“Warpstone Open XI - Round 2

A tense game was played out where luck was somewhat middling on both sides until a few key moments. I was unable to get more than a stun on any saurus throughout the game, which gave Space Tails the positional hand for the majority of the match. After a desperate burst forward on our drive, super star blitzer Stanley - my most mobile tackler and one of just 2 guards - was relieved of the ball and knocked out. He didn't return for the rest of the match, skipping the 2nd half and overtime.

On the flip side, a wonder touch down was scored as Jim had to drop the pass short to a blitzer, who hopped over the Kroxigor's tail to hand off to Gary for the opening touchdown. The one turn score for the lizards did not come off, and they scored early as I struggled to pin down the skinks and the narrow set up (obviously I don't play good lizard coaches enough) made it too easy.

I had my chance though. 5 turns to score a potential winner. The opening blitz was not wisely chosen - and when Monk only pushed a Saurus towards the side, the all too obvious upcoming surf made me dodge him away, only to knock himself out. That made the catcher surf easy and from there my team was in positional trouble. In the end, the margin between having a good chance to score and it all being a bit desperate was slim enough that I knew this cost me big time.

The Tails won the toss, but a blitz! I tried the heavy contact approach but Jim couldn't mark the frenzy saurus. It smashed Jay on the top of the head - nothing the apothcary could do that wouldn't kill the star catcher - and it was the beginning of the end as the strong sauri wrapped up the skink with the ball.

Coach Anisdrin spent much of the match jumping up and down in frustration over very minor things. Aside from a failed go for it (which set up our touchdown), he didn't roll any key fails - pick ups, dodges, bone heads etc - to prematurely end any of his turns. For me, dodges basically required a reroll, which meant escaping the skilled sauri was hard. I felt Anisdrin made fewer mistakes despite his tilting, and I learned that in future I will simply cover the chat box if it gets too busy as I ran out of time on important turns where I found myself thinking more about our discussion than the game! Oh well, that's experience for you.

It was a very good game. Well played and good luck in the rest of the Warpstone Open! :)”