“You know those games where everything just seems to go right? The ones where you feel afterwards that maybe you should go out and buy yourself a lottery ticket, because your luck is clearly firing on all cylinders? Well, as far as I'm concerned, this games was the exact opposite. It was vile. It was the kind of game I try and remember when I have one of those perfect games, to remind myself that luck comes and goes, and doesn't always stay for very long.

So lets see...

It was sunny, so the passing game was going to suffer a bit, but we're both elves and we're bound to score a lot. The weather is sure to change soon, right? Wrong! The weather stayed exactly the same for the entire game.

Then the game began in the most annoying possible manner...with a blitz. Blitz is annoying enough at any time, but I really, really hate it at the very start. It takes away the whole advantage of receiving first, messes up your very first offensive drive, allows the opposing coach to put all your players in tackle zones to prevent the fast getaway downfield and, more often than not, gives them the ball as well.

And that's exactly what happened here. Lasgalen blitzed himself a gap and ran two of his annoyingly fast catchers right down to beside the ball, not failing any go for its along the way. And the fact that he couldn't actually make it to the landing square didn't matter, because the ball bounced right into the hands of one of them anyway.

I did get it back, however. Lasgalen wasn't able to stroll in for the score on his first turn after all, and three turns later I finally managed to get enough offence going to actually score. And I'd even managed to pick up a KO and a serious injury along the way, although this was somewhat mitigated by the loss of my single wardancer to a MNG.

Lasgalen then scored a typically elven two-turn TD in reply and finally the game was starting to look like the high-scoring elf-fest I'd been hoping for. Sadly, my hopes of a neat second score were then squashed when my thrower ended the half for me with a neat snake eyes on a gfi while trying to get into range for a 3+ pass.

Lasgalen then ruined his own chance of a final-turn score by trying to go for a surf blitz before throwing the long bomb to the catcher waiting in the endzone. Luckily for me, the blitzer also failed his gfi.

So...second half.

Still no change in the weather, and now the wood elves are down to nine men, so I doubt I can do much to stop the union from scoring. And, in fact, this was the case. Lasgalen could have scored on turn 2 (it was that easy for him) but he chose to stall for a bit - after all, his tackling blitzer was having a field day and the tree had taken root - but after I was able to get a couple off the pitch he decided to run it in anyway.

On my next drive, I failed a 3+ pass. Twice. And at that point I pretty much gave up. The union were outnumbering me, they had the ball, they were already winning, and so I decided to just get some blocks in for the tree (before he failed something).

But then came a glimmer of hope. Lasgalen had left the ball-carrier three squares away from the tree and so I obliged with a two-go-for-it blitz. And not only was it successful, but the ball was left only in a single TZ and I had a catcher who could reach it - and reach the endzone if all went well.

Needless to say, all did not go well, and the catcher failed his 2+ dodge with reroll.

And at that point, I really did give up. There were a couple more turns of bashing and then Lasgalen scored on his final turn.

And just to make sure there was no chance of me trying a 1-turn score, Lasgalen rolled another blitz, BH a lineman and pulled back everyone he could, leaving just the three sacrificial rookies on the front line.

My final turn of blocking was as pathetic as my first, and I closed out a terrible game with a pointless long bomb. Which was caught, at least.

Lasgalen played well. I'm not sure I could have beaten him even if I hadn't had the weather and dice to contend with, but that's not really the point of all my whingeing. I don't mind losing. I don't even mind losing really badly. What I mind is being denied the opportunity to play well by things other than my opponent. Stupid weather. Stupid blitzes, stupid blocking dice.

My mood might also have something to do with the fact that I usually eat lunch about an hour earlier than this, and I really miss my caffeine if I don't get it on time! So goodbye.

Harumph!”