“** Round 2 of FUMBBL Cup XVI **

Keothi's Chaos Chosen vs Jos75's Lizardman team

This game was a great one to play and I suspect watch. It's not often that Chaos find themselves outmuscled; but the Hessens Clowns are not your standard Lizardman team either. This match report is to look back on, to see how I coach and track my thoughts/strategies and improvements over time.

What did I see when I viewed this team?

Two major cage buster/ball carrier threats...

Threat # 1: ST6, Break Tackle, Block, Tackle Saurus
Threat # 2: Block + Dodge + Break Tackle + Grab + Guard Kroxigor with the standard Prehensile Tail to tie you up and make dodging away not a good option. Thank god he doesn't have Stand Firm!

THREE 1TTD threat skinks:
# 1: Catch, Sure Feet, +MA, + ST, Sprint (comes with dodge and stunty)
# 2: +AG, +MA, +ST, Sidestep (comes with dodge and stunty)
# 3: +AG, Sure Hands, Sidestep, Sure Feet (comes with dodge and stunty)

Then a ST3 Skink and another skink that has rolled a double, but has been given Dirty Player (interesting choice!). Oh and let's not forget the +ST Saurus with Block and Tackle too =) And a Saurus with Juggernaut that makes the sidelines no longer safe for my Stand Firm Mino who loves to surf players into the crowd.


This side has TEN STAT increases. WoW. What a monstrous side!

This lizard team has also played in the Crown of Sand Tournament where I'm guessing you gain access to sand skeletons... So what you say?

Well at $30K; MA 5,ST 3,AG 2, AV 7 that's not great for most sides. But sand skeletons get access to general skills and they're dirt cheap! That's right. What lizardman coach doesn't want kick and leader and dirty players for low impact TV? Saurus are your hitters and walls and skinks are your scorers and ball handlers; you don't want to waste a rare doubles roll on your key skinks nor give Kick to one of your Saurus who sit on the LoS and in the wings. This team has SERIOUS muscle, lots of agility and speed and also cheap kick, leader and dirty player skills on a pair of skellies.

I decided with the juicy $360k in inducements to go for a second Frenzy player, to control both wings and Grashnak comes with ST6; In Jos75's shoes I'd probably have ditched a team reroll because at $300k Grashnak is no longer available. 5 RR is a bit heavy on a team as skilled as this one... But I wouldn't look at Gift Horse in the mouth; I COULD afford him and having ST6 on the pitch is a nice stat to balance out that ridiculous ST6 Saurus. OK he doesn't have block, but he's still a great roadblock and he doesn't have the Wild Animal Neg Trait and gets +1 ST on the Blitz thanks to Horns... So swings and roundabouts vs my ST5,Block Mino... I now had two high strength players who could threaten and control the sidelines. The remaining $50k was a no-brainer. I got a Babe because with AV8 beastmen, they tend to get knocked out a lot and I needed a good bench to return each drive to control the field against those Break Tackle Saurus and super agile skinks!

FAME +1 to the Lizards and he won the toss too. Big surprise he opted to receive... I thought game over was on the cards when two of my players left the pitch on his first turn! Happily, Chaos Armour held up OK after that. I got a little sucked in and committed too many players and found myself tied up at the line of scrimmage with a skink + ball in my back field and a few of his friends providing support. It took a little inventive blocking and dodging to get a bit of depth back into my midfield. I did my best to tie up his support players and got a MA7, Block+Tackle beastman on his ball carrier. He knocked him over, but he was not stunned or taken out. After some tense deliberation, Jos75 decided to score on his 5th turn. One TD for certain is better than stalling and then not scoring from a turnover. Great. I couldn't stop him scoring that drive, but I certainly put the pressure on to give myself time to score one back. However, my babe was useless; Jos75 didn't even need a babe to get his KOs back. But with 10 on the pitch I had 4 turns to grind down the pitch and return the favour, 1-1 at half-time. The Mino killed one player (apothecary worked and put him back into reserves) but second player was badly hurt (I think a skink) and stayed off.

* Second Half *

I was receiving the kick and I think at least one of my KO's came back that time. So I had 11 to start. The crowd "Threw a Rock" and Nuffle smiled on me here, bye-bye ST6 Saurus with a KO on the injury roll result =D

However the kick was extremely deep and I couldn't pick it up. I sent my AG4ST4,Block beastman 'Yoda' down and a couple of supporters to screen and lend a hand if necessary. Jos75 committed everything to a turnover and quick score... And he almost did it too! Those skinks just wouldn't fall over. So many pushbacks. Then he managed to get a 1 Dice blitz with a non-block skink buuut, no reroll left. I was hoping for a [SKULL], heck maybe a [BOTH-DOWN]... even a [PUSHBACK]. Nope. [POW]. Yoda was down but not out and the ball stayed on the ground. After some tousling, Yoda streaked clear with the ball and I had a decent amount of Guard, Strength and Tentacles to tie up his higher strength players. My Mino scored another Casualty and Grashnak did one to keep from feeling left out. With all the skinks off the pitch it was a fairly straightforward stall to score on my T16 but there were still those 1TTD skinks!!!

It was a tense moment, I had the Mino with Stand Firm, and Grashnak with ST6 and no Block (good chance to fall over) and I opted to put my Fend,Block Chosen Blocker on the line of scrimmage. Thinking that he would limit the hits and prevent the following up to plug the gaps. But I forgot the Grab Kroxigor didn't I? I'd like to see a good defence against preventing a team like his from chain-pushing a skink into range... I did the best I could think of adding some supporting players one square back to limit hole plugging and giving the Lizards a chance to chain-push their skink into easy scoring range. Maybe I could have done a better job with my set-up but I think it was OK. It certainly made him burn a RR to get one skink within possible scoring range (Sprint + MA9). But he was still in a tackle-zone to affect the catch (should the ball make it down-field). My kicker did fairly well though; the kick was deep-ish and the skink who ran deep to collect the ball and opted to pass (I assume to the closer skink for a hand-off next) failed the 2+ pick-up! No RR left... That meant, amazeballs, a 2-1 win to the Chaos!

I enjoyed playing Jos75 and hope to cross paths with him in the Ranked scene in the near future. Next round of the Cup awaits and now it's my turn to give up the inducement $ to my Dark Elf opponent...”