“NWFL Week 3, Essen Exsanguinators vs Whoseton Soilers

The Exsanguinators were coming off "one of those weeks" against Sigmar1's Bouncin'more Batrachians - four players out before the second vampire turn, another two before their fourth. With two players MNG (including a +AG vamp) the Exsanguinators would be fielding only the minimum eleven players against FreeRange's agile woodies. They would get a number of inducements, though, and the Soilers had dumped down to only two rerolls to make the TV cap, leaving them less room for error than normal.

Coach RobRoyDuncan started off the inducement buying by accidentally purchasing a card while attempting to chat to his opponent about them - whoops! With another 230k left after that, he decided on a wizard and a babe instead of a chainsaw and either a bribe or a wandering apo, hoping that his team would be able to outmuscle the better-skilled woodies without the use of star players. A blizzard favoured neither team in their attempts to score.

The Exsanguinators started the game off with six pushes before finally finding a Pow to KO a woodie lino. An attempt to take down one of the two wardancers (the Strip Ball one, not the +ST) was unsuccessful, though, and the wardancer punished the blitzing vamp for following up the attempt, KOing him off the field. The vampires tried to move the ball over to one side, but the woodies shifted in response. Unable to break contact with the wardancers, the ball-carrier finally went down, but in the first of what would be several good bounces for the Exsanguinators, the ball was snagged out of the air by a nearby thrall. The vampires were not able to capitalize, though, as a 2d setup block by a journeyman was unable to be rerolled, giving a final result of Both Down. The Soilers burned their last reroll to take down the new ball-carrier, grabbing the ball and settling in near the edge of the field.

After some deliberation, the wizard was called in to target four elves with a fireball. He managed the standard fireball accuracy, only hitting one of the targets, but that was the most important one: the ball sprung free. Seeing few good options, a thrall dodged out, with the plan to pick up the ball and pass it over several elves and to a vampire on the far side of the scrum. A reroll was used on the dodge, but the pass almost worked, getting to its target before being dropped, with a lucky scatter placing it in four vamp tackle zones. The elves knocked a player onto the ball, but the scatter this time saw it fumbled by several elves before ending up on the far side of the formation from most of the skilled woodies. Skull/Both Down by a rookie ended the elf turn and provided the vampires a window of opportunity. Uwe "The Reaper" Rosenberg managed to resist his bloodlust, dodging over to grab the ball and then risking the snow with one reroll left to GFI twice, out of range of almost all of the woodies and requiring those to GFI in turn to get to him. Sure enough, a blitzing wardancer went down on his last step before the hit, allowing Uwe to run the ball in for a score.

With two turns to try to score before the half, Whoseton still had chances, leading Essen to set up deep. This made the ensuing Blitz result on the kickoff a little less painful than it might have been otherwise, but still very good for the vamps. The Soilers moved three players into scoring position, but the Exsanguinators wrestled one of those down and hypnotized the other two, meaning FreeRange would have to go for a relay pass to have a chance to score. They also got a thrall next to the woodie thrower, who had snaked the pickup on the last turn. That last would prove critical, as the thrower tripped while dodging, ending the half with Essen up 1-0.

Both sides still had 10 men for the second half. Whoseton ran in a quick two-turn touchdown, apparently planning for a defensive steal. The vampires made sure to keep thralls in close with the ball-handling vamp, fearing the mobility of the woodie wardancers. A hit on woodie thrower Air McDare was pivotal, taking him off the field and sending his Leader reroll with him. The last woodie reroll was then used in a failed attempt to reroll a Leap, with the wardancer in question stunning himself in the process. Over the next couple turns, the Exsanguinators managed to move the ball over to the end zone, safely away from both wardancers. A turn 7 score left the woodies only a single turn and no rerolls to try to score with, and when the first attempted push turned up Pow/Pow it was over, with the Essen Exsanguinators winning 2-1.

Neither team received any perms in this match, a welcome change for the Exsanguinators. After seeing the dice rolls in this game, FreeRange has dipped into his war chest to rebuy one of the rerolls he had to shed before the preseason. The Exsanguinators have once again emptied their treasury to field a team of more than eleven players, hoping that this time it will last more than one game. That game being against burgun's heavy hitting Honey Badgers makes that unlikely, though.”