“Well, I was completely outplayed here, both as a team, and as a coach.

The first half began as usual when I receive - a quick strike to get a few targets downfield, get the thrower back with the ball and then make the pass on turn 2 to whichever target is the most likely to score - in this case it was the unskilled wardancer who made it to his first skill as a result.

The rest of the half was a long and slow defence. The dark elves played the cautious game, relying on their might blow and tackle to clear a path ahead of the ball carrier and kept as many players as possible close to the action, dodging when they needed to, but taking very few unnecessary risks. For a few turns it was touch and go, with the wood elves making a reasonable effort to slow the dark elf advance, but then I finally started to fail some armour rolls. Mostly it was KOs, but the thrower was BH.

With too few players - and several of them only St2 - the defending became more and more desperate and I wasn't getting the luck I was hoping for. As rug-thug was stalling, I had two or three chances to blitz the ball carrier, but even when I succeeded, I wasn't getting the dark elves off the pitch, and there were always plenty of them to recover the ball.

On my final turn I went for one last blitz. This required a lot of dodging into, and out of, tackle zones with a guard catcher, and then the same again with the tackling wardancer who had to leap into contact with the ball carrier with his last standard move and then go for it for the blitz. Sadly, he failed the gfi and then took a BH for his trouble. 1-1 at the half.

I was a man down for the second half (Arkells had lost their witch elf on the same turn I lost my thrower) and that quickly became two, and then three down as the mighty blow began to take its toll and the assassin proved remarkable adept at getting his pointy thing through the gaps in the wood elf armour. After three turns I was reduced to blitzing with the treeman until he was knocked over and refused to get up for a while.

Again, rug-thug went for the stall, happy enough to get the 2-1 win and try for a few more cas SPPs along the way. By turn 8 I was down to four on the pitch and this is what I had for my final turn - so there was never really going to be much hope of a one-turn score. For me the game ended the same way it had begun, with an unnecessary pass!

So, what did I learn today?

Well, for a start, I need more tackle. This has already been remedied because that's what the skilling-up wardancer took. Second, mighty blow was the death of me - not literally, thankfully - but AV7 is really flimsy. Even if the result is only KOs, being two, or three, men down is the difference between a successful defence and several turns of pain, especially when your opponent is in no hurry to score.

I rely too much on hoping my players don't fail their armour rolls when they get hit. I still play wood elves like they're humans and can take a beating. They can't.

I really hate stalling. Yes, I know it's a thing and playing in R is all about the win and the CR, but I've been beaten by plenty of coaches who don't stall. It's really not that hard. I would ask my future opponents who might be reading this to remember that it's really dull to be on the receiving end of a stalling offence - that's an offence that's choosing to stall, not one that has stalled - and the game should really be about both players having fun, surely? Please give it some thought.”