“Well, in short, it wasn't the worst match I've had, and I don't mean that sarcastically, I just mean that I was glad to get out of that one alive. :)

A horrible coaching blunder before the match meant I was down to 10 players for the game - I had previously endeavoured to check whether star players were allowed for the league, but simply forgot and hired Deeproot before the game to take me up to 11 players and give me something to absorb the damage of his mummies. Oops! 90k gone down the drain on an already damaged woodelf team, and now having to play men down against khemri ... I must say I was a little daunted by the task.

However, the players - all of them linemen after the death of our Wardancer 2 matches ago - responded to the call, setting up a relatively easy 2 turn TD to begin the game. On defense, things got even tighter when the sharp-eyed ref caught one of our boys on the very first foul, and suddenly it was 11 vs 9 for almost the entire game.

Despite that, some frantic defense, taking blocks wherever we could and dodging away otherwise, led my opponent to hurry his offense, running his skeleton carrying the ball in front of his mummies, which proved to be a huge mistake. I was able to pop the ball free on T6, but with a poor scatter was unable to grab it for myself, instead leaving him with a difficult task to get his offense running again.

Again, with the mummies too far away to offer great support (we were even fortunate enough to get one in the ko box), we had an excellent chance of prying the ball free on T7. Alas, three failed blocks (all skull - pow/skull 2d blocks) put a complete end to that idea, one of which was cancelled by my block skill but the miserable luck to roll it twice in a row, with rr, when all i needed was a pushback was a little disheartening. He then made the pickup and gfi to level it 1-1 at halftime.

Kicking in the second half, we got a great result when the kick landed in the end zone and stayed there, after a failed pickup, then a quick dodge, pickup and crowdpush to score all in one motion was a highlight. On the next drive, the kick wasn't quite so good, he managed to cover and collect the ball and set about bringing it back up the pitch. Once again, he got out a little in front of his mummies and I was in with a decent chance to stop him, yet another roll of two consecutive failed 2d blocks on his mummy on T6 prevented me from getting my players to where I needed them. Then, on turn 7 when I failed to take down his tackler, then failed the 2+ dodge without a rr spare (having used them on failed blocks), he made a relatively simple td play, blitzing my lone player in the way and gfi'ing over the line (albeit needing a rr - he failed the first gfi, but alas, was too much to ask that he may fail it twice).

A great game, thanks LurkingGrue. The boys can come away from that tough effort with their heads held high.”