Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 26, 2010 15:45:24 GMT
The clock now says 19/16, and we've gone from being horribly out of position on one side of the field, to being horribly out of position ont he other side. On their turn the rats have caged around the thrower who scooped up the ball and he's made a smooth excchange of the ball to their now only remaining Gutter Runner.
The only advantage I have now is depth of positioning, because almost all of my players are down near my goalline. This seems to frighten the rats out of going for a straight quick score in favour of being more methodical. After building the cage and sorting out the ball, the rats on my left surrounding my heroic Witch decide to have a word with her - she dodges the first attempt to pan her face in, but her luck runs out on the second and she's shoved out of bounds, whereupon she suffers the same fate as the rat she dealt with the turn before as the crowd have one or two things they'd like to speak to her about.
Surveying my pieces on the field I start to move anyone who's disengaged over to the right, moving them further back to trade space for time. Brady is the first one over, then the Guy With Block follows with another lineman to former a loose "L" shape with a gap in the stem.
I start to try to move over others who are currently face to face with rats and manage the first one, to fill one space of gap left of the L, but the second one I try to move is tripped escaping from Rat central and falls flat on his boat, ending my turn.
As the Rats start to move on their turn it's very clear what they're going to try to do. They send forward a Stormvermin to start, (a Rat with block), and he smashes into the the corner of the "L", widening the gap and peeling away the support. Then a lineman moves to a supporting position and boom the Gutter Runner makes a break for it - he has a clear shot to the end zone and very easily has the range to get there as he has levelled up at some point during the league stage and is now even faster...
The Runner steps around a blocker, cuts inside one of my defenders and then aims for the gap I'd left in my "L" - I won't even get a turn before he scores; the only hope I have left is in passive defence - he'll have to go through the gap and through two tackle zones at once and roll against his -admittedly high - agility.
In he goes, unto the breach dear Rats, ducks under a forearm cleave from Brady and... WHOOPS! He trips over the Guiy With Block's leg, stumbles and splats down into the turf AND THE BALL IS LOOSE!
When we get to turn 21/16 the ball is still loose as the game has descended into a mix of the first day of the Somme and the last day of Vimy Ridge, with bodies broken and battered everywhere. At one point the ball is just laying on the ground, but I can't get to it because it's surrounded by a ring of crushed bodies... I'm now down to six players on the field while the Rats, who started with 15 have only seven... the ball has bounced around thanks to failed pick ups and some folks have just started ignoring it all together in favour of the fist fight they're engaged in.
Eventually we wedge open the wall of dead, one of the useless linemen scoops up the ball and hands it to Brady. Brady then employs the Brave Sir Robin tactic of RUN AWAY! and tries to find a bit of field that isn't blood soaked, so that he can try to form a cage and work some actual tactics into this farcical blood bath.
The Rats fail a couple of rolls now to get out of tackle zones which buys Brady some set up time and... suddenly... the numbers game shows me a totally open lane. I move a useless lineman right, out of the melee into open field, then swing Brady around out of the pocket on a scramble and get him as close as I can do... his passing skills extend to fumbling the ball backwards, but now he's going to have to try and throw it forwards for a change... I figure if the pass is dropped at least the ball will be on halfway and we can go back to fighting again.
Brady finds the gap, sidesteps to buy an unbroken line of sight to the free lineman, to lessen the chance of interception and... throws a perfect, simply beautiful spiral... it hits lineman in the hands and he's lumping off down the field as fast as his chubby legs will carry him.
Better yet, when a Rat manages to disengage and threatens to chase down the lineman, Brady steps in the way and flattens the rodent, sending him to hospital...
The lineman is away, stumbling and, allegedly, sprinting and...
I suppose I have to learn your name now.
Semi-Finals
Callous Drowboys 2-1 Rat au Vin
Chaos Engine 3-0 Northingham Forest
So it'll be me against the Chaos team in the final. I start working on a tactic where I kick off, then run all my players off toward the sideline and let Chaos score. Repeatedly.
I call it "Operation Have Some Players Survive So You're Not Fielding A Team Of Corpses In The Next Cup."
The only advantage I have now is depth of positioning, because almost all of my players are down near my goalline. This seems to frighten the rats out of going for a straight quick score in favour of being more methodical. After building the cage and sorting out the ball, the rats on my left surrounding my heroic Witch decide to have a word with her - she dodges the first attempt to pan her face in, but her luck runs out on the second and she's shoved out of bounds, whereupon she suffers the same fate as the rat she dealt with the turn before as the crowd have one or two things they'd like to speak to her about.
Surveying my pieces on the field I start to move anyone who's disengaged over to the right, moving them further back to trade space for time. Brady is the first one over, then the Guy With Block follows with another lineman to former a loose "L" shape with a gap in the stem.
I start to try to move over others who are currently face to face with rats and manage the first one, to fill one space of gap left of the L, but the second one I try to move is tripped escaping from Rat central and falls flat on his boat, ending my turn.
As the Rats start to move on their turn it's very clear what they're going to try to do. They send forward a Stormvermin to start, (a Rat with block), and he smashes into the the corner of the "L", widening the gap and peeling away the support. Then a lineman moves to a supporting position and boom the Gutter Runner makes a break for it - he has a clear shot to the end zone and very easily has the range to get there as he has levelled up at some point during the league stage and is now even faster...
The Runner steps around a blocker, cuts inside one of my defenders and then aims for the gap I'd left in my "L" - I won't even get a turn before he scores; the only hope I have left is in passive defence - he'll have to go through the gap and through two tackle zones at once and roll against his -admittedly high - agility.
In he goes, unto the breach dear Rats, ducks under a forearm cleave from Brady and... WHOOPS! He trips over the Guiy With Block's leg, stumbles and splats down into the turf AND THE BALL IS LOOSE!
When we get to turn 21/16 the ball is still loose as the game has descended into a mix of the first day of the Somme and the last day of Vimy Ridge, with bodies broken and battered everywhere. At one point the ball is just laying on the ground, but I can't get to it because it's surrounded by a ring of crushed bodies... I'm now down to six players on the field while the Rats, who started with 15 have only seven... the ball has bounced around thanks to failed pick ups and some folks have just started ignoring it all together in favour of the fist fight they're engaged in.
Eventually we wedge open the wall of dead, one of the useless linemen scoops up the ball and hands it to Brady. Brady then employs the Brave Sir Robin tactic of RUN AWAY! and tries to find a bit of field that isn't blood soaked, so that he can try to form a cage and work some actual tactics into this farcical blood bath.
The Rats fail a couple of rolls now to get out of tackle zones which buys Brady some set up time and... suddenly... the numbers game shows me a totally open lane. I move a useless lineman right, out of the melee into open field, then swing Brady around out of the pocket on a scramble and get him as close as I can do... his passing skills extend to fumbling the ball backwards, but now he's going to have to try and throw it forwards for a change... I figure if the pass is dropped at least the ball will be on halfway and we can go back to fighting again.
Brady finds the gap, sidesteps to buy an unbroken line of sight to the free lineman, to lessen the chance of interception and... throws a perfect, simply beautiful spiral... it hits lineman in the hands and he's lumping off down the field as fast as his chubby legs will carry him.
Better yet, when a Rat manages to disengage and threatens to chase down the lineman, Brady steps in the way and flattens the rodent, sending him to hospital...
The lineman is away, stumbling and, allegedly, sprinting and...
I suppose I have to learn your name now.
Semi-Finals
Callous Drowboys 2-1 Rat au Vin
Chaos Engine 3-0 Northingham Forest
So it'll be me against the Chaos team in the final. I start working on a tactic where I kick off, then run all my players off toward the sideline and let Chaos score. Repeatedly.
I call it "Operation Have Some Players Survive So You're Not Fielding A Team Of Corpses In The Next Cup."