“" Despair thy charm
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee, MiniM was from this FUMBBL Cup
Untimely ripped."

FUMBBL Cup 2018, Round 2

But what a way to go. A nice, high-scoring game against an excellent opponent who knew exactly how to play his team and dealt with the loss of several players and some pretty tough opponents with skill and style.

As was the case last round, I was the underdog here and had a nice sum to spend on inducements. Taking the chainsaw seemed a bit rude against elves and I'm too much of a gentleman to be that vicious...also, in what was bound to be a high-scoring game, he wouldn't have been around for long anyway :-) So I went with Zug and Zara (because I'm not that much of a gentleman really) and something told me I'd be making lots of dice rolls, so another reroll seemed like the obvious choice.

I received to start off, and I did what I do best (and, to be honest, what I do worst as well - it's all I do): run my receivers downfield and throw to whichever one of them is most likely to score on the following turn. Being humans, it took me three turns rather than the two I usually take with my wood elves, because I'm just not that fast or agile, and there was also a sneaky little diving tackler in amongst the elven catchers to watch out for.

On the following drive things were still looking good for the humans after the ball-carrying elf failed an easy dodge and dropped the ball right next to three of my players. And that's exactly the point I lost the game. Rather than risk a dodge with a blitzer to scoop up the ball, I decided to knock away the elf beside it and run in with Zara instead. She then very kindly fumbled the pick-up and then failed her loner. Had she been less of a klutz, I think I could probably have held onto the ball and made it 2-0 to me at the half.

But what actually happened was that the AG5 elf blitzer dodged out of a tackler's TZ, picked up the ball in 2 TZs, dodged and went for it to get free and threw a long pass right he way across the field to a waiting catcher who was nicely out of reach of all my players. Score.

I had two turns to grab the lead again. The kick was way off to one side, but thanks to a reroll I was able to get it and get behind some cover, ready for a final-turn long pass. I had players downfield and just needed to clear a bit of space and... fail a 2-dice block and lose the chance for the pass. Ho hum.

In the second half eldrichfox's luck came back and both teams settled down to some quick scoring. First the elves pulled ahead, then the humans equalised, then the elves pulled ahead again.

By now my ogre was being so useless I began to wonder which side he was playing for. He couldn't pass his bonehead, he couldn't block, even when he did pass his bonehead, and he was generally a real thorn in my side, preventing me from getting my offence the way I wanted it. A couple of perfect defences against me didn't help either, but hey, these things happen.

And then the ogre failed another block, leaving the ball-carrier somewhat exposed. And sure enough, eldrichfox wasted no time in zipping a couple of players around and splatting him to the ground. And picking up the ball.

All was not lost though. I could still manage a 2-dice blitz. But as it turned out, I actually couldn't manage a 2-dice blitz. All really was lost, as the elves dodged like I wasn't there and scored the final nail in my coffin in true mixed-metaphor style.

My final turn then turned into two thanks to a last-turn riot (as it did in my previous Cup match, interestingly) but I was two scores down and I would have needed a 1-turn TD followed by another riot, and then a 1-turn TD while on defence just to make it a draw. Instead, I decided to go out in style by running a blitzer into the endzone and throwing a TD pass to him.

So a loss it was, but in many ways it feels like a win. I came away injury free, I racked up some good stats and more gold than my opponent. But more importantly, I'm now out of the Cup, whereas poor eldrichfox has the prospect of facing his next opponent with a battered team that's way below strength. And there's a fair chance his next opponent could well be the Angry Newscasters. Now that's a match I don't mind missing out on!

So good luck, eldrichfox. May you survive whichever variety of undead you find yourself up against next and enjoy the rest of the tournament.”