“FUMBBL Smack Scheduled - Brawl 53 Round 2:
With the inducements giving two 4 strength dauntless players and a wizard, combined with our opponents plethora of Guards, we felt like this would be a tough match.

We received, and managed to secure the ball on turn 2. Our Tomb Guardians were being ganged up on by those Guard-filled blockers, keeping them at bay. Our skeletons were well, for some odd reason, but it didn't really help us much.

Our opponents turned down an opportunity to surf our best Blitz-Ra, which allowed for us to somewhat recover positioning. Our positioning forced a wizard fireball which stunned a skeleton and injured a Tomb Guardian (regenerated), but did leave our ball carrier potentially vulnerable to a blitz, and greatly weaked our position tactically. A sudden KO on our other blitz-ra created a one-turn turn-around which saw 2 of our best players taken off the pitch and leaving our ball-carrier very exposed.

A nice blitz-frenzy allowed our ball carrier to potentially dodge away (a knock down would have meant a free walk...). We dodged away but unfortunately had no where to go but backwards. A 1BD attempt to possibly protect him resulted in a skull.

The dwarves managed to tackle our ball carrier but fend kept them out of reach, we managed to KO the tackler and scoop up the loose ball, but were left heavily exposed... A zara stab attempt failed, which gave us some hope to avoid a defensive score. We managed to dodge away, GFI twice and punt the ball into their end. Not very far, but possibly far enough to prevent a defensive score... Mugoth decided to take matters into his own hands and ensure that by dodging twice, into a TZ and out without needing the dodge skull or a RR, picking up the ball and pressing it deep enough to make a TD attempt very difficult. We entered the half 0-0, which was a quite remarkable feat on our part.

We kicked deep, and the sun came out. After a failed pickup, we tried to double-down on the weather figuring it would be hard for the dwarves to pass in the sun. We overloaded that side. He looped to the other side but our dodging Tomb Guardians allowed for us to get a 2BD hit on the ball carrier but we were unable to bring him down.

We manged to dodge back and get a 2 BD on the ball carrier, knocking him down and injuring him. Apoth patched him up. But, it allowed us to prevent the score and force OT. Heading into OT, we just barely escaped giving up two scores in each half.

We received to start OT! Thanks to some great regeneration rolls, we had our full team. We were able to field the kick off directly and control the flow of play. We put ourselves in a good place being able to protect the ball, lock up most of their key players with our two tackles nearby their 4 agility blodge runner. They rolled block/skulls RR double skulls to use their last RR, but regardless, we were in a tremendous position. The double skulls was the straw that broke the camel's back, as we were able to walk-in for the TD.

Overall, our regeneration rolls kept hope alive, but our defensive play allowed for us to barely escape giving up scores in each of the first two halves which allowed for us to live long enough for the return of our regen players and finish things off in OT.”