“This was a fun game. I had some technical problems (monitor overheated) which cost us a turn early on. My opponent seemed a bit bloated, so I left 90k (okay, 50k) on the table by inducing only Urgoth. Turns out, it didn't matter: the saw didn't do anything but soak up a few ineffectual fouls, and I had control of the ball pretty much the whole game, except for one critical moment, which was easily the highlight of the match.

The kickoffs really went in my favor. That's why this game wasn't competitive. Only Irigiorg was dealing damage this game; the others were knocking guys around, but there was a surprisingly low body count on both sides, in terms of KO+Cas. Okay, on his side it was low: on mine, I took one KO and one Cas, about what I expect. But the first kickoff, he got Perfect Defense, then did something decidedly imperfect with it. Everybody does that, by the way.... Then in the second half, he made a rookie mistake by trying to compete with my defensive line, without using his Golems to do it. 'Cause that's the only way, and even then it's a crapshoot. He could have mostly ignored the line....

I made yet another misclick; just one, but it was a doozy. On T13, I took a skull over a push on a blitz against the carrier! That forced a great play the next turn, where I powed his Golem to open up a Troll blitz (complete with GFIs) to cream the Were so my Thrower could recover and pass the ball to the SS BOB, Crogthnakk. Two turns later, compu53 responded with a major play of his own: the Were Pow/Pow'ed the BOB on a half-die block, knocking the ball free! Had my BOB not had Side Step, the game might have been a draw. But Crogthnakk used SS to fall into the crowd of friendlies and the ball ended up in front of the #2 Thrower, who earned his first SPP (and saved his job) by delivering the ball downfield to Horkadakk for the final score.

Right now, I'd say the major weakness of Knights, Dead2 is their lack of Guard. I can understand why, what with all the doubles and stats on the Wights. But you can't just field one Guard guy against Orcs. For some reason, compu53 left his Guard/-AV Zombie off the pitch, maybe because he feared Block/MB. That's a reasonable concern if so, but I don't think it was smart football: bench the guy on defense, maybe, but on offense you need to be able to beat the Orc D-line, and one more Guard makes it that much easier.

As for Da Wildsquigz, I finx we'z gotz a bit bloated. That's my major concern at this point. No Tackle, only two positioning skills, barely enough Guard and MB... I'm back where I was at the start of this win streak. I guess that's not a bad thing, but I'll be a lot happier when I get over this hump and pick up the skills to handle 2M teams, as I'm starting to approach 2M myself! The next two or three games will see rapid development. I have three guys within 1SPP of improving (two of them Blitzers with Mighty Blow), and a whole lot more who aren't far behind.

I had been contemplating cutting Blargmarkh and Karkagragraghkkh after this match, then firing a TRR. But I didn't, because they all performed very well. My opponent went after Blargmarkh with such steam, trying so hard for a numerical advantage, that he started doing things at bad odds. It was also nice to have two Throwers on both sides of the ball. The fourth TRR is probably overkill, but it was nice to have, because it let me act with greater confidence. I may get Leader on Blargmarkh at 16 SPP, then let the TRR go. As for Karkagragraghkkh, he was the unsung hero of the match. He only failed one Stupid roll, and it wasn't all that big a deal. He was always in position, and was an immobile bulwark. He only made two blocks, but they were both good ones: he powed a Zombie with 3d, always fun, and then he also made that key blitz on T14 which saved the game.

Game Ball: Karkagragraghkkh made the play of the day, and was in general always in the way, always forcing hard decisions, just too much to handle. Irigiorg and Crogthnakk deserve some recognition too, but the Troll really earned his keep. Aarkhag, Horkadakk and all the BOBs played well, too, but mostly just did what was expected of them. Blargmarkh took the first steps toward redemption and saved his job along with Karkagragraghkkh, though not as emphatically.

Goat: Narnargmogh. Sorry buddy. Rookie flub. Maybe next time!”