“Grotty Little Tournament VIII - Round 1:

An insane game in many respects. It goes back to the philosophy that you always need a backup plan. Having a half dozen MBPO against an AV 7 wood elf team...the obvious thought is that I should be able to grind down his team (only 12 players) and use my SF players to prevent the 1 turning and win the game...well that plan was an utter fail!

First half, we just got manhandled. It was our possession, but we simply could not break his armor...worse than that - we lose 2 players to regular blocks - with our apoth failing. We were outnumbered and could not make any progress downfield. Late in the half we did manage to smack both of his wardancers for KO. Then with time running out - it was all up to John Little...he raced downfield...wide open to the counter blitz - just trusting in blodge (what are we elves??) With no tackle, the elves 2d blitzed, but did not POW, so all by himself, surrounded by 3 opponents (should have been 4, which would have made it much harder) - he 1d blitzed for a push, then 3+ 2+ dodged away for the TD. Our SF stopped the one turn attempt and we held up to the foul and it was on to the second half.

We were down 10 to 12 to start the half, 0 to 2 apoth. However, we managed to KO an elf, then an elf hurt himself dodging (woot!), then we inflicted our only CAS of the game on a blitz (awesome!)...the tree took root - and suddenly the elves were starting to feel outnumbered. They gave up a 2d blitz to our last troll slayer (had tackle) and he smacked down the ballcarrier (KO - apoth used). However, a ball on the ground with AG 5 elves would not end well...but John Little again came through with 3+ dodge, 3+ pickup, 2+ dodge away. We lost the ball briefly to a 1d tackle blitz - but John recovered it and the game was over. We handed off to Jason to skill him up on T16.

The elves without MB or PO out-CAS us...but it was *our* elf that made the key plays at the right time and won the day!

Thanks for the game!”