~D&M~ Preseason 5 Round 3

[eldaec]

Pre-Season 5 Drilling and Manliness - Round 3 of 6

This round ends at the latest 00:01 24th August GMT+2.

I've let the one incomplete match roll on to round 3. The two teams affected have to play *both* matches by the 24th. Both teams are treated as having won for the purposes of matching round 3, which is a small disadvantage as it gives the eventual loser a tougher opponent than they otherwise may have had.

WARNING : As the competition goes on it gets harder and harder to do this without screwing up the pairings, please try to get your matches played this week or it is likely I'll have to start arbitrarily assigning winners.

The Fixtures

	Sissyfaced Nancies	1 - 5	Ermine Vermin
	Emperors of the Pitch	2 - 1	Fianna Chulain
	Pound Pound Mantrain	3 - 1	Aery Faery's (sic)
	Calidor Fancypants	2 - 2	Chanson Dada
	Going Forth by Day	~vs~	something crazy
	Howls and Bones	1 - 1	Kenosha Maroons
	Festering Wounds	~vs~	The Fantasticks
	F13 Pro Elves for Hoes	2 - 2	Bridgeburners
	Sons of the West	0 - 3	Lesser Immortals
	Blue Line	1 - 0	Midnight Bleat Train
	Stir Fry	1 - 0	SPHINX
	Wrong Games	1 - 1	Court of the Moon

And the postponed match from round 2:

Lesser Immortals	~vs~	something crazy

WTF?

Fixtures are drawn so that everyone plays teams on the same or similar points - ties listed above also show how many points everyone has.

Rules of the format

Who Is <insert team>?!

[Strazos]

But what do the symbols mean?

[Ruvaldt]

Wins for a full  and ties for a half  , I think.

[Ruvaldt]

Emperors of the Pitch 2 - 1 Fianna Chulain

The Emperors continue their winning streak today, but in a closely fought match that IainC had a chance to equalize until the very end.

I elected to receive, imagining that I could charge in, score, and injure some elves so that they would be weaker in their later attempts to score.  I moved up the field in a pretty standard Human rushing fashion, but was only able to get one injury and one KO by my fifth round in which I scored.  IainC had a lot of elves up on my end of the pitch and a war dancer not far from my ball carrier so I didn't want to stall for time.

I kicked off to Fianna Chulain, and after a round was staring at the possibility of a Wood Elf touchdown until I knocked down the elven ball carrier, picked up the ball with my thrower, and worked frantically to set up a possible throw into his endzone.  On the final found I blitzed a blitzer out of coverage and had a perfect pass set up between he and my thrower with rerolls to spare, but my thrower flubbed the pass and the half ended 1 - 0.

In the second half rock throwing fans killed Boudicca, Fianna Chulain's star war dancer with mighty blow, and badly injured my useless Ogre who had failed 6/7 bonehead rolls, I think.  IainC scored very quickly with his leaping wardancer, however, and equalized.  I had plenty of time to score and marched up the field, but in the end I got a tad nervous and decided to score rather than stall an extra round, thus giving IainC two rounds with the ball.  I knew then that it was a mistake, but I hate stalling, and didn't see a good way to cover my ball carrier from a possible blitz from his war dancer.

In the final rounds I set up blitzers with tackle and a frenzy blitzer to push elves away from the endzone and cover them to deny dodge rerolls, but IainC's final possession ended in an unlikely interception anyway.  It was a good game, and the rolls didn't feel especially bad for either of us, but the death of Boudicca coupled with his very low winnings made this a tough loss for IainC, and I definitely feel for him.  If he had had two war dancers for the entire match there's really no telling how this may have ended.  Also, the Halfling Chef/Wizard really screwed him.  The Halfling Chef only garnered one reroll and the Wizard was accidentally spent on my thrower.  The Wizard ultimately didn't matter because he made the dodges he was intending to make anyway, but the Halfling Chef definitely hurt.

My worthless Thrower Maximinus leveled with +STR and I put dodge on my frenzying blitzer so the level ups were good for the Emperors.

[IainC]

Ruvaldt and I played our day 3 match just now and the Pax Romanus proved too much for the plucky Gaulish defenders to withstand. Rather fittingly, Ruvaldt's team were all named for Roman Emperors and proconsuls while mine are all named for Celtic and Pictish chiefs that resisted the Romans.

I had 450k of inducements to use so I bought a Halfling Masterchef to try and weasel some rerolls at his expense (Fianna Chulain only have one normally) and a wizard as a cage buster of last resort. I'd taken a look at his team before the start and his players were dripping with skills like block, guard and frenzy. I had a bad feeling about the survivability of Elves against a team of juggernaughts.

Ruvaldt won the toss and elected to receive first, the ball went deep and the Masterchef failed to take any rerolls at all. The first block of the match resulted in a KOd line-elf which was a foreshadowing of events to come. There is some positional play and largely ineffective barging and then in their second turn the Humans kill Ecdicius the Line-Elf. The Elven Apothecary fixes it and Ecdicius limps off only badly hurt after having his spleen reinserted. The Humans cage up and grind their way down the pitch breaking the collar bone of Prasutagus in the process. The Elves try to break into the cage but there's nothing they can do and Maximinus Thrax walks it in on turn four. The Elves are down a man for the second drive and decide to push forwards as quickly as possible. I try to clear away a line of Humans that are blocking hte path of a gaggel of Elves on the left side of the pitch but forget that you aren't allowed to target an empty square with the wizard and you can't cancel the use once you've decided to use it. In finding this out I accidentally fireball a lone Human in a clear area of the pitch and decide that I may as well pretend that I'd mean to do that by pushing a few players up through the gap this created. Caractacus throws a perfect pass to Horsa who then runs up the pitch as far as he can. The Humans manage to get markers and a blitz on him anyway and he goes down. The somewhat singed thrower Maximinus Thrax scoops the ball and another cage forms around him.

Meanwhile the rest of the Human team is bending Elves the wrong way as much as possible and Vercingetorix is also wheeled off the pitch badly hurt. The Humans have a chance to score in their last turn by throwing the ball to a receiver in the endzone but the Human thrower fumbles the pass. Rather smugly, the Wood Elf thrower gracefully dodges in, picks up the ball from beneath the noses of the Humans and then throws a stinker of a pass himself.

With that it's halftime and the Elves are down to only 8 players. The good news is that this time the delicious Halfling cuisine extracts a reroll from the Emperors but the bad news is that the fans throw rocks at one of my wardancers and the Ogre. Nero the Ogre is badly hurt and takes no further part in the game (although as he'd failed 6 out of 8 Bonehead rolls in the first half, this probably made no real difference) but Boudicca is killed, the Apothecary already having been used to rescue her husband Ecdicius from a similar fate. The ball lands in the very corner of the pitch and Caractacus gets it and throws it to Horsa who's waiting further back than normal to keep the ball safe. A bunch of Elves storm down the pitch and are promptly surrounded by Humans, Mab leaps out of the scrum and Horsa throws the ball to her. Once again the Humans surround the Wardancer and once again she leaps over the heads of the graceless mon-keigh and waltzes in the only Elven score of the match.

The second drive still has 8 elves facing a full strength Human team and I'm glad to see a Riot as the kick-off event. It's looking like the Elves may be able to hold back the Humans for a draw and maybe pull off a bullshit reversal to score from a missed pass or fumbled hand-off. Once again the Humans cage up around their thrower and push some players down pitch for a quick score. The Elves do well to shut down most of these but this means that they aren't able to get players in position to break the cage and Maximinus walks in his second touchdown with two turns left to play.

The final drive has the Elves making a desperate run down field and being surrounded by Humans again. In the scrimmage, Vortimer and Trajan are both injured to reduce the headcount by one per team although Vortimer's injury means he'll miss the next game while Trajan was only Badly Hurt. There's a final chance to score as Mab clears a path for Hengist who has to make three dodges and two GFIs to reach the end zone. Unfortunately the only Human who can intercept the ball does so and the play is over before it has properly begun. The Humans have a chance to make it 3-1 in their last turn but the throw goes wide and the whistle blows.

I got levels on a catcher who rolled a 10 and took +1mv and on a linesman who rolled a double and took Leader. Despite that though I only won 10k bringing my treasury up to a meagre 30k. I have two players missing for the next match and a Wardancer that I can't afford to replace for at least two more matches. For my next game I'll only have 9 Elves fit to play

[proudft]

Kenosha Maroons tie Howls and Bones 1-1.  Some wacky rolling in this one - the Necromancers had a terrible time trying to injure goblins, only getting one knocked out until like turn 13 or so, and the Kenosha trolls were far more Really Stupid than usual.  As the game went on, the ball apparently became greasier and greasier until neither team could really pick it up, so the game sort of sputtered to an end and both teams went home disgruntled.

Haemish submitted the match to the manager, so you can check the stats to see if my recollections have any validity.   

Pogoer and a random level 1 goblin leveled for me, both ended up with Catch.  I purchased a replacement goblin for a hole in the roster from a previous game with the game monies.  Nothing too exciting.

[HaemishM]

Howls and Bones 1 - Kenosha Maroons 1

This was a game of bad dice all around. Proudft never had good dice, especially when his trolls were concerned. Both spent most of the game being really stupid. My dice started out decently, and after kicking off, I blitzed his pogoer with a werewolf, knocked the ball loose, picked it up and scored. That score would ensure that Sniveling Gerrard would level to 3, making him a Blodging Werewolf (I had the choice of any skill, +1 MA or +1 AV and went with block). Proudft equalized a few turns later with some effective pogo leaping that I couldn't stop even with a blitz reroll. The rest of the game consisted of my ghouls and werewolves completely fucking up any attempt to either pick up the ball or throw the ball when it counted. The last three of my turns ended with a failed pick up either by a ghoul or a werewolf. Seriously, it was fucking terrible.

On the plus side, I did manage to injure his chainsaw guy, pogoer and a gobbo, just not enough to effect their next game.

Stats show I was 0 for 4 on catches, and 2 for 7 on pickup rolls. WOW.

[eldaec]

But what do the symbols mean?

Only an Elf coach would ask this question.

  1 point
  half point
  fake point for game not played

[Strazos]

Ah, I see. I should have been more specific - didn't know what the womanliness drilling meant.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Chanson Dada tie 2-2 against Calidor Fancypants.

A fun game in which the elves blocked like dwarves, the beastmen dodged like elves, and the elves did their usual thing. Modern Angel's team pushed their Block advantage to the limit, throwing dozens of 1d blocks and achieving what must have been a 75%+ knockdown rate on those same blocks -- rolling only a single skull on a 1d block all game, to the Chaos coach's endless bewilderment. Even 2d against blocks proved safe, at least until MA decided to reroll a push result into some skulls at some point in the second half.

Meanwhile, elven madness abounded on the field, but luckily it was evenly split between the teams when it mattered most -- with the Chaos team's first TD coming on a series of dodges, a rain-soaked pickup, and two GFIs to score on turn 8. The blocking (and block die) advantage of the elves made it very difficult for the Chaos team to successfully cage, and a truly epic elven 1d blitz -- after dodging into 3 tackle zones, IIRC -- was followed by a 2 TZ catch (in the rain) and a dodging run for the eventual TD. Luckily for me, by that point I had managed to stack up some KOs -- and my final drive produced several more at crucial moments, allowing me to equalize on the last turn with a minimum of fuss.

The replay is up -- recommended for anyone who wants to see a good example of an elf team successfully pushing their luck without going overboard (at least until the final drive), and a few moments of glory barely keeping the Chaos team in it. Definitely an even, well-played game and I consider myself lucky to get the tie.

Also I now have two (!) players with Block! Yeah! (Oh and two players with +str.)

--

Edit: I couldn't resist counting. Out of 14 1d blocks thrown by the elf team, 10 resulted in knockdowns, 3 in pushes, and 1 in a turnover. So just over 70% success rate -- throw in the 2d blocks and it turns out the elves were 20% more successful on their 1d blocks than they were on the 2d ones. Bizarro-world.

[Comstar]

   
F13 Pro Elves for Hoes 2  ~vs~   Bridgeburners 2

Not a particularity thrilling game. 1st Elf TD was done because the Necro's left a hole open for the 2D TD. The return necro TD was a slow move down the pitch - twice the elf bullshit allowed a 2D block on the ball carrier..and both times it ended in a push. At one stage I had the ball carrier surround, but he was able to get out.

2nd Elf TD came about because the Necro's left the ball carrier alone with only one guard deep in the back field, allowing 4 Elves to run back, sack the ball carrier, and leap in for an easy TD.

2nd necro TD was almost foiled the same way, but the Necro's recovered and got the ball down on the 2nd last turn, while every elf on the pitch was eating grass.

My thrower got Leader, and one of my Catchers got +1MV with his dodge. No injuies apart from the Merc getting badly hurt, but I'm still one elf down next game.

[lamaros]

Hey Hoax, I'm around on steam when available, send me a msg when free to play our game.

Andy, when do we want to try and do this?

[Sky]

It's time to BREAK A LEG.

[Sjofn]

 

I'll keep an eye out for you on the Steam, send me a PM if you notice me first though!

[Megrim]

Pound Pound Mantrain 3 - 1 Aery Faery's.

After going 2-0 up in the first half through some fortuitous one-die blocks and aggressive marking, my Norse were looking good to take the second half reception and wrap the game up. However, because taking Kick is for scrubs, Ulysses placed first one, then another near-perfect deep kick into my back third. I say another, because on the first one he broke through the (admittedly) scratchy Norse line, and sacked the ball to take the game into 2-1 contention. The second kick was even better, flying into the Norse endzone - with the weather quite nicely rolling into Pouring Rain. This time though, I was prepared, and had plenty of players back. The Norse caged up and ran along the side, pausing only to kill a couple of elves, before taking the game to 3-1 on the their last turn.

[Ulysees]

Aery Faery's 1 - Pound Pound Maintrain 3

Megrim finishes the destruction of my Wood Elves that Carnifex started in the last round. Match didn't start too badly for me despite an early KO I got 3 receivers through Megrims defence and thought I had covered off my QB with a loose screen only to find I was wrong and the systematic destruction of my team began when Megrim sacked my +5 agi line elf for a badly hurt result and i was unable to recover enough defence with Megrim scoring on turn 6. TBH after that the details become a bit more hazy I think Megrim managed to wrestle the ball off me again as I once again fail to provide the right protection for my ball carrier and he went into the half 2 - 0 up and was due to receive the kickoff in the second half.

Second half started like the first for me, a good kick to the back of the field meant I was able to punch a hole in Megrims defence and rush 2 elves through both succeding a couple of dodges to put pressure on the ball carrier. Megrim turned over early in turn 12 which meant with a bit of jiggling around I manage to pop the ball loose and with 1 second to spare scoop in to pickup the ball and manage to double click the touchdown square, managing a dodge and a GFI in the process to score my consolation. I get another good deep kick off on the second kick-off of the half but Megrim doesn't leave me any gaps though I try to engineer some anyway but with 3 turns to go I get 2 players round the ball carrier, one with an outrageous amounts of dodges and GFI's and decide to really put the pressure on with a 3rd which proves to be a very bad choice as I KO the lineelf on the way through the scrum.

Megrim then proceeds to kill not 1 but 2 players with his next 2 attacks plus BH another, added to a couple of KO's there was not a lot I could do to stop the final score though I did have a 2 die against attempt that only failed because Megrim's ball carrier had block which would not have made a big deal of difference to be honest since I had no one close to try and recover the ball and a lot of angry norsemen who were eying the real prize of killing themselves a wardancer! Fortunately his Troll couldn't break the Wardancers armour so megrim rolled in his 3rd touchdown on turn 16 and the game ended when my treeman decided that a skull - both down would be a fitting way to finish my misery. Least MVP didn't go to a dead elf.

I hate playing Norse.

[Bann]

Blue Line 1 - 0 Midnight Bleat Train

This was a match of shattered bleating beastmen. The Bleat Train left their armor at home, having 1 dead and 4 off with injuries by the half, and 1 KO'd. I recieved, and caged up in the center. things were starting to look scary, so I dodged the ball carrier free and tossed a long pass down field, but failed the catch. I was happy to advance the ball into a 1v1 situation. Right around here Drogg ran out of rerolls (this was turn 3 or 4) and things got ugly quick. We both attempted to bash in the scrum in the middle of the pitch while he had 2 beastmen closing in on the ball and I had 4 players converging. As his players were carried off the field, my 4 morons all took turns trying to pick up the ball to walk in a score, and failing miserably. For the match I was 2/8 on pickups and 0/5 on catches, and only attempted 1 pass. Someone greased the damn ball. The half ended with a tie game, but I had a big numbers advantage going into the 2nd half.

Droog formed up what was left of his team and I kicked it all the way to the back of the endzone. A high kick placed one of his beasties underneath it, who I swear smirked at me when he caught the ball. He advanced up into what Droog aptly called "sadcage." A CW with block popped the ball out the next turn. There was another scrum in the middle, but with his mino off to the side and my numbers, I had a big STR advantage. the 2d blocks began to pay off as more of his beastmen hit the turf, and eventually one of my chaos warriors scooped the ball and broke for the endzone. He reached about turn 12, and stalled. Droog was out of rerolls, and managed to inflict an injury with his Mino, but could not mount any pressure on the ball. I walked in a turn 16 score for the win.

Match Trivia! Droog's mino failed 5 wild animal checks, and they were ALL on attempted blocks or blitzes. 
Match Trivia 2! Running out of rerolls early and having no ball carriers on the field for either team led to the fastest 2 min turn match I've yet played. the whole thing was aybe 35 minutes. It was awesome.

I leveled a chaos warrior who promptly threw down a pair of sixes for +1 str. Not sure if Droog leveled anyone.

[Sky]

send me a PM if you notice me first though!

[drogg]

Blue Line 1 - 0 Midnight Bleat Train

This was a match of shattered bleating beastmen. The Bleat Train left their armor at home, having 1 dead and 4 off with injuries by the half, and 1 KO'd. I recieved, and caged up in the center. things were starting to look scary, so I dodged the ball carrier free and tossed a long pass down field, but failed the catch. I was happy to advance the ball into a 1v1 situation. Right around here Drogg ran out of rerolls (this was turn 3 or 4) and things got ugly quick. We both attempted to bash in the scrum in the middle of the pitch while he had 2 beastmen closing in on the ball and I had 4 players converging. As his players were carried off the field, my 4 morons all took turns trying to pick up the ball to walk in a score, and failing miserably. For the match I was 2/8 on pickups and 0/5 on catches, and only attempted 1 pass. Someone greased the damn ball. The half ended with a tie game, but I had a big numbers advantage going into the 2nd half.

Droog formed up what was left of his team and I kicked it all the way to the back of the endzone. A high kick placed one of his beasties underneath it, who I swear smirked at me when he caught the ball. He advanced up into what Droog aptly called "sadcage." A CW with block popped the ball out the next turn. There was another scrum in the middle, but with his mino off to the side and my numbers, I had a big STR advantage. the 2d blocks began to pay off as more of his beastmen hit the turf, and eventually one of my chaos warriors scooped the ball and broke for the endzone. He reached about turn 12, and stalled. Droog was out of rerolls, and managed to inflict an injury with his Mino, but could not mount any pressure on the ball. I walked in a turn 16 score for the win.

Match Trivia! Droog's mino failed 5 wild animal checks, and they were ALL on attempted blocks or blitzes. 
Match Trivia 2! Running out of rerolls early and having no ball carriers on the field for either team led to the fastest 2 min turn match I've yet played. the whole thing was aybe 35 minutes. It was awesome.

I leveled a chaos warrior who promptly threw down a pair of sixes for +1 str. Not sure if Droog leveled anyone.

This round started okay, but then for some reason my new minotaur got so mad he couldn't even block and my beastmen decided the nice weather was an occasion to play "let's pretend to be halflings."  Seriously. Bann's guys don't have a single Mighty Blow and yet he somehow injured four guys in like three rounds    I did what I could second half to slow him down, but I was down to five or six brave goats by the end while my mino sulked on the ground.  Just carnage.

Also, yet again, my apothecary pulled off some sweet Dead -> Dead action.  Maybe I need a new one.

[lamaros]

Lesser Immortals win 3-0 after Hoax conceded early in the second half. I was up 1-0, had the ball, had half his team off the pitch and had already caused him to use both his apothecary and his wandering apothecary. I don't think he was enjoying the game much.

[Strazos]

Hmm, I have not heard from my opponent after PM. Haven't seen him online in days, and can no longer even see his name on my steam friends list...kind of at a loss.

[lamaros]

Also andy we need to play, when are you free this week?

[Ingmar]

I too need to play Andy!

[eldaec]

Apologies Strazos, looking almost impossible for me to get any time before the weekend. Will definitely be able to do the 23rd, but probably able to do better than that once things become clearer.

[Gruntle]

Ezrast and I tied 1-1, his Wrong Games vampires vs my Court of the Moon dark Elves.

Ezrast chose to receive, and I somehow managed to steal the ball away and score in my 7th turn. For the second half, Ezrast got a blitz and mirrored the first half by stealing the ball away and scoring on me also a turn before the whistle ended the game. I was irritated by twice failing GFIs just at the point I was about to hit on a blitz (both times losing a precious reroll to add annoyance to the turnover) and Ezrast was no doubt similarly beset by an unwelcome number of blood lusts. Plus there were some connection issues.

The game was uploaded to BB Manager if anyone wants to see it for some reason.

[lamaros]

Tried msging Andy on steam, no luck there.

[Megrim]

So, one day left to play, what's going on fellas? Who hasn't had their match yet?

[lamaros]

Andy is AWOL, he's only added three games to his ~850 total since the 15th.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

I seem to remember Steam telling me he was playing Civilization IV. So basically, he's doomed.

[eldaec]

I think we're missing 4 games plus the carryover.

My own availability has been zero this week until today - so I'm going to try in a moment, if coaches from the other games could give us an update on where we are that would be great.

[Ingmar]

Haven't heard from Andy, but I admit to slacking on trying hard to get ahold of him myself.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

I'm hoping we rollover soon, since I am out of town for 12 days as of Saturday, and it would be nice to squeeze in a game before I go. Either way I'll almost certainly miss at least one gameweek -- not sure if I can catch up after I return or if it makes more sense to just give me a default loss, I'll leave it to our wise commissioner to decide.

[Celer]

Stir Fry has defeated S.P.H.I.N.X. (SPHINX!) 1-0 on some rotter heroics.  It was about what you'd expect from a Nurgle on Khemri match.  I can't be assed to give a good description, but highlights included a failed skeleton handoff to score, a failed TG dodge to attempt to block said rotter heroics, and a fizzled fireball.  On the injury side, I got a TG with -AG (FIRED), and Stir Fry had a couple players die but only one was the TRUE DEATH.

[avaia]

Going into the game, I had a single level two dude with block.  I no longer have a level 2 dude.  Skeleton also managed a casualty on my beast, though the beast made the regen roll.

Game can be summed up by saying both teams were fairly chickenshit and they stared at each other from a couple of paces a good portion.  I mean... GREAT DEFENSE.

[Sky]

Sjofn and I missed each other a couple times over the weekend, I should be around tonight for a game.