“Middenheim Challenge 9/07 - round 1
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The Basement Crawlers, with their less then impressive win record, faced a potentially lethal opponent in the first round of the Middenheim Challenge. The same khemri team my own khemri booted from last month's tournament. There was little doubt that Gus wanted revenge. The chances of survival didn't exactly grew when the ref was found mauled to death before the match started either...this would be a match without rules (both teams got the ref).

The Crawlers got the kickoff, which was crucial for their survival, and stunned both their own fans and the rest of the crowd when they played at the top of their game. They charged the skeleton LOS with a fury and sent splinters of bone flying in all directions. Sharpclaw took out one skeleton (BH), Felinebane smashed another (BH) and the rest ganged up on the last of the skeletons and stomped him to splinters. (SI, regen) Amazingly the khemri staff managed to assemble him in their reserve booth.

The Crawlers knew from the start though that this would rather fittingly be a cat and mouse game. The mummies would eventually dwindle their numbers and they had to achieve their goals on an early level. The hard hitting Sharpclaw barely had time to celebrate his casualty before he got knocked out by one of the mummies.

While Felinbane howled in bloodlust on the LOS the rest of the team tried to organize their offensive push, but the LOS troops were suffering badly. Poisonshank and Felinebane were knocked out and Slitthroat was badly hurt when gang fouled.

Skittle rushed for the TD while the second gutter runner Clawfeet joined the rest of the fast growing knock out victims. The Crawlers halted their offensive long enough to gang upon the thro-ra Herder. Greyfang got the praise of the audience when he stomped down on the dry skull, cracking it bad enough to make it impossible to ever revive it.

Skittle could then rush in the TD before the skeletons caught up with him. A good start, but a very worrying sign was that none of the 4 KO's got back on their feet for the next kickoff.

The khemri's bloodlust knew no limits now when they were behind in the match. Bloodfang was knocked out shortly after kickoff and Greyfang was trapped amongst the undead. They trampled him badly and broke his neck.

While most of the skaven were playing well Rotcore had a bad day and failed many of his blocks and dodges. This allowed the khemri to catch up with Squinteye and knock him out too with a gangfoul. With desperate messures the Crawlers held the khemri at bay, but before the half break signal cut the slaughter off the scorer Skittle got trampled by the opponents as well. He broke his neck, but the amazing powers of the apothecary allowed him to play on.

During the half time break the Crawlers managed to revive all their knock outs except Squinteye, which must be considered very lucky. They could line up 10 of their original 13 players, while the khemri had 9 men left for their offensive push.

A deep kick allowed the skaven to try to cut the ball carriers off, but the LOS struggle started badly when the still drowsy Felinebane failed his blitz. Yellowtail was badly injured by one of the mummies while Rotcore sprained his groind when another mauled him badly. Skittle in turn knocked out the remaining thro-ra behind the LOS.

With no thro-ra's left the khemri looked to be without ball handlers, but they had a hidden ace in the form of the trained skeleton Prodhandler. He picked up the ball and continued the charge. The Crawlers were mauled badly by the mummies and Poisonshank had his arm snapped off by one of them while Bloodfang was knocked out by another.

Felinebane now got his act together and managed a very important knock out on one of the mummies, to hold the cage with the ball carrier. While the khemri tried to reform their cage the skaven rushed in and Blackglove could knock the last ball carrier out with a well timed blitz tackle. The ball bounced loose and Clawfeet quickly snatched it up.

The mummies took out their revenge on Felinebane and gouged one of his eyes out, but the quick running skaven were now free from their opponents and managed to avoid them until the match time ran out.

A great victory for the Basement Crawlers, but also a very costly one. With 4 players severly injured the next round will be very tough on them.

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