“Slann are a tough team for me to play against, what with their amazing intercept skills, but for that same reason, they usually provide some excellent games, given that I have to think about my passes and not just lob the ball downfield. Even with safe throw, those pesky long legs are like a ball magnet (well, the hands would have to be the magnets, not the legs, but you get the idea).

And diving tackle. That's also a killer for me, of course.

And just to make it interesting, I got to play without the bastion of my defence: The very first kick-off result was throw a rock, and it sailed all the way over and BH the tree. Which just goes to show, it doesn't matter that you're a perfectly formed and legendary piece of lumber (block, dodge, +ST, etc) and can take on pretty much any half a team you chose to name, once some rowdy in the audience hits you with a rock, there's not a lot you can do about it.

Still, when all's said and done I'm a passing team, and he doesn't really feature in that side of things very often, so I thought I'd just suck it up and get on with the game.

And boy, was it a tough one. I managed two scores in the first half, which might seem impressive, but each of them involved plenty of risky dodges (plenty of slann tackle, as well as diving tackle) and a fair bit of careful positioning in order to get a clear line to the catchers. But as I say, this made for a really fun game, so I'm certainly not complaining.

In return, motay666 mounted two perfectly executed offences of his own, and while they did take a little longer, this just gave him more opportunity to have a go at thinning out my numbers. Luckily for me, this side of the game was mostly in my favour, with hardly any of the woodies leaving the field.

A couple of TDs opened the second half - one from each of us. motay666 nearly suffered a disaster when he fumbled the pick-up on his opening drive, allowing me to get two of my catchers down to the ball, but I muffed a simple pass to get the ball into a slightly better position (never send a catcher to do a thrower's job) and motay666 was not only able to get the ball back easily enough, he was also able to score easily enough as well.

And then there was another potential disaster for the Gecks with the score at 3-3 when I rolled a blitz, and even though I wasn't able to get anywhere near the ball, motay666 then failed his following pass and my catcher made a desperate move for the ball, dodging around a diving tackler, grabbing the ball and heading for the endzone for the go-ahead score, only to fall flat on his face on his final gfi and stun himself. So not only could he not score, he also couldn't do anything about the slann catcher standing right in the corner on the following turn.

And after that it became a race. motay666 had two turns to get someone far enough downfield that he could get into the endzone before the final whistle, while I desperately had to get back with as many of my players as possible (which wasn't many, as there weren't many left by that point).

So the situation for my turn 7 was this: there was only the ball carrier who was within range of the endzone, and he would already need to go for it twice to get there. But he had side step, block and dodge, so even with a 2-dice blitz, I would need a POW. Or, I could get one, and maybe a second player in front of him to force him to have to make some tricky plays in order to guarantee the safe run. So I did that one, and tied up his other players to make things as tricky as possible. Not bad, considering.

Oh yeah, slann can leap. And their catchers have AG4. So off he went and casually failed to fail either of his go for it rolls, not only winning the match, but becoming a legend in the process. Can't really argue with that.

And yes, technically I did have the chance to go for a 1-turn score in my turn 8, but the only available catcher was not sure-footed and the defensive line was a guard sandwiched between two side-steppers, and I was low on players. But still, you've gotta try these things. But then a perfect defence put paid to that, so I went for one final long bomb instead.

But I couldn't even manage that. I ran the passer back to get in the longest of possible long bombs and ran him one square too far. And sure enough, he failed the gfi to get back into range.

But I can't complain. Well I can, but not about my luck, just my stupidity. And that wasn't the only stupid moment in the game either. Earlier on, going for a fairly crucial 1-dice block on the kroxigor I double tapped the trackpad, instantly turning the pushback which would have been fine, into a skull. Meh, this is what happens when you try and play without a tree.

But motay666 deserved the win anyway. He was always in control of the game except for those couple of times his own dice failed him, and then my responses were desperate. If I'd been even luckier, I could have scraped a draw maybe, but I'd been riding my luck pretty hard all game and I really didn't deserve any more than I got.

So motay666 got the win, some new fans, some good winnings and a legend. I got enough cash to buy a fourth catcher, didn't lose any fans and threw three nice long bombs. And neither of us even had to use our apothecaries.

I'd say that was a damn good result for both.”