“CIBBL+ Y1, Spring - BWM4: round 4:

In the fourth round of this spring season, the Archivists faced Flaya Mush' Squad, a collection of specimens gathered from some deep underground caverns. After last game's victory, the sea elves eagerly took to the pitch, but when they fully realized who - or rather - what their opponents were, some players started looking at one another uncertainly. The Squad counted several monstrosities in their ranks, some even more savage than others. "Amanar's tail!", Lyndon the Seafarer exclaimed. "These creatures can't be allowed on the pitch, for sure", he continued. But the match had already been planned for since weeks. Besides, other teams had faced the Squad before, and those games had been judged as legal, so this one would be too.

Realizing that his objections wouldn't do much good, Lyndon started focusing instead on the coaching of his Archivists. "Keep hitting the small ones", the coach instructed his players. "Hit those goblins until they go down. And stay away from the big ones", he continued. "And don't forget the ball", he shouted when his players started choosing positions. The Archivists had won the coin toss and opted to receive. The opposition had brought some rough fans to the stadium. They seemed to have difficulties to contain themselves. What started with cheering and shouting changed into pushing and pulling and eventually degraded into shouting obscenities and curses. When the referee finally blew his whistle, the crowd took it as a sign of encouragement. A particularly uncouth supporter decided to grab his neighbour, a gaggling goblin, and launched it on the pitch. The goblin was aimed at an elf on the line of scrimmage, but fell short of his mark and crashed instead into one of the monstrosities of the Squad. The cave squig didn't see it coming and got knocked out of the game.

The Archivists used the confusion to throw in a few blocks, but without much effect. Not sure how to deal with their opponents, the elves slowly moved forwards, all the while trying to hit some goblins and to stay clear of the hopping monstrosities. After a few turns though, the Archivists' advance slowed. Varadis ran into a close encounter with one of the gigantic mouths, his game was over. Things were not exactly going as planned. The heavy armour didn't provide much protection against the squigs, but it did slow down the elves. The goblins kept escaping and the drive was going nowhere. Time for a change of plan, Ethandril must have been thinking. After Caoran had created an opening, the catcher carrying the ball grabbed the opportunity, pushed through and sprinted towards the endline: touchdown and 1-0 with three turns to go.

This left the Squad 3 turns to equalize before halftime. Although the majority of the monstrosities didn't even dispose of the required limbs to carry the ball, the Archivists soon learned that there was one notable exception. Only now the elves seemed to realize that one of the beasts actually carried a rider on its back! Even though the gaggling goblin riding the squig focused all his attention on controlling his mount, he still somehow managed to accept the ball from a teammate and decided to charge forwards, taking down Aerys and pushing through the hole in the defense. The flabbergasted elves were frozen on the spot. Before they realized what had just happened, another three goblins had managed to dodge through the hole. Maelwyn and Caoran ran after the escaped squig hopper, but couldn't do more than applying a tackle zone, which wasn't enough to prevent the equalizer: 1-1 at halftime.

The second half started with a cave squig taking down Feldor, who landed a punch himself on the squig's snouth. Both players went down. The Archivists smelled an opportunity now that the opposition had suffered an early turnover. Lyndon urged his players forward. The heavy armor slowed them down though. No sea elf was able to approach the ball that had landed deep in the Squad's backfield. Despite the earlier setback, the Squad managed to recover the ball, regroup and reposition. Meanwhile the Archivists tried to knock out some goblins, but met with limited success. "Time for a change of plans", Lyndon muttered to himself. "Forget about those goblins, put pressure on the ball and let that armor shine!", the sea elves' coach encouraged his players. That was easier said than done though. It wasn't without risk either, as Caoran experienced when he was surfed into the crowd a turn later. The cheering crowd welcomed him with some kicks and punches, but no harm was done. Korvan also risked a close encounter with the Squad's fans in the tribune, but narrowly escaped when a cave squig's legs proved a little too short to pull of another surf, instead unceremoniously crashing into the turf right in front of the Archivist's blocker's surprised face. The risky play had paid off though. The Squad's advance had been brought to a standstill. By the end of the game, the Archivists even had some shots on the ball (-2d), but couldn't knock it loose. The score remained unchanged.

Another draw for the Archivists!

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