“The Season 15 NWFL final pitted two teams who had found ways to squeak into the championship game. Both prevailing 3-2 in overtime games in their respective conference finals, both against teams which probably felt they should have been the ones advancing.

But the fickleness of Nuffle is nothing new to anyone in the NWFL, so the championship game pitted two pimped out mutation teams vs. each other. Unlikely to produce much excitement, other than if smashed skulls and pools of blood excite you (and honestly, you know they do).

The Jelly Fingers bring a powerful stench to any match they enter, and packing 4 developed bloaters they have the strength and guard to hold up against just about any foe, indeed this served them well early in the playoffs as they had to overcome the lizard team which kept them from claiming a division title. They also boast a speedy rotspawn who can re-position better than most foes expect, and a solid group of pestigors, with two killers, a frenzier, and the AG4 ball handler/sacker. The rotters, of course, are worthless, but their job is to die on the pitch so that the important players can do their jobs.

The Kickers are one of those Chaos teams you probably don't mind seeing, as they are not kill stack heavy, but instead they have three +ST players, a good smattering of blodge, and warriors who developed more along the lines of stopping elfs and other fast/agile teams. Ultimately this may make you breath a sigh of relief that it's unlikely your team will be de-pitched, but on the other hand, once the game starts you realize you don't have the tools to actually stop them either.

And yet, for all that these two teams developed to have some balance in a diverse league, the ultimate answer for this match was going to boil down to who could out claw whom, because outside of Nurse Polyp, there was no AG4, there was no MA7, there was no one player who could play the keep away game, it was going to have to be a positional battle between two bashy teams. And in games like that, Nuffle will usually decide the victor.

So both teams took the pitch, in a light rain, but hard enough to make ball handling a bit tricky. The Kickers came in with their 11 man squad, took a babe and bribe with the piddling inducements they had, and immediately lost the coin flip. This probably didn't bode well for them, as the Jelly Fingers, between the two teams, are clearly more developed towards removal, 3 claw/MB players, and one dirty player, and the Beast. Gives them 4 MB+ blocks and a nice foul. The initial blocks did get one beast man KOed, but the foul came snakes, and coach licker was immediately banned from the remainder of the match by arguing that call. At least Nurse Polyp had no difficulty in securing the ball.

The next few turns saw things go better for the Kickers, as their blitzes were able to kill and injure two bloaters, though both recovered on the sideline, but the Jelly Fingers were simply unable to remove any more Kickers from the match. Many were stunned on the pitch for a turn, but their will to stay in the game was proving problematic for the Nurgle drive, as they were down two players, and unable to free up enough for a safe advance. Eventually even the rotspawn was knocked out, and so on turn 5 the Jelly Fingers simply made a break, it was aided by an overcommit to pressure the ball, leaving no safety back, and on their turn 5 the Kickers did again put a lot of pressure on the ball, and threaten potential multiple surfs if the Jelly Fingers didn't score, so with a relatively simply 2+ dodge, Nurse Polyp ducked away, and then ran in for the 1-0 lead.

This still left 3 turns for the Kickers to equalize, and with their full squad of 11 they had a good chance. The rotspawn did stay down, and the dirty player was already ejected, but the Jelly Fingers still had 11 men of their own. Throwing 3 rookie rotters to the line they set a standard Ro5 defense and kicked the ball. The Kicker blocks accomplished only knock downs, and rather than send anyone down field on turn 6, the Kickers consolidated their position, but the rain caused Grz'Nash to bobble the pickup, leaving the ball unadvanced mid way back on the Kick side of the pitch. The Jelly Fingers set up a bit of a screen around the LOS to tie down as many Kickers as they could, attempted their blitz which did nothing, and otherwise left a couple players back to act as safeties for whatever break the Kickers did attepmt. On their turn 7 the Kickers were simply unable to make any headway with their blocks, and so were forced to solo a Beastman, unescorted, into scoring range. They did at least secure the ball and advance it to midfield. This left the Jelly Fingers with an easy 2d blitz on the only scoring threat, and he was knocked down, the remaining Jelly Fingers retreated, and left some prone players, so the Kickers did a gang foul into KO, and that was the half.

The second half started again 11 on 11, but the rotspawn and all four bloaters were back for the Jelly Fingers. Kicker blocks didn't do much of anything, but the ball was secured close to the line. The Jelly Fingers once again set up a screen defense and managed to KO the st4 claw beastman from the Kickers, however a series of blocks which failed to knock down any one left the Kickers with a man advantage on the top side of the pitch, they pushed the ball about ten squares out of scoring range with a couple players close by to screen. The next set of blocks accomplished nothing for the Jelly Fingers either, but they were able to drop a deep safety and get another pestigor over to contest the advance, another KO left the Kickers with 9 players, and a position that was ripe to crumble due to lack of free players.

So the Kickers advanced to scoring position, with one player screening, and the ST5 tentacle warrior making several dodges to tie up the safety. This did allow the Jelly Fingers on their next turn to free the beast, who made a GFI to get onto the ballcarrier. Another KO as well was really making the chances for the Kickers look bad, as more and more Jelly Finger players were getting free of marks to be able to reposition. The Kickers then made, what in hindsight, appears to have been a tactical error. There was no way to free the ball from the rotspawn, other than a -2db at stand firm, only a 25% chance, instead they blitzed the other marking pestigor and retreated back towards the line, but without any screening players. The other option was to try the dodge/break tentacles/gfi to score. Yes, that still gave the Jelly Fingers lots of time, and probably a significant player advantage (depending on KO rolls), but retreating when down 3 players didn't seem to offer much hope either.

Indeed the Jelly Fingers were able to get the Beast back onto the ball carrier and their frenzy pestigor got 4 dice on the blodger and found a POW on the 2nd block. The ball was out, close to the sideline, and rather than attempt the 4+ pickup in the rain, the Jelly Fingers simply moved their players around it, kept the rest of the Kickers marked, and figured they could just end the game 1-0 if no one was able to ever pick up the ball again.

That's not quite what happened, but the Kickers lack of players left them precious few options. A heroic warrior was able to make a 6+ pickup on the ball, but had no where to go with it other than the sideline. At least he had stand firm. Still, the Jelly Fingers double marked the only scoring threat, and launched blitzes and blocks at the ball carrier. To no avail, only pushes left him standing, but with three players around him, no way to blitz anyone off, the only option was the 6+ pass into 6+ catch, into whatever dodges were required.

The pass didn't connect, and that was how the game ended.

1-0 for the Jelly Fingers in a match which lacked both great excitement and great quantities of blood shed. Nuffle had dozed through it, only popping up in the second half briefly to give the Jelly Fingers the injury dice they were looking for in the first half.

Good game OTS, I'm sure we'll meet again so you can get your revenge :)”