S#4 - Game Day #7

[HaemishM]

I can't decide if I want to be in the playoffs or the failoffs. I'm thinking failoffs since I have a much better chance against those teams than the fuckers at the top of the divisions.

[Llyse]

Who knows what will happen Haemish? 

Maybe you'll defeat Teleku or Ice Cream 

Match report coming in 10 hours, sleep time 

[lamaros]

I think you go through on every result Comstar. Because if avaia wins by too much you beat carnifex on score difference. Carnifex is +5 at the moment. You're on +3. So if Avaia wins by enough to overtake you then you also overtake carnifex.

Avaia is at -1, so he needs to win by 3 to draw level with carnifex, which then goes down to total scores if I remember correctly (or did it change this season), which is 7 for avaia and 11 for carnifex. So avaia cannot go through unless he wins by 4 scores or more. Which is unlikely. However he could still determine who is 3rd and who is 4th in the group with a win.

Carnifex needs to win by 3 to come second.

Acherontic Welkin 1 - 2 Alive Not Dead

Trying to take the ball off of a st4 Werewolf is, ahem, fun. Going to have to work on my game against hybrid teams.

I'm surprised you went for the extra apoth over a mercenary (did I read that right?), especially as you used one of those apoths on an unskilled line-elf?

I'm not a super player, and I haven't played High Elves much, but from playing other elves I would say it looked like you tried for too many blocks and left your players engaged more than I would have thought advisable. I know Necromantic isn't a super bashy side, but with the TV difference Llyse's team really had the edge on you. A couple of times you went and marked players or went for blocks that I didn't understand the point of.

Llyse looked pretty solid though, and his team's skills are really well picked and spread.

[avaia]

I'll settle for another kill.   

[lamaros]

There was talk of making the tie breaker head to head instead of TDs scored (because bashy teams thought it was fairer) so if that happened all you'd need to do would be to win by 1 goal. So who knows!

[Ice Cream Emperor]

I'm surprised you went for the extra apoth over a mercenary (did I read that right?), especially as you used one of those apoths on an unskilled line-elf?

There's an amazing game at some point this season in OCC Division 1 where Flix (the reigning four- or five-time OCC champion and Wood Elf coach) spends most of his crippled team's inducements on apothecaries in preparation for a matchup vs. a beefy Chaos team. He then uses all of his apothecaries on 3 consecutive Badly Hurt Loner linemen within the space of the first two turns of the game...

... and then he wins. Because the other option was to go down 3 players early and get completely steamrolled. Sometimes it's not so much who you save as that you get one more body back on the pitch. I'm not saying that was the case here, it just brought that to mind, because when I first watched that replay I was like 'wth is he doing that's a Loner!' But in retrospect that's exactly what extra apothecaries are best used for -- keeping players on the pitch, rather than saving them for serious injuries that might never come.

And incidentally, if anyone wants to learn how to play elves better, or Wood Elves specifically, just watch all of Flix's replays from this season (you can grab them off BBManager) -- I recommend hiding the score columns before you grab them so you don't know the results going in to the games. His TV goes down to I think 1600 or so at some point in the season, and most of his opponents are 2100+ TV Chaos, Orc or Dark Elf teams.

[Ingmar]

That's how I use my apothecaries in the snotling league, usually to turn KOs into stuns. Here I hardly ever have to use the poor guy. That probably explains why he choked when I needed him to save my runner against Bann. 

[Sjofn]

I'm a little too stingy with the apothecary myself ... I need to use my spare ones more often I think so I am not, in fact, down to six people by the end of someone's drive.

[Celer]

The Chemical Elvers have successfully gained their Failoff berth by losing 3-0 to The Minizilla's!  The elves were clearly off their game and the lizards took full advantage of the elves failing to do what elves do.

The Elvers kicked off and watched the lizards form a tight cage made out of 3 Saurus and 1 Star Player.  This seemed like suicide to attempt to take on, so the elves held a defensive line and focused on skink-stomping.  The cage made little progress, but it was the lizards who gained the early strength advantage, causing a -AG casualty to my Guard Catcher ("Guard Catcher" experiment FAILED) and keeping the skinks on the field.  As time wore down, a skink finally broke free and sat alone in the end zone; this seemed like a mistake, as I had a covered Blitzer (with Dodge) in range to surf him and severely hurt their scoring chances.  Somehow, the blitzer failed his dodge away, and the lizards were able to go up 1-0.  The ensuing kickoff changed the weather to Very Sunny, which immediately hampered the elf effort to equalize before the half (as did a second casualty).

Down 2 players and an overwhelming strength disadvantage to start the second half, the Elvers decided to ignore the Very Sunny conditions and focus on keeping a QB deep and getting receivers in range.  However, they made a rookie mistake and left the ball carrier wide open to a saurus blitz, which resulted in a very quick 2-0 lizard advantage in turn 10.  Needing a very quick score now, the elf Thrower ran up to a short kick and failed to pick it up.  His punishment was a MNG casualty, and that was all she wrote.  Elven magic could not recover from the resulting lizard possession, and the game ended after another TD and a couple more casualties.

As I said earlier, the elves played a poor game, and they were punished for taking "risks" like dodging (with Dodge and AG 4) and picking up the ball uncovered.  They failed 13/21 Dodge rolls (many due to the Krox's tail, which never works) and the seeming lack of the usual elf luck caused mental errors that eventually decided the game.  I did level a few elves to make up for the ones that are MNG, so I have no idea what my outlook in the Failoffs will be.  I'm just happy to have a couple wins this season!

[Strazos]

I believe that cinches up Twilight 2000, right? Teleku, Ulysees, myself, and Drogg all advance if I am not mistaken.

[Ulysees]

The Minizilla's 3 - Chemical Elvers 0

I said after my match with Strazos I would be out for blood and so this match proved with 4 casualties sustained for the loss of a loner which I'd take any day of the week. In a role reversal of last week Nuffle decided to take a dump in Celer's lap which combined with a more aggressive approach to the game from me meant that he was constantly under pressure and taking hits and the only attacking block turnover that I recall happened on the very first turn so it was nice to actually get to play out some moves in this match. I had 300k of inducements for the match so chose Slibli the star Saurus (a re-curring feature of my games so far) and a Bloodweiser babe

Celer won the toss and elected to kick. I set myself up to receive deep but Celer has a kick specialist and tries to put the ball close to the LoS, unfortunately this fails and I pass my first test since I am able to hand the ball to a skink instead of burning a reroll trying to pick the damn thing up. I form my cage on my left side of field and then try to brain me some Elves, a move that proves to be unwise since the first attack dice gives double both down on a non block saurus and Celer is able to use his Wrestle line man to ignore the skill and force the turnover, I was left wondering at this point if that was a sign of things to come and the play passed over to Celer. There was not a lot to do here so he blitzed an open skink but didn't cause any harm, then positioned his defence in front of the cage and waited for my next move. With eyes closed and praying to nuffle I launch a blitz to move the cage up the field and not only hurt the target but manage to kill him! Celer uses the apoth to turn death into a broken neck so loses a point of agi on his Wrestle, Guard catcher. That started a theme of succesful blocks as everything I hit was either pushed or sent crashing to the ground this half and my cage crawled up the pitch. On turn 5 I send a couple of receiving skinks out and though Celer manages to knock down one of the skinks in scoring range he is not able to get enough support over and on turn 6 tries to dodge out of a TZ to blitz the skink in the end zone but fails the dodge and I run a skink up for a sucessfull hand off (with re-roll of course, these are skink handoffs) for the score.

1-0 for the Minizilla's but I have given Celer 2 turns to score and my lack of playing elves shows as I set my players out with no cover through the middle of the field so, though my kick is good and long, Celer knocks down a Saurus, blitzes a skink and runs a couple of receivers into my half, but he has miscounted the squares and leaves himself in range of a GFI sack attempt, unfortunately for me the player in range is Slibli but I have re-rolls in hand so I accept the invitation and charge, GFI fail, re-roll ,loner, turnover. So it looks good for Celer to equalise on the half but the weather change to Sunny conditions  won't make the normal elf passing game a sure thing and he moves up the field before launching a pass to a receiver in easy scoring range, however the pass fails and though he has safe hands so retains the ball Celer can no longer score and the half ends.

Second half I kick off and prove that I have not learned much as my slightly re-organised formation is once again opened very easily, however Celer has set himself up with a strong presence on my left field and nothing much on the right. I mark up what I can and my krox badly hurts another elf and I move  my right wing saurus' towards the ball carrier while marking what I can behind me. Celer's next go ends early when my Krox's prehensile tail snatches a dodging elf out of the air and Celer has miscounted and leaves his ball carrier in range of a GFI sack, this time by a normal saurus so no loner to negotiate and once again I take the opportunity to blitz, popping the ball loose and run a skink in to pick it up (with re-roll, damn skinks!) and run in the second touchdown on a GFI.

I kick off a third time and this time set my defence up properly, Celer blitz's and badly hurts a skink, thankfully only a loner and though I had tried to send a deep kick it had fallen quite close to my right field LOS, Celer moves an elf over to pick up the ball and promptly fails and burns a re-roll which also fails, I blitz the elf BH him and quickly form a cage that is blessedly free of elf prescence to impede it and move my remaining players to mark as many elves as I can. Though Celer tries to get a decent defense back he is unable to and I try to earn some SPP on my slowly developing Saurus with a handoff plus re-roll that fails but I have 3 Lizards round the ball and no elves in attendance. Celer moves 2 elves to mark the ball and then about the only bit of elf shennanigans that you would expect occurs when an elf survives a blitz plus 2 other attacks, each time dodging around the ball, fortunately Slibli has grab and I yank the elf away from the ball and scoop it up for a third touchdown with 2 turns left to play.

Celer tries to make a hole for a final turn score and passes to an elf in scoring range but with a much depeleted team doesn't have any effective cover and I blitz the carrier to pop the ball free on my next turn and mark the ball up and badly hurt another elf with my final turn of the match. Celer struggled with the time limit tonight and had no luck when it mattered leading to a very flattering scoreline. I know it's part of the game but sometimes I do wonder how things would play out if Nuffle were a little more even handed, that said it made up for the Strazos match and if Nuffle had been fair I would probably have been pulling my hair out at how quick elves can move the damn ball when lady luck is simling on them.

Match is uploaded.

[Llyse]

So I go into the decider of Cthulhu leader missing my wrestle ghoul but otherwise a full strength team of 1810 TV vs Megrim's 1400 TV.

He chooses for a range of inducements, wizard, apothecary, babes, and a reroll winning the toss and electing to kick off.

I receive and after Lamaros and ice's game it's of course a Blitz. I have an inkling it'd be this but luckily it lands behind my stalwart Gregor. It does give Megrim an opportunity to blitz Calvin which luckily only results in a stun. This results in a scuffle for the ball in my back half but eventually Calvin takes hold of the ball and makes a break on the rightside with the ball. A lightning bolt from the clear blue sky hits Calvin in the noggin but fails to break armour.

Megrim switches play throws a long pass across the scrum in the middle with no interception leading to a score in the first quarter. Alive receives again switches play the the left flank with Alex the line zombie badly hurting a hapless line elf who receives medical attention for him to return for the next drive. Alex strikes again giving a smashed collar bone which is turned into a miss next game. This leaves a hole on the right side costing Alive their last reroll but giving them the equaliser.

The high elves have 2 turns now to score before half time and attempt to do so before a pair of snake eyes results in the star blodging blitzer landing on his arse ending the half.

Megrim is down a player but receives  a short kick before another failing another dodge which results in some pressure on the high elf qb. It's not long befote the pressure results one of the 12 1s rolled by Megrim resulting in a turn over and eventual turn 16 score for Alive.

This gives Alive not dead top seeding for the playoffs.

Quick stats, high elves made 39/50 dodges rolling 12 1s and 9 2s.

Armour breaks were 4/17 for the elves and 12/55 for the wolves...

See you in the playoffs bitches!  

[Celer]

I don't think I was PARTICULARLY unlucky.  I got boned on that dodge/blitz for sure, but I had at least taken the precaution of moving another elf nearby.  The failed pickup was also kind of silly, but I actually thought to myself "I would move more cover over there, if I had the guys to spare".  The opening kickoff I had knowingly positioned such that only a double-bounce could give a touchback (which you got).  All calculated risks that didn't pan out, oh well.  I did alright with my numerous 1d blocks so I guess that was eating up my luck.

I should have been a lot more methodical in the second half, got into a proper cage/screen and moved myself down the field.  I just didn't think I had the numbers, and I know I didn't have the strength to hang in there.  But when I leave the ball-carrier in range for a 2d blitz not once but TWICE, that's not bad luck. 

Having both my Thrower AND my star Catcher out for Round 1 of the Failoffs, that's the real tragedy here!

[avaia]

FAILOFFS AHOY! 

[Llyse]

FAILOFFS AHOY! 

More details!

[lamaros]

BBM says 1-1.

[Comstar]

Don't just leave it at that, give me the details!

[avaia]

Hmm, I'll do my best to recall details.  Carniflex said he'd do a writeup since we finished some time after 4 and I was getting up in a couple of hours.  Well, I'm up now; here goes.

First half Carniflex kicked to me.  I don't recall a lot of the half other than a wolf suffered a KO early and never made it back on the pitch.  There was some nice skink pressure early that I worked myself out of after a turn or two, but it didn't leave me feeling overly comfortable, rightfully so.  On turn 4 or so I had a ghoul up the right side a bit past midfield.  As expected, I found the ball carrier surrounded by a lizard, then another, and another, and possibly one more?  Just to make things REALLY interesting, a skink pulled off a nice 4 dodge move through traffic to light the path to potential dodge/blitz glory (as opposed to attempting a throw out of heavy coverage).  Well, the dodge out of the crowd and tail failed, but things weren't terrible.  I got a fair bounce up the pitch and just a knocked down from what I remember, possibly a stun.  Skinks then proceed to do what they do best, scoop up and scurry down the field.  I did manage to sit next to the carrier a few times, but was always easily blocked off.  Carniflex stalled for a couple of turns, so I took the opportunity to stomp on his Krox (who was 10/10 on bonehead rolls, impressive) with a zombie to great success.  Apothecary turned (something) into a badly hurt and at the end of the half the lizards walked in for the score, the skink spiking the ball into Whitemane's limp body in a show of dominance.

Second half I kicked off.  The skink brigade started up the right side of the field, and there was a bit of mucking around on the sidelines with threatened and realized surfs for both teams.  Carniflex's poor Saurus, I can't remember the poor fellow's name (nor can the saurus now), ended up with one of the head injuries to accompany his existing head injury.  AV 7 saurus now, tasty!  Sorry, got distracted for a moment there... I had a couple of zombies in contact with the 2 skinks forming the somewhat cage at the end of my turn.  I think a skink finally failed a dodge and resulted in a turnover.  This apparently excited my ghoul, as he blitzed a skink and killed it DEAD.  Rectum?  I think this was the league's leading scorer, but not quite sure about that.  Ghoul picks up the ball after that and I see there isn't really enough time (reasonably) for me to score twice, so I play Bash the Skinks for a bit without much satisfaction.  I'm a bit gunshy this year about pushing for scores late, understandably so after having two wights die late in the game on meaningless dodges/GFIs.  I run it in on turn 16 for the tie.  Yay.

Best I can do for now, perhaps Carniflex will fill in the gaps!  That was my ghoul's 3rd kill this year.   

[Llyse]

Great write up Avaia, bad Luck on not making the playoffs but Loser bowl should be a lot friendlier to a pair of new wights.

I know that even though Calvin and Hobbes are godly my whole team contributes even my tackle zombie was critical against Megrim 

[avaia]

Dauntless zombie was pretty awesome this match, and the guard pivot zombie is sexy as hell.  Guard/kick zombie will be back for the failoffs as well  

The replacement replacement wight (Fourth Wight, Not Fifth Wight) got back to back MVPs in the two prior matches, so I can't complain too much.  My fear is the team will rebuild itself enough that I will want to keep playing them, when I clearly can't/won't adapt to the necro style at all.   

[Celer]

You cannot resist the call of the Beast...

[proudft]

Can we get a reset on the Ramas/eldeac - proudft game Falconeer?  Massive lag, we had to mutually bail on turn 2 or it was going to take 6 hours.

[eldaec]

The internet is broken, everybody panic.

[proudft]

For those who are following with fevered anticipation, the Beetles-Horde match is rescheduled for tomorrow, in hopes that the internet tubes in darkest Africa become declogged.

[carnifex27]

Hmm, I'll do my best to recall details.  Carniflex said he'd do a writeup since we finished some time after 4 and I was getting up in a couple of hours.  Well, I'm up now; here goes.

First half Carniflex kicked to me.  I don't recall a lot of the half other than a wolf suffered a KO early and never made it back on the pitch.  There was some nice skink pressure early that I worked myself out of after a turn or two, but it didn't leave me feeling overly comfortable, rightfully so.  On turn 4 or so I had a ghoul up the right side a bit past midfield.  As expected, I found the ball carrier surrounded by a lizard, then another, and another, and possibly one more?  Just to make things REALLY interesting, a skink pulled off a nice 4 dodge move through traffic to light the path to potential dodge/blitz glory (as opposed to attempting a throw out of heavy coverage).  Well, the dodge out of the crowd and tail failed, but things weren't terrible.  I got a fair bounce up the pitch and just a knocked down from what I remember, possibly a stun.  Skinks then proceed to do what they do best, scoop up and scurry down the field.  I did manage to sit next to the carrier a few times, but was always easily blocked off.  Carniflex stalled for a couple of turns, so I took the opportunity to stomp on his Krox (who was 10/10 on bonehead rolls, impressive) with a zombie to great success.  Apothecary turned (something) into a badly hurt and at the end of the half the lizards walked in for the score, the skink spiking the ball into Whitemane's limp body in a show of dominance.

Second half I kicked off.  The skink brigade started up the right side of the field, and there was a bit of mucking around on the sidelines with threatened and realized surfs for both teams.  Carniflex's poor Saurus, I can't remember the poor fellow's name (nor can the saurus now), ended up with one of the head injuries to accompany his existing head injury.  AV 7 saurus now, tasty!  Sorry, got distracted for a moment there... I had a couple of zombies in contact with the 2 skinks forming the somewhat cage at the end of my turn.  I think a skink finally failed a dodge and resulted in a turnover.  This apparently excited my ghoul, as he blitzed a skink and killed it DEAD.  Rectum?  I think this was the league's leading scorer, but not quite sure about that.  Ghoul picks up the ball after that and I see there isn't really enough time (reasonably) for me to score twice, so I play Bash the Skinks for a bit without much satisfaction.  I'm a bit gunshy this year about pushing for scores late, understandably so after having two wights die late in the game on meaningless dodges/GFIs.  I run it in on turn 16 for the tie.  Yay.

Best I can do for now, perhaps Carniflex will fill in the gaps!  That was my ghoul's 3rd kill this year.   

There's not much to add, Avaia did a good job of hitting the highlights.  We both proved to be better at defense and forcing the other team into bad positions than either of us were at getting out of said positions.  The MVP gave me my first lvl3 Saurus, so I now have some guard on the pitch.  I considered replacing my now AV7 Saurus, especially since he's also out for a game from his fractured skull, but didn't have enough money to replace him and get a new skink to replace my casualty.

[Sjofn]

2-1 victory for the Mutiny. SirT actually paid attention for most of the game, I had five guys left on the pitch by the end, and people need to stop throwing pointless fouls for no reason. At least the foul-ee(s) didn't get hurt. 

One of my berserkers, Slate Fistcrunch, should go up a level for scoring a TD, don't think anyone else did. In a shocker, my MVP did NOT go to my loner (who ate a -1 AV injury for me).

[Sjofn]

Also I hope I never win again because BBM is fucking stupid and I hate it.

[Sir T]

Hey, did you know that Nurgle are capable of scoring a touchdown? Who knew?

2-1 to the furry pink vikings of Sjofn.

I was wondering why you had so few people on the pitch by the end Sjofn. Anyway it was standard fare for turn 1, where she scored 2 touch downs. Then I decided to pay attention. Of course a 'skull - both down *reroll* Both down + Skull' roll and a failed gfi reminded me why I generally don't bother. But I go my beast next to her ball carrier and managed to get her team into a massed melee in her half. Anyway after a lot of punches on both sides The ball finally slipped free, resulting in yet another punch up around it. before my "sure hands" ball carrier beastman managed to get a hold of it and rand down the field screaming like a maniac and 2 gfi squares... and stopped.

yes, I have scored so few tds I had no idea where the end zone actually was. I risked 2 gfi rolls for nothing.

Anyway I scored on turn 16. No injuries on my side but Sjofn had a few, but nothing permanent (aside from the aforementioned loner who got a headache)

Thanks for the game Sjofn.

[ezrast]

 

[Paelos]

It was an epic case of two dicerollers going in completely different directions.

My ass hurts.

[eldaec]

The Silver Horde and the Burrowing Beetles are doing their level best to convince Falconeer to hire a second commissioner, second attempt at the match abandoned, this time because of plain old client failure in the USA. Fuck America.

[eldaec]

And now attempt 3 looking dicey, proudft offline for a couple of minutes and now we're stuck in an endless kick-off.

[proudft]

Fourth time's the charm!   Right?

This is tanking my connection percentage.   

[Sjofn]

Slate Fistcrunch the Norse Berserker went up a level and rolled doubles and now has SIDESTEP.

[Sky]

Slate Fistcrunch the Norse Berserker went up a level and rolled doubles and now has SIDESTEP.