games across the two days. Players were competing not only for 1st/2nd/3rd, but also a host of minor prizes such as Best Painting and Most Casualties.

A crowd shot showing table upon table of proud geeks, who will take the prize of Eucalyptus Bowl 2007 Champion? I'll give you a hint... Not Matt.

One of those prizes was our "Encouragement Award", which is a nice way of saying Wooden Spoon. It was hotly contested, but after six games and six losses, Matt managed to secure the prize as the only contestant to play all six games without at least a draw. In other words, Matt is pretty much officially the worst Blood Bowl player in Australia.

The trophies were all professionally painted miniatures on a small wooden base, and we tried to pick miniatures which were appropriate to the prize. In the case of the Encouragement Award, we went with an Ogre Cheerleader, and I believe Matt is planning on displaying this proudly on his bedside table, next to the baby oil and a box of tissues.

The Encouragement Ogre, she will be keeping Matt warm at night.

So here I am. Matt has fulfilled his part of the agreement, and will never again be able to say that he has never taken part in a Board Game Tournament, or indeed won a trophy from said tournament. And for my end, here I am back at the blog, and looking forward to sharing my indignation on topics that irritate me, posting cute pictures of my dogs and grossing people out with unnecessary detail about dental procedures. And you can all thank Matt for sacrificing any street cred he might of had in the past to make it happen... Give him a hand everyone!

Tired but Proud, here is Matt collecting his prize.