“An enjoyable match between two developed sides. Both coaches took a long time to label their opponent's players - which indicates the level of depth to both teams.

With $370k in juicy inducements, Tomay chose two stars; the formidable Glart and the nasty, sneaky Skitter Stab-Stab. Both players make a significant threat on the field to my style of play; ST4, Block, Claws, Juggernaut negating the Stand Firm on the Blitz (removing the perceived safety of the sideline with SF skill) and Claws turning tough Orcs in squishy AV7 on a successful knock down... Then on the other end of the spectrum, ST2 Skitter; free stabs to players in contact, Agility 4, Movement 9 to go places and with Prehensile Tail and Shadowing the kind of player that increases the odds of failure to try to dodge away. So I think reviewing Tomay’s options, he spend his inducement coin well.

The Unicorns got FAME +1 but lost the toss. Sweltering Heat at the inception of the game gave me an uneasy feeling. That added risk of an unknown team appearing on the field each drive adds uncertainty. I have a couple of key players on my team that are a real threat to Skaven and help me control the pitch. The outcome of a game can change a lot when so many developed players can randomly sit off the field each kick despite a coach’s best efforts to keep them safe and effective.

The Kats opted to receive which wasn't surprising… A developed Skaven side like Tomay's has the movement, skills and ability to force a turnover given the slightest opening, or the ability to pressure an early TD. Two turns is an extravagance for Skaven to score; with 1 turn often being ample to bring the score to 1-1 before receiving the kick in the second half.

The Unicorns played a solid first half and scored on Turn 8, but failed to inflict any significant CAS and KO to negate the risk of a 1TTD or prevent Tomay from fielding a strong 11 for the second half. Tomay played a low contact game, positioning his players to allow an early score and blitzing or fouling any isolated players. Tomay prevented the Unicorns from hitting fragile Gutter Runners for the most part with well placed screening line-rats and his Block,Claw,Mighty Blow, Tackle Storm Vermin lurked nearby to punish any over extensions... Despite not causing any significant number reductions in the rats; Tomay's 1TTD attempt died in its infancy and the Unicorns squared up with only 10 on the pitch (thanks Sweltering Heat!) against a similar number of rats. Unfortunately 10 vs 10 favours the higher mobility side.

Tomay played a great stall drive and I struggled to find the right balance between pressuring his ball carrier and over-extending a cumbersome Orc side. It’s so easy to do with MA4 BOBs, MA5 line orcs and an AG2 Blitzer. Then you find your low movement team on the wrong end of the pitch to a classic Skaven tactic of punch a hole through and pour as many rats through it as possible. Sweep out a screen of players that prevent the Orcs from penetrating in time to pressure the Skaven side to score before their turn 8. A few almost opportunities appeared but sadly the Unicorns were unable to do more than put a couple of tz on the ball carrier on a few earlier turns, none of which came to fruition. Tomay is too good a coach to leave an opening for a blitz on the ball carrier when he has enough numbers. Then Unicorn’s goblin was injured (Badly Hurt) by a Gutter Runner. I don’t like to put JaJa who is a fragile AV6 in contact for a hit, but he has block,dodge,diving tackle and sidestep AND I was able to put him in contact with the ball carrier. It was a gamble that could have tied up the ball carrier for a blitz on my next turn, or forced a dodge to fail and cause a turnover and ball spill. At least the gamble partially worked, he burned a valuable Skaven team reroll as Tomay only got [PUSHBACK][PUSHBACK] on the first hit. Sadly, he went down on the reroll result and he fell foul of the Weeping Dagger and will be MNG. The opportunity to TTM on the last turn was also denied the Unicorns... However I'm happy that the final turn to score by Tomay's team occurred with zero rerolls left in his possession (never a good feeling when you're a coach yet to score an equaliser). I pulled off some elven BS dodging a line orc through multiple tacklzones with x2 GFI to stand in contact with his ball carrier for his turn 16. He needed a dodge or blitz to succeed in scoring. Tomay chose the dodge (only a 2+ with dodge RR). Sadly [1][1] wasn't on the cards. The Skaven side scored bringing the tally to 1-1 and leaving the Unicorns with 1 turn left to attempt a 1 turn score, without a goblin on hand to help achieve this.

Tomay fielded 3 rats in wide formation along the LoS and had a player placed every alternating square, 2 squares off the TD line. Just deep enough to force 3 dodges to get across the TD line. Any 1TTD attempt would need to run the gauntlet and make 3 dodges (or something else, but more about that later). My newly acquired MA8, AG3 Blitzer with Frenzy and Tackle “obligingly” sat off the field due to sweltering heat. On the plus side, Luke Skywalker (M7,AG4,ST5) and more importantly C3PO my KoR, Sure Hands, Pass, Accurate Orc Thrower were both on the pitch and I had 11 players available to attempt a chain-push 1TTD (sadly no reroll left).

The kick and ball scatter fell right next to a Line rat which wasn't so great... The ball pickup would occur in a tackle-zone and the pass would have a chance of being intercepted (Great) and need an extra +1 to succeed. Buuut, I got Quick Snap and so Luke started 1 square closer and my starting sequence required one less block to get Luke within range. The early moves went well. Then the moment I had been dreading - blocking with the Troll. She woke up! [YES!] Then threw a 3D block. [BOTHDOWN][BOTHDOWN][BOTHDOWN] [NOOO!] Pro-reroll? SUCCESS! Reblocked and got the result I needed... Phew! My hopes were still alive. Luke was within scoring range and pushing him one square closer was too risky (or possibly not even an option) he could make it with x2 GFI. C3PO picked up the ball with Sure Hands in a tz, the intercept roll failed. The first pass in a tz was inaccurate; pass reroll successful, catch successful! Woohoo! Now for the fun part... I had saved the blitz for Luke to smash his screening player out of the way, or at minimum make it 2 dodges not 3 on a pushback result. My hopes were over if I had [SKULL[SKULL], [SKULL][BOTHDOWN], [BOTHDOWN][SKULL] or [BOTHDOWN]BOTHDOWN]. So on a 2D blitz he had 11.11% chance of failure; a 55.56% chance of knocking his opponent over and 33.33% chance of getting a pushback. Not bad odds vs 37% chance of succeeding on the 3+,3+,2+ dodge sequence (excluding the GFI which he has to make in either scenario).

The blitz was successful and BANG the rat went down. Luke followed up then on the first GFI fell over and the ball scattered. No damage to Luke, but the chainpush 1TTD which has been on my wishlist for completing successfully on an Orc side goes unfulfilled.

Reviewing the odds in Samba calculator; the blitz sequence of Luke's actions had a 38.58% success probability without a reroll in hand, so I can't be too surprised that he didn't make it. And when I review the entire sequence (adding in all of the chain-push results (including Pro skill); ball pickup in a TZ with Sure Hands, pass with Pass Skill in a TZ, intercept and catch with AG4 - the odds of succeeding on the 1TTD were a very slim 7.048% without a team reroll.

Still, I'm sure that the moment Luke had the ball caught and had blitzed his selected target and succeeded in knocking over his opponent, Tomay may have been a tad worried. A very fun game, well coached on both sides and a Tie result, with an ALMOST win, which I can't complain about not pulling off successfully. A game to remember and maybe I’ll go back and review it in the near future to see if I could have done anything differently to improve my game strategy and tactical choices. Still, I end this match report thinking that I’ve come a decent way forward in my coaching. A few seasons ago I would not have been competent to give the likes of Tomay, coaching a well developed Skaven side a challenging game that was at best result on T16 a tie for him and possibly a win for me.
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