“initial strategy - take out the ghouls (low armor, no regen) and the wolf (no block, niggle) because those are the only ball carriers that I really have to worry about.
turn 1 sees Stepps cause 2 ko's, putting me on the back foot right away.
Another ko on turn 2 makes my situation seem a bit dire, until Stepps made the mistake of leaving a very clear, easy route for my dodging strip lino to follow. I'm able to get an assist and I strip the ball... Right into the hands of jman. I don't realize he's unactivated, so I protect him and realize at the last moment. I mark the prone wolf and handoff to my blodging blitzer. Because I didn't protect my ball carrier at all, so stepps surrounds him and blitzes him with the wolf. This poses a problem though, since he left me a spot to sidestep to. He doesn't roll a pow in the first 4 dice, and I get a push to the edge of the prison. He rerolls double pushes (which would allow me to sidestep nearly to freedom) into skull/both down, and the wolf goes down and ends the turn.

turn 4 he knocks my blodger over and stuns him, surrounds other blitzer and puts a tz on the ball. tries to put another on, but fails the last gfi.

I 1d blitz - with no block! But 3 rrs - the wolf back one square so I can hop out real quick with my remaining blodge ss blitzer and scoop up the ball. I sprinted toward the end zone, coming to within 2 squares of it and daring stepps to blitz me with the wolf. Necro is slow, and it's hard for everyone to catch up on these deep plays. I also fed the wraiths blocks to distract them from pressuring me to score. It was then that disaster struck stepps. He took me up on my invitation to blitz my blodge ss blitzer ball carrier, but ss blodge is one of frenzy's biggest weaknesses. Rather than pushing me into the endzone, the last 1d was a skull and with no rr's, stepps had to accept it.

At this point it's turn 5, and I have 3 in the ko box along with a 4th in the box after receiving the apothecary's attention. If I score early and all 3 ko's fail, I'm going to really struggle to stop his ma8 wolf from scoring in 3 turns. I also have, despite trying my very hardest, not hurt either ghoul or the wolf. At this point I have fit of temporary insanity and gang foul the ghoul (since stalling anyway). Of course I snake it and get booted, but manage to argue the call so I don't get punished.

With the wolf stunned the ghoul 2 squares closer to the sideline than me, I simply ran my full 9 to the other side and was unreachable. Stepps fully committed to the brawl, in which he was up 3 bodies. The ghoul chased me but without support I was able to isolate it wih tackle zones and I stalled for a third turn. Stepps boots another lino into the ko box (this time the dodge/strip lino!) with a late foul, and I try (and fail!) to chain push the wolf into the crowd, instead knocking over his ghoul. I score on my turn 7 to deny stepps an easy score but still get 2 ko rolls, which I'm definitely going to need.

predictably I make 1/4 ko rolls. Stepps doesn't get anything from his LoS blocks, and I don't get anything either. Luckily I get 2 more back from the ko box this time, so I'm only down 1 player.

I'm in a strong position now, going into the second half 1-0 with only 1 missing player. Stepps forms a loose screen but leaves me the sideline, so I make a deep cage with blodge ss and ma8 dodge. I just tie up all his fast players that can handle the ball, so hopefully I can still pick it up even if I get knocked over.

Stepps isn't fast enough to mount a true defense, and ma8 is hard to defend against generally. I blitz my way through the defenders and walk it in with a gfi. Now up 2-0, I can probably relax even if I get beaten to a pulp. As long as I return all scoers, I'll come out ahead in the end.

I kick to stepps and in his haste, he leaves the ball completely exposed and in my half. I go for it, but I greed and reroll double pushes into double skulls before I'm fully set up. Stepps is able to push my thrower out of bounds for another ko and get to within 2 squares of the endzone. I have some players in the vicinity, but he's able to surround the closest ones and wall off the rest.

I rush my blitzers in and I'm able to get a 2d block with a few dodges ans gfi's. I knock the wolf over and recover the ball. The clock is ticking, and I stash the catcher in the far corner of the endzone. He'll have surf him probably, and even knocking him over with block risks a throw in that will hopefully be good for me. The throw in is more favorable to stepps, and he's able to pick up the ball and score with a ghoul.

Four turns left, and I need to either score or stall real well. Both of my throwers are ko'd, and I'm down 3 overall. I'm playing a very spread out offense, with a catcher deep in liverghoul territory, my own catcher with the ball nearly in the end zone, 8 squares away from my two 3+ pa blitzers. I was quickly overwhelmed, and although I tried to protect the ball carrying catcher I didn't have the ma. Unfortunately for stepps his wolf doesn't have block yet, so even though he knocked the ball free it was also the end of his turn.

I don't have much to do, but I don't have to do much. I run a blitzer and a jman in for a 2d blitz into ball pickup, but I'm not prepared for shadowing to work and make a second vert risky 4+ dodge with my jman, which randomly works. I take the ball and run out of reach of much of anyhthing, finally removing a ghoul in the process. I tried for the miracle pass td, but failed and the game ended 2-1.

There were definitely some luck aspects of this matchup, but there's also the reality that undeveloped necro really struggle against 2 blodging sidesteppers. Without much block and very few fast, ball handling players, chasing around a mobile team like elves is tough. Necro just generally struggle early on compared to other powerful early races in my experience. There were defintiely a number of important rolls that went sideways!
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