Chaos Cup, second day

I woke up feeling sore, as if picking up little plastic toys and moving them around a neoprene pitch was an intense exercise.

My fifth match of the weekend was against goblins, with a chainsaw. They won the kick-off, picked up the ball and advanced steadily down the pitch, while I cowardly held back, trying to stay out of range of the threatening saw.

Then I got lucky. In turn 6, one of his trolls rolled double skulls on a block. He tried to reroll it – he had to roll a 3 on a D6 to use a reroll. He got a 4. And then he rolled double skulls again.

My Rat Ogre was in the right place to hit his chainsaw with a three dice hit: a pow, a push, or a both down. I went confident, took the push to ensure there was space, rolled another push, pow and a both down, smashed the chainsaw into the side of the pitch then lined up another rat to assist and hit the ball carrier. Down he went, the ball popped free.

I ran a gutter runner up, dodged on a 2+, a 3+, another 3+, picked up the ball on a 3+, dodged out on a 2+, ran down the pitch out of danger, scored in turn 7.

The chainsaw had a bribe to keep him in play, and there were enough reserve goblins he could stay off the pitch for his last turn of the half, and then the kick landed where he couldn’t score. I had one knocked out rat who came back for the last turn of the drive, so my bomber remained off the pitch until the second half.

Then, second half: I threw a bomb, it landed on the other fouler he had, killed him, killed the chainsaw in the blast, and I made an easy second score and didn’t give him room to get anything back.

So, I was at 2-2-1, and now I started getting stressed at not wanting to get a loss and drop down the table. But my first half was a disaster: Bomber blew himself up on the first turn, it felt like every time my opponent hit me another rat died, and I had nothing to stop him walking down the pitch for an easy score. I got a desperate blitz into the cage in the 7th turn, and then he walked it in, I reluctantly set up to try for a one turner, my thrower long dead and unable to assist.

Then there was a time out, and because his team was forward to make a one turner harder, I got two rats deep into the backfield, and his last chance to take one down with a three dice hit failed, I managed a 3+ hand off and a 2+ dodge to equalise.

Ok, second half. Seven rats left against a full team of undead. I didn’t have faith in running the ball deep and scoring, didn’t want to lose, so I ran all over the pitch. If mice hadn’t kept dying it might have been easier, but soon I was down to three gutter runners, a blitzer and two liberals.

I thought I was safe then his damn frog jumped in, surfed the ball carrier with six turns, and the crowd threw the ball upfield. I got a runner on the ball and managed to both down him and me, but then he had three turns left to get the ball and run it in against my two rats.

He picked up the ball and went the wrong way, somehow confused about which end of the pitch was which. I think he would have tried to "score" in the following turn before I pointed out he couldn’t pass the ball that far. I should have kept my mouth shut.

With one mouse left, I moved up to make some kind of threat. He killed that one, ran both his werewolves down the field and then just needed a 3+ hand off and two 2+ rushes to score and win the game, and he had a reroll left.

Bated breath.

He rolls a 1.

He takes the reroll.

It’s another 1.

So I had the best run in the Chaos Cup yet; I’d have liked to have won my first game (I felt I was unlucky not to)

I thought I’d caged up ok, hadn’t- something to learn there. And I don’t know how I’ll rank against all the other 2-3-1s, but happy with that. Need to cultivare more peace of mind for next year, not worry so much about how you place. One game at a time…