“I've been on FUMBBL for slightly over 15 years, and this is my first ever foray into the FUMBBL Cup. Why? Well, firstly because I rarely create and play competitive teams. I like to play the passing game, I'm obsessed with throwing long bombs, I'm an obsessive pixel-hugger and stat-chaser and I like to see my players up on the Top Lists. And obviously, none of this makes for a great competition team, does it?

But then a while ago I was fed up waiting for a suitable match on Gamefinder, so I created a new team, just so I could play there and then, and for a change I went for humans. The idea was that they would be a bit tougher than the wood elves I nearly always play with, but still with the potential for giving me a passing game if possible.

And I even thought about entering them into the FUMBBL Cup, until mirkosprint's Necromantic horrors wiped out nearly half the team in a single go.At that point I thought I'd give the Cup a miss for another year while I rebuilt. But then curiosity got the better of me. I went to the competition site, just to have a look, and ended up applying by mistake. Yes, I know, that's a pretty stupid thing to do, but I've never entered a tournament before so I wasn't expecting it to be quite so easy. I was waiting for the "are you sure you want to enter this team in this tournament?" prompt and when it didn't appear, I realised I'd already done the deed.

So, into the Cup then, and my first game is against a team of Khemri who have more guard than most dwarf teams and even three skellies with +ST. Plenty of mighty blow, of course, and even a couple of tackles. This one was going to hurt.

And this is how it went...

I took Morg as my first inducement as I needed someone who could deal with the tomb guardians. He's expensive, but could be a game changer. I then went for Helmut and a reroll. I don't generally have much luck with chainsaws, but if nothing else, he would provide a bit of distraction and maybe soak up a couple of blitzes before he wandered off to the injured box as he usually does.

I received, and in true wood elf style I threw a pass and ran the catcher downfield ready for the TD on the following turn. I don't believe in stalling, even when I have a chainsaw on the field, so as soon as the opportunity arose, I ran it in. (See, I told you I was a rubbish tournament player)

Then came the first Khemri offensive drive. Needless to say it was painful, but mostly just from the blocking point of view - my injury rolls were doing okay. And as the kick was deep, I was able to get a couple of players up to the ball before the Khemri were able to pick it up and get into a cage. This led to a series of turns in which both teams struggled to get a clean chance at the ball. There was always someone next to the ball who needed knocking out of the way.

But gradually, as each turn passed, I realised that the Khemri were going to have to get a move on if they wanted to score before the half. The kick-off result had given us a blizzard, so gfi was going to be risky and it was a long way back up the field to my endzone. By turn four it was looking like a tall ask. By turn five it was all but unlikely, and then by turn six there was no chance. SO the Khemri concentrated on making sure the humans weren't going to sneak in a cheeky second score. Which we didn't.

The half ended with a foul against Morg, which resulted in the skellie being sent off, followed seconds later by the ref banning Helmut for his chainsaw.

The second half started with the end of the blizzard. Then I was subjected to eight turns of the most effective blocking I've ever been on the receiving end of. POW after POW rained down on my poor humans and all I can say is thank goodness for AV8. krom72 went for the stall, and although I tried my hardest to get in there and disrupt matters, I was too low on personnel, and just too far away. I burned my last reroll on a desperate turn 7 blitz which failed, and the Khemri scored to equalise with just one turn remaining.

I set up for the one-turn score without much hope. I was going to have to push a ST5 guardian several times to give me a scoring chance, with no rerolls, and overtime was looking likely, so maybe the better strategy would be to try and take out a couple of his players...

A riot! Would you believe it? Of all the luck.

Okay, so I did what I had to, only risking a go for it to make the pass a 3+ instead of a 4+ and putting the catcher nicely within eight yards of the endzone and behind a reasonable defensive shield. Let's see what krom72 thinks of that!

Well, to give him credit, krom72 did everything he could to stop me, blocking off my clear path to the endzone, putting as many of my players as possible in tackle zones (even going for it twice with a guardian to tie up my ogre), and leaving me with a bit of a tricky situation, to be honest.

Hmmm...

Well, it was only for the draw anyway, so I could be a little bit risky. I cleared a space with an ogre block (no bonehead, no skulls), dodged a blitzer clear, went for a 2-dice blitz to free up the only player within range of the endzone (only getting a pushback which meant the potential scorer was still in a TZ). Dodged the ball-carrier out, handed off (in a TZ, remember), dodged the blitzer and ran in the score.

Woo hoo!

MY first FUMBBL Cup game, my first win! And with a final-turn play to remember as well. I do feel a little bit sorry for krom72, having to deal with a riot and then a final turn of no failed dice. Still, it did make for an exciting finish and I've never had so many spectators at the end of a match before.

The ogre got the MVP to add to his cas, so he's now got guard. This is going to help a lot, I think. Apart from that, some new fans and a good bit of gold. I can afford a lineman and another catcher for my next game but I'll give it some thought before I splash out. Next time out will be against eldritchfox and his 2000K dark elves so I might need to think about potential inducements first.

Let's see.”