“FUMBBL Round 2 match!

(Note the luck readings are out as we had 4 disconnects, one due to my Firewall crashing my machine, I don't know if it was my end or Evo's for the other 3 disconnects).
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A blockbuster match watched by a FUMBBL record equaling gate of 160,000 (plus at least 26 specs I am told) despite the sweltering heat.

Both coaches were taking this game very seriously. The Hellbringers freebooted both Hthark the Unstoppable and Grashnak Blackhoof to bring the team's strength closer to that of the potent Anarchists lineup. The Anarchists in turn had sacked a player to make room for their own Freebooter Horkon Heartripper.

The extra preparation and the old injuries carried by both teams took their toll when Hellbringers Troll Smasher Vomitflesh , and 6 of the Anarchist's lineup (4 Linemen and 2 Blitzers worth some 760 SPP) pulled up sore before the match.

Both teams showed their ruthless intent by using their only healing supplies for the match to make a niggler fit for play with the Hellbringers giving Vomitflesh a snotizone injection and the Anarchists giving Mikhail Bashunin (Str 4, AG 2, Block, Pro, Pile On, Tackle, Shadowing) a foul smelling brew from their portable cauldron just before the game started! Madness.

The Anarchists won the toss and elected to receive and pushed deep into Hellbringer territory after smashing and dodging their way through on the right wing. The Hellbringers had little hope of stopping the Anarchists from scoring with so many players deep in their half of the pitch, but applied some strong pressure regardless, knocking out two Anarchists in quick succession.

As had happened in countless other games, the Anarchist's Alexander Lurkman found Helen "Kill Her" at the end of a long pass which the Witch Elf easily caught despite the attention of a Hobgoblin defender and easily dodged her way to an easy TD. 1-0 to the Anarchists only minutes into the game!

The Anarchists were in trouble immediately when both their KO'd players were still sleeping at the beginning of the next kick off and 2 other players had collapsed due to the sweltering heat and thus they only had 7 to take the field! The Hellbringers were also down 2 players who had disappeared from the duggout at the start of the drive. Hellbringers Troll Smasher Vomitflesh and Chaos Dwarf Bzagrog were later found lining up to buy icy poles from a vendor!

As the Hellbringers pushed forward on offence, using a strong screen to protect the ball carrier, the weather suddenly changed from sweltering heat to blizzard like conditions, making the pitch dangerously slippery for
those running too fast, and reducing the visability such that only short range passes were possible, but the Hellbringers had no intentions of passing...

The Anarchists despite only fielding 7 players, counterattacked, knocking over a couple of Hellbringer players in return. However, the Hellbringers struck back with interest, knocking out two Anarchists including the very dangerous Mikhail Bashunin, and injuring (badly hurt) Witch Elf Emma Holdmad in the space of a minute (same turn I think) whilst forming a strong cage just inside Anarchist territory.

With only 4 players left on the pitch, the Anarchists continued to play tough defence, with freebooter Horkon Heartripper leaping inside the Hellbringer ball cage and stabbing their Hobgoblin ballcarrier with a poisoned dagger and knocking him out!

The ball spilled free of the cage, but there were too many Hellbringer players around still for the Anarchists to get the ball and the Chaos Dwarves recovered the ball inside a new cage and scored just before the half time buzzer.

The game looked lost for the Anarchists when only one of their 4 KO'd players recovered after halftime and Horkon Heartripper was sent off for using the poisoned dagger. This left the Anarchists with only 6 players on defence against the entire Hellbringer lineup with their two freebooted stars apart from their star player Hobgoblin and number 1 ball handler Laglop who was still knocked out from Horkon's poisoned dagger. The Anarchist fans were furious at the referee and tore him into several large chunks (get the ref kick off).

The Hellbringers proceeded to cage the ball again and bring it up field whilst exchanging blows with the Anarchists. The Hellbringers again were on song, knocking out one player, then combining to injure the deadly Witch Elf Helen "Kill Her" with a (+7 foul that didn't need any assists LOL) foul.

The Hellbringers just had too many players for the Anarchists to make a strong defensive impact. However, strange magics gave the crowd extra game time as several plays were repeated (due to disconnects, which is why the replay looks funny).

The Hellbringers kept their ball carrier safe and scored late in the second half to move into round 3.
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My condolences to Evo who played a very competitive match as always, but was hampered by a lot of good luck on my part (KO rolls, and the two fouls on his Witch Elves both getting a Badly Hurt) and some pretty bad luck on his (lots of niggled players, and quite a few 1s for dodging, and failing 5 out of his 6 first KO rolls).

The fact that I KO'd his Dirty Player and his Str 4 Piling On guy early in the helped me heaps as neither took the field again until after the game had already been won.

The disconnects cost us both somewhat, but didn't have a huge impact on the game. The first disconnect was after he moved some guys in to foul my dirty player. Me and all the specs dropped out on Evo's first dodge. Evo advised that on his PC he ended up badly hurting my DP, so on the reload, I ran him into the corner and did not use him again for the rest of the game.

On a second disconnect, I had just knocked out two of his remaining five players. On the reload, I knocked out one, then my PC crashed, and on the next reload, I KO'd neither, but by then the game was already over so it made no difference.

The last disconnect was on turn 8 of the game when Evo fouled my player (but didn't injure me according to the re-sync) in a very fair retaliation attack for my turn 8 3 dice Pile On Blitz against one of his players (who doesn't want 2 SPP? LOL). On the reload, he failed a dodge to set up the foul so the overall outcome was the same.

Anyways, it was a fun game for me, but not so for Evo due to his bad luck. Still, he never gave up, and did not whine and was a generally a good sport about it all.

I understood most of the specs enjoyed the game, especially Wuhan who I dedicated some of my fouls to LOL.

I think I will have to retire from tournaments after this cup. I usually don't foul a lot, but competition brings out the worst in me hehehe.

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