“Smack Scheduled - Brawl XVII: final.

Against incredible odds Gilgorod's Tribe won the tournament when facing one of Fumbbl's deadliest teams. Due to a large bench some players managed to stay on the pitch until the end of the game. An incredible break-out of a lone star blitzer sealed the game, allthough it remained tense until the very end.

Despite the fact that Excellence of Execution! won the coin toss and chose to receive in the first half, the game started a little slow with little or no casualties/ko's. We hoped to slow down the grind with the help of high strength and lots of guard, but it's hard to stop the horns of a beastman on the blitz. And Chaos had some guard too, obviously. Finally we lost our first man only by four turn (ko), swiflty followed by a lucky badly hurt on a st4 blitzer after a -2d block pow/pow! Things accelerated fast though, and by the start of my turn 5 I only had 6 players left on the pitch. Meanwhile I already had snaked twice on a gfi, which wasn't helping me either. The grind went on until turn 8 when the 1-0 lead was put on the board. The Orcs tried a one-turner to equalize before half-time, but the effort stranded when the goblin landed badly after being thrown by mighty Zamondak and knocked himself out in the process.

Due to a large bench we still had 11 players to field for the second half, which started with a Blitz!, reducing mauling opportunities for the Tribe and put pressure on the ball early on. We had to switch to another plan, and tried to force an early breakthrough after a pass. The plan worked - including the gfi's this time - and we had to option to stall a little or score in the second turn. Although it included a hand-off and a gfi we opted for the latter; better to score when you can, I guess. This meant 1-1 with almost a full half left to play.

This time the Orcs received a Blitz! on kick-off after a very interesting kick with the ball landing on the line of scrimmage, but on a weakly defended wing. We managed to remove the sole defender and caught the ball while defending the ballcarrier at the same time. Now things looked interesting indeed. Next turn however I played poorly and followed up with the ballcarrier after a blitz when I shouldn't have. As a result I lost the ball next turn as well as two players. Meanwhile chaos claws continued mauling orc flesh and numbers were dropping fast. The ag4 blodge beastman picked up the ball and things started to look hopeless. Over to plan C; running in the troll - who was free after a failed dodge of an opposing beastman - for an assist with two gfi's and blitzing the ballcarrier after a 4+ and a 3+ dodge. The plan worked and freed up the ball, but did not much more than that. The gobbo tried to sneak in but failed the pick-up. This pushed the ball in the public however, which threw it back deep on the opposition's side of the field, which was pretty much empty. Chaos continued doing its thing, further reducing my numbers to 5 - leaving a troll, three linemen and a st4 blitzer on the field.

This blitzer played the game of his life. After having kicked free the ball last turn, he repeated the same trick after another 4+ and 3+ dodge as well as a gfi. And he injured the ballcarrying beastman as a cherry on the cake. He was blitzed next turn, but only pushed back. Next turn he worked some more elven magic - all without a reroll - by -2d blitzing his way free after rolling a pushback, followed by a 3+dodge, a successful pick-up and a final gfi for the touchdown. Gotta love your green elves!

After this incredible touchdown against all odds, there were still 2 turns left to play. This increased to three turns with a Riot on the kick-off. Seven orcs had to pull themselves together to stop 9 chaos players who pushed heavily for the equalizer. A double skull in the last turn ate a reroll, leaving no more team reroll to correct the failed catch!

After all that madness Gilgorod's Tribe managed to win their first tournament and went crazy celebrating it! Thanks Nuffle and may many more follow!
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