It ain't easy being green-fingered!

It’d be impossible to count all the teams to have ever played in REBBL’s GMAN region. Impossible mainly because I haven’t done it and you can be damn sure that if I haven’t tried it, nobody else is going to bother.

Despite that, one team stands alone with the title of Longest Serving GMAN Team and I was in great spirits when I heard I’d be travelling to the training base of the High Sails. It’s been a while since ol’ Rodder tasted the sweet coastal air and heard the sound of the waves crashing against the shoreline. I exchanged old stories with my coach driver for the entire trip, or at least I did until he very suddenly stopped and declared we’d arrived. He had to be mistaken.

The High Sails are based in a ruddy forest.

Now incredibly grumpy, I set off into the thicket of trees towards what I assumed was the general direction of the training ground. That’s the problem with Wood Elves. They’re so agile I can barely hear them on the field. Send me to scout some Orcs and I can hear their lack of intelligence from a mile off! Thankfully, I could sense I was on the right track when the branches of the trees very suddenly became littered with Blood Bowl balls…

Eventually, I arrived to the sight of a High Sails training session in mid-flow. Agility drills were ongoing, Wardancers were leaping onto safety mats (the cowards!) and I spotted the team’s coach, Venachar, working incredibly hard with the team’s new Treeman, Redwood Thatch. Bang on cue, I spotted a shrine just to my right in an opening amongst the trees surrounding the training field.

*“Here lies Edwood Thatch. Yew were the best.”*

A shrine is appropriate, too. Edwood Thatch was a remarkable Treeman – movement 3 and boasting Grab, Block and Guard amongst his skills. The team were clearly devastated when, in the penultimate week of Season 6, Thatch was fouled to death by a Dirty Zombie. Of all the ways to go… It’s immediately apparent why Venachar is so keen to devote all of his time to training the rookie Treeman in a similar vein. Importantly, the skill of the remaining High Sails players allows the coach this extra training ground time.

As I wandered over for a chat, I was stopped abruptly in my tracks by what seemed for all the world like an intercontinental ballistic missile.

“Sorry!” came the cry from none other than Long Bong Silver himself. Widely renowned as one of the greatest Elves to ever grace a REBBL field, Silver has one of the Strongest Arms in the game and is pinpoint Accurate from any range you like. That’s what five seasons and 142 SPP of development will do for you. Regaining my composure, I again began to wander over towards Venachar only to be stopped again, with the force of this one actually knocking me clean off my feet!

“ssssoorrrrryyyyyy” came the cry, but I had no idea where from. The perpetrator of my literal downfall had vanished from sight as quickly as he appeared. Perplexed, I started looking around for any possible cause, and my questions were answered moment later as the same phenomenon came rushing past again.

It was Juan Gungeon, the Catcher with Movement 9 and Agility 6. He was so fast I had no chance of seeing him coming – my reflexes aren’t what they once were! Death will do that to a man… Gungeon was clearly in some sort of Sprinting drill but looked to be suffering from some physical discomfort. A quick word with the team’s apothecary confirmed the worst.

“Juan smashed his ankle last season and lost a yard of pace as a result,” the apothecary explained. It seemed incredible to think that he used to be faster than what I was witnessing in front of me!

At this point, I decided that the training field was clearly too dangerous for an old git like me, so I promptly sat down in the stands to reflect more on what the High Sails have brought to GMAN. With a whopping 75 matches under their belts, this is a damn experienced team who’ve been there and seen it all. An overall record of 36 wins, 15 draws and 26 defeats isn’t shabby at all considering they’ve spent so much time in the top division but for this season at least, the Sails face a new challenge in GMAN Division 2.

“After so many years at the top, the league organisers granted us a season’s reprieve from the violence that has taken over the top tier,” explained a team spokesperson, “GMAN Division 1 used to be a wonderful challenge, with the best Elf teams from across the land pitted toe-to-toe. Unfortunately, things have changed in recent years.”

They weren’t wrong. Season 6 saw the Sails finish in an all-time worst 11th place in Division 1, being forced to mop up 34 casualties from their 13 games. A team that have suffered 24 player deaths in their long history develop a de-sensitivity to these things, but it was beginning to get too much. Relegation was a blessed relief in the end.

With a fresh start to Season 7, things could be looking up for the Sails, but they were horrified to find that Division 2 contains much of the same! With no less than three Orc teams, two Necromantic teams, a Chaos and a Nurgle side, there’ll be no let up to the hits just yet. This is a team that have learned how to roll with the punches and produce some remarkable results across the years – 152 touchdowns is a record bettered only by the Pastry Pests from REL, who’ve had an extra season to hit their current total of 187.

With the training session coming to a close, there was a brief moment of hilarity as a stray Long Bomb from Long Bong Silver lodged itself in the branches of Redwood Thatch, causing the Treeman to lose his balance and tumble to the floor. Venachar simply put his head in his hands. Even after this many seasons, the work of a Blood Bowl coach never stops…