“
Things didn’t look particularly great for SlaughterHouse5000 before the match, an ageing and perhaps overconfident team with a prissy looking troll picking boogers milled around the locker room.

“Buck! Slasher Beta! Commere a minnit!” shouted the head coach. “We’ve got a special play for you two, designed to give us our best chance at winning.”

“Great!” Roared Buck. “You know me coach! Always willing to lend a hoof!”

“It’s called ‘Handicap Denial.’ We can’t have these Dark Elves getting all uppity on us just cause we’re a bigger roster right?”

“Right! So, how’s the play go coach?” Buck and Slasher Beta looked up eagerly.

“Well,” said the coach, “It goes like this:”

“You’re fired!”

…

Kill-Gore was again irritated to be involved in a match with so much ‘pressure’ and the team’s doctor, now a full time ‘troll-tricker’ told him that he could sit out the match like he wanted, but the dark elves lining up at the line of scrimmage wanted to get his autograph first. The troll proudly sauntered off towards the pitch, with the rest of the team close behind.

SlaugherHouse won the coin toss, and hoped it would be enough to take some elves off the pitch early. However, for most of the first half, casualties flew relatively evenly (and thinly) on both sides, and SlaughterHouse again succeeded in getting caught fouling an inordinate number of times for little effect. While the chaos was unusually lucky at sucker punching the slippery elves, it was rarely to any real effect, landing only glancing blows which the downed elves quickly recovered from.

The Savants’ wizard proved effective when his fireball took down even agile Gurn, setting the ball free bouncing. However, in the melee that followed, it was SlaughterHouse who came up with the ball and, with a short pass from Bael to Lucky, managed to sprint it across the end zone as time ran out. The last second reprisal foul by the dark elves was quite effective, sending Max to the injury box.

With Max out, Sluggo hurt from an earlier block, and Gurn sleeping three kickoffs in a row, SlaughterHouse was now outmanned for the second half…and Lucky getting caught booting a downed elf for a mere KO didn’t help any. The dark elves decision to try and gang-foul Kill-Gore backfired when he was merely stunned and their kicker was sent off, leaving the nearly whole team center pitch, with the ball wide. However, Braksy failed in his sprint to reach the ball, and the dark elves recovered to score relatively easily, sending two of SlaughterHouse’s beastmen to meet the fans in the process, as the elves’ sideline drive left the team with little choice as to player position.
On the next kickoff, SlaughterHouse did little damage with their initial hits, and with Lucky now out for the match and Gurn still asleep, things started to look very bad for the chaos side! Bael’s quick pass on the run proved too much for the bulked up Brasky to catch at the LOS, leaving the ball dangerously out in the open for the elves to recover!

Suddenly - the entire stadium mysteriously froze, everyone locked in their position on the pitch and in the stands at once. Fans froze in mid-shout, their fists motionlessly pumping air (or pummeling each other). Mugs of beer halted in mid-flight, and hung in the air, some only inches from their intended targets’ faces. Even the clock stopped, yet above, the clouds continued to drift past. The sun set and rose on the match, with no hint of movement within the stadium, until just as suddenly, the dark elves sprang into action, scrambling for the loose ball!

Recovering easily, the elves then run out the clock on the outnumbered chaos, for a final score of 2-1. Some say the chaos side didn’t unfreeze as early as the dark elves, and therefore were helpless to respond to the winning play. Some say they also froze before the elves – causing the dropped pass to begin with! Some say they saw the dark elf wizard, supposedly exhausted, casting one last spell as the ball flew from Bael’s agile hands…but the official’s ruling stands, and SlaughterHouse5000 exit their XFL Majors bid.


I’d say the match came down to 3 things (2 dice rolls, and 1 general concept):
1) Kill-Gore niggling. I’d have used the apoth on the first casualty – period, which was Sluggo. And with my second Claw/MB in the game, things might have unrolled differently. Well, then again, see point 3.
2) The wizard taking out AG4 Gurn with a KO…and him sleeping all game (4 or 5 kickoffs I believe). Losing a ST4 AG4 Mighty Blow Tackle Guarder made a BIG difference, especially outnumbered as it was.
3) I’ve never seen my guys roll so many POWs, and while the Blodgers fell like dominoes, we really just couldn’t crack armour – even with MB and Claw – to any real effect, leaving Slaughterhouse outnumbered almost the entire match. POW’s are pretty, and a great boon to a team with little Tackle, but they are only half the equation!

So, back to school for me. Probably best for my studies that I cold turkey this site again for a few months with no worrying about match deadlines and such.

With so much cash, you should pwn next round – good luck PeteW!
”