Well the Six Feet Underdogs have made it to their next landmark - 25 games played and they haven't gone bankrupt or had all their players killed, at least not quite. It has been a hard slog with a long losing streak of 13 consecutive games broken only by draws in games 24 and 25. Some games have been hilarious fun - win lose or draw - others have been demoralising poundings that made me wonder if I am actually some sort of Fantasy Football Masochist who takes the field with the whining plea of 'please hurt me, please hurt me, I waaant to loooose, please make me looooose'.

I still have no idea how best to play against big hitters (other than starting to avoid them) when they remove 3 of my players from the game with POMBs in the first turn then spend the next 7 using the numerical superiority to cripple the rest of the team and ensure I can only field a reduced squad for the second half when they can rinse and repeat the process. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining at the tactic or those who employ it, it's a perfectly valid and effective strategy for winning the game, I'm just a little mystified as to how (if) an Underworld team can counter it. I am also developing a strong aversion to Dwarf teams - block and tackle against goblins, I might as well just feed the greeskins into an oversized blender and have done with it.

On the positive side I have two players who are developing nicely: Ber'anx the skaven blitzer is feared on sight by many teams a Horny Blackler with MB who spends most of his time trying to keep the opponent's apo in a job, and of course Gerald who now has 4 confirmed kills, 3 of which are even opposition players, and there are a couple of others in the squad who are well on their way to becoming starlets in their own right.

In numbers - I'm averaging just over 1TD per game and I am generally happy with my offensive set plays but I do need to become more patient, I'm scoring too quickly with the MA7 rats and allowing time for the opposition to equalise in the half. As a result of this (and several games where I recieved 3-0 grindings from bashy teams) I am hemorrhaging an average 2.25 scores against per match. I have suffered 14 deaths and 8 career ending injuries over the 25 games giving an average of 0.88 players lost per game, taking a total of 116 hard won SPPs with them. The squad currently has a total of 166 SPP between them, mostly on Gerald and Ber'anx, and only 2 niggling injuries.

Overall I feel the U-dogs are in a stronger position now than when they started and that my tactical play is developing nicely, particularly my defencive strategies, often games have been lost when the opposition player makes a dodge or two or rolls a successful blitz and gfis in for the score in the final turn of the half - but the fact that they were in the position where they had to make two or three successful rolls to score rather than just walk the ball over the line suggests my defence was at least partly successful.

Moments of particular note have included:
A pitch invasion that took out 10 of my players (probability of about 1:3200)
My apo rolling his third consecutive Killed - Killed result
Gerald taking out an opposition ball carrier with a TTM throw (doomdiver!)
The formation of the campaign group 'Stamp It Out' to remove racism from the game (mostly their ire is aimed at my skaven throwers who regularly refuses to release TD scoring passes to their Gobbo teammates despite my treat to slowly and painfully remove their whiskers if they do it again)

Thanks to all my opponents, especially to those who made me laugh in chat and lets hope the U-dogs survive to the next update planned for game 50!