Bouffon

I didn't want to go to specifics, but Gobas had go and do it anyway. Now I have to just add, that you should have a TG basing that guard in a brawl situation; if they can use that guard to 2d block players basing that guard, then they can move that guard somewhere else. And I know from experience that using the same guard in two different places in one turn is super amazing. With st5 basing it, that should be harder.

Here again, hi. Bretonnians are a funny team, they lack any real weakness, but their strong points are not that strong or come with some strange drawbacks. I wouldn't fear getting up close and personal that much, considering this is still a pretty fresh bret team without multiple dodges, if peasants leave the pitch or.just lie there stunned, they have hard time against you. Just mind that speed of theirs, because brets, at least when I play them, try to lure the other team to over commit to that bash.

If there is no consensus and situation is unclear, go for the kill!

One or two early pros, long as blodge is taken first, is not bad I think. Those moments where a succesful hypnogaze would be totally nice but not worth a reroll happen very often with my playstyle. Going for pro on everyone after blodge would epitome of silliness, however.

I'd consider mighty blows for tomb guards, depending on what you're facing for the next few matches. Four st5 guys already give a very good bash game, so guards might not be needed. What is needed is more levels to roll those doubles for block, and gaining 10 spp on a ag1 guy is kind of slow, unless mighty blow helps a little. Movement would be good, but not as a first level.

Social democracy rejected marxism, yes. But I'd rather highlight that Marx rejected social democracy: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_Critque_of_the_Gotha_Programme.pdf If you're not interested in reading some very good critique, Marx is one of the true masters of pen, then one core argument is also presented in a very good form by one of the best philosophical youtube channels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzQZ_NDEzVo I haven't played Disco Elysium yet myself, going to buy it as a Christmas present for myself while warming myself with a run of Planescape. Still, going by the fact that DE developers are Estonians (feat in itself, considering that Estonia has non-existent games industry) and Estonia was a part of Soviet Union, they probably received their education in a system that was very much informed by the Soviet one, which had, ehr, unique but better representation of Marx than western ones, which usually lacked any representation far as I know. Now I am talking about education that is not university level economics, politics and philosophy of course, which all could very reasonably have some Marx in them. I can comment more with my enthusiastic hobbyist level of knowledge once I have actually played the game. Some final notes: -Communist Manifesto is a rather short piece that one can read during lunchtime, but it is early work and by no means a core part communism. It has no (major) conflicts with the more developed philosophy of Capital and other later works, but it is important to remember the context it was written in when reading it. -Marx didn't write what communism would be like, for he didn't know that. This might come of as a bit of an cheap trick, but directly linking Marx to any sort of practise of marxism has very little going for it.

To teach you lot some patience. It is exclusive for a year only, so you can buy it from some decent sales in a year. Year is also (usually) the time that games get most of the important patches in and good old final opinion of it is formed. Anyway, personally I am interested in the coop campaign. Those are rare enough nowadays.

You can use your own money and go for a babe with 10K from your own pockets. Not that it is too good for a team with thick skulled linemen and ST5 wonders that should rarely go down, as you need to save up for 2nd blitz-ra as well. But if he goes for that apo and you end up with 90K inducement money, paying that 10K for a bribe starts sounding like a deal. It pays itself back even, if you draw or win because of it, as winning or drawing a match is +10K earnings I think. And elves are hard to beat by just beating them, and that is the only thing Khemri has at this point. Luck to you.

MD3: Pre-match theorising My 3rd match got scheduled for tomorrow evening, and I've been a busy with that thing everyone is busy with: stuff. I have no time to write a painfully painful semi-narrative series of bad and oblique jokes, so I'll just settle for doing this quick, dirty and in much more readable format. My team Norse team They have good amount of guards, tackles and even blodge, are 350 TV behind (wizard, bribe and DP linemerc perhaps) and have more spares. Both runners are rather nasty and there is a strip ball there with tackle and blodge with guard, jump up and tackle. All this is bad for me. What I like is that they are Norse/AV7, that there is only one mighty blow, said MB lacks tackle, that annoying looking berserker having niggle, tackle+strip ball being ma5 and kick not being that useful against my team and playstyle. And while having 3 tackles is usually good against dodgy teams and 5 guards is good for bash, I think the Kislev way of combining guards with with dodge allows me to push the tackles away to place guards where I need them, with some luck of course. I expect to win 2-1 if I get to receive first half and 1-0 if they receive the ball first half. Plan is to get one good turn of armor breaks for many stuns and then move the ball forward, score when I have to and bash that sweet av7 in the meanwhile. Defence focuses on killing them if I received first and scored, if not, then I'll actually have to prioritise them not scoring. This is going to be a revenge for that 2-1 defeat against these very same Norse last season. They felt pretty invincible that time around, but it can't happen twice, right?

When your high-value AG1 player has the ball and needs a level (and they always need a level), handing it off is a desperation move in itself, just like that pass. And we're speaking Khemri here, you can only hand off to ag2 players, which is 25% chance of a lost ball and a turnover with a reroll. Good advice if this was any other team, mind.

Ah, a three-way draw. I love it. Please do not alter this.

Passing is better less you opponent expects it. If you play high elves, never pass. If you play some other elves, pass only when you absolutely must. If you are humans, do it sometimes. If you are ag3 without pass, do it with abandon. If you are dorfs, farm spp out of it. If you are Khemri, move the ball only by passing. Or perhaps not, but I've seen game winning passes from Khemri and dorfs that puny mind says are unlikely but cold math puts the chance of success somewhere around 30% and failure costs nothing really. Do that against elves only when in a bind, though.

Something deeper and shorter than that previous wall of text. May Nuffle bless anyone who went through it all. MD2: Analysis (Unless otherwise stated, all pictures depict start of my turn) So, Khemri got enough inducements to go for Ali Babad, 2 bribes and a wizard to cause me some early grey hair. I don't generally care at all about wizards, especially when playing against something slow and un-agile like Khemri, but those bribes make me really nervous when lot of my team revolves around wrestle, diving tackle and piling on. I won the toss and decided to receive. My plan and hope was to cause enough removals during my initiative to make fouling non-issue for at least the initial drive, which would hopefully last the entire first half. Even if that failed and lost a lot of players, defending against Khemri can be done with just a few players, as one only needs to sack the ball once and throw it back half a pitch to make them lose a lot of time walking back and picking it up again. Khemri set up with skeletons up front, as setting tomb guards up front just risks me running past them, screening the skeletons away, downing one TG and fouling it because I have bench. Anyway, this lead me to adopt the following plan, should everything go ideally. Idea was to tie those frontal skeletons down to diving tackles and bear's tail, move in those two threatening linemen on to his back and set up a thin screen to prevent blitzing the ball, hiding just behind that middle line. This should force him to either give up on those frontal skeletons or moving in to support them, but leaving some players behind to deal with those linemen. From there I either have initiative in larger bash or freedom to develop those flanks. But, like I said, that is if everything works ideally. It did not work ideally. Although I KO'd one, those skeletons in the middle did no go all down and bear went stupid. So I decided to quickly switch to plan B, which was baiting the wizard out and eyeing for opportunity. Lucky for me, my pile of 6 players, one of them ball carrier, was enough to cause 1st turn fireball that only got 2 of them down and didn't break any armor. Khemri went a bit cautious after that, not basing me as much as they could've, and resigned to foul the lineman they got down with their blitz. Next couple of turns were bit a dazzle, with me trying to keep amount of blocks Khemri got to a strict minimum while making some room on the right to place a catcher in there as a scoring threat. I think Khemri made their biggest mistakes during this small portion of the match. They kept Ali Babad back, although his sidestep, jump up and stab could've downed few of my blodge guards that kept me competitive in the bash. They finally commited Ali Babad when I got in quite deep in my right, but by that point Ali Babad was the only player chilling back, other either trying to push me back or foul that unlucky lineman. Turn 4 began with this kind of formation. Red arrows point intent to retreat that advancement backwards and Xs mark where I intended to have players form a cage around the ball marked by B, but there is also one X below that cage, beyond that bash, where I wanted to have a player that could not be bashed without a blitz. This is, of course, not to make a cage and go in like a dwarf, but to lure Khemri in with an appearance of that kind of play. That cage is positioned so that they have to screen it with at least 4 players to prevent a simple run past them, and use much more, 6 to 7 players, if they want to prevent easy blitzing too. Although I didn't get what I hoped for, I got something close enough, and managed to leap the ball over the thin Khemri lines and run to the back left where no one could threaten me. To buy some stalling time, my ag4 blitzer blitzed that last X player free and allowed him to run in between my ball carrier and the point where the entire Khemri team had ended up. If Khemri still had a wizard at the beginning of my turn 4, that plan would've been totally bonkers. Let the lesson here be that wizard should be used when even 1 in 3 players going down to the fireball allows doing something important to the ball, be it moving the ball forward, basing the ball with diving tackles or sacking it. That early use of the wiz had a very little chance to cost me the ball control and even chance to remove players was pretty low. Rest of the drive was pretty uneventful, lost some players to badly hurt when I started running away from the general melee and stalling long as the ball was safe. Khemri's fouling continued and was pretty unlucky in general. I scored during my turn 8 and took one turn of bashing losing the bear to badly hurt. Kickoff event for that 1 turn drive changed weather to sweltering heat, and I took that as a sign that any heat removals from my team were safe and from Khemri were not bashing/fouling me. And I got lucky indeed, 2nd half not only saw some fairly minor heat removals for me and lost TG for Khemri, but it also started with a pitch invasion that saved most of my frontline from terrible mummy bash. X marks players downed by the pitch invasion. With so few standing players, TGs being slow and ball landing so far away, Khemri moved in after picking up the ball, but I managed to run through the gaps while basing the skeletons. As I threatened the ball, Khemri tried daring and very objectionable blitz with the ball after 2 gfis, after which ball would've been behind a small screen. But as Nuffle just sometimes hates some players, last gfi was snake eyes, ball scattered to 0 tackle zones and the player the ball tried to blitz was my ag4 blitzer. It was a leap, pickup and a run to secure the ball. I scored again in 2 turns. With a solid 2-0 lead and just 5 turns left, I decided to place my players in the back and chill it out. Khemri could score one 1 TD easily, but then they would have to get extremely lucky to make it 2-2 which would be a draw, not a defeat. And, in the end, even that failed when Khemri went for turn 16 foul instead of scoring. Theory and reality Now I go through some of the bolded parts of my pre-match theorising and comment on them we shall kill these skeletons Yeah, right. Nothing wrong with this in theory, but they just wouldn't leave the pitch. Still, it was only something of secondary importance to prevent the fouls that kept my pants wet throughout the match, and those fouls were pretty weak too. Aiming for the oppressor-mummies would be a futile and wasted effort. Oh yes, I have no claw and those things are rather nasty if they do not get at least stunned. I managed to keep my distance well enough with only occasional blodge (hard to take down) and bear (I don't care if it dies) having to take hits. Now I think that I should've perhaps based them more, as they managed to reposition themselves into a nasty places couple of times. our ultimate objective: taking the ball. Khemri are slow and without agility; we can and will outrun and outmanoeuvre them. And this one I got totally right. Wizard was, in certain sense, their fastest and tackliest player. Once it was used, it was only a matter of time before I could go on and 2+, 2+ (with separate rerolls) the ball to their end zone. With that fast 2nd touchdown, I was in position to just run and hide the last 5 turns and still win 2-1 with spp pass on top. **** If my opponent has something to add, feel welcome to do so, @Aguelo

Still a long way to go until HAL 9000 VMMMM joins the team.

Everything below T3 works as it does with the exception that the very bottom tiers can have more than 3 divisions to accommodate alternative amount of teams per season. But in your case, as Pidpad noted above, you are back in T6 because you rolled a new team. Each new team starts from T6 and has to work their way up.

To answer the latter question first: no. Any games outside of OCC league structure are forbidden. I am actually not sure why, as friendly matches do not give SPP and casualties do not stick. Probably confuses league manager or something. Relevant section from rules (emphasis mine): And yes, you dropped a tier because of your last season's record. Top 3 teams of each division go up a tier and bottom 3 go down a tier. This image of the spreadsheet where the magic happens might or might not explain it better than mere words.

Oh yes, that is true. I keep telling people to do minimum amount of leaps with Kislev, because the threat of them alone makes people make plays that allow some good non-leaping plays. Still, with that experience I react to leaps the same way I react to wizards: I mostly ignore them. Sure, I play a little differently because of them, but I don't commit too many resources for damage control should that leap/wizard happen, because that just invites them to do something else; if they use a wizard it is gone and if they use leap they fail 1/3 of the time before even getting to the long series of block, scatter, picking the ball up and moving it beyond the range of my revenge. This all depends on the team of course. In general I like mobile teams: Kislev, Humans, Skaven, UW, Elves. With something like Khemri my playstyle would be much more focused on protecting the ball. And, as a final note, this attitude might come down to me playing Kislev mostly. They can do that 3+ leap several times per turn for each turn of the match and have very good defensive potential even without going for the sack. Kislev can afford to be patient and has much more leaping potential, so more of it might seem like a waste when compared to some elves with a single leap and elf players to benefit from it.

MD2: Narrative match report "Windy" Winston: ...and I am pleased to announce that my co-announcer for this match will be Ivan Teodorovich, a player from Vanguard Party, or VPA for short. So, why are you not in the pitch tonight, Mr. Teodorovich? Ivan Teodorovich: Thank you Winston, pleased to be here. The reason why I am not playing today should be obvious if you saw me having my cup before I came to the announcer's box. "Windy" Winston: No, I didn't. They don't allow me to have caffeine or bloodweiser before the matches anymore, something about unintelligiblity or something. Ivan Teodorovich: Well, my hands are shaking like there's a tremor living inside of me, I got only a sip and rest spilled all over me. Gnashrak hit me like something else that last match, phew. WW: That would explain the vibrations I am feeling even now and your wet pants too. Another explanation is there in the pitch, as the match is starting just now; it seems that EVERLASTING REST, and yes, that is how you pronounce that team's name, has just introduced Ali Babad and their wizard to the referee along with 2 brown envelopes. I hear your team's captain has almost irrational fear of dirty playing in the pitch, and in Blood Bowl that means being seriously afraid of those spiky boots, folks! So is this true, Mr. Teodorovich? IT: Oh yes, good old cap'n Lenin can do this amazing ten minute performance out of borghousaa being, well, bit of a thingies ye know. Man, he likes to speech our cap'n. WW: Man of action too, he is positioning himself right in the front for one fierce offensive by the looks of it. And the fans cheer for this frontal deployment! I must ask you, Mr. Teodorovich, is this the vanguardism that your very team is named after? Many interviewers have tried to ask about that for long as VPA has played, but we are as of yet to find anyone able to understand more than three words of captain Lenin's speeches. Is he truly a strategic and tactical genius or is it all just big poo-poo? IT: Genius undoubtedly, genius indeed. To be fair, I don't really understand him much myself, or the rest of my team for that matter. They were all friends, ehr, comrades as we call each other, long before I joined. They sympathised with me and let me hang on after I lost my job. WW: Lost your job? What did you do before you became a bowler? IT: Worked in a circus actually. Me and my brother, also called Ivan, we were bear feeders. WW: Oh, sounds interesting. IT: It was not really, very simple and menial. My brother cut of pieces of himself and I fed them to the bear. We got fired after my brother run out of limbs. WW: Fascinating! I must ask, does this bear of VPA, this, ehr, Spectre of Communism, is it the same bear? IT: Oh yes it is! I like to think of it as my new brother; the other Ivan died tragically when he joined Nurgle-cult trying to re-grow his limbs. WW: Truly fascinating! But we haven't commented what has happened in the game yet, so let's get back to it now. It seems that the match has evolved or degenerated, depending on who you ask, into a general brawl in the line of scrimmage. It doesn't look good for VPA! Those tomb guardians, they DOMINATE the direction of this general violence and the brother-eating bear just stands starry eyed. IT: Oh, and here comes the fouling, I can see bones sticking out of Skvortsov-Stepanov...oh wait, no, those are just bones of the skeleton stepping on him. WW: Still, that must have hurt, and yet the referee is blind! IT: Now see! Now see! WW: Yes, here it comes ladies, gentlemen and various mutated creatures of no fixed gender! The vaunted flanking manoeuvre of VPA, see how they keep their screen intact while forming a new one...and OH! They push the tomb guard away as well, captain Lenin just jumped up and kicked something several times his size away, amazing! Meanwhile they prepare another flank as well, and the ball moves randomly behind now thinned middle screen! IT: Khemri spreads around to cover every base. That right side is stronger, the ball will move there next. Ouch, that looks like it hurt. WW: Yes, Skvortsov-Stepanov got to meet the boot again, but looks still alive...I think. About the breakthrough, are you sure? It seems that the bear got prodded back towards the middle, is it a breakthrough into a full surround! AND A SKELETON GETS ALMOST BROKEN AS WELL! Splinters flew all the way to the benches and I think at least one spectator had his jugular cut! IT: Just holding action, see how Glevob-Avilov is set up a scoring treath. In the right...and the ball moves for follow-up hand-off. WW: No hand-off just yet, and that right is deep in but stretched thin. Left side is abandoned as well, this looks dicey for VPA! IT: Here come's Ali Babad! I think I've felt his dagger between my ribs once... WW: And you lived to talk about, lucky fella you're. Like Nikolai Krylenko there, wrestling the star player down to the ground. This allows Glevob-Avilov to retrea...wait, is this just me or did Glevob-Avilov go between two rather nasty skeletony-types? IT: That he did. I've heard him complaining to our other catchers that he can support against multiple opponents too, if given a chance. Really high on himself for being fastest and the most agile of us. WW: But not able to do what he boasts to others of! Classics! Here comes Lenin and saves him from his own hubris, but VPA has lost all their advance positions! Is this bad as it looks, Mr. Teodorovich? Your captain piled on that skeleton but is now just lying there, surrounded by some extra-spiky boots. Your famous teamplay seems to be stressed as well, many almost slips here and there. IT: I know what the captain is doing, brave man, bravest of them. WW: What? Am I about to see stratagems from a genius far beyond myself? Dead genius most like, that Ali Babad himself coming to...OUCH! IT: Captain survived Gnashrak's horns as well this is just nothi...OUCH! ... ... WW & IT: JUST STUNNED! WW: And referee whistles...a red card! IT: Changes his mind after that skeleton winked at him. WW: These referees are quite honest and willing to reconsider their calls if questioned. Willing to listen both sides, folks! IT: If questioned by someone buttering his bread. WW: Yes...wait, how do skeletons wink? IT: Beats me. Most people I meet in the pitch do. WW: Wait, what's happening. Trotsky just got freed from tomb guardian Ra-Mon by most of the VPA and Trotsky runs to the left to help the one-on-one between Skvortsov-Stepanov and a skeleton in there, leftover from that earlier stomping! IT: Here it comes! WW: Ladies and gentlerats, Skvortsov-Stepanov runs to the middle of EVERLASTING REST's end and is high-fived in the middle by Gorbunov, carrying the ball, who has leaped over all of the Khemri. THERE IS NOTHING THAT CAN CATCH HIM ANYMORE! LOOK AT HIM GOING FOR IT! IT: Almost slipped there... WW: Yes, dear spectators, it was like he really fell down and then stood up and took those last steps again in a world gone gray, but that is just crazy. This match is driving me insane! Insaner than before! IT: And here, see. Our brave captain is going to get some more boot, this Khemri can do no other. WW: Sacrificing himself so his team could score, perhaps win! Truly a genius move, not to mention brave and capital F Foolish! Oh wait, what, we've been totally wrong here in the announcer's box, ladies and gentle-elves, it is the bear-mascot of VPA that gets fouled. IT: Brother, NOOOOOOOOO! WW: Just a slight concussion, might wake up for this match even. IT: He is the only family I have left. WW: What once was the centre of attention, the stronghold for the ball, is not but an empty and meaningless theatre of violence! VPA is leaving that part of the pitch as fast as they are able, fur-dressed men are leaping left and right away from the army of undead. IT: No, not all of them! See, Stalin stays there and revenges what they almost did to our captain...Ali Babad goes down! WW: Down for this drive too! I don't know how skeletons wink, but they can get mild concussions too, as just now proven, so anything is possible folks! IT: Captain escapes! WW: This halftime is coming to its end, it is just some remainder violence and a guaranteed touchdown for VPA. We might as well go to commercials...no wait, Stalin, bravely avenging his captain, he got a boot as his reward and is...NOT DEAD! Not dead, but out for the rest of this match. IT: Hopefully this hit cures his violent impulses. WW: I pretend I didn't hear that, teams should support each other. Anyway, commercials: Are you down on your luck? Is that lucky roll of 6 just beyond the corner, but spiralling expenses prevent you from going for it? Have you considered a loan to get over these lonely moments that appear so foul? Of course you have, you're not boneheaded, but in that same vein: aren't loans dangerous? Wasn't your neighbour's organs harvested with a chainsaw last night, keeping you awake with his howls of pain (those werewolf neighbourhoods are terrible that way)? Well, that is your fate only if you can't pay back! With a Goblin Chartered Banks loan you not only get the money, but also financial coaching from some of the best financial experts alive. With the resources and the plan, all you need to succeed is to succeed, and there is a smiling, laughing and sneering elven star player inside all of us, more literally in cases of certain trolls. With a Goblin Chartered loan, it is only up to you! IT: Hey, we actually started our team with one of those. Burned through our initial winning to pay them back, not to mention the interest, but good service. They even offered to pay our legal aid in case they took us to courts. WW: Yes, legal aid writes your confession for you and tortures you until you sign it. Really speeds up the proceedings. IT: Hmmm, now that I think about it, captain said something about them proving our point. Never really understood this theory stuff, being new to this vanguardism. WW: Financing a Blood Bowl team with a loan sounds strange to my ear. How did you manage to secure one million for such a risky venture? IT: Well, our captain helped to solve the strike situation that GC had when were applying for that loan. WW: Oh yes, I remember now. Gnoblar cleaning staff demanded a pay for their work, silly buggers. Your captain managed to talk them down, I always thought that they just forgot what they were doing and got back to work? IT: Captain explained something to them for a very long time and very slowly. Repeated himself a lot I think, hard to get a message through to those small things. WW: And several months later, in a clearly planned manner, same gnoblars attacked the HR-departments meeting and tore several executives into tiny pieces. It all got put down soon when ogres got called in and all gnoblars got served as second lunch of the day. I remember interview of the surviving HR-boss who almost smiled his head off when he realised that he will be getting all the bonuses this year, being the only survivor. IT: Why they call it human resources in a goblin firm? WW: I dunno. But hey, the second half is starting, the EVERLASTING REST will be the one on the offensive this time. We missed the last few seconds of the second drive during the first half. The bear woke up and got stomped again it seems, and referee is an animal lover, because he raised a red card for that even after accidentally raising his other brown envelope first. IT: Good, I love my brother. Wait, why do both teams look more undermanned than they should? WW: Didn't you noticed how our air conditioning started to flap his flapper much faster some moments ago? Heatwave is passing by this stadium. Lenin and Glevob-Avilov are dehydrated and out, along with the Ra-Mon and a blitz-ra from EVERLASTING REST, all sweating profusely. IT: Wait, how do skeletons, or mummies for that matter, sweat? WW: They do many strange things, I think we've established that already. IT: Wait-wait-wait, what is that? Who let a bunch of fans in the pitch? WW: I think better question is who can stop them! Look at them go, climbing up a mummy and biting its eyes! These guys must your fans, enthusiastic bunch! IT: They roughed up our frontliners as well. WW: Unless my eyes fooled me, they jumped down when no one even touched them; can't blame them, poor buggers are facing some huge mummified monsters. IT: And they went out as fast as they came, I wonder why people this fast and vicious do not blame the game themselves? WW: They are faster, more vicious and smarter than your average Blood Bowl players. IT: Ah...hey do you mean that I am st... WW: And EVERLASTING REST has got the ball! Their front line looks mighty weak, though! Stay tuned folks! IT: Not a frontline anymore, my team goes through those gaps like there's no tomorrow! WW: For a bowler there seldom is. But what is this? EVERLASTING REST is converging to their right side AND THE BALL CARRIER RUNS HEAD ON TO FACE HIS WOULD BE SACKER! IT: Brave moves, brave moves. WW: BUT HE FALTERS AT THE END AND GOES DOWN TO A NASTY KICK BY TROTSKY! IT: Still brave. WW: Vice-captain Trotsky, now leading the team when Lenin is out due to a heatstroke, he leaps to the ball and gets it! He gets it and runs folks! It looks like a defensive touchdown in just a minute in to the second half! IT: That brave ball-carrying skeleton gets up and tries to take it back it seems...vice-cap'n just laughs at him. WW: Hits him in the face on his way to SCCOOOOoooo...stall, folks. IT: Not for longs, see he hands off to Antonov-Ovseyen. WW: Yes, indeedy he does. It is 2-0 for VPA folks, and the heat seems to be waning, most of the players are vigorous enough to set themselves up for this 4th drive. I fear this is where the game might get boring as VPA is known for playing it safe with this kind of lead, even allowing their opponents to score for 2-1. IT: Me and some of my continued survival thank our captain for this playstyle. WW: Yes, VPA is setting up in the back and...and...and shouting some insults it seems. What does a "reactionary society left behind by the moving forces of history" mean? IT: I think it is something about their mothers. WW: These animated dead do not seem to like these bitter jabs at their equally demised mothers. You hear that skeletal clicking and clanking with some loud moaning in the background? IT: I think I do. WW: That is how dead insult you! It is a general shouting match! It is a riot! Fans are getting into it too folks! More than usual, I mean. The previous pitch-invaders, I think I see them there trying to strangle some skeletal fans, after what I've seen today I'd not be surprised if skeleton could be strangled to second death! IT: But the drive was kicked of some time ago already, wasn't it? WW: It was, the clock is ticking folks! But see, shouting is dying down and players are starting to move! The ball rises. IT: My team seems happy enough to continue hurling insults. WW: For how long, the ball is getting closer to your end zone...oh wait, VPA is evacuating their end of the pitch, they seem to allow this score to happen, like I predicted folks. IT: Some of the Khemri stayed back fouling out frontliners. I feel for them and wish I didn't, those hits do not kill but they hurt, a lot, I know from experience. WW: Wait, one vanguardist is not moving to the sidelines with the rest...Lenin goes on and blitzes one of the advancing skeletons, leaps on top of him after giving first a solid punch. IT: Those dead do not look happy. WW: Yes, the very lively expressions of the dead do not appreciate this at all. Will they foul him, it seems like a foul, but they are out of bribes and what-what-what...I AM WORDLESS FOLKS! EVERLASTING REST just handed off the ball to a blitz-ra, Seti, who can now run to the end zone and score. What a agile ancient limbs these guys have! IT: But here comes the foul still, poor cap'n, this might hurt. WW: AND! IT! DOES! Nothing permanent folks, but I think I saw his eyes roll upwards and never come down, he is out for the rest of match, all the one minute of it! And referee notices this as well, perhaps he has not forgiven that bear-fouling, what an animal lover! Red card calls the end to the match, there was no touchdown for EVERLASTING REST folks! It is a clear 2-0 win for VPA, the Vanguard Party has won! Crowd goes wild again, wilder than usual, good games have a good mortality rates up in the spectators benches too, and this has been a good game! IT: Indeed it has been, and I much enjoyed surviving through the whole of it by sitting here in a...relative safety, are you sure that armoured door holds? WW: Casters very rarely die during these post-match festivities, the fans are after easier targets, like exhausted players to rip a trophy arm or two off. IT: I am a player, you know...and what, why are there reinforced doors here if we're missing one whole wall? Can't the fans get through and rip me apart one shaky hand at a time? WW: They don't notice the fourth wall missing. IT: We have no fourth wall? WW: I thought you knew that, that commercial made it pretty clear at the very least, I think. IT: Oh, I thought it was just because the writers of this lazy play couldn't write anything better than those cheap jokes, all the cheap jokes. If there truly is no fourth wall I just want to say I didn't at all appreciate my part, or "Windy" Winston's part here. Both were obviously written by some eager cheap hack with far too high opinion of himself. There was no real personality in either and to cover that the writer tried to sell his cheap witticisms as some form of high comedy. And this match we supposedly announced sounded totally unrealistic, a badly written play within a badly written play. I don't understand how anyone could've thought this thing was worth writing or even reading beca... END OF NARRATIVE MATCH REPORT IT: Drat... WW: Th-th-th-that's all folks!

That was a bit hyperbolic, but 3+ leaping is like 3+ dodging without dodge. Sure, you do it, but never without a good reason and rarely as your first action, you look for better alternatives first as well. The relatively high chance of failure means that you also want security before doing those leaps to sack the ball or something, usually leaving you with fewer players to secure the ball after the fact. 2+ leaping is elf dodging without dodge, not the first thing you do but closer to the top of the list of safe moves, especially if you are willing to reroll them. You can confidently leave some moves undone before these leaps, ready to react to sacks, chainpushes or whatever.

Any team would benefit from cheap line fodder and foulers.

3+ leaping is pretty worthless. 2+ leaping is almost cheating.

6 ogres, 5 gnoblars and induced rerolls!

My initial posts were totally out of character and quite serious. First match report was my patented purple prose style that I can write two pages a minute and match analysis was just thrown together basically. All that was because I lacked any kind of real plan when I started this thread, but now I can present you something I hope can become a mainstay for this blog, a mixture of theme, analysis and bravado. Pre-match theorising, MD2 Fourth season for VPA has started auspiciously I've heard said by some journalists of this game we play. Now, to what should our attention be immediately drawn regarding this statement? ...yes, comrade, you are quite correct: auspiciousness is a product of clouded mind. What is and what will be are both inevitable in all their tragedy and all their greatness. Existence is material and operates within material laws of causality; if one knows the reality as it is in its totality, one also knows all the of the past and future. But, I must stress, such a condition is beyond human and only in the sphere of the non-existent God, this Nuffle that bourgeoisie worships. We are humans and must limit ourselves to what is humanly, to what we know. This is what we know. As you can see, Khemri are old nation, left behind by progress, their society based on slave labour. These slave-skeletons are unable to free themselves even in death due to their thick-skulled reactionary tendencies against their own self-interest and that of humanity as a whole. Still, this reactionary impulse will be their undoing, because, well who would like to explain the theory behind our inevitable victory? ...yes, comrade Milyutin.. ... ... ...yes, resisting progress is not a display of strength, resisting oppressor is strength. What these skeletons are doing is opposite of progress, it is weakness. And we shall aim our attacks on the weakness of our opponent, we shall kill these skeletons where we are able; slavery is system build on the back of slaves, if we are able to end the slaves we shall bring forth the end of slavery, true emancipation in true death. Aiming for the oppressor-mummies would be a futile and wasted effort. But this only our means for an end, for remember who we are? We are the vanguard of the lower-stage socialism, slave societies are not our enemies, we are the next stage of the dialects. We shall strike down these skeletons where we are able, long as that does not hinder our ultimate objective: taking the ball. Khemri are slow and without agility; we can and will outrun and outmanoeuvre them. Doing this, we should not retribution, for this most backwards of societies has yet to synthesise powers of mighty blow with tackle, lacking the iron fist that our truer enemies can field against us with abandon. So I say: we can only lose if we let ourselves. And now just one last thing. As comrade Teodorovich is currently injured and unavailable for his duties, comrade Nogin will pet, feed and properly agitate our great bear-mascot, Spectre of Communism. Praxis be with you, always.

Once you reach the championship, then you can crash and burn in a blaze of glory.

Yes, long term survival is the thing. Only thing you should be wary of is going down a tier, as that means you have to go up to your previous tier again. Nine more matches is more dangerous than some risky plays.