“Hey everyone. Time for another edition of Better Mines and Chainmail. We are here today with Short and Cake of the Might Short Cakes. In all honesty we are only here with Short, because Cake is not welcome back after last week’s chair eating.

BMAC: Congrats on another win. This time over Lone Bezerker’s mean minotaur Bezerker. Close this time though.

SHORT: I know. We had some problems, but 1-0 is a win, just not a good win.

BMAC: Starting right off, you set up strangely.

SHORT: Grumpy was really worried about the wizard and didn’t want us too close together.

BMAC: You were kicking, but Bez got nailed by a rock.

SHORT: Yeah great bit of luck for us. Stunned him good! Then I just grabbed the ball and went for a score.

BMAC: Which would be the last score of the game.

SHORT: I know. I was surprised too

BMAC: Kickoff looked good. Talk me through some of the action you see on the Amped Pogo replay here.

SHORT: Nice screen. Well you see the Mino smacking down Cake then moving toward the ball. Cake gets up and posts up on him and I run at the ball. Thing look good at this point.

SHORT: Bez stuns Cake then posts up on me. I dodge out and head for the ball. I pick it up, it’s a score. 75% chance to make that grab, the rain was killing us out there. I dropped the ball.

BMAC: That broke our hearts.

SHORT: I know, mine too. At that point I was worried about how it was going to go down. But even though Bez knocked me over, he didn’t pick up the ball and it was on his goal line. Things look good.

BMAC: But they weren’t good.

SHORT: No. Probably a coaching error here. But you will have to ask Grumpy about that yourself.

BMAC: Go on

SHORT: Now he stuns me. Which is good that I went down, otherwise it’s crowd surfing time for me. Bezerker grabs the ball and starts to head upfield. Cake comes charging in there and lays a nasty block on Bez. Now all he needs to do is pick up the ball and score… 75% chance… and he fails it.

BMAC: I could hear the pulling of beards in frustration.

SHORT: Cake goes down, Bezerker moves close to the ball. I get up and go for the assist. Cake gets up and tries to blindside the mino, gets a pushback and tries to pick up the ball. He makes that pickup and we’ve got a VERY good chance of scoring next turn. I’ve got the mino locked down so he’s got to deal with me (lucky me). 75% chance… blows it again.

BMAC: At this point I turned off the game is disgust. Any idea what was going on?

SHORT: Cake’s theory was beef fat made the ball unnaturally slippery.

BMAC: Beef fat!?

CAKE: BEEEEEEEF FAAAAAAAT!

BMAC: For the love of ale, get that maniac out of my studio.

[Sound of Cake being subdued]

BMAC: Ok, continue.

SHORT: He blitzes me off the ball and posts next to Cake. I stand up and lend an assist and he hits Bezerker hard enough to send him down. All he needs to do is pick up the ball… 75% chance…. Misses it again.

BMAC: Here I DID turn off the game in disgust. Went and drank heavily and tuned in the game again in time for the second half kickoff. Take a look at the Mickey’s replay and talk me through it.

SHORT: Cake gets in a nice shot and goes in deep, hoping for the pass. Here is where Grumpy starts to make some serious mistakes. He ended our turn before I had moved. I was so mad I could barely see straight. Luckily he fell on top of me and take us both down.

BMAC: Definitely stupid coaching there. Not much of a play after that either.

SHORT: No. I got to the ball and by some miracle manage to pick it up after dropping the previous 8 attempts. So he calls for a pass in the downpour. I ball slips out of my fingers and that’s that.

BMAC: The wizard came in at this point?

SHORT: Oh yes. I get BBQ’d by a lightning bolt and got hurt real bad. Luckily the medic healed me so I could keep in there. The mino charges in and comes close to the ball. Cake sees that’ I’m in trouble and starts to come back to me. He pushes Bezerker off me and I stand up, grab the ball, and start to make a run for it.

BMAC: That hard to hurt.

SHORT: You don’t know what it’s like for one ton for mooing fun to crash into you. Feel lucky. Yeah, he put me down and I lost the ball. He wasn’t able to pick it up. Cake charges into him and knocks him down, grabs the ball and runs for it. At this point I am expecting to get up. But Grumpy forgot about me, again. Mino charges off and puts cake down.


BMAC: You’ve still got a chance for a score at this point, but it’s going to require a bit of luck.

SHORT: Yep. At this point I thought we might have a chance. I ran up to grab the ball and it just squirts out of my grip. In the scramble we manage to get another chance to pick up the ball… and it slips out again.

BMAC: But leaving you conveniently in range for Bez to put the hurt on you. I see that you were pushed back and then into the crowd.

SHORT: Don’t mention it. At least I’m only KO’d. That pretty much ends the game with Cake finally getting the ball.
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BMAC: Welcome back Grumpy Grizzly.

GG: Howdy, Better Mines and Chainmail.

BMAC: The game ended 1-0 in your favour. Let’s get right into it, you got a gift on the first drive.

GG: The fans hucked a rock at the minotaur and stunned him. So my boys had an easy time of marching down the field and scoring a two turn TD. Turned out to be the only TD of the game.

BMAC: talk about the rest of the first half.

GG: I thought the boys played well in the first half. First drive was pure luck and I thought that things might be going our way. But failing 8 pickup tries in a row, on the second drive, is just outrageous. Look, the chance of blowing 2 in a row is 25%, of 4 in a row 6.3%, 6 in a row is 1.6% and 8 in a row 0.4%. There is just no way that we shouldn’t have gotten the ball in the endzone, but nuffle was not with us on that drive. Perhaps it was breaking even for the earlier TD. Who knows?

BMAC: Your coaching seemed to break down when you were received to kick off the second half.

GG: Yeah. I blame it on just playing too many 1v1 games right before and automatically using the signals to end my turn early. Stupid, but what else can I say? It would have made some difference on the first play of the second half. Cake shouldn’t have been that deep without support, but I probably would have just dropped the ball earlier.

BMAC: Talk about that second turn.

GG: I was rattled from the screw up of not moving Short the turn before so I tried to force the play. Wouldn’t have made much difference, Azure nailed him good with that lightning bolt. The one that killed me was ending the turn without standing up short and fouling with him. Heck, the entire crowd was shouting “FOUL” including the Lone Bezerker fans.

BMAC: Yeah, that was a bit stupid. If Bezerker is on his stomach that’s a TD right there.

GG: I know, but no guarantees that it would have gone down that way. But at least he would have had to dodge my dwarf first.

BMAC: Later in the game you got Short pushed into the crowd. He wasn’t happy about it.

GG: That was a calculated risk. It almost happened earlier in the first half. I forgot the frenzy was 2 attempts to get them down. So I left my guy too close to the edge in the first half. I still think it was better to play aggressive and try to get the ball out of there. Than let the Mino blitz me off the ball.

BMAC: So how was Azure to play against?

GG: He purely out coached me in second half. I feel lucky that we got out of there with a win and not a 1-1 tie. Mino’s are tough because they don’t do what they are told sometimes and get no second chances

BMAC: I noticed that Cake was skilled in dauntless now and Short with tackle. Do you care to comment?

GG: When I got into this league, I had envisioned 2v2 dwarf on dwarf action. But I am the only dwarf team in the tournament. So I had to take dauntless when it came up. Tackle was frankly a mistake, I had intended to take dirty player instead. I debated on retiring Short and bringing on his son, Short Jr. But since I’m not really quite ready to run the dirty player game yet, it’ll sit ok for now. If somewhere along the line a Mino get’s dodge (*laugh*) then I’ll be prepared.

BMAC: Talk about your next opponent.

GG: I’ve got Grush, coached by Walks_in_the_Sun. WitS is a very experienced coach and I fear that I’ll be in a similar situation as I was against Azure.WitS is a bit crazy and loves to play in nonconvential venues. I’ve not finished scouting how Grush plays yet. But hope to before we play.

BMAC: Any closing comments before we head out for this week?

GG: I think that the 2 dwarfs are very strong at the moment against the big guy who has to do it all the first time and can’t block. However, I think that as time goes on, the big guys will be skilling up into killing machines and giving me some serious problems. They will be earning 7-10 ssp a game on a single character. My boys will be splitting 8-13 between them. Eventually it’s going to catch up. Hopefully not before Might Short Cakes are in the finals at least.

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