“From the look of it, Too Goth for you was going to be a tough nut to crack. If you ignore the tree (which is a big if, I realise) they were a stronger team than Sensation, they were a bigger team, and they were even a faster team. Still, I would rather be out-blocked, out-run and out-played by a bunch of dark elves than casually eviscerated by any of the other teams available on gamefinder at the time.

And what a fun game it turned out to be. My offence was pretty much the same as it ever was - a quick score to get things going, a long bomb whenever possible and a few failed dodges and gfis when I really needed them. But it was on defence I had the most fun today. dolphinandrew ran a fairly safe but fairly speedy offence, keeping the ball-carrier in a cage whenever possible, pushing forward as far as he safely could each turn, and scoring as soon as he was in range of the endzone. This gave me the opportunity to practice my cage-breaking (generally unsuccessfully) and my cage-caging (generally more successfully).

The tree was active throughout, only taking root a couple of times and not for very long, but his blocking was somewhat soft. In fact, the blocking was fairly soft throughout, and dolphinandrew's precautionary second apothecary was as underemployed as both of our primary ones. There were a few KOs early on, but they all came back on the first try and that was about it as far as the bashing went. Not a spot of blood on the pitch at the end of the game.

With no casualties on either side, the result was fairly predictable. A few damaged dark elves might have made a bit of a difference, but then a few damaged wood elves would have made it so one-sided it would have stopped being so much fun to play so I'm certainly not complaining. I would go for the fun, balanced and challenging game I lose over a walk-over win any day of the week (apart from Sundays, maybe).

And suddenly I have 13 players. I think this is a first for the wood elves. Back in the bad old days before journeymen, I would regularly field teams of three or four players and dream of the day when I could finish a game with enough spares to be able to set up at least one player off the line of scrimmage for the final kick-off. Now the plan is to go for the big 16!

Of course, my rating has sky-rocketed already, so my choice of opponents is going to become more and more limited as I go. I suspect the near future will involve several ill-advised games against the kind of teams I hate the most - you know the ones. Hit first and ask questions later...only without the questions. And the kind of coaches who feel that allowing me two turns of offence in an entire game is three turns too much (and if only they could have got a blitz on that first kick-off, things would have been just right).

So I'll remember this game for the fun and challenge it was, and maybe in a while, once I've swapped some of my better players for journeymen again, then I might get back to the sort of Bloodbowl I enjoy best - the sort where the ball flies high and long and often.”