“What a fantastic game that was. It had everything... excitement, drama, blood...and even a 1-turn blizzard!

The high elves received to start the game. I lost my first player on the first turn, then lost two more on the second, after a single failed block as my only attempt at defence. Things were not looking good. Still, at least this way it would be a quick, if somewhat one-sided game.

Nachtogen clearly wasn't here to hang about, and he scored quickly. Rather surprisingly, so did I on the return, managing to squeeze my way past the two high elf tacklers (who were to be a constant thorn in my side for the whole game).

There was a huge amount of quick play after this, and I forget exactly what order things happened in, but at one point Nachtogen fumbled a pass and that allowed me to nip in and throw my second TD. I tried the same thing later on as well, dodging my thrower into a TZ to pick up and long bomb it downfield to an open catcher. But sadly (stupidly) I'd pushed him one square too far and the gfi with the thrower would have been into a TZ - which was just too many dice to risk. Instead, I realised I could throw a lateral to another open catcher, who could then run it down and hand off anyway. That's when my AG5 let me down, and he snaked the catch, leaving the high elves free to recover for their third score.

I did manage to pull back the equaliser though, thanks to a timely failed dodge from the high elves, and that left Nachtogen with two turns to score the winner. I assumed he would do it no problem, given the fact that he still had the manpower to swamp me, but in the end, it proved to be an absolute nail-biter, with Nachtogen rolling three out of four skulls on the necessary block and then having to pass, hand-off and go for it without a reroll. Which he did.

Great stuff. And a prime example of why you should never give up when things go pear-shaped at the start of a game. If I'd given up after those first turns, I would have missed out on the best game I've played for a long while. Of course, it helped that Nachtogen was prepared to keep the game flowing and not just sit in a cage and nurse his lead while his tacklers tore through the rest of my team (which, let's face it, would have been easy enough to achieve). It also helped that I managed to succeed most of my desperate plays - I did mess up a couple of turns by starting them with double skulls, but mostly I was rolling well. And believe me, I rolled a LOT of gfi and dodges.

Passing was good, casualties were manageable, and the whole game was generally very enjoyable.

And the baby blizzard was kind of sweet.”