“A fun game - as they always are against Swampserpent - and this one was exciting too...all the way to the final whistle.

Sadly, dice stats aren't working right now, so I'm having to rely on memory for the play-by-play, and my memory really isn't up to it!

Anyway, Sins and Punishment received the kick-off and they scored on or around turn 4 without much trouble. The only thing of note that I remember during the drive was that one of my journeymen injured himself on a pointless block.

After that I got on with the business of throwing long bombs and trying to keep my catchers away from two of the wickedest witch elves I've seen in a long while. And the easiest way of doing that was to score as quickly as possible. Which I did.

After that the excitement kicked in. the dark elves got the ball past my line easily enough, but then disaster struck when the ball-carrier stunned himself in the endzone while going for it. Neither team had any players close enough to reach the ball for a turn, but then on my turn 7 I sent my sure-footed catcher all the way back, dodged a tackle with a re-roll and managed to get hold of the ball, throwing it across the field to a wardancer who was my best chance of preventing the dark elves scoring on their final turn...

...but catchers are not throwers, and witch elves are annoying! Shoshohana not only intercepted the throw, she then ran in the score, blitzing my catcher off the field in the process.

Then came the one-turn attempt, which was only going to be half-hearted until the kick-off result was a quick snap and I couldn't resist it. It all went perfectly, and the wood elves ended the half with a TD to make it 2-2.

And we were receiving, so soon enough it was 3-2 after yet another long bomb and a lucky escape from the blitzing witches.

But with no tackle I was living on borrowed time. My blocking had actually been excellent in the first half, but with the dark elves keeping the ball well-protected all the time the best I could do on defence was get in the way a lot. Sadly, this led to one of the rookie wardancers being fouled into a coffin by the dark elf journeyman (who was sent off for his trouble, but who cares when you kill a wardancer, eh?)

Two quick scores followed - one each - so it came down to the final drive if the dark elves were going to save the loss. It was a predictably solid start, and the ball was kept safely in the middle of a tough cage just across the halfway line. There was a lineman down within scoring range on the far side, and as he'd caught a pass and run in the score last time, I decided to deal with him with my blitz. POW! Off he went with a serious injury.

On the following turn (my turn 8) there was the same situation, but this time it was a blitzer waiting to score, so I did the same thing and stunned him. Which meant only Shoshohana was in scoring range and she would have to dodge, and go for it twice to make the score. And that was assuming she even got the ball in the first place. But fearless as always, Swampserpent simply did what he had to to clear some space, handed over the ball, caught it in a TZ, and then ran in the score - all without a reroll.

So it ended up being a very fair draw, with plenty of scoring along the way and bucket-loads of excitement thrown in for good measure. It annoys me that after such an edge-of-the-seat performance from both teams, both teams lost fans. That's just wrong. But maybe there just wasn't enough blood in the bowl for their tastes.

Ah well. Spiderplant pulled in the MVP yet again, despite having very little to show for his efforts. Presumably he got it for only failing a single take root roll in the entire game. And the good winnings allowed me to replace the rookie wardancer with yet another rookie wardancer, so the team is back to exactly where it was at the start of the game - except for some nice passing stats to add to the total.

I'm not playing much these days. I think this was only my second games in about six months, so it was great it was such a high-scoring and hi-octane game...but then that's what I expect from all my games against Swampserpent, and he never disappoints.”