“FUMBBL Cup XIV Round 3:

We were optimistic going into this game, seeing that our opponent had no tackle and only MB on his Snow Troll. We had to give up 150k in inducements but felt fortunate that our opponent elected for 1 babe and 2 cards, we expected a wizard. Everything was looking "up"... until the game started.

We made a tactical error on our first turn giving our opponent a free block against a blodger, that if succeeded could allow for a hit on the ball carrier. The blodger was KOed, the ball carrier was KOed and the ball was lose. We failed the 2+ pickup with RRs and then our wardancer was KOed. 3 KOs and a snake eyes to start the game and suddenly it was a whole new game.

With 1 out of 4 KOs returning, we were down to 5 players. A perfect defence made attempting a score quite challenging, but we managed to get out of trouble and pick-up a score to tie it 1-1.

With 2 turns remaining in the first half, the norse team left us an oppening to 2 BD the ball carrier if our treeman could complete a 2BD block, but he block/skulled out and loner RR failed, immediately ending our turn leaving us without a chance to score T8. Again, we had an easy opportunity to 2BD the ball carrier (Wrestle+Tackle) but we failed a 3+ dodge roll (with dodge). This allowed our opponent to dodge and gfi 2 times to score and go up 2-1.

To start the 2nd half, we had our treeman and one of our catchers KOed, our opponent left his ball carrier open so we could land an easy 2 BD hit. We knock him down but the ball manages to bounce out of bounds and get thrown in on the back-end of our defence, caught by a norse lineman, who is now able to run deep in our zone. We manage to rush back and 1 BD knock him down.

With just 3 players on the pitch, we manage to pickup the ball with our 5 ag wardancer and pass it to our Wrestle+Dodge lineman who runs into the opponents zone. Our other wardancer that chould have provided "cover" managed to fail his leap.

Thankfully, the blitzer only wrestles us to the ground, and our 5 ag wardancer is able to loop back and pickup the ball and run it deep in the opponents zone. Allowing us to score T5 of 2nd half, to tie it up 2-2, hoping some of our 4 KOs would return.

Obviously, none of our 4 KOs return, making it yet again 11 vs 3 on the pitch. Our 5Ag wardancer gets BH and apothed, our other wardancer is stunned and our wrestle/dodge lineman is stunned on a foul, leaving us with officially zero chance at victory, allowing our opponent the easy walk-in TD to go up 3-2.

With 5 elves left on the pitch (thankfully we had 2 returning KOs in addition to the apothed BH). We still had a chance. With 1 RR, a grab treeman, a side-stepping 9 MA wardancer, we had a chance. A mistake setting up on my part left our grab treeman in the wrong square, leaving us unable to chain-push our wardancer far enough for a score. We complete the pass to him wasting a RR nonetheless, but it is all moot since he failed his leap over the opposing team's line.

I feel thankful that he failed the leap, since if he succeeded then I would have hated myself for losing the match because of a setup error on an attempted 5-man one-turn touchdown, something I consistently done correctly... Nevertheless, the game ended with literally "anything that could have gone wrong going wrong", and we were within a hair of forcing OT.

What a run by these elves... This brings their overall record to 17/1/2. I must admit this was a tough loss to swallow given that on paper, the match-up heavily favoured us:
- Blodge vs. no tackle
- No wizard
- Multiple 2BD hits on ball carriers

But in the end, our opponent made his opportunities and converted key TDs when the ball bounced his way (at times quite literally)! Good luck in the rest of the tournament!”