“Ah. Another season, and the team is hungry for more success. We have gone on to the cup the last three Seasons. but has not had much success there. but this year...! For the first time since inception, we have been moved to the Albion Conference, and it looks to be a tough experience. Our idols, the Expats are here. And so is the GoldLords and the Pillars and the Pirates. Sounds violent...

We start against the high elves from Palinam, though. The team is ready, and even though we haven't played them before, they have come far. One star, the catcher Antipater, a strong blitzer and a very agile liner are the best players. For once, we start with the ball, but the crowd is in favour of the elves. The game opens with a rain of stones from the crowd, and Antigonus goes down stunned. We advance slowly up the right side, but otherwise manage to do very little in the first part of the half. Then Claws gets confused, and that opens a possibility for the elves. Alexander blocks Peeler away, and Leonnatus can run in past the confused Claws and blitz Winner, the ballcarrier. Winner is bumped backwards, and the ball is loose. Agile Alcetas sneak in between Idler and Brewer and snatches the ball away, passing it backwards into the hands of Antipater. And catcher Eumenes is loose just past our midline. The saurii shapes up under adversary conditions, though, and Fraternizer takes the lead by sending Leonnatus off the field badly hurt. They form a cordon and leaves Eumenes to the skink Squad. The elves tries to outflank the skinks on their own right flank, and get five elves down to the flank, but the Scavengers manages to push back, surrounding the ballcarrier with Fraternizer (who failed to succeed in his blitz against Eumenes) and two skinks. Elves are forced to use Eumenes to blitz Mobster, and succeeds, freeing Antipater to move all the way to the goalline. The Scavengers can do little to preevnt the elf goal, and consoles themselves by beating up on the rest of hte elves. Peeler succeeds in getting another injury against Antigonus, but Antipater scores the first goal of the match, a defensive TD to boot...! Well done by the elves.

The elves have to put in their reserve and are still only able to muster 10 players for their defense. We are all well, and there is time enough to score. Let's find out how good these elves are at defense. We advance on the right flank and puts pressure on the elves by advancing Warrior into a scoring position while the other skinks secure the ball. The elves manage to move two elves into a covering position surrounding Warrior, but none of them have tackle. The saurii tries to build a fortress around Warrior, and Brewer headbutts rookie catcher Seleucus and a third elf is badly hurt. The elves regoup and Alexander pushes Warrior backwards, but Antipater's blitz fails spectacularly, and he falls stunned to the ground. This allows Booster to push Alexander away from Warrior, and a simple handover from Mobster to Warrior makes the TD an easy sprint away. Warrior gets into gear and rushes away, and boom... the equalizer is scored, just as the end of the half. The teams just manage to get into position for the kick-off before the time is out, but not much happens, except for another stone rain from the crowd, which stuns Protector, and a successful pass from Eumenes to Antipater.

All Our players are ready for the second half, whereas the elves will need to get by without Leonnatus, Antigonus and Seleucus. That means we are 11 vs 9, but the elves start with the ball. We will have to muster a good defense now, in order to come through in this match. The elves start optimistically by advancing up on their right flank. A pass from Alcetas to Antipater suceeds and Antipater carries the ball across the midline and stops just at his maximum scoring range.. Close protection is handled by the experienced thrower Craterus, and both blitzers and rookie lineelf Peitheon are screening. We cannot get to Antipater, so we satisfies ourselves with picking off Alexander and putting two saurii and a bunch of skinks between Antipater and the goal line. This induces the elves to change sides. Antipater is plled way back into their own half, and Eumenes is put into a scoring position on their left flank, but with no screen. Booster promptly hits Alexander hard enough to send him off vadly hurt. This means Eumenes is the only scoring threat. He is therefore marked by Winner and Breaker before being blitzed by Brewer. Blitz isn't too effective, but at least he goes Down and the elves cannot score in their next round. The rest of the saurii puts pressure on the remaining elves around the midline. The elves now commit themselves to the left flank attack, putting all remaining seven players (Peithon is tripped by Claws' tail on the midline)in there to screen Antipater with the ball. The sidestepping blitzer Parmenion prevents us from being likely to be able to blitz Antipater, so intead we put Wiggler in front of Eumenes and lets Idler blitz Parmenion. He is toppled, but not out, but this allows Breaker to push Eumenes off the Field and into the crowd. Unfortunately, this was an elven section... Perdiccas is toppled and stunned by Brewer, and as Protector, Claws and Winner move in to support as well, the elves have been well and truly stopped cold. Parmenion attempts a desperate blitz on Idler, but fails. Thus, the only option left is to try for a pass to get the ball to the elven backfield. Brewer attempts the inteception but the ball sails beautifully away just above his scaly arms, and reaches Alcetas who makes the catch. Only to become a prime target for the Scavengers. Booster promptly blitzes Alcetas and brings him down with his tackle skills, and the ball is loose! Fraternizer, Winner, Warrior and Wiggler gets to the ball while Protector surfs elven thrower Craterus (unfortunately still into the same elven section that just received Eumenes so well) and Idler stuns Antipater, who only narrowly managed to Escape being surfed himself. Elves are down to six players now, and only agile Alcetas is close to the ball. He does the best he can, by blitzing Winner away, picking up the ball and dodging away from Booster. Peithon and Cassander tries their best to give him support, but it's not enough. Protector and Brewer surfs Perdiccas, the other elven thrower, and that section of the stands is now filled to the brim with elven players. This frees up Fraternizer to blitz Alcetas, bringing him down. Winner can thus pick up the ball and With Three skinks and three saurii helping him, the elves are running short on options. Parmenion does his best, but his blitz fails, and the Scavengers can stabilise the situation. All opposing elves are pushed away, and Winner is boxed in behind six saurii and two skinks. The elves tries to take out the skinks, and Alcetas succeeds in sending Warrior off with an injury, but it is too little too late and Winner can just run in the second Scavenger TD of the match. The elves remaining weapon is a one-turn touchdown. They actually manage to set Eumenes, their only remaining catcher, up for the attempt, but his first dodge fails against Black Booster fails. Thus, the Scavengers can wrap up the game by having breaker picking up the loose ball and passing it successfully to Winner.

A solid win, and the elves were simply too few in the end. Maybe they should have relied on their agility in one-to-one instead of focusing their attack in the second half on the one flank. That allowed us to surf three players and to concentrate Our tacklers and the one dive-tackler in that area. Or maybe that's just easy to see after the game is over... Anyway, we won and will be playing the Pirates in the next match... Yay...



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