“Sometimes it's more fun playing a completely unbalanced game like this, against a great coach and fun opponent, than it is playing something a lot more balanced where you never get to do anything more exciting than follow a cage of brutes from one end of the field to the other.

Here I was completely outclassed, playing a team that was 700K TR higher than me. So I boosted my 5 journeymen with two merc wardancers and two cheap stars.

In the first half, things went fairly predictably, with the dark elves scoring quickly to get on the board, and then more slowly after I messed up my first offensive drive. And when I say messed up, what I really mean is that I did what I could in the way of getting players downfield, but with so much tackle and diving tackle getting in my way, there was very little hope of being able to do anything without some very lucky dice.

The half closed out with my one-turn attempt, which was aided by a quick snap and then destroyed by a double failed catch. Ah well.

So by the time we got to the second half, Ignaz was comfortably in the lead and was presumably looking to boost his E.L.F. score by scoring quickly and doing what damage he could to the loner squad getting in his way.

Actually, the loner squad did quite well, in the sense that they didn't all die quickly - which is usually what happens. And I was even able to get in a second score. Both my scores, by the way, came from dodges away from a diving tackler. In both cases, a single slip and it would have been all over.

My blocking was terrible all game, and I managed to break the dark elf armour only twice - for a single KO. A couple of cas would not really have made any difference to the end result, but it would have been nice. In return, the wood elves came off fairly lightly, though with all those loners, it's a shame that one of the few proper players ended up with a -MA.

But never mind. The game was a great defensive challenge for me, especially on the long dive in the first half where I was constantly getting in Ignaz's way again and again, and even though the best I could manage were a couple of 1-dice blocks on the ball-carrier (to no effect), it was still pleasing to be able to make the effort. And I've never seen wardancers leap so successfully so often!

And as for the passing game - it was majestic. Pity about the failed catch one the one-turn attempt, but I really can't complain with 7 for 74. And I do love it when I finish a game having scored 2 TDs for a total of -10 yards rushing!

And finally, the scoring journeyman netted the MVP and has joined the squad - good lad.

”