“So, it looks like my lucky streak has finally come to an end. Well, in some ways. You could say, though, that I was pretty lucky to come away with a draw here, and nothing worse in the way of injuries than a -MA, so maybe it's not as bad as remember. But it was an ugly game - for both of us.

The wood elves received the opening kick, and set about their usual tactic of keeping the ball back and getting a lot of targets downfield. It wasn't as easy as I would have liked thanks to a perfect defence, but when steinerp's blitzer double failed a gfi heading for my thrower I was looking fairly comfortably in control.

And then it all turned pear-shaped when my AG5 wardancer double failed his leap, leaving the poor thrower all alone and easily knocked over by the advancing high elves. I ran back as much of the team as I could, but with the wardancers downfield (and one still on the ground) there was nothing I could do to stop steinerp running in a quick score.

So back to square one.

This time I did manage to get my act together and score the way I was supposed to, but then the high elves - who were every bit as agile as the wood elves but tougher and faster as well - returned the favour two turns later. And then I squeezed in another score to end my half.

My blocking was terrible all the way through this half, but then steinerp was having his own dice issues at the other end and couldn't seem to manage even the most straightforward 2+ rolls with any consistency.

And then, on the high elf final turn of the half, I put paid to steinerp's one-turn attempt with a blitz. It didn't do a lot, except stop him scoring, but I guess that was enough.

And then I got another blitz to start the second half. Again, I couldn't get a single high elf off the field (or even off his feet, most of the time), but the blitz was a bit better and it forced the high elves to try some tricky dodges before getting the ball. Then the most annoying thing in the world happened (to steinerp, not me) and his AG5 safe throw thrower was intercepted by a wood elf in 2 TZs. I still couldn't knock over any high elves on my way to freeing the ball carrier, but at least my agility game was running well, and I was able to get the ball to the thrower and toss a long pass for the go-ahead score.

Sadly for me, at this point, the high elves finally remembered how to block. And foul. Within the space of the following five turns I found myself with all four catchers and both wardancers in the injured boxes and I was extremely lucky to be able to keep the score at 4-4 - even my third blitz result failing to allow me to stop the high elves from scoring.

It had two turns remaining to try and retake the lead, and even with a rooted tree and a bunch of linemen it was do-able. But it was not to be. Too many bad dice rolls earlier in the half had swallowed up all my rerolls, and I failed a dodge even before being able to get off one final long bomb.

So despite all the terrible dice and useless blocking, it wasn't a bad result. I think steinerp had it just as bad as I did, and the only real difference was the sudden burst of violence halfway through the second half that left half my team injured. Had it been the other way round, I think I could have found some way to win. But had it come earlier in the game, I think I would have been looking at a humiliating loss rather than a lucky draw.

So it looks like being a tough game next time out, with a wardancer and two useful catchers missing. Still, I'll get them back afterwards, and it's not as if I'm not used to playing with journeymen! So we'll see.

”