“When it's this hot outside, clearly the only thing to do is stay inside and go on FUMBBL.

And play some vampires. They must hate the sunlight, right?

So I happily accepted Joost's offer of a game against his fairly new squad -only four vampires, and not a single skill on any of the thralls. The Vampires themselves looked like a challenge - one with a +ST and one with a +AG - so they were going to be able to run rings around me, assuming they didn't have a disaster from the point of view of failed blood lust.

Well, they didn't have a blood lust disaster. In fact, as far as I can remember, they didn't fail a single one until something like turn 6, so it was easy enough for them to waltz their way down the field and set themselves up for a final turn score. I did what I could to stop them, targeting the thralls and putting my players in the way whenever possible so that if nothing else, Joost was going to have to roll more dice than he would have liked...even vampires roll double ones sometimes!

And it didn't help that the tree failed his very first take root roll and was useless for the entire half. A few squished thralls would have possibly affected the outcome (and it would certainly have made me smile), but it wasn't to be. The Ballers scored a comfortable TD on their turn 8, leaving me to try the one-turner for the draw.

A pitch invasion nearly put paid to the attempt before it started, but actually, it ended up working in my favour. One player from each team went down in the crush, and although mine was an unnecessary lineman, Joost's was one of the vampires in his back line, so that there was now a nice convenient space for me to dodge in and out of on the way to the endzone. And the rest of the turn worked perfectly. The three blocks, the pass and catch, the three go for its, all without even needing to use a reroll.

After the reset I finally got to play a bit of proper offence... oh no, wait, the kick-off result was a blitz. So after a bit of messing about to get the ball free of TZs, THEN I got to play some proper offence. I was too cautious to go for an unnecessarily long pass, and having so many of my players tied up on the LoS left the poor catcher all on his own against a thrall and the ST5 vampire for the blitz, and the AG5 vampire for the recovery.

Well, he survived the blitz, so at the start of my turn there he was, pressed up against the sideline with two vampires and a thrall on his other side. There was no way I could get anyone down to assist, so it came down to dice...4+ dodge, 3+ dodge, 2+ dodge, and there was nothing Joost could do but watch.

The Ballers' second offensive drive was much the same as their first, except that this time they also had to contend with the tree...until he fell over. I really must learn how break tackle actually works, because sometimes he can charge through opponents as if they're not there, and sometimes (like today) I break tackle and it tells me I failed the dodge and need to roll a 10+ to succeed.

Anyway, stupid play aside, I did what I could to slow down the vampires until it became clear Joost was going for the safe draw, rather than risk giving the ball back to the wood elves and letting them run in another quick score. On my final turn, I threw everything I had left at the clump of Ballers outside my endzone, but really, it was looking like an easy score for the vamps...

Until the dice finally decided to abandon Joost. He failed a blood lust, which made things a little awkward, then he only managed a pushback on the block to free up the ball carrier, then he fumbled the quick pass to the waiting vampire, and in the end it all came down to his final reroll.

So an exciting end to a fun game. There was surprisingly little damage to either team - for my part, because the tree was behaving like a tree for the first half - and it was only right at the end of the match that I managed to get anyone off the field, first when the tree finally remembered how to bash and BH a vampire and then when I seriously injured one of my own linemen on a dodge.

I was happy enough with the result - Thursdaynight picked up the MVP along with his cas, I won back some fans, and just enough cash to be able to afford a second wardancer to go with the one who had missed this match through injury. And I'm assuming Joost was also happy with the result as he also won some fans, and a lot of cash, and his ST5 vampire is now a ST6 vampire (so basically a tree with a lot more move).

Nice.”