“XFL Wood Elf round 2 match.

Handicaps were:

Smelling Salts
Illegal Drugs
Dusters (so a Str4 Blow Tackle DT Sidestep Strip Ball WD!)
Bad Press

We will have to agree to disagree here. I didn't think I was complaining all game. I engaged in some banter with Emphasy, saying eg, nice KOs, and it will hurt in OT being outnumbered and him having a DP.

I said nothing when my apoth failed, nor when I got quad skulls on a blitz move that would have allowed me to foul his DP, instead I got a player surfed (BH).

I didn't say anything after I took the lead late in OT so I don't know what he is talking about. It was he who said I should be happy to get a -2D cas on him.

Anyways... enough of this sillyness, onto the actual game...

We started with 13 players, with a couple of good Catchers and 3 Tacklers vs 2 Tacklers both with Mighty Blow and cheaper (expendable) DPs.

He started in offence and was very unlucky, getting his DP sent off first foul for no effect (or maybe a KO or stun).

He left a player 3 from the sidelines next to one of mine, so I used Frenzy (and some 3+ dodges) to push him to the sideline, then leaped a sidestepper behind him, and pushed him oob for a niggle. Ouch.

Emphasy with no DP on the pitch quickly scored to get some players back.

We had the offence and a nice wide kick from Emphasy was safely negotiated. We then went for his DP 3 from the sidelines, going for a push towards the sideline and then a 3 TZ DP foul. We got quad skulls after putting in the assist, and the assist was promptly pushed OOB for a BH!

Emphasy got a few more KOs than me and we were also forced to score to try and bring some players back.

Emphasy then had the ball again and he scored on a two turn drive after causing a niggle on our Frenzy Blodge DP (apoth failed).

We had 1 turn to score, with our one turner failing his second KO. We had 9 players, but a doable push TD attempt (2 pushes, then 3+ 3+ 2+ dodge with 2 GFI). However, Emphasy got a Perfect Defence and we had to settle for nothing. We got sent off by the Ref on a 6 on our first foul for the match too (eye not on me) but we argued the call. Phew!

Second half saw us take the ball in offence. With 19 FF apiece thanks to Bad Press, we lost the Get the Ref roll and the Gathering's fans killed the ref!

We exchanged fouls a few times, but we got sent off on our second foul of the half with the ref not having his eye on us.

This left us outnumbered 6 to 8 (two players KO each) so we are forced to score (which was dangerous as he had Smelling Salts) on the second turn, making it 2-2.

With 9 players vs 10, we got the lucky Blitz! We sent a player onto each wing of the LOS, but didn't rush too far into his side of the pitch for fear of overcommitting.

Emphasy promptly blitzed and BH fouled my Str4 Blodge Thrower, but then one dice block with his Str4 Wardancer instead of two dice with his Tree and caused himself a KO!

We consolidated, and brought our one turner to the LOS up one wing, and were lucky to survive a 3 dice blitz with tackle on our other Catcher.

This however left the Gathering's Thrower with Dodge exposed and the dice were in our pocket as our one turner moved his 10 MA and GFI 2 times to get a -2D Blitz against the Gathering Thrower bringing up a perfect Double Skull/Pows. The Thrower was BH which was amazing luck for me, and better still, the ball scattered to the end zone which was out of Emphasy's reach and we used our final GFI (sprint) to cover the ball whilst having two other players close enough to score also.

Emphasy got a 2 dice blitz on my catcher, pushing him onto the ball hoping for it to go out of bounds and get thrown to where he could retrieve it, but no luck for him as it just moved sideways and we made the 2+ dodge and pick up (AG5 Blodge) to take a 3-2 lead with 3 turns left.

It is now 9 Gathering vs 7 Guardians, with Emphasy having much better players (his two Wardancers, AG5s and Str4 Blodge and I have 1 tackler) so it looks like more cas on me before going to OT.

However, luck deserts Emphasy as it takes several blocks to down two of my LOS. Emph stuns my Tree with a foul, but doesn't push anyone to scoring range even though I only have 4 players to defend with (1 with Tackle).

We push forward and knock down a Wardancer, but leaving our one turner deep (he has AV6!) just in case.

Emphasy advances with a few players, and then throws the ball to his Str4 Blodger, but has some horrid luck when his AG5 Catcher lept into the BH box (think he saved the RR for the T16 score attempt)!

We then had a difficult chance at the ball - 5x 3+ dodges, some 2+ dodges and a leap get 2 dice on the ball carrier. And the dice were friendly, with us failing a dodge (but Dodge skill saved us) and just 1 leap (team rerolled) before we knocked the ball carrier down and caught the ball!

Regrettably we had moved a down Lino to the wrong spot earlier and we were short a defender to make Emphasy do an extra dodge or leap to get a 2 dice blitz on my ball carrier. A RR was used to the GFI but he got the push to strip me of the ball and it was there for the taking in 1 TZ if Emphasy could string together the rolls.

First he sent in the scorer, making a 2+ dodge and a pair of GFI to get to the end zone.

Next he sent in an AG5 Thrower at the ball, making the 2+ dodge and 2+ pickup to get the ball, but then he failed the 6th 2+ (a dodge) and we escaped with a win.
--------------
A tough game against a very good coach who played mostly a top game apart from not seeing I could chain push his Catcher out of bounds on T2, and also the one dice KO on his own Wardancer. Apart from that, Emphasy played exceptionally well as usual but the dice fell my way with just enough players surviving the mighty blow tackle and the fouls to put up some defence and take advantage of the luck when it counted.

Some key moments in the game were

- his DP being sent off first turn.
- me surfing his Guard Catcher from 3 out
- my Quad Skulls blitz on his DP resulting in my Block Guard Lino being surfed BH
- my apoth failing on T6 taking out the threat of Frenzy and a DP
- my one turner not waking up so not being able to have an easier OT TD to tie the score
- Perfect Defence by him T8 to stop a backup chain push TD attempt
- his fans killing the ref giving him lots of free fouls
- Blitz! by me allowing me to take some potency away from his drive
- His one dice self KO on his Str4 MB Tackle Wardancer
- My mega lucky -2D blitz on his Dodge Thrower getting Skull/Pow, BH and perfect ball scatter
- His failed leap on T15 opening up some dodging and leaping lanes to get a 2 dice blitz on his ball carrier
- Me catching the ball (if I missed, I had AG5 on turner to try and pick it up and punt it, or stand on the sideline with it.
- His failing the GFI to blitz me using a reroll and only getting a push so leaving a Tackle Zone on the ball requiring him to make a dodge without RR two times instead of three

Anyway, at the end of the day, we were definately lucky to win this and not go to overtime (7 vs 9 with him having a DP and his two Blow Tackle Wardancers still.
”