“Dear Vanyar,

I wish I brought good tidings on this winter’s day, but alas I do not. Yet again expectancy set in, as the victory was assumed as we travelled to Mirkwood to face our cousins. However, what greeted us this time was a very different entity to that in which we faced before. On our last encounter they performed in a manner most unbefitting that of an Elf – but they have much improved, and indeed put on a display that left us questioning our very own birthright!

The game started off well… now having the abilities at our disposal to eliminate the Tree we did so. With their muscle gone it was our mindset to continue to wreak havoc and pain on the lightly armoured Elves, sadly things never got any better than this… clearly the One Ring continues to beleaguer us as it was us who suffered from their blows. We set about slowly making our way to the endzone, our ball carrier in a protective cage, protected that is from all but the most determined of Wardancers, and unfortunately for us, Mirkwood had turned up with two of those.

The Wardancers leapt in and took down the ball carrier, and benefited from a nice bounce. A skirmish ensued and a Side Stepping woodelf made the ball bounce, and again it fell into one of three favourable areas. Mirkwood then broke and took the ball deep into our half. We had men to cover but our tackler was slightly out of comfortable range to risk sprinting in the snow, still with two men ganging up on the less than capable Catcher, it ought to be enough… it however wasn’t, despite two blocking attempts, and the Woodelves scored. 0 – 1.

A brief chance of a tie for the half was scuppered by a failed dodge, although even managing that would leave some risky sprinting on the icy surface.

They were to receive second half. A blitz for us sprung forth some hope, but with a fairly deep kick to one of their players meant all we could do was re-arrange our defence and tie their ball carrier up slightly. The Wood Elves then began to manoeuvre around our defence, and all we seemed to be doing was slowing them down a little. We moved in to force the issue, with some dexterous dodging from the Catchers, the score was 0 - 2 with just over a quarter to play.

We finally got our act together, and did what we should have done in the first place – stay away from the Wardancers and pass to the endzone, with this in mind we quickly got one back to make it 1 – 2.

Injury time gave us a little more room on the clock to get a tie. Mirkwood with the ball again made a determined move to the flank, but an indecisive ball carrier left himself with the ball and no easily obtained defence. One of his would be corner props failed to dodge away from his marker and left the ball carrier open for a blitz. We took the ball carrier down, then it was our turn to switch on the agility, and a catcher made a glorious run to scoop the free ball and score soon after! 2 – 2 but time for Mirkwood to score.

A deep kick made it tricky for Mirkwood and they shifted to Plan B as we surrounded their scorers. With no room for mistakes Mirkwood picked the ball up, passed it to a line elf. Then ran with full sprint in the snow to handoff to a catcher marked by two men. The catcher nimbly took the ball, dodged away and sprinted into the endzone to make it a disappointing 2 – 3!

Aiden benefited from the game, becoming more agile than ever – it was however at a cost to his bulk – he has now become a specialist player in his new role.

We play Hobbits next – surely we can’t fail in this task!

Regards,
Tarius

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So many things that I could whine about, the snow that always hinders the slower team. The mix up of the dressing rooms that saw us putting on the wrong armour, the four pushes instead of a POW or Skull/Pow, the bouncing ball that was attracted to the Wood Elves, but alas these things are often the norm of a game with swings and roundabouts… it was poor strategy on my part against a better Elven mind that lost the day!

Games like this against Purp either leave him frustrated with his failed rolls, as he dodges a lot with his weaker woodies, or leave me scratching my head, today it was the latter.

Very enjoyable game with us both taking time to plan our moves and looked to turn around near the end.

Very well played Purp, you serve your players well, and I’m starting to learn how I might beat a capable Wood Elf team… I just need to put it into practice. ;)



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