“Burlesque Beastman Brawl- the group stages are over it's into the knockout final 8!

We finished 3rd in our group so we face #2 in the other group. They look a lot tougher than us, though both teams have 13 players for the game (our niggler ignoring it this time) - they have more skills and a nice claw/block beastman.

They win the toss and force us to kick... and once again before our first turn a rookie beastman is killed on the LOS!! That's 3 out of the last 4 games it's happened! The killer is their claw/block super beastman and our #1 target. He also has an official BBB bounty on his head!

They push through on one side, passing the ball and running downfield. But they have used up all their RRs by turn 3 or 4 while we have held onto 2 (choosing not to reroll end of turn dodges). We manage to down their ball carrier and then when a couple of key GFI fails go our way we are able to recover the ball and start running it down towards their endzone!

We manage to keep them at bay and score to take the lead as the last action of the half. However only 1 out 4 of our KO box wakes up leaving us just 9 to receive with vs 12 of the enemy (2 out of 3 wake ups).

And things go badly from the start; our beast 2d multiblock gives us a both down (KO + stun), and they pour through after the ball. We're outnumbered and it shows as they smack us around, eventually seizing the ball and scoring on turn 3. They've now killed a 2nd rookie beastman (Horus II in his first game..) and BH'd another, though 2/3 of our KOs wake up. 9 vs 11 again and plenty of turns- we can still win this!

But our hopes are dashed with a blitz! Ouch! This means most of our planned 1st turn blocks are messed up; we try our best, knocking down a few players and going for another multiblock with our beast; it's a both-down again but doesn't remove either beastman. They respond with a gang foul on our beast- KO'ing him but not getting sent off despite the ref supposedly watching them. We finally grab the ball and try for a short pass to get it upfield... but fail the catch (outa RRs now). They make space, grab the ball and pass it upfield slightly, but we blitz down the rookie with the ball. We are then surprised to find their +AGI mino picking up the ball... we're in trouble now! We try our best to dodge players around him to get a 2d blitz but without rerolls the maneouvre falls flat on its face. We've got just one beastman beside him and they have to blitz him with their mino as there's only 2 turns left... and he rolls skull/both-down! The mino is stunned while our beastman stands right back up and KOs the beastman beside him.

With just one turn left they pull out all the stops... pushing our beastman out of the way, freeing another one with a 1d block, then grabbing the ball and GFI'ing twice to win the game just before the final whistle!!

Well won Shades_SteelFist... I'll get you next time!”