“That was lots of fun, nice opponent who didn't mind having his elves smeared across the pitch.

Going into this, I figured that I was probably going to get totally spanked - well developed Dark Elves vs rookie Orcs seems a recipe for disaster - so I invested by inducements in a couple of linemen, a lot of bribes and an apo in case somebody got really hurt. Oh, and a dirty trick because they're (sometimes) fun.

Dirty trick turned out to be my favourite - Pit Trap - although sadly I didn't manage to prevent his second touch down with that.

First half we won the coin toss so I kicked, on the assumption he'd score fast and then I could give him a good pummelling. I almost thought he was going to go for a 2nd turn score to get out of harms' way, but we had him score by halfway through the first half.

And then he scored in the 7th turn as well, when I failed to get the ball forward fast enough to save me from being in danger.

Of course by then I'd done a lot with my value-for-money dirty player. Witch Elf off with broken ribs in the 3rd turn, Penemuel seriously concussed a turn later and Ornias badly hurt in turn 7. Add to that a fractured skull before half time, and the first thing we did in the second half was kill Qemuel. A thrown rock in the second half disrupted things a little, but the revenge foul on the violent superstar known only as (Dirty Player) was ineffective. (The ref was asleep for the entire match - didn't even need to use a bribe...)

We caged ok, then it went a bit wrong - in the rush forward we didn't leave enough bodies around the ball carrier, and even with four players left on the pitch he managed to sack him when he was in sight of the end zone. Still, it was almost 2-1 (with his reroll in hand, the chance I could have scored was at best double skulls times 2 GFIs, so just under 2%... Would have needed better dice for that.

A good first outing for Badlands Athletico, and a good start to my season in this league. Goblins next, which means it'll be bloody one way or another...”