“NBFL SUPER BOWL XVIII

This was one for the ages. Malice dumped all their money into Petty Cash for this one, and it was kind of a mistake, as Hthark didn't have a very good day and our Wandering Apothecaries kept our strength up throughout the match. Our Bribe failed, and Malice didn't use theirs.

We won the toss and elected to receive. The ball went deep and there was a riot. We set up to surf off the north side of the line, but nothing came of that: we got a pow on the first block. We knocked down 4 dwarfs, secured the ball, and botched the foul, wasting our Bribe but Argue the Call worked. We fought back and forth for a bit, but I screwed up and left T. Sambrailo in a vulnerable position, where a 1d block knocked him down and opened a hole for Moose Johnston and Woody Harrelson to get through, creating a scrum on the ball. Sambrailo ate an Apothecary on a Badly Hurt result and we found ourselves without the resources to win the scrum; 1-0 Malice at the half. They did have to use their Apothecary on Harrelson, which they did successufully.

In the second half, we set up an interior defense. The result was a rather evenly-matched Pitch Invasion. Malice caged up at midfield, Harrelson with the ball. We formed a line to block them off, and the end result was a scrum that began at midfield and then started to migrate toward the south end of the pitch. This was all fine and dandy until Malice’s Turn 5, when Harrelson found himself surrounded and failed a dodge to get clear, badly hurting himself and popping the ball. We got the ball to safety, surfed Hthark out of the game, and despite Crash Carpenter’s best attempts to stop him, ran in a J. Anderson touchdown. Tied 1-1, with Hthark and Harrison out of the game and Malice draft pick Travellous Cheek maimed and retired.

We lost the coin toss in overtime, but we got a Blitz!, letting us lock out both sides of the pitch. The ball went deep, but John Storm threw a long completion to get the ball to the line. Malice must have had a plan, because Moose Johnson blitzed from an odd angle. Whatever the plan, he skulled out, and this let us simply overwhelm the line, and get two men on the carrier. This forced Malice to run the ball into the open, and we forced a scrum on the north sideline, which we won and recovered the ball into the hands of J. Crick, who ran the distance for the winning TD. What a game!

Thanks, OTS, for making this hard. At halftime I was about 70% sure I was going to lose.”