“A game in which I played the risk game and, mostly, won. Lots of dodges without a reroll and one die blocks with block, remarkably few 1's and skulls. My opponent got plenty of badly timed dice, which definitely tipped the odds in my favor. Kick also probably won the game, as I got to choose where I had to fight for the ball.

I received the kickoff. Conventional wisdom says kick with elves if you're playing bashers, but I like receiving too. It's good to put pressure on the offense early so they don't feel too free to stall. There are definite risks, but with a deep bench a strong offense I'm experimenting with it. I also like being more able to play the stall game, both because stalling against bashers is a great idea and because I like getting some passing spps, which can be harder later in the game when I'm running short on players.

The drive started with PD, so I was definitely in a poor field position as booahl moved his players up and challenged my flimsy los. I set up a long screen across the field, passed for some spps deep in my backfield, and dodged off the front line. I had ignored his jugs/frenzy blitzer and he surfed by str2 catcher, which really didn't bother me (except I was now down a player). He tried to box me in, and mostly succeeded. By turn 4 I saw that I was quickly going to lose the ball unless I did something dramatic. With lots of 2+ dodges and gfis, I formed a very flimsy sideline cage. These elves are much easier to play because I currently have 2 str4 catchers, which are very hard to contain. I can often get away with flimsy screens because I can dodge or blitz out without much support. This is exactly what happened, and booahl simply wasn't able to bring enough orcs to bear to stop my ma8/9 str 4 duo, which ran riot down the field and scored in two turns.

Booahl had three turns to score. He has a very nice NoS ma7 goblin, which he set up with TTM potential in mind. The ref adjusted the clock after a riot, stepping up the pressure significantly. Booahl ko'd my blodge blitzer, which opened up a very nice route up the center. He was able to get the goblin and two blitzers into scoring range. I stunned the goblin and (again with a ridiculous amount of dodges and gfi's) set up what I felt was a very strong screen. I was totally wrong. He had to make a very long pass to do it, but he passed to the blitzer that wasn't in any tackle zones. Of course he bolloxed the pass but it scattered to the blitzer, who caught it, and so there was no interruption of play. (is that the correct rule? I thought a failed completion was always a turnover... well, no matter). The blitzer managed a 1d blitz with just 1 dodge and 1 gfi to score, but failed the dodge.

Start of the second half I still have a full team, and I'm missing only one important player. I feel like at least half of games vs elves are won or lost by being outnumbered... often, facing a full elf team in the start of the second half means a loss or draw for my opponent. One of booahl's blitzers was ko'd by a rock in a continuation of the poor dice at the wrong time trend. He ran his goblin (and a muscle squad) up the north wing (ball is in the south wing in his backfield). This might have worked but he gfi'd with his thrower and fell over. I ran the str4 ma9 catcher into his backfield and, with a few dodges, screened the backfield and tied up the only blitzer close enough to help out. In a brilliant risk play (one of the things I love about orcs is that when the shit hits the fan, they're perfectly comfortable with a risky passing play), he long bombed the ball to the blitzer I had tied up and ran with it. He again gfi'd one too many times and fell, and I was left with a pretty clear route to pick up the ball and pass to the catcher in the backfield. 2-0, uh oh!

The next drive was a surprise in multiple ways. A rock stunned the goblin, so no ttm! Then on the second action of the turn, his troll rolled skull/bothd/bothd and I chose not to use wrestle. Whoa! ball near enough for the str4ma9 to blitz it free and snatch it up! I made a pseudocage, trusting his lack of ma to protect me. I miscalculated and he surfed my catcher. Oh no! I still had one chance to grab the ball with an agi5 lineman and get it to my other str4, but I failed the pickup. He made ANOTHER long pass to a blitzer in my backfield and scored, 2-1.

Booahl rolled another PD for the kick and overcommitted to the front line. I formed a sideline cage (albeit, again, a flimsy one) and ran the ball into it. He did his best to tie up my players, but with NoS I fearlessly threw a quick pass to the ma9 and ran it in for a score, 3-1.

Booahl once again rushed for my backfield, and left his thrower unprotected, just barely in range of my ma9. I blitzed and picked up the ball, but was left against the sideline. He tried to surf me, but my str4 allowed me to pick teh both down result, and without any support it was an easy matter to blitz him off me and run in for the score, 4-1.

In hindsight I got a lot of good luck and booahl got a lot of bad luck at the wrong time, but he also played a high risk game, which orcs don't really excel at (even though they can manage it from time to time). His team really wasn't designed to deal with elves, and my kick, str4 and high movement really swung the balance. Kickoff rolls played a major part in this game, with almost every kickoff roll significantly changing that drive. He got in 36 blocks but just didn't thin out my numbers enough to dominate in the second half.

Good game Booahl... Perhaps next time you'll get the good dice. Things sure would be much different!”