“This was my 1st match vs ogres. As gknornecki explained, they are allowed to use rerolls unlike Big Guys. Some of his players had Break Tackle and I got to see it in action - it's an elf-like dodge for a high STR player.

Nuffle gave me lots of early love on the blocking dice - although he was to exact payment later. Gkornecki became disheartened from bad dice, I did my best to joke about it. He seemed to take it as a personal slight from Nuffle when his Ogres would fail bonehead rolls, although, with 4-5 of them on the field, on average 1 will fail each turn.

On my turn 8, I should've moved my Blitzer Tackler next to his downed Gobbo AND the ball instead of just the ball. The extra Dodge roll for his Gobbo might have mattered next turn when he pulled off a ninja-like set of moves to score. It wouldn't have exposed the Blitzer to additional danger (as I was somehow thinking).

Interesting tactical principle illustrated with gknornecki's planned handoff & score using a downed player: The downed player has to get in the end zone first. He can't assist any incoming Blitz, and the incoming ball pickup can't Blitz or assist a Blitz either. Assuming only two enemy players, preventing the move is purely a question of judiciious tackle zone placement.

So we entered the 2nd half tied 1-1. I'd lost my Kicker, he was sent off by the ref for kicking an opposing player (I tried to argue that the ogre's head *looked* like the ball, but the ref booted me off as well). But with an 11-8 numerical advantage I felt confident even though he was receiving.

I was in good shape on Turn 2. I was planning to move up an extra two assists to allow my Thrower to block his troll off my Blizter, setting up a 2d blitz on his ball carrier. But I made a major error, moving my Black Orc through an unnecessary tackle zone. I invoked a reroll but Nuffle was not merciful. This wasted turn cost me the initiative.

On Turn 3, I sent a lot of players to mark Ogres in an ambitious scheme to set up the Blitz on the ball carrier. I messed up in not leaving the right pushback square open for the Ogre marking my Blitzer (Ulf). This meant I needed a knockdown instead of a pushback. The Troll rolled the 2d block, but Nuffle was in a bad mood. This left my players out of position to stop a push from Gkornecki's Gobbo's and he scored the go-ahead goal.

I was now playing for a draw, but with excellent chances when a pitch invasion left 3 of gkornecki's players stunned. I had an 11-5 man advantage for 2 of the remaining 3 turns. But my AG4 Blitzer fumbled the pickup two turns in a row. On my final turn I had a ~35% chance to score with a combination block/pass but didn't make it. Might've done it slightly better: GFI to turn a Short Pass to a Quick Pass would have replaced a 3+ with 2+2+, marginally better. Also, would've done better to take a 2d block with Troll (w/o Block) to open a Pushback square for his player marking the ball. I can see that sometimes a 1d block (needing Pushback) may be superior to 2d (needing Knockdown).

Even though I lost... any match without long term injuries is a lucky one in my book. :)”