“The first Tour event of 2009 is for TR200 teams- the highest value tour yet. Our 200/197 orcs face dony's 181/187 orcs. They spend some of their pile of cash to hire famed ogre Morg N Throg bringing them to 181/190- with one handicap valued at 5TS it looks perfectly even. Their handicap is illegal drugs meaning Morg will be at AGI4 for the game! This could be a tough nut to crack. We have 13 players vs 15 but have one more reroll.

We win the toss and opt to kick. They start things off by KO'ing our troll and then their DP MNG's a black orc but also gets himself sent off. We use our apo as it's a tournament. Our counter foul is only a stun and they are winning the blocking wars. Over the next few turns we see our DP, a black orc and our +STR blitzer KO'd plus a guard/MB blitzer badly hurt. With 6 players left on the pitch vs 10 (and morg holding the ball) it looks like we'll just have to try and survive til half time and see what the 2nd half can bring us!

And in fact, we never get near morg and he scores on turn 8. We have one turn to try and get some smack down in.. and we manage to MNG their troll. Regen fails so they use their apo to keep him in the match. A touchback has given the ball to our gobbo who our troll succesfully throws downfield and he runs right past their line of players to make it 1-1!

However despite two sets of rolls we still have 3 KO'd players so we only have 9 for the 2nd half- ouch!! And they roll up a blitz to take advantage of it! This messes up all our first turn blocks as we scramble back to defend the ball, and means we can't get a DP gang foul in to try and even things up. They badly hurt out gobbo on turn 2, though we have the ball in our AGI4 blodge blitzer's hands. We push through, taking advantage of a double 1 dodge fail from Morg and a (slightly unnecessary) double 1 GFI attempt the following turn while positioning a black orc to run the ball forwards. Our blitzer is all alone up there and they're able to get a 2d tackle blitz on him, stunning him but not picking up the ball. We are then able to finally score some casualties, a blitzer BH'ing himself trying to dodge away from our troll and their block/guard black orc MNG'd with a block. Despite their number superiority we are able to recover the ball and once again run downfield, though we are now down to a single reroll each and extra time looks quite likely. And indeed their last turn sees morg dodge to mark our blitzer and their tackle/MB blitzer blitz him over using the last reroll - and then pick up the ball. We blitz over with a black orc but can't knock him over, despite using our own last RR. They make a last ditch attempt to win it, dodging their blitzer around and going for a long pass to their blitzer in range of the endzone (though marked by our troll) - failing the pass.

**** OVERTIME ****
No rerolls and we have 10 (both sleepy blitzers deciding to join us) vs 11, but importantly they must kick. They kick right into the corner of our endzone, which will slow us down a bit. We immediately even out the numbers though with a gang foul that KILLS their troll (though he regens). That's his 2nd cas sustained today! We then grab the ball, throw it to our waiting AGI4 blitzer who runs forward into a barely-safe position. They knock a couple orcs out of the way and get a 2d blitz on him with a tackle MB blitzer- KILLING him! They grab the ball on the bounce but don't have enough players through to support- we're able to dodge and blitz him over, but fail to pick it up. The following turn we knock over a couple orcs and then grab the ball with our thrower, going for a short pass over a few heads to a black orc- making the pass but failing the catch! They clear space around the ball but fail the pickup- and it bounces diagonally away from most of their players. A series of 2d blocks later and our thrower grabs the ball but is immediately knocked over. Looks like we may be looking at a cointoss... until morg n throg dodges over and picks up the ball in two tackle zones and then dodges away! Uh oh!

We're unable to get at him on turn 7 but we race players back for a last-turn blitz attempt. They knock over as many as possible while running him into range of the endzone. Our best bet is a -2dice blitz by our str4 blitzer: it's hero time people! We roll a POW and a pushback so we are merely standing beside Morg. It's the final turn of the game and Morg is blitzing for the endzone with the ball to score the winning touchdown- he knocks over our blitzer with ease but because of the pushback he has one more square to go... he goes for it... AND SLIPS!!!

The game ends a crazy & epic 1-1 draw! FUMBBL tournament bots automatically flip a coin and it's our orcs who go through. Hard luck dony!

Probably my most epic & interesting match to date!

”