“Antipodal Regional Shield 9/07 - semi final
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Despite only facing him twice BlackOrc has turned into a highly enjoyable nemesis in the OCC. In our previous encounter I was dice raped badly. In this match I would have counted myself very lucky against someone with average luck, but BlackOrc constantly had the margins on his side which meant I ended up wasting most of my good luck on moves that put me in good positions but failed anyway.

The match started with Ronto Szellemek on the offensive. Despite Ankhatza being KO'd immediately the Geckos got a good start when they managed to foul out the fast moving warewolf Csibesz. He was brought down and Teploq applied the boot, which left him injured enough to not be able to continue the match. The agile wight RosszAkarat made an early break with the ball, and despite being shadowed by a swarm of skinks he managed an early TD.

On the following kickoff Gorhuan showed his bloodlust when he smashed the knee of an LOS zombie, while Ankhatza managed to pick the ball up. The Geckos now had good time to manage an equalizer in the first half with the ball in the hands of a saurus. While the opponents brought down Gorhuan and unsuccesfully tried to foul him out the rest of the Geckos formed a cage around the ball carrier. It moved steadily across the pitch and the skinks seemed to have a good fouling strategy when they followed up with knocking the downed ghoul UjraSirbaVisz out as well.

A key player throughout the entire match was the strong blodge monster CsipdMeg and he scored an important casualty for his team when he managed to injure Huanhuan in the middle of the first half. (1d block, BH). The cage now broke open, but the Geckos got a good chance to dispose of more opponents when they downed the blodgers and lined up to gang foul CsipdMeg. This time it didn't result in more than a stun though, but the skinks were still fortunate when the ref spotted them and their coach convinced him that it was an acceptable move.

Ferenc's'Szikla got close enough to the ball carrier to tackle him to the ground, but the ball scattered into the hands of Gormazda instead. The Geckos landed their second gang foul on the warewolf, but this time the ref had enough and ejected Teploq from the match. If CsipdMeg had been injured the match would likely have turned out a lot different.

Time was starting to run out with the ball carrier tied up and the opponents moving in. For a moment they got the momentum and managed to both knock Gormazda over and knock the ball lose and put some skinks out of play. One of them was Goqtoc, who was injured so badly by a ghoul that he couldn't continue the match.

The Geckos managed a final push when the agile skink Chiquet dodged between the legs of the opponents, snatched the ball up and broke free. He then lobbed the ball to a saurus waiting at the end zone line just as the clock was running out, but sadly the big lizard fumbled the catch.

The half ended 1 - 0 for Ronto Szellemek and the Geckos could only field 10 players for the second half.

Now it was the Geckos turn to launch an offensive and since the opponents had a deep defense they sent 3 sauruses up on a rush to harass them. It looked like a bad idea when the amazing CsipdMeg managed to knock Gormazda out, but it bought the rest of the team enough time for Chiquet to rush forward and hand over the ball to Chiccinzi, who could then rush in a fast TD.

On the kickoff the blodge ghoul Ellenallhatatlan snatched the ball up while still in the air and the increasingly frustrating CsipdMeg knocked out Conqua-uax. After the attack he was left in a vulnerable position for a surf by the frenzied Gorhuan, but in this match the necro always had the final margins on their side and CsipdMeg ended up prone on the edge instead of pushed out. During the skirmish the scorer Chiccinzi was instead pushed off the pitch and landed on the protective railing and was knocked out.

Gorhuan now had another great chance for a surf and this would turn out to be the crucial event that cost me the match. I had a 2d block to surf the ball carrying blodge ghoul with frenzy. I rolled a clean hit on the first block, but with no skinks around to snatch the ball up and BlackOrc having his AG 4 wight ready to take the ball I decided to reroll for a push. Instead I rolled double skulls...

Ellenallhatatlan now broke free and looked unstoppable, but Gormazda who was back from his knockout managed an impressive dodge and blitzed him, but didn't manage to bring him down. With little time left on the match the necro cut him off and Ellenallhatatlan waited until the final seconds before he crossed the end zone line.

An exciting and well fought encounter that could have left me in a bad mood if not for BlackOrc being such a great sport. It's a lot easier to take a loss against a nice opponent and I wish you the best of luck in the final!

It was a good effort by the Gothem Geckos who will likely feature in future OCC tournaments.”