Orca Cola Champions (Discontinued)

[Alessus]

It only took Pidpad about 3.5 months of pestering to get me to buy Blood Bowl 3, just in time for the OCC Seeding tournament where we decided to play the extremely creatively named "Orca Cola Champions"  Dark Elf team

After some testing on the ranked ladder, I came to the conclusion that my preferred starting roster is as follows:

Blitzers:
Jersey #1: Tupi
Jersey #2: Danton (Serious Injury +1)
Jersey #3: Telorast
Jersey #4: Gimlik
 

Linemen:
Jersey #5: Tigga (-1 PA)
Jersey #6: smoked_g60
Jersey #7: Mikko (Serious Injury +1)
Jersey #8: GUSYA!  Wrestle
Jersey #9: stygger
Jersey #10: RTSD

Runners:
Jersey #12: Pidpad

Assassins:
Jersey #14: Flix

 

Witch Elfs:
Jersey #16: AndyDavo

 

Rerolls: 2

The idea behind this draft is simple: I wanted as many different tools as possible. I am not a big fan of the new rule set making Elves worse by adding the distinct Passing skill and then making the majority of them pass on a 4+, with 5+ for Witch Elf and Assassin as well, which is why I want to have the Runner in the starting line-up, to give me some more reliable passing ability straight from the get-go. I always liked the Assassin in my Dark Elf teams previously and now that they have gotten better I wanted to take one and having the possibility of inflicting damage without risking a turnover with the Stab and getting SPP out of successful stabbing injuries just made it must take for me. The Witch Elf is here mostly for the Frenzy, being able to threaten a surf on the sidelines more effectively is her main purpose, though I grant you it can be a double edged sword. The main priority is to get her 6spp as quickly as possible to get her the Block she needs. Rounding things out is the 2 Blitzers, who bring a solid offensive core as they will be the main Blitzing players for the team. Depending on how well the first game goes our first acquisition is either going to be a 3rd Blitzer or an Apo. After those have been acquired we'll be looking for the 3rd reroll.

Plan for the team: Hope that by naming all the players after former OCC champions, their skills and abilities get transferred to me and the players so that we'll win the division (or place high ranking 2nd), get placed to Championship, win the Championship the following season then probably have the team crash and burn, but have forever gotten the bragging rights of "being an OCC champion".

 

*Any player resemblance to their IRL counterparts whether appearance or behavioral is a pure coincidence and the coaching staff cannot be held liable for any identity theft or stealing of likeness that the players may engage in.

Edited September 10, 2024 by Alessus

[Maggiot]

Nice team comp, its definitely good that you've run through some games on the new UI first. Looking forward to playing (think we are both group H).

Just a heads up though, I'm not sure that stab generates SPP, I think it's still casualties from regular blocks only.

[Alessus]

11 hours ago, Maggiot said:

Nice team comp, its definitely good that you've run through some games on the new UI first. Looking forward to playing (think we are both group H).

Just a heads up though, I'm not sure that stab generates SPP, I think it's still casualties from regular blocks only.

Yeah, checked it in the rules and Stab does not in fact give SPP as it replaces the Block action rather than just being a special one, so that's another thing I can blame Pidpad in deceiving me.

In other news, my MD 1 has been scheduled for Wednesday 3rd 15:00 UTC, facing off against Fisher_84 and his 
Talabec Titans  Human team that looks like this: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198022114712/screenshot/2496756500589649879/

This is pretty much what I'd consider to be the "default" build for a Human, as it covers all of the bases and is very solid overall. He beats me in blocking, strength, passing and outruns me so this will be a difficult match. We'll have to rely on our ability to out dodge him, but as always in rookie matchups the real decider will probably be the dice as couple of key removals from either side could dramatically shift the course of the game.

I'm predicting a 2-1 for Fisher, because Human teams are quite good out of the box, while Elf teams generally need at least some skills to truly get going especially with the nerf that they took to their passing ability.
 

Edited April 1, 2024 by Alessus

[Alessus]

MD 1. vs Fisher_84 and the Talabec Titans went as follows:

Weather is fine, Fisher_84 decides to receive. Match starts out very well for me, getting a Blitz on the kick-off, blitzing one of his blitzers and stunning him as well as tagging one of his Catchers that is forward with the Assassin on the right and the kick is deep in the endzone, but bounces one forward towards the middle. Fisher_84 decides to try to muscle his way through from the left, making an incomplete cage for his Catcher on the left, leaving the Thrower by himself in the back with the ball, unfortunately the Catcher marked by the Assassin fails his dodge away and is stunned as he was likely supposed to be the player to cover the Thrower. I aggressively mark his team, including a Blitzer making the 2 GFIs to mark the Thrower and the other Blitzer takes down his Catcher in the incomplete cage while one of Blitzers on the LoS get KO'd. Fisher then reforms into a blob in the center, makes the dodge with the Thrower to get away from the Dark Elf Blitzer tagging him and then either he forgot to active the pass action before moving or he didn't intend to pass to the LoS blob yet, but regardless the Thrower holds onto the ball and with some more dodging he gets a Catcher and Blitzer to try and help keep the Thrower safe. On my turn I take down his Thrower with a Blitz and the ball bounces towards my endzone. I then make a blunder where I mark a player with my Runner and go for the pickup with the Witch Elf after putting as many tackle zones as possible on the ball as I didn't realize that the Witch Elf would need to do a GFI to even attempt the pickup and she fails it (I don't reroll as I only 1 left) and from here it becomes a scrum for the ball, where my opponent manages the following: With a Human Lineman he makes a 2d Blitz on my Lineman, takes him down, then makes a dodge into a tackle zone where the ball is (uses reroll), picks up the ball (no reroll) and then dodges out (using a team reroll). This allows him to build a decent cage after making couple more 3+ dodges but he is now out of rerolls. Assassin stab KO's his Thrower and I manage to tag the ballcarrier by taking down his Blitzer cage corner, but manage to also KO my other Blitzer on  block that I don't reroll. His turn however was very quick as after standing up the Blitzer he makes a 2 die blitz with a Lineman also for a  result. After blitzing and surfing his Lineman with the Witch Elf and then moving her to assist against the ballcarrier we take him down using up our last reroll for it. We manage to pick the ball with a Lineman and move him forward generally tagging and blocking his players. Unfortunately this costs us our other Blitzer as he tagged the ogre after following up the block on the ballcarrier and he gets Seriously Injured in the process, but my opponents 2d up hill block with a Catcher against my Lineman yields only a push. From here we steadily make our way up the field with the Lineman scoring on turn 7 despite the pressure that Fisher puts on him. Unfortunately for us, we fail 4/4 of our KO rolls after his LoS blocking+foul KOs another 2 elves. Thankfully the ref sees the foul and tells the player and the coach to both piss off. He recovers 2/3 players he had KO'd.

Things are slightly difficult with only so few elves on the pitch for the 2nd half, but so long as we can keep him from scoring, we'll have won the game. Kickoff gives a bribe to both teams, which ends up not getting used by either, but it's a short kick, with the Runner barely being able to reach the ball from the back. I screen him as well as I can, while making headway forward. Unfortunately we also lose a team reroll to a bad block on the LoS. He blitzes his way to tag the ballcarrying Runner from the side and back as well as barring my way forward as well. Then I make another major blunder, I move a Lineman next to the edge of the pitch marking his Blitzer because I briefly consider surfing him with the Witch Elf, but decide against it as the first block would be a 1d, so now he is in a much inferior position when I blitz with the Runner instead, thankfully I manage to take down the Blitz and run past, with the Witch Elf dodging and marking both the downed and an upright one. I make more dodges with the other elves, but my positioning is still rather shaky. He then makes the most of it, marking and 2d blitzing the Runner, who tries to Dump-Off, wildly inaccurates into the crowd, who throw the ball to the intended recipient, the Witch Elf, but she fails the catch due to 2 tackle zones. From here the game devolves into a scrum for the ball where I manage to clear him out enough to pick it up with a Lineman, but then fail a dodge to get him to safer position, then Fisher pushes my player onto the ball, the ball scatters into the hands of his Catcher who makes the catch while in a tackle zone, makes the dodge away and then makes 2 GFIs, using a team reroll for each. My Assassin manages to tag him, but on his turn a Human Blitzer makes it to help and the Catcher 1d blitzes him down and makes it far enough away that the Assassin can't reach anymore and so Fisher scores on his turn 15. My block dice on the LoS aren't great as the Witch Elf manages a  and he takes some ineffectual blocks as well. Unfortunately for Fisher he did managed to have one of his Catchers die after a failed dodge, so neither team walked away without having been banged up at least somewhat.

 

The MVPs as distributed by the game were: his ogre Olly, who now has 6 SPP and probably gets Guard while the Line-elf, GUSYA!, who scored the TD for me got it.

Personal MVP: GUSYA! definitely deserves it, no question there.
Personal LVP: Tupi, the Blitzer that got KO'd and refused to recover.
Personal EVP: Mathias Tolzen, the Catcher who managed the catch-and-run maneuver that made the game a tie rather than a loss.

Edited April 4, 2024 by Alessus

[Alessus]

MD2, game organized for Monday 19:00 UTC, sees us pitted against the other Dark Elf team in the division
 Vicious Virtuosi coached by Corash with the following looking team: 
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198022114712/screenshot/2496757768519471269/

Both of us will be missing a Blitzer from our initial line-up, with a Serious Injury on mine and his having a bad case of Death, but I did manage to pick up Wrestle on our star Lineman, so we that should even the field since otherwise he would have had 1 Block/Wrestle more than I. I think this Elf-off is going to come down a lot to 2 factors: who can roll less 1s and whether or not I can leverage having a Runner in my lineup. Corash is however a very accomplished Elf coach, if memory serves I've met his Dark Elves before in BB2 multiple times, so while I think I have the slightly better team he probably has me out-coached.

Overall I'm predicting a 1-1 draw, but with only 2 rerolls a piece and very few skills all around this is quite the volatile matchup.

Edited April 10, 2024 by Alessus

[Alessus]

MD2 against Vicious Virtuosi coached by Corash unraveled as follows:

We won the coin toss and decided to kick the ball. Went with a fairly default middle setup on defense, Corash put every elf aside from two linemen on the los, or immediately behind it as was the case for his witch elf, with the two linemen being in the back to recover the ball. We get perfect defense and we shuffle our players forward in such as way as to only be 1 square from the los and in supporting range on one another. Los blocking is mostly pushes and the witch makes a blitz on my left, taking down my Wrestle lineman, with one of his linemen recovering the ball and staying in the back. Our turn is quite uneventful, just reinforcing our defensive line while sending 1 lineman to potentially harry the ballcarrier in the back. Unfortunately our Loner lineman manages to fails a dodge into a, leaving us 1 elf down already. Corash exploits the gap left by the failed dodge to blitz our runner Pidpad with one of his blitzers and manages to  him in the process (we suspect him of faking it due to being lazy). He consolidates his formation with the ball on my right. We maneuver our way towards the right in response, managing to  one of his linemen in return as well as taking down the offending blitzer with the witch elf. Lineman stygger moves along the back of his formation, hoping that he is a nuisance. His 3rd turn he shifts his position to the center and stuns one of our linemen. We decide that this is the turn to engage and so bring most of our team into contact with his, with stygger tagging the witch elf in the back left corner, our Wrestler blitzes one of his cage corners with the Assassins help and tags the ballcarrier, but unfortunately our last move of tagging the ballcarrier with the Witch Elf as well fails on a failed GFI even with a rr. Unfortunately for us, Corash then manages 2  on his blocking, with his ballcarrier veering to my right, making my defensive efforts tricky at best, but he does leave us an opening for a 1 dice block on the ballcarrier with our blitzer, if he can do some elf bullshit by dodging into tacklezones... which he does manage but only gets a  and we decide to not expend our last rr. We do however at least manage to push him into a position where we can also mark with the Assassin, but then to end on a somewhat more sour note the witch elf fails her 2+ Jump Up to 2d block one of his blitzers and we take a 1d block against said blitzer with the Wrestle lineman, only to have a  pop up, which we don't reroll. His following turn is mostly pushing my players around, costing him one of his 2 rerolls in the process, but he does manage to unmark his ballcarrier and does take down the Assassin with a blitz, but thankfully no armour break. He has pretty much blobbed up on the right, with a couple elves around the los, with him bringing his witch elf next to my blitzer who is now in danger of getting surfed. We start regrouping our forces, getting the blitzer out of surf danger with a dodge and the Assassin manages a  BH on one his linemen with a blitz and we manage to stun one of his blitzers as well, which improves our position, but he still has a fairly open lane on my right towards the endzone. As suspected he rush past us, making a relatively solid cage while handing the ball to the witch elf for safekeeping. We once again engage on mass, tagging all of the cage players and most of his other players as well, before going for a 1d blitz with the witch elf which required a dodge with 0 tzs, dodge with 1 tz and 2 GFIs to connect and unfortunately we managed to once again roll snake eyes on a GFI and stun ourselves next to the sideline in the process. It is however his t7 so we still hold on to some hope of a turnover to still stop his score. We do get our wish, after he blocks us down mostly and surfs our blitzer for no ill effect as he decides to take a both down against our Assassin, trusting in his armour, with neither side breaking, but that was the last move he had to make on the turn so it was slightly irrelevant. We pick up our prone players and then go for a desperate 1d on the witch for a dodge into 1 tz, dodge into 0 tz and then 2 GFIs for the hit and we manage a push, now the witch elf being next to 3 of our players, who however are all in contact with other opponents, so all we can do is hope for a dramatic turnover. But alas, after clearing me out mostly off the ballcarrier the witch elf does make his dodge for the t8 score. We manage to thankfully recover 2/3 of our KOs including the runner, while his KO does not recover. Our t8 we manage to  a lineman and Pidpad the runner completes a vanity pass in the back. Both of his KOs stay out while we recover the last of ours, giving us a clear advantage in numbers going into the second half.

The second half starts pretty well, we lose 1 turn on the kickoff and our blocking efforts get us 2 stuns and a  and we leave the runner by himself in the back where he is safe. Corash only takes the blitz and takes down 1 of the two linemen we sent on our left up the field, otherwise content with his positioning. We start forming a corridor for our witch elf on our right, taking full advantage of our numbers and slightly moving up with the runner. He blocks our path as best he can, taking down the furthest elf in the protective corridor, but he has a fairly early turnover as one of his linemen fails a dodge to get away near the los. The runner moves up and we cage up around him, our blitz ends doesn't achieve anything and we even take a gangfoul on a prone lineman resulting in a stun and no interference from the ref. He takes down our blitzer and then marks up my players so that he gets a 2d blitz on the Assassin cage corner and takes him down with a  but no removal, so can't mark the runner even if he wanted to. We appreciate the chance to flex our numbers some more as we blitz down one of his blitzer which was the only thing really in the way of our ballcarrier and we manage to get him into a decent-ish cage only 6 squares from the endzone. Despite our superior numbers, he manages to block his witch elf free, so that with a dodge he can get a 1d blitz on the runner, however the Dump Off skill that the runner comes with proves it's usefulness here as Pidpad manages the quick pass to our unmarker witch elf AndyDavo and I assume you cannot change the declared target of your blitz afterwards, as Corash goes for Pid and takes him down, but does not mark AndyDavo. On our turn we manage to clear the path for Andy to move up just 1 step away from the endzone, his witch elf is now next to the sideline and we have quite a few bodies blocking most of his players. He decides to go for the 1d blitz with his witch elf on the ballcarrier, seamlessly dodging away from the sideline, but getting  into a  rerolled into a . It is now my turn 15, but we decide to stall still, moving Andy down the left as far away from the opposing players as possible as the rest of the team blocks down every other player he had, leaving no enemy player standing and heavily marking those players capable of potentially still reaching Andy, with a gangfoul on his 1 lineman who could make it getting a  BH for good measure, leaving only the witch elf, who would need to make a series of dodges through tzs if she wanted to make it. He instead decides to bring a blitzer to tag the lineman marking the witch elf and then goes for Pidpad the runner aiming to and succeeding with 1d blitzing him into the crowd through the endzone, thankfully no permanent damage inflicted. The witch elf is now free, but Corash decides that he would not go mark the witch elf and instead moves her back and then suffers a failed dodge turnover on another player. Even with a team rr and a potential for a 3d blitz, we decide to not risk it and instead Andy walks in our 1-1 touchdown score. The kickoff is a blitz, which means nothing as I set up everyone who could at the very back and his los blocks cause nothing notable, though his blitzer does manage a vanity pass for 1 spp.

MVPs go to Tupi, our Blitzer and a lineman Ayon.

Personal MVP: Going to give it to Pidpad, not only did he succeed on his vanity pass, he also made the Dump Off pass without fail, which was quite decisive in securing us the draw. 
Personal LVP: Methroton, the Loner lineman who achieved getting pushed around a bit, before failing a dodge and hurting himself. AndyDavo deserves a dishonorable mention here with the 2 failed GFIs even with rerolls, but he did manage to stay standing when blitzed by the other witch elf and did score a td as well.
Personal EVP: Zylvana, the enemy witch elf, despite not managing to bring down Andy, otherwise she played a very solid game.

[Alessus]

MD3 is organized for Wednesday 17th 16:00 UTC where we will get our first taste of the greenskin menace as we have 
Magg's Cru  coached by Maggiot and his team looks like this:
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198022114712/screenshot/2496758402639220456/

Unfortunately with only 50k in treasury, we could not get any new players on the lineup, but Danton, our Blitzer who got Serious Injury on MD1 gets back on the field which is always good. We also did not get enough SPP on any of our players to pick a skill and both AndyDavo and Tupi are too important to risk a randomized skill. Maggiot on the other hand has 125k in the bank so I am expecting him to get his 3rd reroll with it, which can be quite crucial in the upcoming match. He has enough SPP on 2 blitzers and 1 big 'un to roll random skills, but I doubt he would, so no real roster changes are expected. Orcs are however a very solid team off the bat and they will certainly outmuscle us with their 4 Big 'Uns and they also out-skill us, with 4 Block and Sure Hands+Pass on the Thrower. This will be a game where our slight speed advantage and elven agility will either make or break our chances of winning and Maggiot is certain to be hungry for a win as he is currently 0-0-2.

My Dark Elf team is worse at playing against Orcs than the more default build of Dark Elf, but I think I'll still predict a 1-0 win for me, barring catastrophic dice and/or paper armour. 

[Alessus]

MD3 against Magg's Cru  coached by Maggiot happened as follows:

He got 1 Bloodwiser Babe as an inducement and won the coin flip, choosing to receive the ball. I opted for a slightly wider defensive position a decent distance from the LoS, while my opponent deployed every player aside from the Thrower on the line. We managed to get a reroll off the kickoff. My opponent manages to  1 Lineman and   BH another with his blocking and blitz, grouping up nicely near the middle and no trouble picking up the ball and moving forward. My team moves into standard elf column defense position, though we do need to use a reroll on the blitz. The Lineman who was not removed managed to make the dodge into a tz, but not the one into freedom and stunned himself for good measure. Minimal movement on the Orc turn as they simply press into the elf lines and make a couple of ineffectual blocks, also having to use a reroll on a Big 'Un block that came up  and not wanting the turnover. Elves then shuffled around a bit, taking a couple of blocks, managing to a Lineorc, but once again ending their turn by failing a dodge with a Lineman who gets stunned. Glacial movement by the Orcs again, blitz taking down the Witch Elf, but no armour break. The Elves shuffle around a bit again, managing to take down and stun a Big 'Un on the right flank with a Blitz, but instead of disengaging otherwise we stay in contact so we can take an extra 2d block on an Orc Blitzer, which was not the smartest move in hindsight. Orcs keep tagging more elves and shift their formation slightly more to the center. With some maneuvering we manage to knock a Big 'Un down and stunned with the Witch Elf as well as knocking down a Blitzer on the right and a Lineorc goes down with Wrestle in the center, but once again we didn't extricate ourselves from the Orcs. The Orcs then pickup the speed of their advance, busting through our line in the center while still managing to stay in contact with most of our elves and keeping the Thrower secure in a cage. We figure that this has to be the moment we commit, so we tag all of the cage corners and with a Blitz the Assassin manages to tag the Thrower as well and then we hope that something goes wrong for the Orcs. Unfortunately nothing does and he even manages to  the Witch Elf for her troubles as he maintains his cage while shifting slightly to the right. And now we are fully engaged and surrounded mostly, so we attempt to bust into the cage again, with a Blitzer doing a dodge into 1 tz, dodge into 0 tz and 2 GFIs to get a 2d block on his Blitzer cage corner, but even with a team reroll we only manage a push so we, feeling desperate, decide to take a 1d block with a Lineman against another Blitzer cage corner rolling a  rerolled into a   which Seriously Injures the Lineman Mikko, meaning that we need to hope for a turnover on the Orc side to have a real chance of stopping his score. He does not, but he also does not score this turn, feeling secure in his position as moves the ballcarrier 3 squares away from the endzone though he did have to use his last reroll on a  block. Once again desperate times call for desperate measures and we manage to blitz down one of his cagecorners after some elf BS and tag his ballcarrier with our Blitzer. Surprisingly he decides take some 2d blocks that don't matter for his scoring, but doesn't get punished for his greed and manages to push away the tagging Dark Elf Blitzer, walking in the td on his t8.

 

We manage to recover 2/3 s which include the Witch, though his Lineorc also recovers. LoS blocks and blitz result in no removals, but we do manage a vanity pass with the Runner. 

 

2nd half, unfortunately the 1 Lineman stays  leaving us 8 elves vs. 11 orcs. Kickoff puts some trapdoors on the pitch. The drive starts well as the Assassin decides that this is his movement of glory and manages to  BH a Big 'Un on the LoS evening things up slightly. We manage to take down the rest of the LoS and a Big 'Un with a blitz, though no armour breaks and the Runner picks up the ball no problem, preferring to stay in the back for now, screen off as best we could. Orcs start applying pressure, surging to our side of the field on the right as well as engaging our center. In response the Runner moves close to the sideline on our left with some slight screening, while most of the team maneuvers to the left attempting to break through, but I make some needless positioning mistakes, meaning I needed to roll more dice and leaving me in a weaker position overall. Orcs continue to exert pressure in the back with a Blitzer and a Big 'Un, while the rest of their team cut off our breakout attempt. We attempt to salvage our position as best we can, but we are simply too few and out-muscled, so the Runner is left in a very precarious position in our backfield. He gets blitzed for his troubles by a Big 'Un, manages to make the Dump Off to the Witch Elf, but unfortunately she gets  into a stun by a Blitzer with the scatter not being very favorable to us, made into even worse as the Orc Thrower reaches and easily picks up the ball. At this point I'm super frustrated and things don't much improve, we go for a 1d blitz on his Thrower with the Runner, getting a  rerolled into a , but we might still take him down as we do manage to push him next to one of our Blitzers, but he is marked by 2 other Orcs so even for a 1d we need to make a dodge and a GFI with the Assassin and unfortunately he fails the GFI. He does some blocking, managing to get the Runner and Blitzer off his Thrower and he walks in the score on his t12. We manage to recover our last  but at this stage it's almost a guaranteed loss for us, but we still attempt to go for the 2-1 result. Unfortunately we only manage to get pushes with our Witch Elf blitz, before attempting a 1d block with a Blitzer on the LoS and getting a  causing a turnover as we do not have any rerolls with his entire LoS untouched but at least the ball was safe at the back with the Runner. He starts by  the Witch Elf into a Serious Injury, but thankfully the Apo we bought manages to save her. He takes his blocks and starts moving his players onto my side of the field to pressure the ball. Unfortunately the frustration gets to me and rather than stand up any of my players or take a blitz or anything I go straight for the pass and while the Runner manages the pass the recipient Lineman doesn't make the 3+ catch as he was marked by a Blitzer. The game devolves into a scrum for the ball after this point, but in the end we do not manage to recover it and score, but we at least managed to also not concede another TD in the end.

 

Final result: 2-0 for Maggiot and Magg's Cru

 

MVPs go to Lineman stygger and Sokur 'Filthy fangs' Orc Blitzer

 

Personal MVP: The Assassin Flix deserves it as the ray of hope he gave me with his injury stab was a big deal. Honorable mentions to Pidpad and the Apo.
Personal LVP: The Witch Elf AndyDavo, though that's mostly because of Maggiots dice rolling good than anything else, but if I could I'd designate it to me the coach, because I definitely could have played way better in this match.
Personal EVP: Argok 'Dark heart' the Orc Thrower, never faltered and was in the right place at the right time, didn't even need Sure Hands reroll at any point.

[Alessus]

MD4 is organized for Wednesday 24th 16:00 UTC start against another Orc team,  Harlequins B.B.F.C with BB_Nut in charge. The team looks like this:

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198022114712/screenshot/2496758402672004802/

Needless to say, this will be an even tougher match than the previous one, as 2 of his Big 'Uns have Block already and his Thrower has On The Ball. He also has 150k in the bank, which I'm sure he'll spend for something, my guess would again be a 3rd reroll, but I wouldn't be that surprised if he went for a Troll either. Hopefully I've learned something from the game against Maggiot, but I think I'm still at a massive disadvantage, Orcs are just a silly good team at the start (seriously, Blitzers need to go up by 10k and so do the rerolls) and with a 2-1-0 record it's pretty clear BB_Nut knows how to use them.

 

I think it's going to be a 2-0 win for him, barring some really good dice for me or bad dice for him.

[Alessus]

MD4 against  Harlequins B.B.F.C with BB_Nut is done and dusted:
My opponent did not spend his treasury, so I gained no inducements, the weather was fine and he won the coin toss, choosing to receive. We went for a deep central defensive position while he set up his entire team along or near the LoS, aside from the Thrower who stayed in the back. He loses a rr on the LoS, but does manage to down all the Linemen that were placed there, with a single stun to show for it, though he does crowd all three. He makes the pickup no problem and moves near the LoS with the Thrower. On our turn we move forward with the classic elf column defense formation, blitzing down a Lineork on the right and managing to dodge out both of the unstunned Linemen. He takes a blitz on our left, but only manages a push, making aggressive contact with his Big 'Uns, but keeping his ballcarrier well fortified in his cage. This is I think where we make a mistake as we could have transitioned from the column defense into potentially tagging his ballcarrier by blitzing his cage corner after some blocks, but instead we simply blitz the Lineork again and disengage to resume the column defense aside from the now unstunned Lineman who makes the dodge away behind the main Ork line. He takes a blitz on the Assassin, managing to knock him down and once again comes into contact with most of his team and this time his positioning is such that we can, after a couple successful blocks, get a 2d on one of his cagecorners, which we manage, but only get  so we don't mark the ballcarrier. Unfortunately I then decide to take a 1d block with a Blitzer against one of his Big 'Uns, but manage a  rerolled into a  and suffer a turnover. This allows him to punch his way through with his Big 'Uns who are still in contact, opening a big hole in the center through which he eagerly pours through, establishing a cage with the ballcarrier only 6 squares from the endzone. Thankfully a lot of our elves are not tagged, so without any dodging we tag his forward cagecorners, blitz the left side one and take him down with a Blitzer who then tags the ballcarrier. This is followed by another Lineman also moving into contact with the Ork Thrower and we dodge away a bunch of Linemen, trying to screen off and surround the ballcarrier as much as possible. He manages to injure a Lineman on one of his Big 'Un blocks and overall manages to take down all of his block targets (including the Witch Elf with a 1d block) and he manages the 3+ dodge with the Thrower to retreat slightly backwards into another cage. We do manage to take down his back right cagecorner Lineork with a Blitzer, but it was a , so to tag the Thrower we have to place the Blitzer next to another cagecorner of his as well. We then do another mistake, which is use the Witch Elf jump up to take a block on one of the 2 Ork Blitzers she is next to, who was already also in contact with 2 other elves, so we essentially lose a potential block on the other Blitzer and she is now stuck next to him as well. We do continue to make our dodges to reposition, so that we get the Assassin to help out the Blitzer at least somewhat and we manage to stun one of his Big 'Uns with a block. He remains defensive, with the Thrower 8 squares from the endzone at the end of his t6, having taken down the Blitzer and Assassin, though he did manage to dodge the Blitzer that the Witch Elf should have blocked away from the elves only 2 squares from the endzone. We tag that Blitzer with one of our own and then 2d his forward left Big 'Un cagecorner who has Block with GUSYA!, our Wrestle Lineman, who manages a , but BB_Nut to my surprise uses his Apo to make it a stun instead. We manage to get the Assassin out using a reroll, but the Blitzer fails his dodge into an opposing tz and we decline to use our last reroll for that so turnover, but I was pretty much done with my turn so no big deal. He manages to clear our 2 players who marked his Thrower off with a block and a blitz and he manages a somewhat ramshackle defensive position for himself. Unfortunately we burn our last rerolls on a dodge with one of our Linemen, which leads us to another mistake, taking the Stab action (which fails) with the Assassin rather than a 2d block, which leaves our Runner also still engaged with him. We then do make a dodge with GUSYA! and get a 1d on the Ork thrower, but only manage a pushing him next to the Witch Elf and Blitzer, but who are unfortunately tagged and so would have a 2d uphill blocks. We try to dodge our Runner out to cancel the assist on the Blitzer, but fail causing a turnover. BB_Nut manages to clear the way for the Thrower and unfortunately is not punished for his greed in taking other inconsequential blocks, which thankfully don't do any damage and he walks in the 1-0 score on his t8. Best we manage is a stun on the subsequent blocks and the vanity pass fails on a 1 to catch by the Assassin.

 

Second half, both teams deploy in front and wide, kickoff, his Thrower gets stunned by an Officious Ref and the kick lands in the LoS and results in a touchback, being given to Runner Pidpad in the back. We take down the Orks on the LoS and stun one of his Block Big 'Uns with the blitz, pushing a Blitzer through the center and a Witch Elf from the right while advancing Pidpad to forward and to the right. His turn he blitzes the Assasin down on the left with his other Big 'Un with block, picks up his lads in the center and tags the Blitzer in the center with 2 Orks and the Witch Elf with a Big 'Un. We proceed to try and shift to the right, but we goof up with our Witch Elf as she takes two 2d blocks against the Big 'Un and only gets pushes and then leaves us in a position for the Blitzer who shifted to the right to assist to get surfed by a blitz quite easily next turn. The Blitzer in the center also unfortunately fails his dodge away and stuns himself in the process. The Orks proceed to do exactly that and surround the Witch Elf and Lineman near the sideline on the right, while also putting heavy pressure in the center. Our 1d Blitz with GUSYA! only gets a , which we needed to be a  or  to be able to hopefully have one of our Linemen in the center slip away, so we instead retreat with Pidpad and the 2 remaining standing Linemen on the LoS to try and regroup. The Witch Elf and Assasin manage to make their dodges to extricate themselves and get into the Ork backfield as well, but the journeyman Lineman fails to get away and stuns himself in the center. His Block Big 'Un once again chases down the Assassin with a blitz and he mark the Witch Elf near his endzone with 2 Orks. He also gangfouls the Blitzer near the center for a stun and no ref interference as well as 2 manning the downed Lineman next to the sideline on the right. Unfortunately I position the 2 Linemen who come to help out near the center poorly and our attempt to move forward and get GUSYA! out of the LoS with a blitz results in  , which I should have rerolled I think, meaning now all 3 are still in contact with the Lineork and easily surroundable. The Witch Elf and Assassin once again manage their escapes, but the Lineman on the right fails and stuns himself. This time the Big 'Un with Block goes after the Witch Elf instead and of course takes her down and she gets 'd in the process. He also fouls the Blitzer again and gets another  though at least he did also get sent off for it. Getting desperate, we essentially just sling all our remaining elves that can into his half as close to the endzone as possible without taking GFIs, the Loner Lineman once again managing to fail a 2+ dodge, but at least this time he isn't stunned. He sends some of his players towards the Runner in the back, but mostly he, after failing to take down the Assassin with a blitz, marks up all my elves as much as he can. I decide that my best play is to make a 5+ pass to a Lineman in 1 tz, who would then need to blitz with 2d for a chance of escaping. The pass is good, but my opponent also rolls a 6+ with a Big 'Un to interfere with the pass, which gets knocked to one of my Linemen who is in 2 tzs but even with a reroll he fails and so turnover. The scatter is okay, in that it is in 2 tz, but both those Linemen are in contact with multiple Orks, so unless he gets a turnover, it's likely he will have a clear ball to try and pickup. Suffice to say he doesn't but he also doesn't attempt the pickup simply leaving it in 3 tzs. We blitz one of them with GUSYA! getting a  on the 1d, knocking him onto the ball, which scatters to a Big 'Un, who fails to catch it and scatters into another 2 tz on the ground. Runner Pidpad then makes an almost heroic play, by making 4 dodges (2 into 1 tz) and a gfi to pickup the ball using our last team rr in the process, but then fails the dodge away from 2 tz to try for another 5+ pass to the Assassin in the endzone and MNG's himself in the process. With 2 turns left, the Orks proceed to recover the ball, pummel the elves and walk in the 2-0 score in t16.

Personal MVP: GUSYA! the Wrestle lineman, even with lackluster block dice, he was probably the best player on the field. 
Personal LVP: The Blitzer Danton, he was the one who turnover 1d blocked in the first half and proceeded to do very little of note aside from stunning himself on a failed dodge and then getting kicked into a KO.
Personal EVP: James Chisholm, Big 'Un with Block, the KO on the Witch Elf was quite impactful I think and overall he was just a very solid player.

[Alessus]

MD5 is organized for Wednesday 1st 18:00 UTC start against Kubusta representing the greentide with his Black Orc team

Black Orc Down!  The team looks like this:
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198022114712/screenshot/2493381970760385931/

 

Currently at 2nd place with a 3-1-0 record, this is a veteran coach who knows what he is doing for certain and he will seek to take full advantage of the fact that he outmuscles us even worse than the Orcs before. However, he does not out Block us, as he chose to go for Might Blow on his 1 Black Orc with a skill and Guard on the Troll, though he does have a Black Orc at 10 spp, which I assume will be getting a skill up before the match. He also has 2 Goblins with Diving Tackle and 1 at 14 spp, which I suspect will be a Dirty Git, which will probably cause me quite some consternation. He does also have 60k in the bank, with an Apo and 3 rrs already accounted for, so I wouldn't be entirely surprised if he decided to get another goblin to pad out the roster. We however have managed to pad out our roster as well, hiring Telorast as our newest Blitzer, but we are also missing Pidpad our Runner, which is in this match quite a blow I think.

 

I'm predicting a 1-0 to Kubusta on the assumption that he doesn't massively remove my team.

Edited May 8, 2024 by Alessus

[Alessus]

MD5 against Kubusta representing the greentide with his Black Orc team Black Orc Down!  has been finished, here be the match report:

We got 2 Bloodweiser babes as our inducements and Kubusta won the coin toss, choosing to kick, with the weather being rainy. He puts his Troll and 2 Black Orcs on the LoS, with the rest of his team in the center, just 1 squire behind. We decided to engage as little as possible on the LoS only having 1 Lineman in contact with one of the Black Orcs and with the Witch Elf in the back as we are missing our trusty Runner for this match and otherwise slightly loading on the right. Kickoff is a high kick fairly long at the back, which the Witch Elf fails to catch. We decide to surge ahead on the right, taking down a Black Orc and stunning him with a Blitzer while also making a screen for the Blitzer, having 3 players within scoring distance for next turn. We shift pretty much the entire team to the right, with the Witch Elf managing a pickup no problem and also take down a Black Orc on the LoS on a 1d with the one Lineman we left in contact. Kubusta moves aggressively into contact, managing to Blitz a Black Orc through our screen next to the Witch Elf and blocking our path to the endzone with 2 Diving Tackle Goblins, though he does put them next to the Assassin to do so. Assassin stab fails, but GUSYA! the Wrestle Lineman manages a push on the goblin with a blitz opening a path, our Witch Elf manages to make her dodge, handoff to Tupi the Blitzer with a team reroll who then proceeds to make the 2 GFI necessary to score. Not our favorite position, but I decided to gamble on trying to take advantage of the rain making ballhandling more difficult to try and make a score on our defense, so scoring quick was the name of the game. We decide for a central defensive position and he loads up on the LoS, except for 1 Black Orc and 2 goblins slightly back from the LoS on his side. Kickoff is a pitch invasion that stuns 2 of my players not on the LoS. His Troll goes stupid on the first block attempt, but his second is a  as a Black Orc causes a Broken Arm (-PA) injury to Lineman Tigga. He stuns one of the linemen on the LoS and takes the last one down as well as blitzing another lineman down. He fortifies his position in the center where the ball is with his remaining goblins, but fails the pickup, ball bouncing to a Black Orc from where it bounces to the goblin who failed the pickup from where it bounces to a goblin to his right who manages to make the catch. This does leave him exposed to a 2d block with 1 of my Blitzers if I can make 2 gfis, which I go for (also moving a lineman needlessly next to 4 Black Orcs) which we do manage getting a  into the bargain and shoving a couple of Black Orcs, but unfortunately the bounce is rather bad for us as it ends up behind his line, in the tacklezones of 2 Black Orcs, the Troll (once he recovers his wits) and 2 goblins, one of whom is a Diving Tackler. We do manage to bring a Blitzer of ours next to the ball, but he is also next to the Troll so he isn't going to be the hardest to remove. He successfully punches the Lineman I put next to him and the Troll behaves and knocks down the Blitzer while a Black Orc blitzes the Assassin, though only manages to push him. Still the ball is now very secure in his cage formation and with a reroll one of his Goblins does manage the pickup. As such, we decide that instead of trying to strike at the ball, we'll attempt to reform into the usual elf column defense and in so doing GUSYA! manages to  Dislocate Shoulder (-ST) on a Black Orc with a blitz, which is Apo'd but his other choice is , which he chooses as a ST busted Black Orc will get fired either way and now there is no risk of him stealing the MVP. We manage to take down another Black Orc on the right and Telorast marks his back right cagecorner goblin after dodging away from the Troll. We also waste some of our own time after dodging away the Lineman we stupidly positioned last turn as he was next to a Diving Tackle goblin and I didn't realize that me rolling a 4 wasn't good enough as we were also dodging into a tz. He picks up all his players, blitzes a hole into my rather flimsy defensive position and manages to make a fairly study cage with the ballcarrier 4 squares from the LoS, moving into contact again and the troll goes stupid again. We take down the Black Orcs we can as well as getting a  on his back right goblin cage corner with a blitz, so we now have a Blitzer marking his ballcarrier. We also mark his right forward Black Orc cagecorner with a Lineman and take down the forward left one with a  result with the Witch Elf, as we figure it's better to guarantee him going down over risking a 1d if we chose to push instead. We have now managed to surround his cage pretty well, with all corners either down or marked and 2 of his Black Orcs down and out of position to help. He manages to take down (and stun) the Lineman marking his front right Black Orc, managing to move the Troll to be more helpful and then dodging a goblin with Diving Tackle past the Assassin who fails his Shadowing (don't think it's worked once yet?) to then mark the Assassin and act as the forward left cage corner and then proceeds to blitz the Assassin with the Black Orc that got downed by the Witch Elf and manages to him into the bargain. However, his cage is still incomplete, with the front right corner missing and so we go for a 2d blitz with a Blizer, after marking his back cage corners for good measure, getting a   choosing the Pow and following up, with the ballbouncing to the marked Black Orc cagecorner back right and then to the Lineman we just moved to mark him, who manages the catch despite the tz and rain. We then dodge away the Witch Elf to get her next to the Lineman with the ball and then make a mistake by doing a GFI, as we forget that Black Orcs come with Grab standard making the GFI pointless as it was intended to position her better for the scatter when the Lineman goes down, and we have to burn our last reroll on the GFI to succeed. We then make some dodges with our elves and then proceed to make another mistake by taking a 1d with GUSYA! against a Black Orc and we get a  which is actually worse than if we had a  as a result, because now we must push the Black Orc next to the Blitzer who took down his ballcarrier which will help Kubusta a lot in trying to recover the situation. The Black Orc next to the Lineman with the ball manages to get a  as his result and rather than risking Brawler he uses a team reroll only to end up with a  instead. He then maneuvers his players a bit, blocks down the Blitzer with the Black Orc that we pushed, tagging the Witch Elf with a Diving Tackle goblin and then going for a 2d Blitz with another Goblin, managing to take down the Lineman and stun him, with a decent bounce for him and then proceeds to jump over the now prone Lineman with the goblin who blitzed him down and pickup the ball as well and makes a GFI just to round things out. He then proceeds to dodge away his other Diving Tackle goblin to reinforce his position. This however means the one of my Blitzers now has a chance of a 2d blitz on the ballcarrier assuming we can do a 2+ and a 3+ dodge. After picking up and shuffling a couple of our players we go for exactly that play and get a , taking him down, with the ball scattering next to the Blitzer. The Witch Elf then proceeds to push the Diving Tackle goblin marking her to another Blitzer who manages to  him, but we fail to break armour, like every other time we've managed to get a hit on the goblins. We then end our T7 turn by failing a 2+ dodge with a Lineman and getting stunned. He throws some blocks around, taking down a couple of my Linemen, but is forced to team rr his blitz on the Blitzer next to the ball and still only manages a push, but that is enough for his purposes. He shuffles his goblins around a bit, making sure that he has several in scoring range and marking the Witch Elf with one again. He does also succeed with picking up the ball and moves slightly forward, being 7 squares away from the endzone with his ballcarrier, but his position is nowhere near secure as he is next to the sideline, with a goblin as his forward cagecorner and he is already in contact with Lineman RTSD. We stand up all the players we can, take the block with RTSD,  pushing ourselves next to the ballcarrier. The Witch Elf pushes her marker twice, which opens a path for Blitzer Danton to get a 2d on the ballcarrier if he can make a 2+ dodge, which he does but only manages a  which we follow up. We then attempt to dodge Telorast to also mark the ballcarrier, but he fails it and we get a turnover. It's coming down to the wire and after some blocks Kubusta frees a Black Orc to blitz Danton into the crowd, which he succeeds, but he gets a  on his goblin block to try and get RTSD out of the way so we barely limb onto the next half with a 1-0 lead.

 

Second half and the Assassin recovers from KO through the power of the babes leaving us with 10 elves facing 11 greenskins as they did have a goblin on the bench. Formations are roughly the same, kickoff is a Solid Defense, which is entirely pointless, ball lands in the center of his backfield. He gets a  on the LoS with one of his blocks and takes down the other 2, but doesn't take a blitz as we positioned such that he'd have to take 2 GFIs with a Black Orc to make it. He maneuvers a little bit for a gang foul, but decides to go for the pickup before that and flubs it and doesn't reroll as he is safely in the backfield. We move to screen him off, keeping the Assassin and Witch Elf in the back, while also attempting to break through from the middle, taking down a Black Orc with a  , but because of that having to dodge with the Blitzer and failing the 2+ and deciding to not reroll. He shuffles his players around, managing to  our screening Blitzer on the right and surrounding 2 of our players in the center as well as gang fouling the Blitzer who failed to dodge to no effect. He moves his ball forward as he succeeds the pickup without a reroll. We decide that the fouled Blitzers best choice is to take a 1d blitz against a Diving Tackle goblin that is marking him, pushing him away and then dodging and making 1 GFI to mark his ballcarrier. We then do a mistake as we bring both the Witch Elf and Assassin forward and to the left so that we can take a 2d block with GUSYA! where he takes a Black Orc down, but we essentially leave the center open and the right when we fail to dodge one of the Linemen stuck in between all the opposing players out. He takes down our last player standing in the center and goblin blitzes the Blitzer marking his ballcarrier, leaving him down and marked by a Diving Tackle goblin, while the ballcarrier moves forward and slightly to the right. His troll decides to be stupid, which helps us out, but he still has a wall of 3 evenly spaced Black Orcs guarding the ballcarrier from the front and a goblin and Black Orc cagecorners in the back, so he is quite secure. As such we decide to mostly just shift our position, redeploying all our forces from the left to the right and taking the blitz with the Blitzer that is now behind his cage, who manages our first armour break on a goblin as he stuns the Diving Tackler that was marking him. We dodge a Lineman to mark his goblin back left cage corner and otherwise just in front of him. He shuffles his formation more to the center, knocking down the Lineman marking his goblin and one marking his troll while once again just pushing the Assassin on the blitz which he follows up to end up next to the Assassin and a Blitzer. We then decide to make a blitz with our Blitzer that is behind his formation against his back left goblin cagecorner, managing to take him down (for no armour break) and tagging the ballcarrier. We also take down the Black Orc in contact with the Assassin and friend after bringing another elf to assist, Witch Elf manages to dodge away from her Black Orc mark, but the Lineman who got blocked by the goblin fails his dodge to come assist another Lineman in contact with a Black Orc and we choose to not reroll so a turnover. Black Orc blitzes down the Blitzer marking his ballcarrier, ballcarrier and cage shuffle a couple squares to the right but don't advance, Lineman on the left gets taken down and Troll and Black Orc move to mark most of my center elves, but thankfully for us he forgets to move the Diving Tackle goblin that we stunned which helps out somewhat. We decide to blitz with the Blitzer who got taken down against the other Diving Tackle goblin marking him and a downed Lineman, take him down and stun him (woohoo!) and then move him next to the Troll. We also move the unmarked Assassin next to the Troll which gives us a 2d on him with a Lineman and manage to take him down with a  though it does cost us a reroll. This frees a Blitzer to maneuver around and gets us a 2d block on the Black Orc that moved into contact with GUSYA! who takes him down with a . We stand up the Lineman on the left to keep the Black Orc with him busy and the Lineman behind his players moves and tags the back left goblin cagecorner. He once again moves aggressively into contact, shuffling slightly to the right and moving 2 squares forward with his ballcarrier. He makes the blitz with a Black Orc against GUSYA! and manages to stun him while also bullying the Lineman on the left and he once again forgets about his Diving Tackle goblin in his backfield. We put the Lineman behind him next to both his goblin back cagecorners, dodge the Assassin infront of his cage so our Blitzer can take a 1d against the Black Orc forward left cagecorner which ends up being a  which we follow up just to tag his ballcarrier. We then dodge a Blitzer into a tz and out of a tz to blitz his back left cagecorner, getting a  and so also marking the ballcarrier. Witch Elf makes the dodge away from the front right corner (probably a mistake as it frees him up) and our Lineman on the left then fails the 2+ dodge away from the Black Orc marking him. He pushes one of the Blitzer tagging his ballcarrier away with a Black Orc and then blitzes the Witch Elf for a push with the Black Orc she dodged away from previously, hemming her next to the sideline. He stuns a Lineman near the center and brings a Diving Tackle goblin next to the Blitzer who is still next to the ballcarrier. The ballcarrier makes his 3+ dodge away and ends up 3 squares from the endzone. He doesn't manage to build a cage again, but does bring a Black Orc to mark the Assassin from behind as well as moving the Troll with 2 GFIs (one of which he successfully rerolls as well) to screen off as best he can and gets a goblin behind the ballcarrier, so that the Witch Elf would need to dodge into 2 tzs to try anything. However the 2nd GFI for the Troll turns out to be a mistake I think as it makes it slightly easier to dodge out with the Assassin. It's our T15 and we get our first goblin removal by  Seriously Injuring the Diving Tackle goblin marking our Blitzer. After that we dodge and 2 GFI, GUSYA! next to the ballcarrier followed by a 4+ dodge into a 2+ dodge into a 2d blitz with the Assassin Flix against the ballcarrier where we manage it, getting a  knocking the ballcarrying goblin next to the sideline and stun for good measure, with the ball unfortunately not scattering into the crowd, but towards the endzone. We dodge a Blitzer into scoring range just incase and then dodge a Lineman to help out the Witch Elf who takes a 1d getting a  rerolled into a  however I think I should have just tried to dodge her next to the remaining upright goblin near the ball instead as now Kubusta proceeds to 2d blitz down the Assassin successfully after using a team reroll and then manages the 4+ pickup in the rain without needing his last rr to score the 1-1 equalizer. LoS blocks and Stab take down our opponents, but do no damage, we manage the vanity pass for smoked_g60 to get his first SPP and then we gangfoul the Troll into an MNG which does not regen, making the game for his next opponent slightly easier.

MVPs go to Assassin Flix and Clyx the Clown Goblin.

 

Personal MVP: Flix, the Assassin, who had a slow start to the game, but his heroic effort in the last important stretch of the game makes up for it. 
Personal LVP: Tigga, the Lineman, he got broken early and will need to be replaced. 
Personal EVP: Clyx the Clown who was the goblin that managed the equalizer, meaning both MVPs by the game actually went to the correct players for once.

[Alessus]

MD6 is organized for Wednesday 8th 19:30 UTC start against Averygrumpydad and his Human team

   ravenwing that has the following roster:

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198022114712/screenshot/2493381970786791309/

I have to say this is the weirdest Human team I've come across, probably on the account of him having randomed all of his skills bar the 1 Mighty Blow on a Blitzer. And I can't say it's worked out well for him, with Multiple Block on a Blitzer and Pro on a Thrower and the Tackle on a Catcher isn't the greatest either, though it will at least serve him somewhat probably in our match up as the Witch Elf starts with Dodge and both the Assassin Flix and Blitzer Tupi decided to take Dodge on their level ups. The teams also have a decent TV difference at 1065 for him and 1235 for us and with 55k in the bank I don't think he'll be buying anything prior to the match, so I'm guessing that he'll take a Wizard and an Assistant Coach as his inducements, though I am still debating whether or not I should cut Lineman Mikko as he has a Serious Injury on him and I still end up with 11 players as we have welcomed another new addition to the team, our 4th Blitzer Gimlik. 

I think I'll cautiously go for a 1-0 win for me as Human teams are super solid at low TVs, but this team clearly has not developed well at all.

Edited May 8, 2024 by Alessus

[Alessus]

Apologies for not getting this out before the MD7 match! MD6 was concluded and we fought the following match against Averygrumpydad and his Human team   ravenwing

My opponent only got 100k in inducements as we decided to cut our Lineman Mikko with a Serious Injury which he used for 1 Bloodweiser Keg and 2 temp Cheerleaders. We won the coin toss and decided to kick. We deploy a standard defense formation, 3 Linemen on the LoS and then 3 Blitzers and GUSYA! our Wrestle Lineman protecting the more fragile AV7 elves and Danton, the Blitzer suffering from a Serious Injury. Our opponent puts all his Blitzers, the Ogre and 1 Lineman on the LoS, keeping his Thrower+1 Lineman back and both Catchers accompanied by a Lineman on the wings. Kickoff lands middle of his left and gives his Tackle Catcher Stab. He easily takes down our LoS for no armour breaks, the Thrower recovers the ball and moves slightly towards the center with the Lineman from the back covering and surprisingly he does not Blitz nor move the players he has on the wings at all. Our following turn is relatively simple, wall him off by moving forward, take 1 blitz against his Lineman on the left for no real effect and dodge out our LoS players which we succeed in doing. Opponent moves the ballcarrier to the middle and cages around him, tags our left most Blitzer with a Lineman, blitzes down our Blodger Blitzer with his MB Blitzer on the left as well for no armour break and moves him into contact with a Lineman while also moving his Ogre into contact with one of our Blitzers on the right and shuffling his guys on the right to cover for the Ogre. We blitz down one of the covering Linemen on the right and then commit enough assists to give a 2d block on the Ogre, who we take down with a  for no armour break, we also take down the MB Blitzer in contact with a Lineman, but do use a reroll for it and then dodge out our 2 Blitzers on the left to maintain the line. He gets his Ogre up and moves aggressively into contact with the rest of his team including tagging the Witch Elf from behind with the Tackle Stab Catcher, taking a 1d Blitz with the MB against the Assassin but only gets a Push otherwise maintaining a solid cage. We answer by taking down the front of his cage with 2d blocks and a blitz by the Blodger Blitzer Tupi, getting him next to the ballcarrier. Witch Elf manages to  the Catcher marking her into a  while a Blitzer on the right knocks down a Lineman after which we take down the Ogre with another  after bringing in the necessary assists, though I do think I make a mistake here, I could have brought in Runner Pidpad instead of the Assassin Flix as one of the assists and then tried to dodge the Assassin next to the ballcarrier as well, since it would have only needed a 3+ with a Dodge built in reroll, but instead Pidpad gets to run to cover our left flank. My opponent clears Tupi off his ballcarrier with a Blitz by the MB guy after which he once again aggressively engages our frontline. He also hands the ball to his remaining Catcher who he then moves into the protection of his cage and takes a 1d block with the 1 Lineman we didn't touch and was left in contact, managing to  BH our Line-elf RTSD. However, his left back corner is in contact with our leftmost Blitzer Gimlik, a fact that we swiftly take advantage of as we bring Witch Elf AndyDavo in to assist which results in a  into a , but we leave Gimlik where he stands as he now provides an assist on the Ogre who goes down and allows us to Blitz the ballcarrier from the front with GUSYA! our Wrestle Lineman, taking him down with a  for a stun and getting an excellent scatter as the ball drops next to the prone Ogre and is now in 3 tzs already. We bring our Runner over to cover slightly more and then move our Assassin in for the pickup which he succeeds at and proceeds to run down towards the endzone on our right. We take some 2d blocks on the LoS and overall just corral up all the humans near the LoS. He picks up his players and starts his pursuit, managing several take downs and even a  on Danton, managing to get a Blitzer to tag our Assassin with while occupying most of our other players. We start by 2d blocking a Lineman with Tupi to free up Blitzer Telorast to blitz the Blitzer tagging our ballcarrier which manages to  him away, Assassin moves up but doesn't take the GFI to score, Witch Elf moves up to screen for him. GUSYA! brings down the Ogre on a 2d block, which allows us to move Gimlik up to double up on the Human Blitzer. My opponent manages to block free some of his players, which allows him to bring in 2 to assist the marked Blitzer, who takes down Gimlik, but for whatever reason he then blitzes Tupi, who was still tangled up with Ogre, with his MB guy without achieving anything and so his pressure towards the ballcarrier is much less than he could have had. This allows us to blitz his Thrower, who is the closest threat to the Assassin, with Gimlik and Witch Elf assisting and stun him and we push back the blitzer who stayed in contact with Telorast. We then extricate Line-elf Stygger and Tupi from the LoS area to help screen out, but don't manage to get Pidpad out as he fails a dodge away. My opponent goes for a blitz on the Witch Elf with his Blitzer, but even after a rr only manages a  and so fails to break through the screen and then moves everyone he can into contact with my team. Notably the Ogre fails Bonehead for the first time which makes my response much easier. We shuffle our players around and take some 2d blocks to try and get some removals, but after one of them eats up our last rr we walk in the score on our T7. Both of his KO's recover as does my Blitzer. We turn back the clock 1 turn at the kickoff, which means that there was now a real chance of him potentially scoring a td, but for whatever reason he does not move anyone within scoring range, but rather just takes blocks on the LoS, where he does  BH GUSYA! and takes a vanity pass with his Thrower to a catcher. We dodge away our 1 Line-elf who stayed standing because the Ogre went Bonehead again, but fail his second gfi which is entirely fine as no armour break and he does literally nothing on his T8 and neither do we.

 

He goes for a wide defensive position, with Ogre and 2 Linemen on the LoS and then rest of his players in pairs spaced evenly apart 2 squares behind the LoS. We load up 3 Blitzers, Flix the Assassin and 1 Line-elf onto the LoS, with Tupi aiming for a blitz on his MB Blitzer on the right and AndyDavo and Pidpad in the center while 1 Line-elf covers on the left. The kick is short and on the right, with the kickoff result giving a -MV on the Assassin for the drive. We manage to stun 1 Lineman,  another and take down the Ogre on the LoS, while the blitz only gets a . We are however somewhat sloppy as the screen is fairly weak, my opponent only needing 1 dodge to potentially make contact with Pidpad or the Witch Elf who is covering him. He however decides to blitz a screening Line-elf instead, punching a hole and tagging Pidpad and bringing another Blitzer in to tag both Pidpad and AndyDavo. He also moves into contact on the LoS aggressively and leaves Tupi completely open on the right. We decide to rely on good ol' elven agility and make the 2+ dodge away with Pidpad as he moves forward along the right. Tupi takes the blitz on his Tackle Catcher and stuns him and AndyDavo makes the dodge away to screen Pidpad off from the south. We then take blocks on the LoS, but play it kind of sloppy as we push the Multiple Block Blitzer into the wrong square as we could have gotten a 2d block on him with Telorast and then take a 1d block which takes down the Thrower and then fail a dodge away to reinforce our screen to the south with Telorast, choosing to not rr. My opponent then concentrates on taking more blocks on the LoS and blitzes the Witch Elf with the two players from the south, only managing to push her against the sideline. Curiously he makes no attempts to pressure the ballcarrier otherwise. Once again we play sloppy as we had fairly easy potential to surf 2 of my opponents Blitzers, but we decide to take the Blitz against his non-Tackle Catcher instead with Tupi, who then moves to cover Pidpad who just runs forward towards the endzone. We do bring in enough assists to have the Witch Elf push 1 Blitzer into the crowd, but don't manage to take down the MB Blitzer who is still in contact with the Witch Elf, so she is in danger of getting surfed herself. We also make a couple dodges to disentangle our last players from the LoS to screen as much as we can to stifle any pursuit, though Pidpad and Tupi are quite safe. He takes a blitz at our screening Line-elf, only manages a  and then moves aggressively into contact with his entire team before taking a 1d with the MB Blitzer and pushing AndyDavo into the crowd, for no effect. We bring Gimlik up to tag his player closest to Pidpad, Tupi moves south to cancel out a bunch of assists, which allows us to surf the MB Blitzer for no effect and then take a bunch of blocks, starting with Danton ing the Tackle Catcher who marked him, Telorast blitzing himself free and going to mark his Thrower who we only manage to push backwards slightly. Pidpad maneuvers from the right to center left. My opponent starts off by knocking down a Line-elf with the Ogre, then frees up his Multiple Block Blitzer by 2d blocking Tupi, who keeps standing thanks to Dodge, who he then blitzes for no knockdown. He then takes a 1d block with his Thrower, successfully rerolling a  to a  with Pro and then rerolling a  into a  as his Catcher takes another block at Tupi and gets 'd for good measure. On our turn, we move Pidpad to the left corner and take down every player still standing on his team aside from the Ogre whom Line-elf Stygger dodges away from. He picks up some of his players so that he can 2d blitz Stygger next to the sideline again, which he manages, but we beat down his players again after that, removing a Lineman via a gangfoul without ref interfering. We briefly consider walking in the score on this turn due to the amount of removals we've made to see if we can turn him over for a 3rd td, but decide against it as he is likely to recover most of his KO's thanks to the Bloodweiser Kegs. Stygger fails his dodge away even with a rr. His Ogre Boneheads as he tries a blitz with him and my opponent takes no further action. We manage to surf one last Human player and take down the Ogre with a blitz and my opponent elects to do nothing on his T15 so we walk in the score with Pidpad on T16. He recovers 3/4 s. On kickoff the ref sends Telorast to the penalty box and the best my opponent manages is a  on the LoS and elects to not even attempt a vanity pass.

The MVPs land on his Ogre, getting him to 6 SPP and Line-elf smoked_g60 who is at 5 SPP.

 

Personal MVP: Blitzer Tupi, aside from the first hit he took, his Dodge came in a lot this game and he never failed anything I needed him to do either, so super solid. 
Personal LVP: Line-elf RTSD, he was removed early and achieved nothing of note while the rest of the team was solid.
Personal EVP: Grushk, Thrower, he was the most solid player on the opposing team, succeeding or at least not failing at anything he did nor did he get himself removed.

Edited May 16, 2024 by Alessus

[Alessus]

MD7 with Hyperbrain and the Shambling Undead  Teeth of Brass(OCC) has flown by with the following results:

Hyper gets 90k in inducements, choosing to get 1 Bloodweiser Keg and 2 Temp Cheerleaders. Weather is perfect and we win the coin toss, choosing to kick. We put 3 Linemen on the LoS spread out while the rest of the team deploys 4 or 5 squares from the halfway line and in the center. Hyper commits everyone to the line, except for a rookie and the Sneaky Git ghoul, who deploy central for ball recovery purposes. Kick is very short and slightly to the left, but changing weather into perfect causes it to bounce immediately behind the LoS. He takes down the elves on the LoS (after quite a lot of pushing) managing to stun the right most one. The Sneaky Git ghoul moves to be left back cage corner, so we are spared a foul and he makes the pickup easily enough with the ghoul that was at the very back. He decides that he doesn't want to expose another rookie Ghoul so he takes no blitz on his turn and he also leaves the Guard Wight slightly exposed on the left flank. We move forward into the traditional elf column defense and take down the Guard Wight with a blitz on the left and RTSD fails the dodge to free himself, stunning himself into the bargain. He moves into contact in the center, getting a 3d blitz with a Mummy against Telorast and takes him down, though it does cost him a rr as the first result was  for no armour break. The ballcarrier moves forward 1 square and then he suffers a turnover as the Guard Wight fails to dodge away and stuns himself. We blitz a zombie on the right of his formation and reform our column defense trying to bait him into shifting to the left by leaving some elves too close to one another, managing all the dodges this time. Hyper doesn't take the bait, only shifting to the left by 1 square, Mummy blitzing GUSYA! down, being content for now to advance the cage 1 square forward at a time. We however decide to up the tempo a little bit, by blitzing the Tackle Wight on the left, which allows us to also tag the prone Guard Wight and the Sneaky Git ghoul, who is the back left cage corner, with GUSYA! while otherwise maintaining column defense and RTSD once again fails to dodge away though doesn't stun himself this time. Hyper moves into contact again, getting a 3d blitz on Pidpad with a Mummy, but only manages a push, moving his other Mummy to tag the Witch Elf AndyDavo while shifting his cage slightly to the center again. He manages to dodge out the Sneaky Git ghoul and both Wights, allowing him to form a partial 2nd layer of the cage with them though this does mean that his Guard Wight stays in contact with GUSYA! We then blitz his right forward cage corner zombie with Danton and get him next to the ballcarrying ghoul, though also in contact with another Zombie who is still upright, so we bring Telorast in to give him an assist and Tupi goes into contact with the closest Mummy, hoping that Blodge is enough to keep him upright. We move Tigga the Lineman in to mark the Tackle Wight while GUSYA! remains in place to mark the Guard Wight while stygger only manages to push a Zombie that was marking him on the right, following the block to hem in the Undead better. AndyDavo dodges away from his Mummy marker (potentially a mistake) and Pidpad maneuvers to the left to maintain some semblance of a column defense there. On the Undead turn Tupi gets pushed by the Mummy, which opens a path for the now free Mummy to blitz Telorast with a gfi, only managing a  but more importantly removing him as an assist so that the Zombie Danton is next to can take him down and free up the ballcarrier. Hyper is still being fairly cautious, so the ballcarrier only moves 1 square to keep being safe inside his cage, he brings a ghoul to assist the Tackle Wight who punches down Tigga and the Guard Wight 1d pushes GUSYA! away. He does run forward his Sneaky Git ghoul to 5 squares away from the endzone. On our turn we mark the Sneaky Git ghoul with Blitzer Gimlik, then take a 2d blitz on the left against a Zombie covering his left forward cage corner Mummy, only managing a  but we decide that a 1d is good enough and with GUSYA! and AndyDavo assisting Tupi goes for a 1d on the Mummy, only managing a  again, but follows up to mark the ballcarrier. We then do a mistake as we bring Flix the Assassin over to the right to cover, but do not put him into contact with the other Mummy, which means that even if we successfully disengage the other elves we won't get enough assists for a 2d on him with Telorast, so we decide to disengage that side entirely and successfully manage all the dodges. Tigga also stands up to keep the Tackle Wight and rookie ghoul in the back busy. His T6 he takes down Tigga with the Tackle Wight and manages a  to take down Tupi with the Mummy though thankfully no armour breaks. He then makes the first major shift of his formation in the game as he brings Zombies into contact with some elves on the left, his other Mummy moves to tag both the Witch Elf and Assassin and he takes a blitz on Pidpad on the left with the Guard Wight, taking him down, pushing him into GUSYA! who gets pushed into AndyDavo, presumably just trying to increase the distance between most of my players and his cage which now shifts to the left side, with the left forward cage corner ghoul 1 square away from the sideline, but he makes the Sneaky Git ghoul dodge away to screen effectively so Witch Elf surf becomes very unlikely. We shift over to the left as well, with Gimlik blitzing and stunning the Sneaky Git ghoul, as we bring enough assists for the Assassin to 2d the Mummy he is next to and we take him down, though it does cost us a rr. AndyDavo reinforces the left while we manage the dodges required for GUSYA! to take a 1d on the other Mummy and he Wrestles him down and Tigga just continues marking the Tackle Wight. Hyper picks up his mummies and then blitzes Lineman stygger on the right with the Guard blitzer which opens up his path a little bit as he GFIs 2 Zombies forward as he shifts the ballcarrier into scoring range on the right. He pushes Tigga with the Tackle Wight and tries to bring his other rookie ghoul next to his ballcarrier also in scoring range but even with a rr fails the GFI. Unfortunately with the mass of Guard and bodies in the way, there is no way that we can get anything better than a 2d uphill blitz against the ballcarrier with only reasonable amount of dodging, so instead we decide to just try to be in the way as much as possible, with the Assassin taking down the forward left Zombie cage corner and marking the Ghoul and Danton blitzing down the forward right Zombie corner. The rest of the team disengages, forming a tight screen in front of the Undead while Telorast and AndyDavo mark the prone Sneaky Git ghoul from opposite sides. His T8, he blocks the Assassin with the Guard Wight and only manages a push, which means that the ballcarrying ghoul would have to make heaps of dodges through tzs to make it to the endzone, so instead Hyper attempts to dodge the Sneaky Git ghoul past his markers into the endzone, but manages to fail and  MNG himself in the process. We take multiple 2d blocks as Hyper did pick up all of his prone players, but manage nothing of consequence. 

 

2nd half, only removal having been the Sneaky Git ghoul means we are in an excellent position for our offensive drive. Hyper puts 3 Zombies on the LoS, stacking them on the right edge while his Mummies and 2 other Zombies make a wide line 2 squares from the halfway line while the Wights and remaining ghouls are 1 square behind them. We go for a 3 Blitzers + Lineman stygger on the LoS, Assassin, Witch Elf and remaining Blitzer Danton on the right, GUSYA! and RTSD Linemen on the left and smoked_g60 along with Pidpad in the back.  Kickoff is "Get the Ref!" and the kick itself is center and midway. We take down the Zombies on the LoS, blitz a Zombie for a push on the right and move the Linemen on the left forward to more effectively screen. Lineman stygger takes a foul at a Zombie with 5 assists, managing a  without the ref interfering. We go for a vanity pass with smoked_g60 who is on 5 SPP, but the pass misses and scatters into our backfield. Hyper picks up the Zombies near the LoS and Mummy blitzes GUSYA!, stunning him and opening a gap in our screen, which he aggressively pours through with both Wights and Ghouls running through. He tags RTSD on the left with a Zombie and moves his other Mummy to tag players near the LoS while the Zombie we pushed tags Danton on the right. We bring some of our players back to tag the forward ghoul, while Tupi takes a 2d blitz at the Guard Wight, only getting a push and following, tagging him and the other ghoul to get as effective of a screen as possible. Pidpad makes the pickup and decides to run back 1 square from the endzone, with only the forward ghoul being able to potentially reach him. AndyDavo manages to free up the Assassin on the right, ing a Zombie in the process, which allows Flix to move forward and assist Danton who takes down the Zombie marking him for a stun. We dodge Telorast away from the LoS and with 2 GFIs he is now near enough to Pidpad that if he is targeted for a blitz, he can attempt to dump-off. RTSD also makes his dodge to go and tag the Tackle Wight while stygger gets orders to stick with the Mummy he is marking. 
His Mummy pushes stygger which allows his other Mummy to assist the Guard Wight, who pushes Tupi away from the ghoul he was marking. That ghoul then proceeds to 2d blitz Gimlik as he is still next to the Guard Wight but also only manages a push but does at least open a hole for him to run through to obstruct my way and the other ghoul manages the dodge away to do the same. Smoked_g60 tags the ghoul on the left, while Gimlik tags the ghoul on the right who then gets blitzed by Telorast and taken down with a  while Telorast advances forward on the right, Pidpad following suit. Flix moves forward as well 2 squares from the endzone, while AndyDavo and Danton move back to screen our ballcarrier. Tupi dodges away from the center and moves up towards the Undead endzone, while GUSYA! and RTSD untangle themselves on the left, but we (accidentally) leave stygger to still mark one of the Mummies. On his turn Hypers block dice remain as bad as ever as he only manages pushes, pushing stygger with the Mummy, making a blitz with the other Mummy against Telorast and gets a push and one of his ghouls takes a 2d block against smoked_g60 and only manages a push. The Mummy blitz does open a path for him to get players to mark Pidpad, but for whatever reason he doesn't go for it, only moving the Wights nearby rather than into contact. He also doesn't pick up one of his Zombies to tag Tupi but I assume that's because he thought I might bring Pidpad next to the prone Zombie while Flix was too far for him to chase regardless. With AndyDavo assisting we blitz down one his Zombies blocking our path on the right and tag the Tackle Wight as well, we then bring enough assists to get a 2d on the Mummy, where stygger takes him down and stuns him. We bring Flix back and Pidpad moves forward, next to the Zombie, who we dodge Danton to go foul and get a  once again without the ref interfering and so we move Tupi slightly back to cover more. Smoked-g60 also makes some dodges to escape his marks to come tag the Tackle Wight from behind. Hyper goes for a Mummy blitz against AndyDavo and only manages a push thanks to dodge and pushes him next to the sideline, following up to tag both him and Tupi. He moves his players so he can take a 2d against Gimlik with the Tackle Wight again only managing a push next to the Mummy and not following up, though he does bring the Guard Wight next to Gimlik. His ghouls move up slightly to the left of the center, attempting to circumnavigate the scrum. We tag the left most ghoul with stygger and the right most with GUSYA! before blitzing the right most with Telorast for only a push, before moving him to the right to give an assist on the Mummy near the sideline. We also bring in Danton to assist and Tupi gets a 2d on the Mummy but only manages a push and is forced to follow so that we can dodge out AndyDavo instead of risking him getting surfed. AndyDavo moves to assist against the Tackle Wight and RTSD cancels out a Zombie assist and tags the prone Mummy which allows smoked_g60 to take a 2d on the Tackle Wight, taking him down with a  BH which regens, but does mean that the Lineman gets a skill after the game assuming he survives. Pidpad moves alone towards the opposition endzone as Flix also moves down to assist by tagging the ghoul me didn't blitz and we take a 1d with Gimlik on a Zombie for a push. Hyper finally gets some favour from Nuffle as the Mummy near the sideline s Tupi and after standing up his other Mummy one of his Zombies s RTSD. He pushes Gimlik with the Guard Wight ad follows up on the right, makes a blitz with his free ghoul against AndyDavo managing a push, but making a gap that he can potentially dodge through, which he does followed by the ghoul tagged by stygger and Flix (Shadowing fails) and putting some pressure on Pidpad in the backfield. Pidpad maneuvers from the right to center-left, GUSYA! with the assist from Flix s the ghoul closest to Pidpad and stuns him, tagging the other ghoul afterwards. We dodge several other players to surround the stunned ghoul and go for a gangfoul with stygger, only manage a stun and still no ref. Danton and smoked_g60 dodge out to screen. Hyper moves all of his remaining players into contact, but the dice once again turn against him and both his Mummy blitz and block with the ghoul yield only pushes and he is in no position to threaten the ballcarrier. Since we are in such a strong position we decide to have AndyDavo be the one to score the td, so we move him to the left, bring Flix and Telorast to cage him after Danton manages only a push on his standing ghoul and Pidpad makes the short pass for the extra SPP no problem. We dodge out Gimlik and smoked_g60 to get another foul on the ghoul, no armour break and have to use the bribe and then dodge stygger over to reinforce our ballcarrier defense using our first reroll of the half. Hyper only makes a 2d Mummy block, managing to take down smoked_g60, but no armour break and he ends his turn. It's T16 so we decide to just walk in the score rather than risk anything going wrong. Undead recover 2/3 s while we recover none. We set up to protect against a 1 turn td just incase, but he doesn't set up for it and kickoff is a Brilliant Coaching, so Hyper takes his blocks on the LoS, but doesn't manage any injuries and opts not to even try the vanity pass and game ends 1-0 to Dark Elves.

 

MVPs were assigned to Zombie Faker #2 and Telorast

 

 Personal MVP: Line-elf Smoked_g60 just because he managed to get his level up with a random CAS, so I don't need to try to vanity pass with him.
Personal LVP: Line-elf RTSD, the only one to really fail anything in this match in a notable fashion.
Personal EVP: Mummy Stone Bewlay, just because he was the most solid out of an unremarkable bunch as he didn't get stunned by a random elf block out of the two Mummies.

[Alessus]

MD8 has been re-scheduled for Friday 14:30 UTC start, as SnigerDK was ambushed by a couch nap after work and missed the agreed upon game time  His team of Black Orcs  The Boozy Bunch looks like this:
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198022114712/screenshot/2471991866879912390/

Some decent development for the team, with the Block Goblin being especially notable as an annoying ballcarrier to deal with. Stand firm gets more annoying the more you have it and 2 is already going to be quite an annoyance to deal with, but crucially he does not have any Guard, MB or Block on his Black Orcs or Troll, which I think helps me out quite a bit. I also have now come into possession of a Strip Ball Blitzer and a Tackle Blitzer, which makes the Block on the Goblin less of an issue, though we do first need to actually reach him for it to matter. The DP goblin is also high on the bounty list for obvious reasons.

 

Overall I'm cautiously optimistic about this matchup, so I'll predict a 1-0 win for me.