Chatterbox Monday

Ronarid
2 Aug 2011, 9:31AM

After 44 turns, two matches and a total of five hours 40 minutes playing time, the first of Season Five's Blood Bowel semi finals is finally finished.

The rematch saw Ravin Skaven, late league entrants and unbeaten prodigy of new wunderkind coach SpriteBark face off against last season's beaten quarterfinalists, Fungus's Bogeymen (Orc). With a big difference in team value the Skaven ranks were bolstered by the legendary star player Morg 'n' Thorg for some much needed smacking power.

Electing to kick off the first half, the Skaven pushed deep down the left flank with the Orcs stampeding over to cover them and start the bashing. But the Orc troll forgot what he was supposed to be doing and allowed the Skaven blitzer to escape. SpriteBark used him to instigate a trademark flowing move from left to right wing - Morg punched a hole through the middle, the Rat Ogre stormed through (knocking out the Orc's star player in the process) and the Skaven flooded through, too fast for the Orcs to reposition.

1-0 to the Skaven after 4 turns, meaning the Orcs had to score fast. With SpriteBark seriously hampered by a lack of kicking ability the Orcs received the KO quite high up the field and despite valiant (and annoyingly injury-free) defence from the rats, the Orcs punched through and scored in turn 7. The last two turns of the half degenerated into fumbled pickups and stalemate blocks. 1-1 at half time.

With the Orcs receiving the second half KO the gameplan was simple - take eight turns to bash up the pitch for a 2-1 win. But a combination of poor Orc coaching and rapier sharp Skaven counter attacking disrupted these plans. Ball safely caught, the Orcs started pounding the Skaven offensive line. However, in what I can only put down to fatigue-induced brainfart, the Orcs elected to block with Trigger the Troll first, who promptly rolled double skulls and failed his loner reroll. Within two turns the Skaven had swamped the backfield, stripped the ball and sent a Gutter Runner over the line for a beautiful defensive touchdown. 2-1 to Skaven with six turns to go.

The next Orc drive went more according to plan with the rat ogre and Morg well marked by expendable line orcs, the blitzers and black orcs bashed their way up the right flank making liberal use of guard,tackle and mighty blow. As the Orcs neared the TD zone in T15, Spritebark threw two blitzers at the ball carrier in a last ditch charge. Unfortunately this resulted in one being injured by a block and the other being crowdsurfed and knocked out the game. The Orcish thrower (and season five top scorer!) then trundled past the remnants of the Skaven lines to make it 2-2 and take the game to extra time AGAIN.

Although the Skaven received the kick off, by this point injuries had really taken their toll on the ranks of rabid ratties and the Orcs were quick to swamp the Skaven lines. After an unlucky block left the rat ogre on the floor with a self-inflicted KO, the Orcs managed to blitz a hole and get a tackler on the ball-carrying gutter runner. Spritebark's luck couldn't hold for a dodge away and the ball was free. With Orcs out numbering rats, they barricaded the Skaven behind a wall of stupid green flesh and marched the ball away to score and win the game 3-2 after extra time.

All in all a truly epic match, seesawing this way and that and fully deserving a 19/20 match rating from the crowd. Spritebark was unlucky to lose, it basically came down to me having a better spread of skills than his rookie team but mist importantly that longer games favour the more resilient team and he had no players left in extra time.

Looking forward to either a rematch with Anarcharsenal, who knocked us out last season, or Sorb's Necros who look very tidy for the final.

Glory days.