“I'm not that good a Bloodbowl player. I know, this will come as no surprise to most of you - especially those of you who have played against me - but the fact is, I love this game too much to play it to win. Okay, I'll rephrase that. I love playing this game the way I do too much to bother changing my strategy simply because my strategy doesn't win me many games. I've always said, I would rather lose 4-3 (oh look, how convenient) after an exciting game full of long bombs and daring plays than to win 1-0 after a grind-a-thon. This is my life we're talking about here, my free time. LOTS of my free time. So I'm going to make sure I enjoy what I'm doing in it.

The fact is, the game being what it is, the passing game is not designed to win you many games. Either you score quickly as a result - which gives the ball to your opponent - or you mess up any one of the several things that can go wrong with an attempt - which gives the ball to your opponent. People who want to win games rarely throw long passes, let alone long bombs, except where they absolutely have to for the win. Mostly it's quick passes for SPP or the occasional short pass to get the ball safely into the middle of that nice cage they've just set up.

Anyway, the reason I'm telling you all this is because Malmir is not a player who likes to lose very often. Actually, I don't know that for sure. He may or may not like it, but the point is, he doesn't do it very often. At the start of this game my Coach Standing was 1345, his was 6 (and now it's 5). He was going to win this one. I could tell.

But actually, the first half was not the one-sided affair I was expecting and by the end of it I'd scored twice. The first was one of those lovely long bombs from the line of scrimmage right across my opponent's half of the pitch to a receiver waiting in the endzone. As you're unlikely to ever try anything that pointless yourself, let me tell you, they are incredibly satisfying.

The second score was as a result of a lucky blitz from the tree, who had to go for it twice, breaking a tackle along the way, before he knocked the ball carrier to the ground. My thrower was there for a sneaky pass downfield to a waiting wardancer and he ran all the way down to just this side of the line before pausing to debate whether or not to go for it for the score, even though some cunning goblin had greased his shoes. Should I? Shouldn't I?...

In the end, I went for it on the grounds that rolling a 5+ was much more likely than surviving a turn against the various tacklers and strip-ballers waiting for me to chicken out. I went for it. I scored.

So at the half I was quite pleased with my performance and I was in a fairly comfortable position, receiving the kick and with most players still on the pitch.

Blitz. Score for the High Elves. Reset.

That was annoying. It kind of took the game away from me, and although I have no right to complain because I did exactly the same thing to my opponent in my previous match, I'm going to anyway. Blitz sucks. It's horrible. I never set up expecting it, so when it comes it's always devastating. Even where the opponent can't get to the ball, it generally messes up the offence and stops me getting in a cheeky long pass for bonus yards. Anyway, moving on...

A bit later into the half I tried another long bomb from my side of the field, but this time I fumbled it. I forget exactly what happened after that. Either I recovered it and scored, or else Malmir recovered it and scored. Either way, someone scored. I suspect it was me because I distinctly remember Malmir scoring again on his turn 8, and that was from a deep pass (not my type of deep pass, you understand, but reasonably deep).

So there you have it. The guy who always wins won. The guy who always throws long bombs threw some long bombs. Much scoring was done and much fun was had by all (unless I'm mistaken and Malmir absolutely hates winning, in which case he's doing something seriously wrong!). No one died. The sun was shining in though the window. I ate an entire packet of Cadbury's eclairs...

Good times.”