So for Matchday 2 the Hip Hop Halflings brought along their Chef, a Bloodweiser Babe and the great and powerful Puggy Baconbreath to take on the might of SacredChilli’s Walking Casualties.
Once again the Chef was on fine form, stealing all two of the Casualties rerolls; this was an excellent start as Pro Elves are notoriously short on starting skill staples such as Block and Dodge. However, for the second game running the Brilliant Coaching of my opponent snaffled a reroll back.
Scarred by their failure to really lay a boot on the Necromantic last game, the Flings had sharpened their fouling heels and looked forward to the patter of tiny feet upon a catcher’s face. With the weather fine, Ill Culinary Behaviour opted to receive.
After a couple of turns of shoving elves around and having halflings stunned, we’d established a loose cage behind the trees, but unlike Coach Will’s hands-off approach last game, the elves opted to get all up in our grills by swamping the Flings and basing as many as possible. With the strength disadvantage, this meant lots of dodging and one dice blocks as the Flings attempted to keep the ball safe.
By Turn 3, Biggie Portions (the ball carrier) was already based and it took Puggy’s first (and pretty much only) intervention with a fine blitz to push him free - but relief was temporary. Like a cloud of effeminate wasps, the elves kept coming back and basing flings wherever they could.
Then, on turn 4 the whole game’s momentum swung: For the first time a catcher had come in range of the little guys and was duly boshed to the ground. With the ball partially safe, rather than move to protect the ball carrier, the flings opted to first give poor Shin Splints, the rookie catcher, a right good kicking . Unfortunately for fans of the more agricultural side of the game, Rakeem-a Naan got immediately sent off by the slightly petty officiating of today’s goblin ref. And to add insult to injury, though armour was broken, Shin Splints survived with a stun. Obviously this caused a turnover which in turn meant that the Halflings’ lust for Elf blood had now left the ball carrier exposed to a blitz.
As Coach I take full responsibility and completely accept the consequences of this decision, but in my defence, if a Pro Elf Catcher is on the floor next to three un-marked Halflings and you don’t attempt to gang foul the rotten shit whenever you can, you are entirely missing the point of the glorious sport of Blood Bowl.
Very predictably in the next turn, ball carrier Biggie Portions was stunned by a blitz, the ball bobbled free and an already shabby and disorganised Halfling drive had descended into shambolic anarchy. The next couple of turns saw a melee, highlight of which was LL Cool Jelly absolutely hammering into Distraction the Elf Lineman with a block and breaking his pathetic elfy arm like a twig, removing him from the pitch. KRS One More Serving picked up the fouling baton, once again breaking Shin Splint’s armour, once again only getting a stun and ONCE AGAIN getting immediately sent off by what quite frankly was starting to look like a ref who’d been sent a bag of elf gold pieces the night before.
By now the elves had the ball, despite the best efforts of Bustah Pines and another ineffective foul. LL Cool Jelly, fired up from his previous block, had a chance to blitz the ball carrier, but failed his dodge… and the elves were away. Living up to their previous form, and short on rerolls, a fumbled pass did give Ill Culinary Behaviour hope, but only if they could successfully launch Puggy over the scrum and next to the loose ball. Puggy, however proved to be big fat fraud and fluffed the landing, leaving the elves free to score as the Flings consoled themselves beating up and fouling the journeymen that Chilli had kindly left up the pitch to keep them busy.
The second half saw the elves set up to receive. Things looked good for Ill Culinary Behaviour as the Chef maintained his 100% record and stole both rerolls, swiftly followed by blinding sunshine to limit the passing game.
But with a freak touchback, the elves immediately snaffled the ball and flooded down the right side of the pitch. Shin Splints, the remarkably resilient catcher and ref’s favourite, was immediately hauled down once again and given a right good kicking by Puff Pastry Daddy and a band of accomplices, finally succumbing and getting knocked out. It will come as no surprise that the ref’s blatant and possibly corrupt favouritism Shin Splints continued and Puff Pastry Daddy promptly became the third player to be sent off for fouling the golden boy.
Otherwise there was little to impede the elves progress to a second score, apart from what will no doubt go down in history as PLAY OF THE GAME as Bustah Pines hurled Tupac Salt Shaker high into the air. Tupac landed gracefully with a tuck and a roll that would put Beth Tweddle to shame and swiftly piled into gang foul on the remaining catcher, Butter Fingers. Unfortunately despite armour breaking again, Butter Fingers proved as tough as his colleagues and refused to take the pitch. After a routine score for the elves, the Flings reset for a second attempt at building some semblance of a drive.
Ill Culinary Behaviour advanced down the left flank, bashing the elves back and focusing their ire on Butter Fingers the catcher (as Shin Splints had wisely staying in the dugout). After a few turns the trees were in position to hurl LL Cool Jelly and the ball into scoring range, but Bustah Pines somewhat fluffed the throw and dropped his man right between the only two elves between him and the TD zone… and with that the match was done. All that remained was for Snoop Doggy Bags to finally get to grips with Butter Fingers and Badly Hurt him with a crunching block.
Although battered and bruised remnants of the elves attempted a third score, thrown halflings rained down on them in a hail of rabid gang fouling midgets and the game petered out to a 2-0 win for the elves. However with both Pro Elf Catchers removed from the pitch with injuries and a total of 9 fouls and 5 TTMs attempted, the immoral victory went to the Halflings, which Nuffle in his post-match beneficence rewarded by rolling +AG for the hero of the second half, Snoop Doggy Bags.