The best player I ever had on fumbbl died recently, a gutter runner named Dandelion:

http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=player&op=view&player_id=3831377

A turn 16 foul and a failed apothecary did him in. I can't complain; for a great gutter runner to last for 96 games requires a phenomenal amount of luck.

It will certainly be easier to play the team without him; having a legend on the roster meant giving a ton of handicaps which lost me a lot of games.

So I'm not writing this blog to bemoan losing a great player. I'm writing about him because he was a great player in a way that most players aren't. When most coaches get a couple of doubles on a mutation access player, they take Claw/RSC and make a casualty machine, or on a gutter they take very long legs with their first double to make an OTS. But Dandelion was the rare gutter legend that was neither a scorer or a casualty maker (He did take claw at the end on his last skill for fun, but played almost all of his career without it). He was simply a player.

When I started my Skaven team I remember reading something Fanatic wrote--Take dauntless whenever you get doubles on a gutter because they are extraordinarly useful yet short lived. So Dandelion was the dauntless/horns gutter that lived a while. Coupled with leap and strip ball, he could knock the ball free from anybody. Teams had to change their entire strategy just to deal with him. Many a game he didn't have a single star player point but he won the game singlehandedly with a couple turnovers caused and turned into quick scores. He could cause a two die block anywhere on the field at any time. Impossible scores became possible. Sometimes I just left him out in the open on the field, knowing my opponent would try to blitz him down and foul him rather than doing the blitz they needed to make to slow up the ball.

Anyhow, my skaven team has become more reliable, but duller since Dandelion's death. It feels strange now playing a game where everything doesn't hang on a razor's edge.

Here's to leaping ball stripping gutter runners everywhere. Dandelion, rest in peace.