Greetings sports fans,

What a marvellous week was it! Swan Riders made their first win in the Empire Regionals against the Hammer of the White Wolf in a game with a lot of nefarious events happening in the background. First, the Cult of Ulric of staff had made their homework against our team. They made the cunning plan to attack vicioulsy our Treeman Star Drychaen before the kick off and they succeeded to injure him with rocks. Hopefully for us Deeproot hold his promise and made for us his second appearance and kept the Swan Riders coherent. The second of their cunning plan was the amount of fertilizer that the cultists of Ulric put on the soil, who made our second treeman Glueck Tannenbaum taking roots every time when he tried to move, despite the huge training that the Halfling Team had. Lastly, the coach of the Hammers forbid his players to attend the traditional Swan Riders pre-party that our chef organizes for our opponents. The teams of the Empire had many times played against Halflings and they know our “dirty tricks“. So things were looking very grim for the Swan Riders. One Treeman injured before the game starts, the other immobile in the centre of the field and only Deeproot trying to challenge the mighty and ferocious Wolf-cultists! First halftime was a disaster, with the Halfling team in the KO box in a very brief time. But one moment, I said KO Box and not the Dead and Injured box, does that mean something? Yes, there seemed to be some kind of friction between players and the coach in the Hammer of the White Wolf. Most of the players escaped the hotel during the previous night and participated indeed in the pre-game party. Some CAMRA recordings leaked also showing the stars of Ulric drunk singing “Who let the Wolves out! WHARF WHARF!” and similar songs. We do not know yet if the reason for their ''rebellion” was their complacence, disapproval of their coach, or some underground bookmaker from Khuresh, but the result was evident. They Cultists of Ulric were a bit tired during the game and without the needed concentration. They could not hit us hard during the first halftime and the second halftime was our paying back. First the Swan Riders made a fast TD through the help of a Throw Team Mate, Glueck despite his immobility had an excellent perfomance as a an artillery piece. Second, a huge miscalculation during Rd 5 enabled Deeproot to contact the ball carrier during their offensive drive. Halfling swarmed the area, while cultists showed less durability, as someone would imagine for. Moments before the end of the game Swan Riders took the possesion and Glueck throwed another team mate for the second TD. A brilliant comeback for the Halflings, our first in our history as Swan Riders and our second win (in his second appearance, so 100% successful) with Deeproot Strongbranch!

Unfortunately, Deeproot is not going to be available against our next opponent the Cerberus Beast. The game will be held in Eichenschatten and it is going to be huge news for the Moot Fantasy Football. Our Beastmen opponents started as one of the favorites, but their first two games in the Empire Regionals were suboptimal: 1 D against Matrons of Malice and 1 L against the legendary Grasparossa . Despite the bad start the team appeared in a very good mood roaming the streets of the Eichenschatten, even giving a spontaneous music concert, one of the Beastmen played even a saxophone and excited everyone.

But what about the past history of games between Halflings and Beastmen? It is strange, but the Beastmen Race should not be very proud for their record against the Halfling. There have been 6 previous games between them with 2 W for the Halfling, 3 W for the Beastmen and 1 D. Only the Centigor have fared worst against the Halflings. Cerberus Beast is the Beastman Team who saved the pride of the race with 2 W and 1 L against Halfling Teams.
Analyticaly the games are the following:
Hilshire Culinary College - Blood-Ground Blackhorns 2-0
Mootland Defenders - Blood-Ground Blackhorns 1-1
Gipfel Blueleaves – Coven Clan 1-3
Lords of the Harvest – Cerberus Beast 2-0
Lords of the Harvest – Cerberus Beast 0-2
Brandystock Barrelers – Cerberus Beast 1-3 .

Cerberus Beast are thus in a 2 W streak against Halflings and we can easily say that they are expected to win. They do not have also a lot of options left, if they still want to hunt some prestige points. They are still in the last place of the regionals. On the other side, the dream for the Swan Riders continue. 4 Points in two games are an excellent feeling and it is sad to discover that long-term this would be not enough to avoid the last place in the Empire. Mathematically a win against the Cerberus Beast will put us surprisingly in the first place ( Grasparossa lost their Rd 3 game against the Matrons of Malice! ), but it is not yet the time to make crazy dreams.

Did you know... #10
…. that some Beastmen teams tried to incorporate Chaos Halflings in their rosters? Our coach (and also Beastman) Kharigor told us that during his fantasy football career as player in Badlands and Drakwald Leagues played along some Halfling stunty mercenaries. Through these players our coach made his first contact with the Halfling Football. He admitted that most of these co-players did not have good survivability rates. (In reality, he cannot recall anyone who is still alive, and we also did not manage to find someone, so that we interview him. In most of the cases the Halfling was presented in the team with the generic name “Stunty Superstar”, making the search for those players almost impossible.)