“FUMBBL Cup round 6.

Aye, FC round 6 and it looked to be a great one: 250 STR Chaos v 250 STR Darkies. Evenly matched bashers v elves. Supastarz brought Morg and Nocturama brought a wizard.

First things first: j0de played a great game and deserves to proceed. His first half was excellent, if you are looking to take a bashing team to the majors and want to know how to play versus elves with a wizard, I suggest you check out the replay. The cage was tight, the rest of the team supported the cage, there was enough guard, tackle and mb in there to act as a deterrant and a fireball was never going to bring down everyone. Very well played indeed.

However... I wish I could have given him a run for his money. As it turned out, it wasn't much af a match. More like a slaughter. I'm pretty good at this too, you know. :-) I can beat a bad luck spread. The game isn't about luck, primarily. Once in a blue moon though, you just get completely Nuffled. I don't think anyone can beat a 45-68 luck spread against decent oppostion, much less against someone as good as j0de with such a good team. Just sorry this had to happen in a game with such great potential.

The Supastarz received first, and caged the ball with Morg carrying on T1. Game plan A for elves is to prevent the cage from forming, but that was out then. Game plan B is to tie down the cage and prevent it from moving, until it breaks or runs out of time. Nocturama played carefully, not getting into contact with the cage but staying one square away. The amount of guard, tackle and mb/claw in or next to the cage was indeed an effective deterrant, so we just nibbled away at the edges, slowing the forward momentum of the cage to one or two squares per turn. We also caused two early CAS and things were looking good.

Unfortunately, j0de didn't panic. :) He kept to his game plan and used his mb-tacklers to hit the juiciest available target each turn. I think I played pretty good damage prevention, not allowing my best players to be hit and gang-fouled. IIRC, j0de didn't foul until T4 or so for lack of targets. Then he got a shot to foul my AG5 strip ball Witch with a single assist: RIP! Apo fail! ...and it was downhill from there.

Suddenly almost every blitz resulted in a lost elf. Nocturama stubbornly stayed in the way but refused to use the wizard, as the cage was never in contact with my players after j0de's turns, and was always surrounded by more Supastarz players in case of a fireball. On j0de's T7, my setup pretty much forced him to move the cage forward without support, as well as place it in contact with standing Nocturama players. His T7 was perfect, ending with another single-assist foul RIP, this time on my AG5-guard blitzer (who was prone next to Morg, btw). Still, this was my shot to turn the game around.

The fireball brought down both players on one side of the cage but left Morg and the other two corners standing. This allowed two Nocturama guards to move in and a ST4 blitz for 1d on Morg: both down! RR! Push! ...and that was all she wrote. Nocturama tried to position our few remaining players in the way, but this only forced a few blocks and one GFI for Morg to score. 0-1 at half-time and wizard lost. (It was a good call to hire Morg to carry the ball. Anything less than ST6 and I would have got 2d on the ball. If the ball got free... Well, there were elves available to pass it to a receiver and make it 1-0 instead. ST6 ftw.)

The game wasn't really over yet, but was looking very very difficult. My best shot for 2nd half was to score quickly and then hope for a blitz!!! or failed pick-ups to turn it around before OT. I had already lost three of my best players. Nuffle decided to really rub it in though, and gave the Supastarz a perfect defense. Then he proceeded to hand me some snakes. 2nd half was a mostly a march of triumph for the Supastarz, I don't think the ball ever passed over the LOS.

GG j0de, very well played indeed and you better make it all the way now. :-) See you around.”