“The final (round 9) of FUMBBL Cup X and the eighth actual game for both teams.

I had 150k to spend before this game and agonized quite bit what to spend it on. I knew my opponent would be getting 250k in inducements anyway, which he would most likely spend on a wizard and a bribe. My choices were essentially 50k for a babe, 100k for two babes (or a bribe) and a babe for my opponent, or 150k for a wizard and 100k for my opponent. Although the babe(s) were enticing, I figured the wizard could be instrumental in stopping my opponent's ST 4 blodge elf.

Although I had been lucky with the coin tosses previously in the tournament, this time I lost it, giving lepazuri the chance to get a leg up in the casualty/KO race. Luckily, the pact's first turn was underwhelming, with only a KO on a block beastman. On my first turn, Jill took out one of the pact's two DPs (KO) and a foul stunned the pact's legend clawbomber. At this point in the game, I wasn't too worried about positioning to prevent a TD, but rather to protect my key players and hit and foul his. As a result, lepazuri was able to advance freely down one flank, but this left me with the chance to foul another of his clawbombers (BH apoed). The first chaos casualty came on turn 3 when John Casey, a block/guard CW took a -ST. I thought about apoing this for a moment, but decided that the long term consequences didn't matter and that I would prefer to use the apo on a BH on a key player.

On turn 3, I decided to finally engage lepazuri's screen. Although he had an advantage in players (9-8), his team was divided in half, which I hoped would force him to score early. However, he backtracked smartly, and managed to screen his elf behind a solid screen, leaving me only a risky 1d blitz without tackle. At this point I decided to throw caution to the wind, using the wizard to take down lepazuri's ball carrier and getting the ball free. My thinking was that I could pick up the ball with my free MA 8, AG 4 beastman, pass it to a chaos warrior, and start running towards the end zone. This would give me a decent chance to score a TD and most importantly make it very difficult for the pact to score. However, I rolled snakes on the 3+ pass, which gave the pact on easy surf on my AG 4 beastman and a DP gangfoul on Jill (BH, apothed).

With only 5 players against 9 on my turn 5, things looked grim. However, lepazuri had made a slight mistake and left me a possible route to his ball carrier. My other legend clawbomber with tackle, Stephen, blitzed the elf, took him down after a reroll, and managed a BH (apothed)! With the elf out of the picture, stopping the pact TD was now a very real possibility, especially after I managed to pick up the ball with a chaos warrior. Lepazuri didn't manage to get my ball carrier down, but a failed dodge and a throw-in towards my end zone made things tricky for me for the last two turns. The remaining pact DP managed to pick up the ball on turn 7, but failed a 3+ dodge, knocking himself out in the process. There was no time for anything but trying to inflict some late KOs/casualties at the end of the half; however, only the pact ogre was KO'ed.

The second half started with a full 11-player squad on each side. We both had our most important players, but lepazuri was missing both his DPs and an ogre, making his fouling game much less dangerous. The first turn of this half was nothing special either, with only a rookie marauder KO'ed. Lepazuri answered by badly hurting my guard chaos warrior, but his foul on Jill (1 assist) didn't break armor. In return, I got a great turn with two casualties on his rookie marauders, and as icing on the cake, Jill killed the opposing legend clawbomber.

With 10 players against 7 and the pact starting their second turn, I was beginning to feel confident about the half. However, Nuffle still had a surprise up his sleeve. A pact fireball took down 3 out of 4 players, niggling my leader beastman. Lepazuri also got another KO, opening the way to blitz my ball carrier, who was promptly KO'ed herself. This left the ball on the ground and me in a tricky position with 7 players against 7 and the elf looking to steal the ball if given a chance. Fortunately, I KO'ed another clawbomber, and most importantly, pick up the ball with my ST 4 beastman. Unfortunately, protecting the ball was out of the question, leaving lepazuri an easy job getting the ball loose again. However, the scatter was favorable to me, and the pact just had to make too many rolls trying to pick up the ball.

My fourth turn was now crucial. My ST 5 CW KO'ed another player, the ST 4 beastman picked up the ball, and finally, my ST 2 DP made a 3+ and a 2+ gfi to foul the ST 4 elf and got him out of the pitch with a KO. With only 4 players against my 7, lepazuri was essentially out of chances to stop my TD. I spent the rest of the half trying to hurt his players and did manage to kill another marauder. However, 2 fouls on the troll yielded no result, leaving lepazuri a chance to tie the game with TTM. However, the pact couldn't equal their spectacular one-turn touchdown in the semis, and the goblin crashed down when trying to land with the ball. This ended the game with a score of 1-0 for chaos.

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Thanks for the very exciting game, lepazuri! This could have easily turned out differently and things did look bad for me after I used my wizard but failed to steal the ball in the first half. However, I had the luck when I needed it and I was especially fortunate to take out your elf on both halves as soon as I had the chance. Congrats on a well-played game and tournament, and kudos for being the first coach to take chaos pact this far!”