I had a fun match vs Ronin last night. Given the similarity of our races (Skaven vs Skaven/Gob/Troll), our players entered into a gentlerats agreement that we would pull our punches. And i'm sure glad we did as Ronin absolutely flattened my team in the 2nd half. Only 1 cas each side - a badly hurt Linerat for Ronin and a broken collarbone on a Linerat for me. My apoth was rushed onto the field for that, but realising he couldn't fix the crippled rat, he put him out of his misery and euthanized him
He should be a useful source of parts for any future mutations
Anyway, first half and with the Stormclaws receiving, the rats failed to do much damage to my LOS crew and settled for a screen for the ball carrying Thrower. It was at this point that i mocked Ronin for not having a Rat Ogre, to which he replied that big guys were too unreliable. "I'll show you unreliable" i said and proceeded to blitz with my Troll only to get a double both down result!
But the rr worked and it saved him from hitting the turf.
My line was holding out pretty well and the Thrower and some of his buddies were squashed near the sideline around LOS. Ronin's Guard stormvermin was causing me some grief (Ronin always placed this guy in the most annoying spots), but we were still holding the line. I decided to play balls to the wall and doing a gfi with the Troll i managed to blitz down 1 of the screening players and mark the Thrower who was caught against the sideline. Ronin broke through my defensive line with some Gutters at this point and then tried to dodge the Thrower out to throw a pass to them. But my Troll's part time job in B-grade Japanese porn movies paid off and his tentacle was just too strong for the Skaven.
This allowed me to smack the rat over the head next turn and recover the ball with one of my Throwers. A couple of turnovers and ball sackings later and 1 of Ronin's Gutters had regathered the ball, but having used up his full movement allowance he was facing a block next turn. So he decided to pass to another Gutter who was marked by a Goblin. And the little legend intercepted it! Go you good thing! And then he managed to dodge away, survive a spirited chase and leg it to the end zone for a TD!!
With only 2 turns left in the half we both turned over early, as the teams were obviously exhausted from the first drive and wanted to hit the change rooms.
2nd half and with the Underworld receiving, Ronin got a blitz on the kick off - D'oh! But luckily he kicked it off the pitch. I was tempted to give it to my Troll, but in the end handed it to my stormvermin who was on 5spp. Can you see where this is heading? Yeah, i wanted that 1 spp from a pass completion. He made the pass alright, but the stupid extra arms thrower must have tangled himself up with his 3rd arm as he failed the 2+ catch (with rr) to get the ball. It bounced to the LOS crew - first a Gob, then a Troll, then on to that little legend of a Gobbo who got the interception and scored in the 1st half. And true to form the little legend caught it!
It meant it wasn't a turnover, but i was still kind of screwed with a lot of my players marked. With nowhere much to go, he took the safest option and dodged away to hide behind the Troll. But with most of my guys marked, Ronin really laid into them next turn - handing out 5 forms of smackdown (although luckily only 1 ko and a couple of stuns i think). But desperate times call for desperate measures and my Troll was getting that look in his eye. He turned around, picked up the ball carrier Gob and prepared to fling him down the pitch. But the little runt was just too slippery and fell from the Trolls grasp before he could launch him (rr burned on loner in the process). My Gob, being the legend he is, managed to survive the landing and instead of flying through the air as he originally had intended, he handed the ball off to a Stormvermin, who broke through the Skaven ranks and bolted to within scoring distance.
Unfortunately though, he forgot how fast Gutter Runners are (an easy mistake to make as Underworld teams don’t associate with Clan Eshin). After being marked by 2 of them, a Stormvermin blitzed in, but obviously taking petty on his counterpart, didn’t manage to knock him down. Hey, hey, I thought. Just need a dodge to score next turn. Or not… Ronin ran back a few more guys and had 4 players marking my poor rat! With his pants well and truly soiled he tried to throw a desperation pass to a nearby Gob, but fluffed it and dropped it right into the paws of Ronin’s Stormvermin.
At this point, things went well and truly South. And I don’t mean Kentucky bourbon South – more like South Pole South. Ronin pretty much flattened my entire team, including KO’ing the Troll and casually sauntered the ball carrier down to the endzone, where he hung around for a while picking his nose, before some funky Goblin dodging forced him to score on turn 15.
With 1 turn left, my only hope was a flying Goblin touchdown, but the Troll stayed KO, so no chance of a win. And with that the match pretty much ended.
So an interesting match there, with neither of us able to score on our own drives. The first half saw the ball switch back and forth between the teams multiple times, whereas in the 2nd half I pretty much just got flattened. My Troll was a real thorn in Ronin’s paw for most of the match, with him only going stupid once and tieing up multiple players with his tentacle for the rest of the time (at least until he got KO’d). Unfortunately no skills coming from the match, although I do have 4 players on 5spp. Thanks for the game Ronin.
