“Ouch. Never made it to my third friendlies. Weather was too nice, so the sauruses preferred languishing in the sun instead of playing Blood Bowl. Sigh…

And then the set-up for the OWCC arrived. Bretonnian Conference, and the first opponent is... the Foresters. Just fresh from a 2-0 loss in the second friendly, I didn’t have high hopes for this match. Especially as Foresters had been strengthened by a catcher whereas we had the Fraternizer back, but had to do without the Marsh Mole who still hadn’t recovered from the fractured leg he got in the friendlies.

Hopes for a victory didn’t exactly improve when we arrived, and found that the Foresters won the coin toss and also had the fan advantage. We kicked the ball and the Foresters tried for a quick score, but had to retreat when Hollow Claws pushed away the support and got adjacent to their ball carrier. Instead, elves dodged heroically and got their act together in the middle of my half, and despite some attempts to box them in, Belvantien got free with the ball and scored with the help of some extra GFIs. 1-0 to the Foresters, and damn, but woodies are hard to stop from scoring…

The woodies got into their start formation, and kicked, and we decided to brush aside their lie of scrimmage and try for a saurus score. The Shield, Challenger and Protector did their job, and the Challenger even knocked Glenanion out of the field, but alas, Hollow Claws was not up to understanding the plan and failed his blitz (Bone-Head). This created a small opening for the elves, and when Black Booster failed to catch the handover, the ball was suddenly loose…The elves knew how to take advantage of that, and promptly attacked. Poor Team Captain Guardian was pushed over and onto the ball, but luckily it bounced in the right direction… away from the onrushing Foresters. Scavengers managed to control the situation somewhat, and recover the ball by the Swamp swimmer, but he was pushed over by the Forester wardancer Nesmollion, who even picked up the ball and ran down to the sideline. The other ‘dancer and a lineelf played protection, and suddenly the situation was close to desperate. Team Captain Guardian lead a skink rush on Nesmollion, who neatly dodged away, but other scavenger players crowded the small group of Foresters. Nesmollion judged it necessary to retreat and hand over to his Rookie catcher, who ran backwards on the field. An attempt to bring Belvantien in a scoring position by dodging past our Taem Captain was foiled, however, and frustrated Scavengers decided to crowd surf Authion, who luckily ended up in a group of Forester fans who brought him safely through the crowds and back to the Forester dugout. Mousevictor handed the ball to Veryarenion, who ran into a scoring position, while most of the other Foresters tried to run interference. Red Shield took it upon himself to run down the run-away woodie, and managed, by heroic effort (2 GFIs) to reach Veryarenion and push him over, so that Jungle Warrior could pick up the ball and make a Quick Pass to Swamp Swimmer. Swimmer had the whole field open, but the pass wasn’t good enough and Swimmer never got to the ball. Thus, the half ended without more scores, but with a spectacular tackle from the Purple Protector on the hired help Paul Palefire who had to leave the field with a smashed hand.

Second half started with 11 Scavengers vs 9 Foresters and the Scavengers with the ball, and prospects for at least a draw looked good. The ref had barely managed to start the game before aggressive Scavengers descended on the Forester line-of-scrimmage with a vengeance. The Grey Challenger got a piece of Suifindon’s collar bone, and with Veryarenion stunned and Melmelion knocked out, those first minutes of the half became a horror story for the Foresters, but they soon recovered. Belvantien sprinted into a scoring position while Nesmollion knocked aside a skink and Mousevictor bravely attempted a pass to Belvantien, but fumbled his pass and the ball fell down just beside him. The Scavengers opted to surround the ball, and try to knock off some more Forester players, but then the game got really ugly. Nesmollion killed poor Rover and threw the carcass on eth ball, which bounced away from the Scavengers. Three sauruses could only look with horror as Mousevictor waltzed into their tacklezones, picked up the ball and passed it elegantly on to Nesmollion to ecstatic cheers from the crowd! Angry Sauruses rushed in pursuit of the ball, and again the Purple Protector took responsibility and blitzed the ‘dancer so hard he was knocked out and sent off the field. Only six woodies left now, versus 10 scavengers, but again, the Scavengers opted to cover the ball. Again, Mousevictor came waltzing in and picked up the ball in three tacklezones, and went for the endzone… and tripped while going for it! Scavengers could rush the lonely catcher and Savannah Stalker recovered the ball, while the Red Shield knocked another elf out. Only 5 left now. Mousevictor’s desperate blitz failed to bring down the Stalker, and from there the skink could cruise the ball in to the deciding draw, while the Yellow Fraternizer managed to kill Authion on the way.

So a draw was better than I had feared, and both teams got decent money and more fans, so most people were apparently satisfied with the game! With a Guard skill on Hollow Claws (he scored the Scavenger MVP, which surely must have been for most entertaining tackle when his headbutt knocked Melmelion out and himself over at the start of the second half) and a +AG on the Savannah Stalker, the manager of the Scavengers have to be satisfied as well. Best of luck to an opponent who kept trying and almost succeeded even when grossly outnumbered in the second half.
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