So I noticed that my Orc elf-bowl team, Orcs Are Elves Too, has become a fairly vanilla Orc team. No AG or MV increases, and no doubles for Dodge has kind of forced the boyz into a cookie-cutter roster. So I felt it was time for a change. With my first FUMMBL experiment over, I thought it would be a great time to start a new project. The first idea that came into my head was a team that played only in SMACKs. Having never played a SMACK, I thought it would be a good idea, yet here I am still waiting to see one of the things get off the ground. Still possessed by the enthusiasm that only stirs after the hour of 2am, I thought I might try a dwarf team.

I quite liked the idea of playing dwarfs, at least at a conceptual, quasi-strategic level. I guess I'm just a sucker for a stalwart brotherhood bound by duty to huff and puff their way across the pitch, preferrably planting a ball into the endzone at the end of it all. So dwarfs it was. Inspired by Nagash1256's "THIS IS BLOODBOWL!!!" blog post, I went for a phalanx theme. I didn't want any of those yahoo slayers distrupting my mental imagery so they sat out. So now I had a team, I had to think of something clever to do with them. I realised I hadn't played against dwarves very much in [R] and when my [L] dwarfs wanted a game, my FUMMBL buddies would often ask for something else. There was talk about them being boring (which was funny coming from the guy who wanted to use dwarfs). So I had the basic idea, see how many games I could get with dwarfs and find out why we all dislike them so.

I knew that I wasn't going to get very far if I took Mighty Blow and fouled the crap out of my opponents. So I decided to aim for the tried and true Guard instead. I took no DPs but didn't state that I wouldn't foul. So after an evening of play I quickly realised I didn't have the stomach to see this one through. Luckily the fair folk of FUMBBL ranked sorted me out, I haven't been able to get any games.

As I type this article, the team has been LFG for quite a while, with not offers at all. Every challenge I've offered has been denied (though remember guys, I'm not Hasudrone). And after 4 games, I'm kind glad; I've grown sick of them already. My skills are nothing scary, there is some Guard, one Stand Firm, and AG on one blitzer and Dodge on the other. It seems people just really hate playing dwarf teams, so much so often I don't even get a reply. I am kind of surprised, since I'm yet to reach the stage where everyone on pitch has Guard (at which stage I'd expect games to be few and far between). Without MB or DP and fairly average rolls, the CAS counts aren't anything crazy either.

So due to difficulty gathering data, I call an end to this avenue of inquiry. At this early stage, my theory is that dwarves are fairly boring because all their plays revolve around runners or blitzers. I tried to shake it up, but really it was just runners or blitzers stabilizing the play and then fobbing off to longbeards. Without stat increases, it is all a bit "meh" for both the player and the opponent. That said, there is hope. I took Dodge and kept the AG increase so there is chance of more exciting playin the future. I'd be happy to hear suggestions from others about the dwarf team and if you want game (in the name of science!) please drop me a line since I'm afraid any future days in Dwarfland will mainly be describing tumbleweeds rolling across the plains to the sounds of crickets...