“When the necromancer controlling the Brainpool zombies proposed a game versus the Sarawaks, the Lizardmen were truth to tell on the lookout for a friendly not-so-intense match. This mainly because they already were a couple of skinks short, Sstrith'l and Sshripp't nursing their broken jaw and collarbone, respectively.

It was very refreshing to meet a necromancer who stuck to animating regular walking corpses, as opposed to the kind who drags all sorts of non-necromancy into the mix - stitched-together biological automatons, canine-hominid hybrids, warped cannibals and the like.

This match was much dominated by Daring Dan, a zombie most unnaturally strong. Rumors abounded among the Sarawaks' coaching

staff that Daring Dan had been taking performance enhancing substances prior to the match. However, the referee simply ignored this when confronted with the rumor.

The first drive of the zombies started with an unusually effective blocking series at the line of scrimmage, particularly Ssuarh seemed for a minute to be fatally injured. As the Old Ones would have it, the skink shaman was able to revive the Saurus, and he continued to play throughout the match.

Add to this that Ssorgh, during his initial blitz, simply didn't see in the tumults that arose the foot of Hard Hank, and thus he stumbled into the arms of Keen Karl, who with one hit beat the air out of the unprepared Saurus.

Thus, when ball-carrying Daring Dan at last fell down in a well orchestrated but clumsily executed blitz on Saurus Ssrah, Keen Karl managed to grab the ball in the confusion. The zombie stood its ground for some time as Lizards and Zombies fought to get close to it, and it even dodged away from Ssrah in a well-rehearsed move, but was at last blitzed down by skinks Sstythil and Sshakk't.

The latter scuttered between the legs of Daring Dan and Insane Igor, recovered the loose ball and went deep into the defensive backfield. Creepy Caleb followed him there, but was cut down from behind in another nice blitz play by the skink duo. The concluding rush and nimble handoff before the dead eyes of Karl was performed exactly as planned in the playbook, and was rewarded with a touchdown by Sslither.

The following zombie drive was pretty much botched by an unusually inept pickup attempt by Dan, and the halfback soon had company by Lizardmen running through a hole, although Keen Karl and Brutal Bob caught hold of Sskwizz't as he was trying to run between the two of them and brought him down hard enough to prevent him from playing the rest of the match.

Agile Sstythil managed to zigzag between the zombies and duck away from their claws, thereby picking up the ball and rushing to the second touchdown, but with only one pace to go he didn't have the stamina to outrun the well-trained Creepy Caleb, and went tumbling with the ball on the loose. Surprisingly, Caleb neglected to try and pick up the ball himself, which made it easier for Sstythil to get back up on his legs, fool the zombie to hit thin air, pick up the ball and step over the end line to score.

(Before this, Ssrikk't managed to bring down Anemic Al with him in a block conducted by the zombie, who fell awkwardly and was unable to continue playing even after reanimation attempts by its head coach.)

Second half started somewhat unexpectedly in that the the ball not only was kicked straight into the claws of Ssuarh, one of the Sauri on the line of scrimmage - but the Saurus held on to it, to boot! Unfortunately, in another show of expert blocking by the zombie trio of Karl, Igor and Hard Hank, debuting Saurus Ssawrh who was guarding the left flank was overwhelmed and had to walk to the dugout where it was established his ribs had cracked, and he need some time to recover. It then became evident that the wide pocket improvised by the Lizards left much to be desired. When Daring Dan and Brutal Bob knocked Ssrah out in a blitz, it allowed the super strong zombie Dan to move next to ball-carrying Ssuarh.

In addition, Ssuarh reported after the game that Sshakk't actually was already down on the grass when he was held down by Elf-like Earl while Loony Lars slid back the skink's skull-helmet and rammed his elbow into Sshakk't's head, knocking him out cold. Certainly Lars deserved his ban when the referee observed him pinching Ssrik't in the calf later in the drive. The skink refused to play anymore, claiming his feelings had been badly hurt. What the necromancer was arguing with the referee about is beyond comprehension.

It's possible the score could have been different, had not Ssuarh misjudged Dan's strength when he tried to blitz him single-handedly - the zombie was simply too strong and brought the big Saurus down in an embarrassing position. Had he called for assists (at least one team mate was free), he would surely have succeeded, and perhaps he could even have outrun the zombies. As it were, Daring Dan easily brushed away the defending skinks and recovered the ball himself, rushing in to a reducing touchdown with only four Lizards left on the gridiron.

The last drive was perhaps an even more entertaining one - after receiving a touchback from the kickoff, the Sarawaks' coach decided nimbleness would be more important than force since the lizards at that point were almoust outnumbered two to one, so Sstythil started with the ball. This might have been a mistake, since both the skinks on the line of scrimmage were better placed to rush the ball deep into the backfield with only minimal blocking and dodging required. The blocking did fail anyway, but Ssorgh should nevertheless have blitzed his way away from the zombie markers instead of remaining on the line of scrimmage.

He neglected to follow up his block, though, and that left two zombie receivers freely screening Sstythil. Imagine that - a zombie screen. Sstythil dodged well past Elf-like Earl and got as far as to cross the line of scrimmage. However, he had to remain unguarded as his sole would-be protector Sslither was too exhausted from playing all the match to run the whole distance to his spawn-mate, he fell at the last yard, badly hurting his knees.

Sstythil was therefore promptly taken down by Jolly Jeb with some help from Hank, and in an absolutely stunning display of undead ball competence, Elf-like Earl not only <i>picked up</i> the ball, he then made a <i>precise</i> short pass which was <i>caught</i> by Creepy Caleb. That corpse sure does deserve its nickname!

Despite this, the Sarawaks did manage to mark Caleb with a skink and a Saurus, but to no avail - the zombie blitzed <i>and</i> dodged his way to the tying touchdown at the last minute.

The Sarawaks coach was very pleased that this game resulted in no permanent injuries again, especially considering that half the team was in the dead&injured section of the dugout at full time.

We are grateful to the kind necromancer providing us with sparring partners in this friendly no-holds-barred match. It was very entercational and edutaining. And fun.”