S#3 - Game Day #5

[Ingmar]

I knew what that link was going to be before I clicked on it. 

[Comstar]

...at least it would be if Xuri logged in. He's 20 minutes late :(

[Sir T]

This is what I got from the Orca Cola management. It's useless, but gives you an idea.

In an effort to stop the fraudulent goblins stealing hard earned Cash (its rare and never actually been proven!), I'd quite like it if you could screenshot your Winnings (only ever shown once at the very end of the game!)

If you reroll keep a track of what you rolled. If they know we're onto them maybe they'll behave

Check when your game is validated or at the beginning of the new week to ensure you got what you expected...and no photoshopped reports showing you earned 1millllion dolllars plz

Thx

Nothing else on the official boards, so I made a thread myself. As far as I know, it only happened to Haemish and AndyDavo in our league so far.

It's happened to me as well, but no-one cares about my team... 

[Xuri]

...at least it would be if Xuri logged in. He's 20 minutes late :(

Story of my life! Anyways, I was on Steam watching the friendlist for Comstar's arrival - he appeared as offline to me, though - and vice versa. So took a message on these forums to get things rolling.

I lost the game 0 - 2 (there's another surprise for you).

[Comstar]

Norse get KO'ed
Summary of the match from the Norse point of view. One of the Norse linesman has a broken back.

2-0 Amazons over Norse.

KO's were the story of this game. On the last turn of the game, a rock from the crowd KO'ed yet another Norse, and the Yetzze got KO'ed on the first block of the last turn.

Both TD's occurred after 5 turns of a confused rumble in the centre of the pitch - enlivened when the North made two dodges into two tacklezones to pick up the ball inside another tacklezone, and after the Yetzze grabbed the ball after the first kickoff inside THREE tacklezones.

Sadly the Norse were unable to take advantage of their dodgy progress, as they nearly always had 1 or 2 less players on the field than the girls had, and the two guard-girls often played crucial roles in stopping 2 dice blocks from occurring, or giving crucial 2 dice block bonuses themselves.

I made several mistakes (2 misclicks ended with Amazon's face down on the pitch) but the Norse made the same amount, so it equalled out in the end. Now I have to pray to Nuffle that the 2 DElf teams both lose a match soon!

[Falconeer]

It's happened to me as well, but no-one cares about my team... 

I am sorry T, my bad.

[avaia]

It's happened to me as well, but no-one cares about my team... 

I care.  Deeply.

[proudft]

Tell me you caused some injuries to the Catfighters, Xuri.  Please tell me that. 

[Xuri]

I think one of them got a nasty looking scratch that will probably heal in half a day.

[Strazos]

What is this?! Hand in your Norse card!

No worries, it is a well-known fact that Comstar is a rampant cheater. 

[Sky]

Mister Sky - when do you want to play? can you play on saturday afternoon?

Yep, I'll throw in some laundry, multitask and whatnot.

[Ingmar]

Beardstorm! and Negative Capability tie 1-1. Kind of a messy game, few scattered casualties, I have 2 players out next week (but it is my vs. Nix week luckily.) Bort only struck down one guy this game, but that will be enough to get him to level 3.

[lamaros]

Beardstorm! and Negative Capability tie 1-1. Kind of a messy game, few scattered casualties, I have 2 players out next week (but it is my vs. Nix week luckily.) Bort only struck down one guy this game, but that will be enough to get him to level 3.

This is the best news I've had all day!

[Sir T]

No surprise on the 4-0 victory of the dead over Nurgle. But we had a good chat about wargames during it, and when I finally decided to stop being rude and pay attention during the second half, I did knock his star player werewolf into the crowd. He was just stunned though.

Aviva well deserved the victory. He played an excellent positional game, and used the crushing advantage of all his players over mine very well. Good match to him.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

In an entirely typical-of-my-season match, Negative Capability and Beardstorm trundled to a 1-1 draw.

It really does seem to be the story of my season that, after scoring relatively easily in the first half and mounting a confident last-few-turn defense, I once again went in to the second half feeling like I had a strong chance of winning. Unlike previous games I had chosen to receive in the hopes of getting some claws into the Dwarven armour before it was too late. This didn't work precisely as planned, but I did eventually manage to badly hurt Ingmar's Mighty Blow Trollslayer fairly early on, which was definitely a key part of my first half control -- the other Slayer also managed to KO himself (or maybe I KOed him too, can't remember), and the lack of Guard on the dwarf team combined with my strength advantage and Guard wight made it very difficult for Ingmar to smash through my defensive lines.

The Slayer woke up for the second half but as mentioned I remained confident -- setting up in the same 1d-blocks-only defensive formation as in the first half. Well, almost the same -- I failed to notice that the computer had brilliantly decided to substitute my reserve ghoul for an LOS zombie. This we will call 'Fucking UI Exhibit #1'. But hey it's okay, I'm still up a player and the ghoul is still providing that great defensive LOS shape -- he needs two 1d blocks to even get anything going, and I have set a clever trap in case he tries to rush my corner golem with his Dauntless Slayer.

I forget of course that dwarves are the masters of the 1d block. Dwarves probably spend their childhood 1d blocking their moms -- when they aren't 1d blocking stone walls and other nearby inanimate objects. Two 1d blocks later my Guard Wight and -- what do you know! -- the UI-substituted Ghoul are both KOed and I have gone from 10 vs. 11 to 10 vs. 9. Then, just to rub it in, Ingmar's Slayer charges directly at my Flesh Golem and gets the hoped-for push. As planned I turn off Stand Firm, letting him Frenzy his way into a 2d-against follow-up, only to have the dice come up double-skull/downs, allowing the Slayer to smash my Golem to the ground anyways.

This is not the best opening turn but really things still seem pretty under control -- his Slayer is at least out of position, and I get to smash him a bit with my werewolf (though gee if that ghoul was still un-KOed he would have been available to put in the boot with 4 assists afterwards.) I form up in defense and after a few stalled turns -- and at least one unfortunate early-turn Turnover by Ingmar due to a sketchy foul on my +str werewolf -- I manage to blitz my other Wight in for a 1d block of my own, knocking the ball free. I then commit a bunch of guys, locking down all his players and getting two tackle zones on the ball. Looking good!

At this point my armour goes to shit. The next turn Ingmar stuns FOUR of my players (on five blocks? I don't remember), completely clusterfucking my defensive position and casually picking up the suddenly-unguarded ball. So okay, at least they were just stuns, but in terms of winning the game this was basically the beginning of the end. I barely manage to have two players standing for the next turn or so -- and the dwarves continue to score decisive, hair-rendingly-aggravating armour breaks all the way through the rest of the game. At a much more reasonable rate, to be fair, but after that initial flurry I can only scramble to recover.

But scramble I do and Ingmar's runner is making slow progress down the line, forced to constantly blitz my Dodge-happy duo of Werewolf and Ghoul in order to get the ball forward. Unfortunately he does a good job of tying up any support -- including the aforementioned timely stuns -- and I make a crucial error, failing to blitz my 4 str werewolf through and instead throwing a regular block, which leaves my ghoul and werewolf without support on the crucial 15th turn.

This forces me to resort to plan B, a plan which was in retrospect completely stupid -- but the complete stupidity of the plan was helpfully concealed from me by a) my desperation and a lack of time and b) the UI displaying a 2d AGAINST block as a 2d FOR block on my screen. This will be 'Fucking UI Exhibit #2.' Consequently, I make the most absurd blitz of the season, dodging my werewolf into a 2d-against, 2d-against Frenzy...

... which he somehow survives, driving the ball-carrier up against the sideline. By far the luckiest werewolf I have ever met, but again I make a crucial error because I am busy completely panicking because I am rolling 2d against all of a sudden wtf wtf oh shit there's only 10 seconds left and I end up with my werewolf right next to the sideline as well (I am sure there was somewhere better to go, though I haven't checked the replay.) At which point it is a fairly simple job for Ingmar to arrange for my isolated, insanely-lucky werewolf to be unceremoniously chumped into the crowd, which thankfully only manages to badly hurt him. This takes up some crucial dwarf-movement, but Ingmar is still in a decent position to score and I am down my Dodge werewolf with my ghoul totally out of position as well.

Anyways, I manage to dodge my ghoul onto the ball carrier and blitz/dodge my other werewolf there as well (if only I had done that the previous turn!), but Ingmar's Runner cooly makes the 3+ dodge into open space and walks in the ball for the draw on turn 16.

At which point I mean to set up for a proper 1-turn TD attempt (which, without a reroll, almost certainly would have failed) but instead spend too much time chatting about SPPs and have to settle for a few useless blocks before the game ends.

In summary: ARGH. Ingmar played well but I made some crucial mistakes that, if avoided, probably could have won me the game.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

And of course my glacial pace of development continues, managing only two CAS and a TD and having the MVP go to a zombie -- though he will at least get a skill out of it, as that is the second MVP he has hogged. Time to toss a coin between Wrestle and Kick.

On the bright side my team remains seemingly immune to serious injury.

[Ingmar]

I made some definite order-of-operations errors myself I think.

My MVP went to one of my 0 SPP linemen, leaving me now with I think 5 players within one score/casualty of a level? Getting a bit annoying!

EDIT: Bort rolled doubles for his level up, so now he's a dodging mighty blow blitzer. 

[lamaros]

I made some definite order-of-operations errors myself I think.

My MVP went to one of my 0 SPP linemen, leaving me now with I think 5 players within one score/casualty of a level? Getting a bit annoying!

Knowing my luck you'll get a TD on each against Nix and a two MVPs elsewhere to give you four skill-ups before you play me. :(

My game against Llyse might take a few more days to happen. My internet is being very selective with who I can play against so I might have to visit somewhere else to get it working.

[Sjofn]

I forget of course that dwarves are the masters of the 1d block. Dwarves probably spend their childhood 1d blocking their moms -- when they aren't 1d blocking stone walls and other nearby inanimate objects.

Hee!

[Ice Cream Emperor]

I made some definite order-of-operations errors myself I think.

The only serious turnover I remember you making was the foul on my werewolf, and I think you only had a few other players that could have moved. But a zero-assist foul on an AV8 player is a pretty risky move in general -- you're going to get sent off without even breaking armour on the majority of doubles rolls.

[avaia]

About the only thing worth mentioning is Whitemane finally gets a score this season.  His fellow wolf got 2.  Whitemane was bust reliving the glory so much, he decided to jump into the stands to celebrate on the next possession, only to find out while his coach is in Green Bay, he himself, is most definitely not.  Shake it off, bitch! 

[Sir T]

About the only thing worth mentioning is Whitemane finally gets a score this season.  His fellow wolf got 2.  Whitemane was bust reliving the glory so much, he decided to jump into the stands to celebrate on the next possession, only to find out while his coach is in Green Bay, he himself, is most definitely not.  Shake it off, bitch! 

Oh come on. No appreciation for the fact a lowly rotter dived out after him next turn to help him out? No appreciation These days I tell ya. Me me me

[AndyDavo]

Mister SKy - are u just sky on  steam or somethign else? also what are u in game? - i'm free now and would love to play sooner rather than later if thats ok?

[AndyDavo]

the forum posted the time as being about 5.30am, it was actually about 1pm GMT +0 when i  posted. I also noticed you were last online 7 hours ago, i  do hope that your based someplace in europe and not based in the US? (your forum tag doesnt specify.  anyway - i will be free for another hour or so, then maybe laster on thsi evening, about 8-9pm for me. let me know what suits.

Andy.

[Sky]

I've been sitting in the game lobby for 25 minutes now. You are in the in-game chat room. Why aren't we playing the game, why aren't you responding to chat?

[AndyDavo]

im here now, you must have turned up just as i recieved a call saying i needed to nip out - i have been away for 30mins max. i do arrange games like everyone else, its not my fault that your american and i didnt know. i will be here for the next few hours.

[Sky]

I've been sitting in the game lobby for ten minutes now, you are not accepting game invitations.

[AndyDavo]

im online and checking thsi forum every 2mins

[Strazos]

I'm just wondering why you're not both using steam to figure this out...

[AndyDavo]

game played, another horrific set of cas for me, 2 more miss next games and a death. 1-0 win. 1 balck orc hurt but only badly. I think this teams heading for the recycle bin in all honesty, i really cant keep sustaiing these losses. Next up is some elves, who i think will be feeling rather confident of building on their TD of last week with a win. They will be taking on a full team of loner linemen at this rate!! :)

[Sky]

1-0 Pointy-ears win. We bash. I learned a few things. Good luck in the playoffs.

I believe the final tally was one kill (putting me back on top of the one stat I can rank in, I think) and two darkies out for the next game.

At one point I thought I actually had a shot at a tie, just knotted up the middle with dudes, so I learned a little about getting pushed out of the pocket, heh. I made less mistakes than usual because I just stuck to a real simple plan. One was a bad pocket formation early on, the other was forgetting to path a lineorc around the ball when setting up a pocket and he failed the pickup.

Other than that I think it was a decent enough showing, since I expected to lose 4-0   If anyone wants to watch the bloody replay, I'll solicit feedback since I feel it's about as good a game as I can pull off against a good opponent.

[AndyDavo]

the 4-0 win strat was abandoned when in 1 turn you removed the witch and killed an elf. Again i wasnt able to mass an effective defence due to lack of numbers, it would be interesting to play with some skills and spare players. I think your caging was ok but remember the X shape as that stops direct blitzing of the ball, you also cant leave players in contact with the 4 corners of the cage as that then means they can be moved around  (i didnt really effectly show this again due to the 4 pairs of double skulls that i managed to find). i can upload the game to BB manager but can't remember the password - if some1 can PM me that would be great.

I think you had a great chance to score if you had been a little more adventurous with running the bal downfield and/or putting players in positions to score late in the half - i lacked the players to slow u down AND mark them outright.  All in all - for me right result, wrong method, disasterous cas! - GL in future and sory for the confusion over what you defined as lunchtime. I assumed you meant 12 midday which was a time 2 hours after the time you originally came online. Ie you were early.

[Sky]

I don't know where you're getting lunchtime from. I just logged onto f13 and saw you were asking me to play, jumped in the game and saw you logged in. You said afternoon, without giving any timezone info, so I figured we would be playing right about now or within the next couple hours. I was only 'early' because you made those posts. Whatever.

Apologies to the league for airing this outside pms, he started it 

[Celer]

Swedgins and Dandies drew in an entertaining 1-1 game.  I was laughing for most of the second half as the game devolved into a 7-on-7 tripping match filled with non-serious casualties.

Dandies received the opening kickoff and were quickly down a lineman due to a mummy casualty and another to a KO (never woke up).  A scrum ensued, and the ogre (+1 STR, ridiculous) successfully tied up both mummies for several turns.  Meanwhile my ghouls managed to keep putting pressure on the ball carrier, forcing him forward without good protection and eventually stealing possession.  In the next turn one ghoul was KO'd (never woke up), and I still held the ball deep in a tenuous position.  I chose to attempt a simple dodge with the ball carrier to reverse field, but managed to fail and casualty the ghoul in the process.  A Dandies Blitzer was on hand for an easy scoop up, but he chose to pause on the goal line on turn 7 rather than GFI.  I extracted my revenge in the form of a foul+casualty on his Thrower, but misclicked and forgot to declare a blitz that had an outside shot at saving a score.  After the walk-in turn 8 I had yet another round of revenge before kickoff, and I took FULL advantage by racking up another mummy-on-lineman casualty and a KO on the beastly Ogre!

Everyone failed their KO rolls, so the Swedgins received with 10 players while the Dandies kicked off with 6.  I caged up deep on a good kick, but evened the odds a bit by having a mummy knock himself down and get KO'd (never woke up).  My cage got swamped, and I was wary to attempt another dodge away after the first half, so I spent a turn blocking guys away.  I was rewarded next turn by a lineman giving my Wight a 1d knockdown+casualty.  At least it bought me enough time to reverse field, run up an empty sideline, survive a couple 1d blitzes without dropping the ball, and eventually score on a 2 GFI sprint.

The Ogre woke up for the final drive, making the numbers 8-7 Swedgins, and a clutch kick ended up landing on the opposing end zone.  A Blitzer had to burn the final reroll picking up the ball.  With a few turns left, it was anyone's game.  A turn passed jockeying for position, everyone getting bunched up around midfield.  It looked like perhaps the Dandies could break someone free.  Then a zombie managed to give casualty to a Blitzer, and it looked like perhaps the Swedgins could swarm the ball and have a turn left to make the TD.  As I tried to dodge my final ghoul free to make the crucial blitz, AGAIN the ghoul failed the dodge and AGAIN it was a casualty.  The pendulum swung back to the Dandies at the end of turn 15 to set up a potential miracle pass, but the Ogre responded by rolling a Both Down and no one on either team was in scoring position.

This was perhaps my favorite game of the league so far.  No passes or even any handoffs, as numbers were thinning out pretty early.  There were 7 casualties, but ALL of them were just a Badly Hurt, so everyone is healthy next week.  The Dandies thrower won MVP from his back, and is now level 3.  The Swedgins got a mummy up to level 2.

[proudft]

Beetles lose 0-2 to the evil, treacherous dark elves of Spleen Flay.  The game could have easily been anywhere from a 2-1 Beetles, 1-1 tie, or 0-4 Spleen Flay with some minor adjustments, so it was a bit of a nailbiter.  

I had one potentially-crucial mistake when the Thro-Ra was nearing the touchdown (would have been Beetles point 1, or point 2 if the desperation end-of-half-pass had been successful, ha ha), and I didn't follow up a Tomb Guardian vs. Witch Elf block on the other side of the field cause he was gonna get really surrounded, and hey, that Witch Elf can't reach the Thro-Ra anyway.  Welp, she could, and she tackled him.  Though, odds are, she coulda dodged away from the TG anyway, so perhaps not a CRUCIAL mistake, but a bit dumb anyway.

In the more-dumb category, I can join the I-forgot-I-had-a-wizard club.

The Star Player was pretty useful, but in return he sucked up my MVP.  

My Blitz-Ra died at some point in the first half, and Igor couldn't save him.  Bad Igor!

My block rolls were better than I was expecting, especially considering most of the elf team has Block.  I was really afraid of that but I only had one quick-ending turn and it wasn't Block's fault.

Replay is uploaded to the thinger.