“Leaving our seething Elven cousins, the Isolationists, broken, bitter and far behind us both geographically and in the league table, we travelled to the realms of the Dwarf to battle Durin's Folk.

Their reputations preceded them as our scouts reported a slaughter at Riddermark. Not only would these dwarfs put you down to the ground as soon as look at you, but indeed they would stick the boot in as you fell.

Fortunately, what Dwarves may gain in strength they lose in brains... our victory was assured, but our health insurance was not, and so the recipe of the day was to hit and run.

We lined up against the dwarves, our intention to score as soon as the pain looked unbearable as we were receiving. The Dwarf coach shouted blitz as the ball was kicked toward the halfway line on our exposed rank. The tiny legs of the dwarves carried them in droves towards the LOS and flank. They couldn't catch the ball however but instead spilt into a crowd of three of them... this would not go as planned.

Luckily the dwarves had spread themselves thin, and our Guarding lineman was on hand to help a few of our numbers to squirm free. Ingwe moved toward the centre of backfield whilst our blitzer, assisted by a lineman, removed one of the dwarves from around the ball... finally our thrower scooped it up, dodged out - on the second attempt and threw the ball to Ingwe.

Early into their defensive manoeuvre an over zealous dwarf decided to run and assist a comrade before the rest of the team had even stood up, but as he went for it, he stumbled and fell, ending the Dwarves move very early.

With our way now clear we simply created a shielding tunnel for Ingwe to score, and although we would have liked to stall, the Dwarves had menacingly caught up with us and seemed determined to make us pay if we dared.

1 - 0

The Dwarves had a full quarter to equalise, and so with a determination to slow them down we put our toughest linemen on the LOS. This was a strategy that did not pay off; the Dwarves made easy work of them and even seriously injured Eowin. Nevertheless their job was still far from over and we left some of our numbers deep to cover the required break.

The faster Dwarves made a dash for the flank, leaving their slower ones behind as they chased down our linemen, this made it an easier affair to tie up the ball carrier and prevent the score.

Second half and we were happy at this point that game would at least end a draw, but we saw no reason why we couldn't win this one.
We lined up are weaker lineman on the LOS this time, mindful of before. Again, the Dwarves lined up en-masse, determined to do damage. They piled into a linemen as the ball lay dangerous off to one flank, when the time came to recover the ball their "thrower" as the Coach called him, despite showing no skills as such, failed to pick it up - leaving it exposed and the flank free for us to pour down, and we did just that. We used a couple men to cover the army at the LOS whilst we drove more still to cover the ball. We blitzed the runner away and scooped it up, falling back into a protective shield.

The Dwarves did manage to courageously knock the ball from our hands during the small melee, but too many of their numbers were too far back to keep them from losing the fight and we made a second easy score.

2 - 0

With the game effectively over, we decided to limit the damage, and allow - for the best part - the Dwarves to an easy run to the endzone.
As it happened, it didn't matter whether we let them or not, now without the protective RRs and only 8 men our team failed to do anything anyway short of seriously injure themselves and require medical assistance.

The dwarves made a consolation score to make it 2 - 1.

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My Guard player really did well for me, and bar the first turn after the blitz where everyone was covered almost I barely made a 1d block. With only 2 RRs, and countless failed dodges, I gave up trying to dodge save for at the end of my turns. I never intended on scoring early if possible, 2 turn touchdowns lead to just as much pain against Dwarves in my experience and often lose you the game, so whilst I would take less damage than on the LOS, I stalled.

GG Chewie...
”