‘Avin a Good Time is a series here on Spent Glory where we drop the serious competitive approach, skip the idea of helping new players, and ignore altogether anything useful to the community and instead just have ourselves a good time. Gurzag and the Boyz approve, and so should you.

Today we conclude the Brawler’s Ball, a two-part contest. You can read part 1 here, and part 2 by clicking this link instead. Back is first edition, a rarely-used, mostly irrelevant keyword existed called Brawler. Now that we have moved onto Embergard and dropped the concept of Brawlers (though it still lives on in a ‘you can’t flank or surround me’ upgrade), it’s time to celebrate the best brawlers in each subcategory, as voted by the readers. The the contest was based on choosing the best Brawlers from each Grand Alliance – the winner of these then advancing to the finals, which you chose last episode.

Meet Your Competitors

Last time, eight fighters entered the THUNDERDOME for you to vote on. Let’s review the candidates.

The Chaos Grand Alliance sent The Gorehulk (and this was BEFORE we saw what he could do at Worlds!) as well as Gulgoch the Butcher. Two chunky boys ready to make their mark on the Brawling Hall of Fame.

The Death Grand Alliance, being smaller overall and with only three brawlers to its credit, chose only one representative. That fighter is The Harvester, chosen for the ability to scythe into a pack of foes as well as effectively not stay down for long.

The Destruction Grand Alliance sent two of the coolest fighters in town, Gurzag Ironskull (who has been ‘Avin a Good Time for seven years) as well as the Swagmaster himself – Gorlak Blackpowder

Finally, the Order Grand Alliance, which is by far the largest because Games Workshop does not show bias or preferences, sent three fighters. That Trio had two strong stand-outs in Fjul-Grimnir the dwarven champion and Klaq-Trok, everyone’s favorite Dinosaur, as well as Brodus Blightbane who barely edged out the competition to snag third place.

Now, these eight stride into the Thunderdome to see who comes out on top, and who’s left broken in the heap. There were multiple award categories, so let’s dive in.

First To Fall

When discussing “Who Died First”, there was a clear winner (or loser, depending on your perspective). Is this really an award? Hard to say. What’s NOT hard to say is that the winner of this category was definitely The Harvester. Whether it’s because he was dead before he walked in, died immediately after the first sideways glance, or died fifteen times before all was said and done, is anyone’s guess. Amazingly a few people thought Fjul and Gurzag would go down early, which I can only assume is due to their natural instinctive lack of self-preservation, and thus our instinctive love of those lil rascals. Some commentary from the voters:

He not only died first, he also died the most
Bones be breaking
Harvester died first. And second, And…
Poor Harvester. Fortunately it’s hard to keep a good skelly down.

Somebody even managed to “Select Option 1” in a short answer question for this survey. Proud of you.

Stylish Slaughterer

Now here’s an award. Some fighters might be interested in survival or racking up the kill count, but others know there’s no point if you don’t look good while you’re at it. This one was a surprising tie between Fjul-Grimnir and Gorlak Blackpowder, with the Harvester and Klaq-Trok trailing behind. How will we decide the prima fashionista? By evaluating the voter comments.

Gorlak:
He’s a pirate. Of course he brawls with style.
He’s a Pirate, and a Man-Eater. They’re all about style – or in Blackpowder’s case, Swag

Fjul:
Fjul-Grimnir holds the Key to stylish (and brutal) executions
Keyblade swinging

Verdict: The award goes to Blackpowder, for the key reason of me hating puns that I didn’t write myself. Add it to your swag stash, big boy.

Supreme Clobberer

So there’s eight fighters in this pit, and unless everybody agrees to stab the fella on their left, somebody is probably walking away with the highest body count (no Vasillac; not that body count, you’re not a brawler, and also you weren’t invited). This part of the competition had a good spread, with everybody except poor Brodus getting at least one vote. The results couldn’t have been a big surprise to most of you, with the Gorehulk taking it by a solid margin and Fjul-Grimnir in a strong second place. Something tells me the dwarven voting bloc is in cahoots.

Comments for the Gorehulk:
Khorne cares not, and the blood will flow.
We’re still in his domain – the domain of slaughter
Skulls for the skull throne
The Gorehulk makes a mess of a bunch of brawlers before ultimately being brought down by a latchkey grandaxe

Honorable comment mention: Three hits. Fjul hitting you. Your left half hitting the floor. Your right half hitting the floor.

Last Brawler Standing

And we have made it at last, my Good Time ‘Avers, to the toughest model in First Edition. Who was the last brawler standing? This should come as no surprise, in all honesty, but Fjul-Grimnir took it and I’m not even able to steal it from him via some BS tiebreaker. It wasn’t a blowout though! plenty of votes for the harvester, who presumably gets to keep playing until he wins, since as one person commented “as soon as you kill him, his coach brings him back into the fight”. Plenty of votes for Klaq-Trok too, who was my personal pick for this contest. As another commented “He goes for the jugular”.

Comments in support of Fjul:
His slayer roots have him capable of taking on all manner of monsters
The guy is used to taking down big guys with one swing, and I can’t imagine him getting overrun either
Slayer lord. Who else?

Total Vote Share

For fun, I decided to count up and rank every fighter by total votes across the three ‘good’ awards to determine a ‘best overall’. Sorry Harvester, but those fragility votes can’t carry you here (though as we will see he may not have needed the help).

1st: Fjul-Grimnir: 28.3%
2nd: The Harvester: 18.3%
3rd: The Gorehulk: 16.7%
Tied for 4th: Klaq-Trok and Gorlak Blackpowder: 11.7%
6th: Gurzag Ironskull: 6.7%
7th: Gulgoch the Butcher: 5%
8th: Brodus Blightbane: 1.7%

Wrap

Thanks again for ‘avin a good time with me, and it sounds like people enjoyed this contest. Here’s a few comments from the peanut gallery:

Win or lose, all I know is eventually we’ll need a clean-up in the Broduce aisle.
I’d still legiot pay to watch Brodus and Fjul-Grimnnir arm wrestle.
It was super fun to think about this! Hard to come up with the answers sometimes too, so I ‘ad a good time.
I mean, you gotta give it to the Dorf
RIP Brawler Keyword. Just kidding – I never once used it in a single game

I hope your favorite fighters got their time in the sun as we bid them farewell. May they brawl in the Valhalla of Shadespire for eternity! I have it on good authority that Fjul-Grimnir plans on showing off his Gold Medal and doing exactly that over in the Vassal Beardgrave League. Let me know if you have any fun ideas for future Good Time ‘Avin, which you can email to me at SpentGlory@gmail.com. Now let’s forget about that whole keyword silliness and go spend some Glory!