Entry 2
Transcribed by his goblin scribe, Ian H. McKinley
OK, first thing’s first. If you wanna coach a Black Orc team, you’ve gotta go and hire the players. A lotta leagues have a strict limit on what you can spend on a new team, usually a million gold pieces. Most of the prestigious tournaments that offer the biggest coffers of winnings usually have a higher limit, trying to attract the better and more popular teams. Because my Maulers were set to start league play I’ll break down for you the line-up I went with. The initial investment was limited to a cool million gold pieces. Thank Gork I was flush from signing that contract with Blood Bowl Strategies and could actually afford it.
So, in my time as a coach, one key thing I learned was people are thick as bricks, so you gotta explain everything, even the stupidest little thing. So here’s the secret with building your team:
Don’t build your team around the Goblins.
But Boss! That’s CRAZY TALK!
Sorry, I nearly had to throttle one of my Goblin scribes just there.
Really, it shouldn’t be a secret that a Black Orc team’s core has to be its Black Orcs. You should expect to blow half your budget on the greedy bullies. You can negotiate with ’em all you like, but their agents aren’t going to let them play for anybody for less than 90,000.
Get six. Yeah, I know, that’s, like a lot of gold … hang on, my Accounts Goblin is tallying the figures … 540,000 gold of your starting million gone just like that. But you’ll need those guys. So much so, I come to my first real point of controversy.
Take an Apothecary.
Yeah, you heard me, it’s worth the guild rate of 50,000. I’ve already said, Black Orcs isn’t cheap so you gotta protect your investment. Yeah, they can wear a lot of heavy armour but you only gotta have one stroke of bad luck and a lad you paid handsomely for isn’t so handsome any more. And let’s say you don’t get that stroke of bad luck, what then? Well, late on in the game, you might decide to use your Apo on a Goblin. They break easy and you don’t actually want too many of ’em out of the game or you’ll find yourself in trouble.
So I’m reliably told that leaves you just shy of 600,000. The Accounts Goblin’s screaming, “Five-ninety, five-ninety!”
Now you gotta hire your Goblins. Sure, regular Goblins are cheap and vicious, even if they can be a bit useless. But don’t just hire any Gobbo off the cavern floor. Get those Goblin Bruisers. They’re tougher and will stay in the game longer. I hired six of ’em so that I can have an extra one on the bench.
“Two-seventy, boss, that’s another two-seventy.”
By the Cruel Gods I hate eager Goblins! What is it in total?
“Eight-sixty! Eight-sixty! Ya got one-forty left, Boss. One-forty.”
Right. So whaddya do with the one-forty?
The next big question to address is the Troll. If you’re gonna get one, make sure it’s trained. Agents will insist on nothing less than 115,000 to hire one. That’s a pretty big chunk of change for a dolt that’ll blow a hole in your own defensive line by going stupid on ya. They’re just too unreliable for a serious coach like me. So here’s the controversy:
Don’t hire the Troll.
Now, most of my compatriots are probably howling in rage right now. Some might even be howling in rage because of what I just said. But take it from a championship-winning gaffer: they’re not worth it unless you have piles of gold you can’t get rid of.
Take your one-forty what’s left and invest it in the hard team training that’ll allow you to have things that would normally not go your way to go your way (Editor’s Note … re-rolls. Two of ’em). After all, Nuffle’s cruel bastard when She’s not playing tricks on you. Put in the hard work on the practice pitch. When you get the gold to invest even more in training, do it! In an ideal world you’ll want to go to the well three or four times each half.
What does that leave me with? “Twenty grand, Boss!”
Yeah, right. Twenty G. OK, simple enough, hire on an assistant coach so’s you got somebody to blame when things go sour (which they will, they always will). Then throw a bone to the Ultras by hiring on some cheerleaders. And don’t bother shelling out good gold to get more fans; you can’t buy fanaticism, only fair-weather supporters. Let the cult grow natural-like.
There. You got yourself a team of Black Orcs for league play.
Bytown Maulers Roster
