“After two narrowly won games, it is time for a top match between the two teams that have won both matches so far. The winner will probably only need one more point on th two last matches to go to the play-offs, while the looser... The wood elves are good at what they do, but still quite undeveloped, and get 200k in inducements on me, a wiz and a babe. The key to beating them is... beating them. Literally. And particularly the two wardancers Moondancer and Wildfire, and the catcher Whitewood. And we have the sauruses to do that, with MB and tackle.

The away game (for me) is held in pouring rain, but we have the fan advantage and the woodies choose to start with kicking. Not a strange choice given that the hard thing for them is to defend, and they want all their players for that.

For once, the fans get off the mark before the players do, and a pitch invasion leaves three scavengers and four wood elves stunned. The offensive drive is severly hampered by Wigglers and Winner's repeated failures to pick up that D...d ball, and ever more wood elves gather around the ball. It's like the bush is full of them just waiting to drop in. During the increasingly hot melee around the ball, we manage to KO Beastmanhunter, Falconeye, Moondancer and Trehugger, and badly hurts Shadowchaser (saved by the apothecary), and SI's Dragonrider, the wood elf kicker. The elves retaliated with Treehugger killing Fraternizer, except my apothecary luckily patces him up again. Nothing to worry about, he just looked dead...They also sends Mobster off badly hurt. Elves also loose Shadowchaser (badly hurt) to a failed dodge and almost loose their wardancer Wildfire to a failed leap (stunned). On turn 5 we finally manage to pick up the ball, but time is running out. We are therefore forced to open up a bit, and agile elves immediately capitalise on that by knocking over the ballcarrier and surrounding the ball. We manage to pop the ball onto a place where we can actually try to pick it up, but again we fail, and the half peters out at 0-0.

At the start of the second, we are 11 Scavengers (only Mobster is out), whereas the woodies are reduced to 8, one (Dragonrider) SI, and two (Moondancer and Falconeye) KO'd. They start with the ball, though, so at best we will suceed in forcing an early score and go for the draw, and even that won't be easy, since the woodies still have their wiz.

The Woodies get a Quick Snap, and our kick is short, straight into the arms og catcher Whitewood. To prevent the early score, Whitewood runs to the backfield with the ball, while the woodies try to spend time at the scrimmage line. THis doesn't work so well, as we pick off the potential scorers one by one and KO's Silvertwine and Shadowchaser, while the woodies fails their rolls, first Treehugger fails his GFI and has to be saved, and then Wildfire fails his dodge, and later Beastmanhunter fails a dodge as well. Thus, about halfway into the half, there are only six woodies left, and two of them are prone at the sidelines to avoid being crowdsurfed by sauruses. Whitewood has to get back into action and score, before they all are gone. Whitewood moves to the midfield, and survives a three-dice re-rolled blitz by Protector, but as Wildfire fails his leap in the next turn, ending the woodies turn, it is almost game over. Whitewood is crowdsurfed by Peeler and Fraternizer sends Dirtyfist off badly hurt, and there are only four woodies left on the field, three of them prone. The ball lands on the woodies left, close to the centre line.

The only trump left to the woodies is the wizard, and he sends Winner, the ballcarrier, off badly hurt. The woodies put Wildfire in a position to pick up the ball, but we are there first, and skink star player Warrior secures the ball and runs it in for the gamewinner. With one turn left, the KO'd woodies don't even bother to get back onthe field, despite the wildly dancing babe :) Nothing exciting happens in the last turn, except that the rain stops... at last... :)

The woodies fought magnificently and managed to stop our offensive drive, helped along by Wiggler and Winner's rather pathetic attempts to secure the slick ball. In the second half, however, attrition accumulated quickly, and was aggravated by several missed skill rolls. Thus, the ball-in-the-backfield tactic backfired, allowing us to score despite the effective wizard.

On our side, Hollow Claws got a new skill (grab) and we are now at the very top of the league and the only team with 6p. We will likely meet the Lumberjacks next, or perhaps the Faraohs. Have to see if I will make any changes to the team.
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