2013/04/22 - Season 2 - Match 21 (1740TV) vs. Cueball - Carrick Vermin - Skaven (2340TV)
Week 5
I took Morg and a wizard as intended. The wizard was worth its weight in gold but Morg... well, he was useful enough I suppose.
I won the toss and elected to kick, setting up in my standard zig with the bulls on the wings, Morg one step back and three dwarves on the line. He stacked heavily to my left with his two storm vermin and a few friends on the line.
The kick was short and central, landing just one step behind the line and the kick off table came up with a blitz. I considered stepping up to the rats and crowding him but decided to hold back since he would have been able to disengage easly and I wouldn't be able to respond.
Instead all I did was ran Phobos (Block, BT, MB bull) around the back (blitzing a hapless linerat along the way) to stand next to the square where the ball would land. The scatter was very favourable and left the ball in Phobos' tackle zone.
Que started out by beating on my LOS, stunning Tuff (claw, MB dwarf) with his claw storm vermin and leaving the rest on their back. He then blitzed Hephaestus (+Ag, block, tackle bull) with his rat ogre on the wing before fluffing the pickup with his Ag5 gutter runner. The ball scattered next to three of his players so I couldn't pick it up directly but instead blitzed with Phobos to keep him on the ball. I also managed a hit on a linerat, leaving him badly hurt. Once again Que pounded the LOS and blitzed Haephaestus with the rat ogre and fluffed the pickup with his Ag5 gutter runner... and once again it remained in tackle zones and I had to be content with leaving Phobos standing next to it. By this time he had pushed his one turner through into my half and I had moved Soot (wrestle, fend hobgob) back to cover him. This time his turn worked out for him. His claw storm vermin took another shot at Tuff, breaking his armour easily... and killing him. I deliberated briefly on whether the use the poth and decided to go for it, lightening the injury to a smashed ankle. He finally managed his 2+ pickup, dodged away from the marker and switched to the right hand side, which I had left a little undermanned due to the fight in the center. He hadn't managed to outdistance Phobos though and the bull came thundering in for the blitz, rolling a skull and both down (no help since the rat had block) and used a reroll but the result didnt change and I had to be content with marking him. I also disengaged as many players as I could and sent them back to defend. Que did some hitting but didn't waste time, tossing the ball to the receiver and scrabbling over the line to score.
4 turns in... 1-0 to the rats. Pretty standard so far.
He set narrow and shallow with the rat ogre a few steps back for the blitz. I set wide across the front with propper cover in the wings and my receiving pair back. The kick off table came up changing weather, which pushed the already long scatter off the board, giving me a touchback, which I awarded to Cinder (blodge hobgob). I bashed his line without doing any damage, used Morg to blitz the rat ogre (no armour break) and moved the ball up into a loose cage. At this point I was very grateful for the lack of leap/strip ball/dauntless gutter runner! He formed up into a standard cage stalling position with stacks of two. I stepped forward and started making plans to break up the left with Hephaestus in the next turn (since I only had 2 turns left to score). Then he pulled one of the ballsiest moves I've seen. Hephaestus was standing one square in from the side line with a guard dwarf standing a square in and up field for protection against the wild animal. Oh how naieve I was. The rat ogre dodged through the gap between them into two tackle zones and blitzed the bull, pushing him and pushing him again, leaving him to the mercy of the crowd (KO)... okay, plan B! Fortunately he had broken his formation and given me a lot to hit. I KOed one rat and stunned three more (including his mighty claw). I then broke Cinder and Phobos through the hole it made and up field. Of course this is skaven we're talking about, so even with heavy marking there was no way of preventing him from covering me. This he did but he couldn't close me off entirely and I was only 1 dodge (with a reroll) away from the line. Then the rat ogre struck again, dodging into two tackle zones to make the blitz, knocking the ball carrier out. His +Ag gutter runner came sweeping in to clean up but fluffed the pickup with a reroll for the third time in the half, Phobos failed to catch the scattered ball but failed and it landed favourably for me, in space between him and the line. My last hope of equalising was a St 4 break tackle, an Ag 2 pickup and a dash for the line (70% chance with the reroll). Sadly the rush ended early as the break tackle came up snake eyes and we went into half time with him 1-0 up.
Half Time.
None of the KOs came back, leaving me short of three key players: Tuff (claw, MB dwarf - injured), Hephaestus (Ag 3 bull - KO) and Cinder (Blodge hobgob - KO) and with only 10 players on the pitch!
Our setups were almost identical to the previous drive, except that I was down one receiver and had to substitute Soot (wrestle fend hobgob) for Hephaestus on one wing. The kick off table came up Throw a Rock, which stunned one of the dwarves on the line. I hit the line as I did the previous drive and KOed a linerat. This time however I chose to blitz the claw storm vermin with Gneissose (guard, MB dwarf), smashing the rat's collar bone (a career ending injury). Que quickly used the apothecary though and reduced it to MNG. He responded by blitzing Soot with the rat ogre, smashing his ankle and putting him out for the game. What followed was an out and out brawl in the center. It has to be said that the fight went his way and before it was resolved he had knocked out Basalt (guard, MB, SF dwarf) and badly hurt Schist (virgin hobgob) and Slag (+St, MB, Guard dwarf) while I only managed to remove a single player that player. Okay, the player happened to be his star defensive gutter runner, Mcquillian Jnr Squeak (Block, guard, DT, SS, prehensile tail)... and the injury happened to be death... but it was still only one player down. The lack of players eventually took its toll and in turn 14 I was forced to make another desperate push up the field with Chert and Phobos. Once again he covered and blitzed the ball carrier, this time however his one turner was standing in the right spot and caught the scatter... so I hit him with a lightning bolt.
As luck would have it the ball scattered free. Phobos blitzed off one of his markers to make some space, picked up the ball and scored. Whew... that was a LOT closer than I would have liked.
1-1 two turns to play!
Once again the KO dice went against me and I had only 7 players to set up (including 1 bull and 3 dwarves) for the last drive!
There was simply no way that I could defend against a full strength skaven onslaught with those players and he pulled off a slick and efficient 2 turn score to put him up 2-1 at full time.
Sho, that was a tense and frustrating game. I just couldn't get the upper hand where I needed it... numbers and it wasn't a very pleasent experience watching dwarf after dwarf having their armour broken, especially after using the poth so early. The stand out player was definately that rat ogre... here are his stats for the game: 5/5 dodges, 4/4 GFI, 14/14 wild animals, 1/1 loner, 11/17 blocks - 2 stuns, 3 KO, 2 Cas. That is a mighty performance! Compare that to the poor Ag 5 gutter runner that only succeeded 1/7 pickups!
---
No skill ups in this game... but two brand new injuries. -MV on Tuff (claw, MB dwarf) and -MV on Soot (wrestle, fend hobgob). I'm not thrilled about either but they could be worse. I'm not going to fire either of them just yet but I may consider it in the future, especially after I've trained a couple of replacements.
In other news I'm strongly considering getting my hands on that minotaur. I've been holding off because I'm nervous of what that wild animal is going to do to my structural game, but I think that now might be the time to find out. I've been getting pretty frustrated with the team over the last few games. They defend like monsters and I've conceded amonst the fewest TDs in the league (5 in 8 games) but they just feel stogy on offense. Obviously a mino isn't going fix that directly but I'm hoping that he'll add something new to the team and get the juices flowing again... and hey, if I don't like him... I'll get rid of him. I've got more cash than I know what to do with at the moment after all.