“CIBBL - Y5, Autumn - Bronze Division: game 6:

Two successive draws that could and should have beens wins hadn't helped the Meddlers' standing in this year's Bronze Division. As their head coach, Timaris Stormwing should have felt responsible for the mediocre results, but he preferred blaming Nuffle instead. "Last chance to add some colour to this season", he whispered to himself. "The short-legged dwarfs won't stand a chance to keep up with my elves", he continued. "I'll put Beldroth in front of that monstrosity the dwarfs tend to drag along and we should be out of danger". That's all the plan he required. For the remainder of the game Timaris would rely upon routine gameplay and his sense of improvisation, should the need arise.

The elves won the toin coss and opted to receive the ball in the first half. An early disaster almost occurred in turn 1 when Beldroth Boombark knocked himself over. Morlanna - still dumbstruck after the treeman in front of her went down unceremeniously - got knocked out of the way by the dwarven steam engine. Luckily Hauclir kept his head cool, picked up the ball in front of the war machine and dodged away to safety. Meanwhile Mereia had penetrated the dwarven backfield where she was already positioned in the endzone. Next turn the deathroller tried to blitz the ball out of Hauclir's hands, but to no avail. A satisfied smile covered Timaris' face when he witnessed how the Meddlers expertly kept the dwarfs at distance for the remainder of the first half, before walking in the touchdown in turn 8: 1-0 at halftime.

Dwarven gold had bribed the referee, but somehow this didn't suffice for the deathroller to start the second half. It must have been a greedy ref indeed! The second half started with Loec pulling a trick from his sleeve, offering a Blitz! to the wood elves. Having kicked the ball deep in their own backfield, this put the dwarfs under pressure right from the start of the second half when the ball landed safely into Mereia's hands. She almost died from cardiac arrest when the master engineer, carrying a murderous chainsaw, attacked her next turn. Luckily she was only stunned. Somehow the master engineer had managed to catch the ball as well, keeping both his hands more than occupied. Nevertheless, Morlanna didn't hesitate and kicked the chainsaw out of his hands, thereby freeing the ball as well as knocking down the dwarf.

Not much later Morlanna handed over the ball to Hauclir, who scored his second touchdown of the game: 2-0 for the Meddlers. Meanwhile Mereia had been fouled off the pitch displaying a smashed knee, an injury beyond the healing skills of the wood elf apothecary. The traitorous dwarf however was saved from expulsion by yet another bribe. "I'm gonna have to fire that lousy healer", Timaris cursed. "Another star player damaged beyond repair", he continued his lamentations. The rest of the game nothing important happened anymore, even though Beldroth Boombark got fouled off the pitch by the end of the match.

Finally another victory for the Meddlers!

The win had cost some blood though. Mereia's promising career may well be over...

No snake-eyes nor double skulls this game.”