Snotling Soda Punching Bag Cup - Week 1 13th Sept

[DaigaroOgami]

Not that it matters, but I won't be around for friendlies this evening, started the day at the top of a mountain, drove 4 hours, fitted a carpet and now I have to cook.

Best of luck to the coaches with, sorry, in a semi.

[Red Lion Three]

No worries NJ. Do you want to catch the game up during the week? Monday, Tuesday or Thursday look possible for me... (perhaps Wednesday though it isn't preferred)?

I may still tune in for friendlies if anyone else is around and wants a game?

[notjarvis]

Monday and Thursday are out.

(Monday Amber is at Scouts, Thursday We are looking around a secondary school with her).

Tuesday looks possible. 8:30 alright? I Can get Sam (my youngest) in bed first then

[Red Lion Three]

Ooh, very quick reply. Yes, 8:30 would be fine.

[Abomination]

I also will not be around for friendlies today. Left the same message with Rav, moose, and co. on Mumble just in case! Good luck to all!

p.s. Japan beat South Africa in rugby, anything is possible!!! :0

[Gandalf]

I HAVE AN AGILITY 4 OGRE!!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Raveen]

Revenge is mine, in the end!

The game started as poorly as possible for Moose. I kicked off (intending to allow him to score quickly and then hold the ball for the rest of the match) and rolled a blitz. I wasn't able to get to the ball but a Bull went cantering up the pitch anyway, just to be a potential sacking threat.

A skink got the ball and a tight cage formed on the LOS although a Suarus blocked himself down leaving the ball carrier exposed. On my first turn I blitzed the ball carrier and the ball rattled out and got stuck in a Dwarf's beard. I caged up around this confused Dwarf as best as I could and started trying to outflank the lizards. My positioning wasn't perfect though and Lizardsgot through the gaps and were able to knock the ball free before I could advance far.

The ball was, I felt, fairly safe but I had nobody really qualified to make a pick up attempt. I figured I could at least stall the half out. But the Skinks had other ideas dodging into 2 tacklezones to pick up the ball and then dodging out and running away as fast as possible. I got a Dwarf back to assist and then blitzed with a Hobgoblin . The Skink kept on his feet but the push back allowed another Dwarf to reach him. The only thing Moose could do was dodge and the luck ran out. I picked up with the Hobgoblin and caged up at midpitch again.

Plans to lob it to a Centaur were foiled by a wizard unleashing a lightning bolt on the Hobgob and we entered half time at 0-0.

The ball landed short on my right hand side. A quick snap allowed me to shift by one square and I collected the ball and caged in the middle. Once again my formation proved to be Skink porous and although I got them down I couldn't form a cage around all the sleepy lizards.

So I went for plan B which is "Get the ball to a Bull". I threw it and fully expected it to land near him. Charles Lyell was more than up for the catch though and plucked it out of the air like an Elf.

The game turned extremely one sided from here on out. The Bull did a Brave Sir Robin and buggered off up the pitch to hide whilst the rest of the team set about the Lizards. Moose's guys got strung out and knocked over to the point that all he could do was try and dodge a Saurus out.

I scored on turn 16 and Moose din't get the 1TTD right in return.

1-0 to the Rock Knockers.

The dice were remarkably even with me getting a slightly better D6 result (9.5 vs 5). The 2D6 were similar but the block dice, whilst fairly even, had both of us getting a peak on Both Down which obviously suits me more than Moose.

It was a good game and I honestly thought that Moose had it in the bag when he broke off down the pitch. I was very lucky to get to him let alone stop him. If that had gone in it would have been a very different game in the second half.

[DaigaroOgami]

Well done commissioner in your totally randomly assigned match that just so happened to suit you

Unlucky Moose, still, you got further than the league champion - that's an achievement.

AG4 ogre. Oh my. Whatever flowers you buy for Nuffle Dalf must be his favourite. Jeebus.

[lawastooshort]

I HAVE AN AGILITY 4 OGRE!!!!

I've got a movement 3 David Bowie - beat that.

[Abomination]

Looks like Gandalf's got himself a Morg n' Thorg!

[Gandalf]

Here's how yesterday's friendly went down...


Pre-match... near identical team values and boring weather made it rather uneventful, as did playing it on the training pitch (no fans!).

First half

Ogres win toss and choose to receive. My passing ogre picks it up and some snotlings go downfield for a potential pass. They got removed before too long. So I decide to engage in some punch-up warfare. Casualties happen on both sides, including a Badly Hurt ogre, and a killed star passer for the Undercheesers, who got apoth'ed back to health. It got to turn 5, there were 13-ish players left on the pitch by now, and I still had the ball in my own half. Better run up and try to score, then. I was mostly able to screen/mark off la's players, but come the start of my turn 8 I only had a ~55% chance of scoring after my attempted blitz to get rid of the player marking the ball carrier failed due to Bonehead. So I decided to hit a few people instead and managed to smash the ankle of David Bowie the Troll! (-1 MV) I decided this counted the turn as a success, but then I topped it off nicely by scoring too. 1-0 half time.

Second half
I don't remember too much about this stage. The undercheesers collected the ball and got it down the pitch. The Ogres surprisingly managed to get an ogre onto the ball carrier at one point but he got away. It's very hard to cover the pitch against a dodgy/relatively fast team when half your players stare into space occasionally and the other half are as strong as own-brand toilet paper. It was still a well-worked TD though in turn 11 or 12.

So! I was receiving again, 5 ogres and 3 snotlings versus 11 Undercheesers. My first turn was pretty bad with a lot of boneheading going on, and the undercheesers went round most of my players and started to move towards the ball. Things looked ominous. It was time for a Big Play and yet again it was ball-carrier/carrier Shrek (The Original) who was called upon. Having passed his Bonehead, he dodged away from his marker, went for it to pick it up and threw the ball upfield towards the centre spot. After such heroics the fact that it was an inaccurate pass can be forgiven - but it bounced into the "hands" of the waiting snotling anyway! The undercheesers quickly stunned him but I had quite a few players round there. A large scrum happened but due to a combination of bouncing balls, poor planning and failure to clock-watch the ball didn't really go anywhere. But some more injuries were dished out so it's all good. Full time 1-1, any result other than a loss for the Ogres is cause for celebration in my book!!

Post-game

2 more injuries inflicted by Puss in Boots (the one with Block) got him his third level-up. Not surprising he injured 2 as he did manage 16 blocks in the game (go go Multiple Block). He's probably taking Stand Firm to go with Block and Multiple Block. Shrek Forever After inflicted two injuries and got MVP leading to an unexpected promotion - and rolled an 11, taking +1AG to go with his pre-existing +1AG! Leaving me with a player around the quality of a Vampire at almost twice the cost!

The Undercheesers nursed their wounds but only Bowie sustained a serious injury. He rarely used his 4th movement point anyway, and MV3 is a lot better than MV2 (you can stand up for free). The Goblin known as Derek the 4th made it to level 2 in honour of the first three Dereks. I'm pretty sure at least one more player levelled up too.

Dice
Oh-so equal.
D6 2.46 vs 3.82
2D6 2.48 v 3.48 (injury dice seem to show I injured 4 and la injured 3??? Confused as this doesn't match up to the stats screen. Maybe BBM doesn't take stunty into account so calls a 9 a KO when it's actually an injury?)
Block dice... graph very similar profiles though I would say I had a slight edge.

Injuring the troll definitely made my second half easier. But the Undercheesers having 2 ST4 players really helped when it came to blocking the ogres. They looked strong favourites at one point until The Original Shrek pulled off that move to get the ball to relative safety. It was a really fun match! GG WP la, hope you enjoyed it too (smashed ankles apart, of course)

Oh, and the AV4 ogre has pretty much ensured the ogres will be back the season after next. Not really complaining but it would be nice to have had more than 1 double on those guys - but I keep rolling 11 and 6+4 instead!! Only one of my 6 ogres has the original stats of 5-5-2-9 now...

[lawastooshort]

Pretty good summary there. It was a pain Bowie got knackered off but not a career ender seeing as his job is to stand there either stupid or not... Made the rest of the game a bit harder though.

It was nice to have a game without the pressure of thinking about Bloodlust and it was a fun match.

That is an expensive ogre!

[Gandalf]

Yeah, bloodlust must be such a brain-burner. At least with really stupid, if it happens it happens, I don't have to worry about which snotling to nom.

I have no idea where to go with the Ogre team progression now. Guides say "if you get +AG early on you can get a ball carrier/thrower!" but the situation of having one ogre with +1AG and Strong Arm, and then a second ogre with +2AG isn't covered for some reason... I REALLY need a double on one of them at some point though, to make the most of all that ag... I'm thinking pass or dodge or sure hands. If a normal roll, then probably boring old Guard, or maybe juggernaut (though that is pencilled in for one of the +MV ones). I don't think a second Strong Arm is a particular priority. Guard is probably the #1 skill to get on a regular roll ogre but I've only got it on 2 at the moment because of my +MV and +AG rolls...

[lawastooshort]

I really don't know what I'd do with such an ogre. Sure Hands on the +2AG one would be pretty good - safest pick up on the team and really difficult to get the ball off him. I agree a second Strong Arm would probably be a waste.

If +2AG makes him a ball carrier, Juggernaut might be good for blitzing people out of the way.

[notjarvis]

In the other semi final it's 3 -0 to the amazons
on turn 6 of the first half.....