“FUMBBL DIV-X CUP SEMI-FINAL!!!

Note, luck reading is out as we had to play the game in two parts. Unfortunately, this also means the replay is only from when we reloaded the game late in the first half
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A very tightly contested game. The Terrors hired the Bull Centaur Star Player Hthark the Unstoppable whilst the Warriors hired the Ogre Star Player Morg 'N' Thorg. Both were to play key roles in the match.

The Warriors won the toss and elected to receive. The Terrors inexplicably left Hthark on the bench (ok, I was tired or just damn dumbed by the pressure of a the big game, and I loaded a preset defence and moved the players around, forgetting all about Hthark LOL) and the star recruit didn't play the entire first half!!!

The Terrors kicked perfectly, having the ball land just inside the sideline and it took some serious sprinting by the Warriors to recover and screen the ball. The Warriors bunched to the right, and most of the Terrors followed.

Then the Warriors Thrower Ghek hurled the ball down to Morg who was left alone on the left wing. The big fella ran deep towards the endzone. The Terrors rushed back a Hobgoblin and a Bull Centaur (the wrong one -ie the Str 4 one, not the Str 5 one of course, man I was playing dumb to start off with) to harry Morg.

Morg could have easily scored by blitzing away the Hobgoblin, but the big fella obviously had been ordered to delay scoring for as long as possible. The Terrors made scoring more difficult for him by swinging the closest Bull Centaur next to the Hobbo (so Mor would still be in one tackle zone if he blitzed and got a pow and followed up) whilst they tried to free up more players.

Both teams sent players towards Morg, but it was the Terrors who managed to get the advantage when the second Bull Centaur blitzed Morg and stunned him. The Terrors recovered the ball, and managed to run it deep into Warriors territory, but failed to score when the Hobbo didn't run close enough to the sideline (another rookie mistake by me, I left the ball carrier within 2 GFI of his Black Orc Blocker, if I had gone to the sideline, the worst he could have done was put the Black Orc next to me, and I had a Str 5 Bull Centaur within 7 (one GFI with Sure Feet) to knock him out the way so the Hobbo could run in and score.

So at half time it was 0 all with the Terrors having a single CD knocked out.

To start the second half, the Terrors remembered to field Hthark this time! and a touchback saw the big fella given the ball to protect. The Terrors promptly caged the ball and moved very little for the next few minutes as they tried to see if the Warriors would over commit to one side.

Eventually, the Terrors pushed hard on the left wing and Hthark took the ball deep to the sideline (thanks for being patient Gorritakid, this was a tense turn and it took me 7 minutes to work out how to break through and cover everybody to my satisfaction, however, it was probably my only turn the entire match that took more than 3 minutes). Morg managed to dodge away from a Troll and blitz Hthark, but failed to get a one dice Pow on the block and Hthark simply galloped away (Str 6 Break Tackle) into the endzone to take the lead for the Terrors just past halfway into the final period.

The Warriors lined up, and again it was a tight battle to find an opening. Eventually, the Warriors burst down the right flank with a ball carrier whilst other players tried to block off lanes. The Terrors managed to open a gap for the stronger of their two Bull Centaurs blitz the ball carrier and flatten him, whilst the less stronger of the two (the one with Dodge) managed to recover the ball and take cover in the corner.

The Warriors then made a difficult dodge Blitz play (5+ dodge to get a 2 dice hit on my Bull Centaur) but could only push him (despite a reroll, he needed to get a Pow as I had Blodge so 11/36 chance each hit).

The Terrors then dodged away with the ball and formed a cage and the Warriors ran out of time to score an equaliser to send the game into overtime.
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A tight match. I was very silly to leave Hthark on the bench as he is a great defender as he can bust cages open with his Str 6 Break Tackle. However, my opponent stalling with Morg allowed me back into the game as I eventually got my Str 5 Bull Centaur to hit Morg with 2 assists and the ball came free.

I then had some luck to pick up the ball, and run it so deep into my opponent's territory doing many GFI without rerolls to be in a scoring position for turn 8. But it really was a stupid mistake by me to have him one out from the edge instead of right next to the edge as I lost a very possible TD then when his Black Orc Blocker blitzed me.

The first half score would have taken the pressure off me completely in the second half. Likewise, my opponent is probably regretting not scoring with Morg when he had the chance as an early score would have put me under pressure instead.

In the second half when I scored, I was surprised when he didn't field a Gobbo for the possible Throw Team Mate play, especially since all my players were so far up towards the line of scrimmage. He could have thrown a Gobbo in the backfield to distract me whilst he kept the ball in the backfield with his AG4 thrower.

Anyway, the game was still very tight, and like a game of chess, with both of us being very careful about deployment, and trying to get our Piling On Player to take out opponents without getting taken out themselves. In the end I benched my Dirty Player as I thought it was more important to have a faster Hobbo with Block on the pitch.

Surprisingly, there were no casualties this match, but there were quite a few turns where there was only 1-2 hits as I tried to stay away from his Str 6, Str 5 and SIX Str 4 players!

Anyway, through to another FUMBBL CUP final with a Chaos Dwarf team. Fingers crossed!

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