“A truly horrible game from my point of view, and clearly I was being punished for abandoning my wood elves and dallying with other races!

I haven't played this team for almost two years, and it really showed here. I couldn't decide if I wanted to stand and bash, or play the passing game, and so I ended up on my first drive doing a bit of both. The blocking on the LoS was going ok - mostly because the black orcs and blitzes were in the backfield - but because of that, my blitzes and catchers were taking a bit of a pounding. Nevertheless, after a couple of turns I was in a position to score. All I had to do was throw a short pass, catch it, and run it in. So of course I failed, it being intercepted by a black orc.

And that was it for the first half. Once Jinamero82 had hold of the ball he wasn't going to let go of it, or leave it unprotected. I still had a chance though, because one of my blitzes had strip ball and the orc thrower hadn't been set up on defence, so if I could just deal with the cage...

The strip baller was then BH. Then so was someone else - I don't remember who - and then a third. So now Jinamero82 could keep the ball in a demi-cage safe out of reach and still outnumber me back in the mess of centre field. So I kind of lost interest at this point and just hit a few orcs, took a few hits, and waited till the inevitable turn 8 TD.

And then did it all again. This time the orc thrower collected the ball, right in his own endzone, and the orcs proceeded up the field at four yards a turn while continuing their destruction of my useless remnants of a team. Possibly because Jinamero82 was bored by this point, or possibly because he thought there was more potential for further destruction if I had to set up again, he scored on turn 6 rather than turn 8, leaving my half-team with three turns to survive.

Oh well, at least I would get in at least one pass (hopefully).

Well not on the first attempt, as the thrower failed to pick-up, even with sure hands. And not on the second attempt, as the only available target failed to catch it. But finally, with the last act of the game, we managed to co-ordinate the throw and catch in the same turn.

In the grand scheme of things, losing the game wasn't such a big deal. No one suffered any permanent injuries, I got a bit more cash I don't really need at the moment, didn't lose any fans, etc, etc. But I suspect this is going to be a significant game for me in that it showed me once again why I only really play wood elves, and generally only play other elven/agility teams. It's because games like this a really, really, really dull. This is not a criticism of my opponent, who did exactly what I expected from a standard orc coach. He played slow in order to guarantee the win, he bashed a lot in order to guarantee some SPPs and reduce the threat from his opponent and he controlled the game. This is why he's in the top 250 coaches and I'm way down around 1400 somewhere.

So thank you, Jinamero82, for reminding me why I don't do this very often. From now on I think I'll return to the delights of my woodies and their epic passing game. It may not win me many matches, and it may result in a lot of dead players, but I would rather lose gloriously than lose tediously. Or even win tediously, for that matter.”