“This was - as they say - a game of two halves.

The first half was your typical elven fare, with three scores in the first four-and-a-half turns and then a desperate defence by the wood elves to try and prevent the high elves' second score before time ran out. I did what I could, but sadly the luck wasn't with me and my dice-rolling let me down for the final three turns.

The second half was not quite so much fun (for me, anyway. I'd like to think GreenSkinElite was still enjoying himself) as things slowed down considerably and the wood elves started to get broken. The tree took root out in the open, and GreenSkinElite took the opportunity to follow through on something he'd mentioned at the end of the first half, which was his desire to foul my thrower. Now, as any of you who have played against me will know, I do rather like the passing game, so I took it as slightly vindictive that GreenSkinElite would single out my thrower and try to get rid of him. Luckily, however, the poor lad survived the two attempts against him and after that GreenSkinElite had other things to think about. I blitzed his ball-carrier, ran a loner in to pick up the ball in 2 TZs, dodged out, went for it and threw a long pass to the catcher waiting at the LoS beside the rooted tree. It was a stunning display of lucky dice, and would have been even more stunning if the best dice roll of all hadn't been the one GreenSkinElite rolled on the interception. Oh well.

After that, all I could do was use the loner to try another desperate blitz - which I did. I was going for the old 'push-the-ball-carrier-into-the-endzone' trick but sadly ended up knocking us both over. The ball did bounce into the endzone though, so GreenSkinElite wouldn't be able to pick it up without scoring. So he didn't bother. He left it there, fouled the loner and waited till his final turn to score.

So I got to try the one-turner with a five-player team. Still, one of them was the foul-magnet and another was a catcher, so it was still a possibility... until a blizzard suddenly sprang up, the ball landed way deep and foul-magnet finished the game in style with a snaked pick-up.

So, not my finest moment - way too many turnovers for that - and certainly not up there with any of my classic games, or even my average games, for that matter, but it's not all bad. There were a couple of defensive plays I was pleased with, and one that was a natural six away from being superb, so that was nice. Also, one of the journeymen skilled up so I gave him block and added him to the ranks. Also, the thrower didn't die.

Also, I finally get to break my run of draws!”