“The Big Hat Brigade showed up ready to play a rocking version of our own Popa Chubby's tune "Rats Get Whacked", but this turned out to be a surprisingly bloodless match. Robert Johnson even snuck some knuckledusters into the match but to no avail (of course the rats did a pretty good job of keeping him eating turf....) We filled the KO box up nicely but performed under our average CAS count and didn't even provide our opponents with something permanent to remember us by. I know this disappointed drthud and his team greatly and I can only say we apologize and will try to make it up to them the next time we meet.

We received and marched down the field in typical dwarf fashion, caging and stalling. Apparently I learned nothing from my first game since I stuck us up by the top wide-zone again; or perhaps I did since none of our players went crowd surfing this time and some of his did.... Muddy Waters racked up our only tallied casualty for the game, sending Gutter Runner Skitter the Silent "Screamin' and Crying" into the BH box. T-Bone Walker did the "T-Bone Shuffle" into the end-zone in turn 8, scoring. At this point we had 4 rats in the KO box, plus Skitter in the BH. All of them came back (well, all except Skitter, of course...) for the final turn of the half, they didn't even have the decency to have part of them come back for the final drive and part after the half, and Gutter Runner Shiad the Ghost (one of that vile breed known as one-turn scorers) blitzed 'Joliet' Jake Blues out of the way to score. In one turn. Frankly, it was sickening.

We sent 'Joliet' Jake to listen in on the Cellar Dwellers' half-time strategy session and thereby managed to launch a Perfect Defense at the beginning of the second half as the rats received. Despite this, the rats' Rat Ogre, Thrage the Twisted, performed about his only useful function all game and cleared a path for Shiad to do that cheesy OTS thing again and we were down 2-1 without even having taken a turn. Disheartening, but at least we did have eight full turns to move the ball, stall and bash rats.

And we did our best to do so. We headed for the wide-zone again and pushed a few more rats to the crowd. Muddy Waters managed a particularly effective push, calling, "All Aboard" and sending Linerat Boilrus the Infected on a one-way "Mystery Train" to the BH box, courtesy of our rabid fans. We almost made it to turn 8, but on their turn 7 Shiad the Ghost (again!) managed to slip through our defenses, which were spreading increasingly thin, to blitz ball-carrier Elwood Blues into the end-zone and an early TD. Having one last turn left, the Cellar Dwellers reached for victory, attempting the same trick they tried earlier, this time on Bull Centaur John Lee Hooker (we sent the Hobgoblins to the LOS to fend for themselves this time....). John Lee proved tougher to push around than 'Joliet' Jake had been and, "Boom Boom", Shiad ended up face down on the pitch. Tie score. At least we didn't lose 5-1 like some teams....

This was a particularly nice game for our Hobgoblins. After being abused by various vermin all game, three of them skilled up. T-Bone Walker received an Agility upgrade, which can only improve his guitar-playing (and ball-handling). 'Joliet' Jake received Dodge on a doubles roll, while his brother Elwood received the more pedestrian Block.”