“What a game!

The Norsemen won the toss and that was about the end of Nuffle's kindness towards them. Not really knowing what to do with the ball they opted to kick, hoping to get a few lessons from the elves. And boy were they taken to school.

The elves fielded the kick-off and set up heavy left. The Norse would not be drawn into that nonsense though and formed two impenetrable lines. Well, impenetrable-ish. After a blitz and a mere six dodges (all without dodge mind you) four elves were in scoring position and the ball was secure deep. Marking the goal-hangers, hassling the ball carrier and badly injuring a blodging, side-stepping, guarding blitzer seemed like a good turn's work for the fairy-talers. How naive. Two dodges and a blitz set free both the catcher and the thrower and the elves were home. 1-0.

The Norse had six turns to respond. The Owls lined up with a perfect D, forcing the Norse to cage up short of the halfway line, but the elves weren't content to hold it there. Three dodges and a GFI (31%) followed by two GFIs and a leap gave a one die block, pushing the ball carrier back. The Grimm Brothers blitzed the ball carrier open and advanced the cage into elf territory. Here was where things began to get particularly elfy. The lone blitzer dodged out of a tacklezone, into a tacklezone, leapt using two GFIs and landed in front of the ball carrier ready to hit him with a one die pow (9%). The ball fell at the feet of two Norsemen but this was seen more as an opportunity than a challenge. An elven catcher dodged into a tz, into two tzs, picked up the ball and then punted a long bomb down the field (6%). Odds of pulling off both of those moves in a single turn are less than 5 in 1,000. Credit to the Chimp for even trying, much less succeeding.

Most of the rest of the half was spent with the Norse trying to get back to the ball before the elves did. The elves, outnumbered and out of rerolls at this point, continued to successfully dodge about half a dozen times per turn making scoring impossible and even securing the ball barely manageable. On the last turn of the half the failure of the last of a particularly daring string of rolls left the blitzer lying on the ground at the feet of seven Norse players. Considering it rude to refuse the invitation they jumped on him and succeeded only in putting a small scratch in his shoulder pad which was buffed out while he ate his half-time oranges.

Only seven elves answered the bell but they, again, formed themselves into the perfect D. After successfully collecting the ball, caging on the halfway line, ko'ing a lineelf and badly hurting the sole blitzer the Norse believed they were off to a good start. 11 v 5. What could go wrong? How naive.

The thrower, inspired by his team-mates and armed with neither dodge nor block, dodged into three tacklezones (5+) to throw a -2d block on the ball carrier, scoring a double pow. Less than a 4% shot. What made things even worse from the Norse perspective was that the ball-handler was KO'd and he was the only sure-handed man on the team. The ball was lying at the feet of two norsemen, but could they pick it up? Would they, in fact, get the chance? The other elven catcher, dodging away from his marker and around another norse and into two tacklezones, using two GFIs scooped the ball up in those two tacklezones before heaving it up field in another long bomb. 2+ 2+ 2+ 2+ 4+ 4+ 5+. Another 4% shot giving odds on the two actions coming off at less than 2 in 1,000.

The Grimm team sprang quickly into action, knocking over all five elves and rushing to the aid of the lonely ball. They collected it and advanced towards the halfway line forming a 3 man cage and marking all the elves. These elves were not ones to be marked though. The other thrower, inspired by his counterpart, dodged into a tacklezone four times and made two GFIs to mark the ball carrier (14%). This enabled a teammate to dodge into a tacklezone and out again before making two GFIs to get a one die pow on the ball. An 8% move, for an outlandish (in general terms not, I grant you, when seen in the context of this game) 1 in 100 chance.

At this point though Nuffle appears to have switched over to a different channel. The norse scooped up the ball, badly hurt a catcher and rushed towards the end zone, pausing momentarily for a berserker to stun himself on a double skull. 1-1.

One last favourable kick off roll, a riot, gave the Owls two turns to score. But despite more extravagant elfy-dodginess the norse were able to separate the carrier from the ball and the elves ran out of time to recover it.

An extraordinary game in which the true winner was happiness as the opposing coach and I had a great laugh at the amazing things that can happen if you just roll the dice!

Really good fun, looking forward to a rematch soon... Elf on you crazy Chimp!

”