Moving into the second half of the season the Exiles were looking to capitalize on the progress made in Week 4, and in particular try to make use of my newly developed Berzerkers to take the upper hand in the blocking game. There’s a point in most Norse team’s lifecylce where people stop looking at them like 11 AV7 casualties waiting to happen and start seeing 4/5 Might Blow pieces and looking for ways to avoid them. The Exiles are certainly no there yet, but they came into the game with two MB blitzers. Now we’re talking. My match report from Ordobowl follows:

Game week 5 saw the Albion Exiles entertaining the New Kids of the Block at their home stadium in a debut encounter between the two coaches.

The Exiles won the toss and elected to kick in the first half. At the kick off the home fans proved so raucus that the Exiles were able to garner an additional reroll for the half. Never a bad thing.

The NKOTB formed the classic human cage in the early cautious moves of the half and Seth the Ogre put a lineman in the KO box with almost the first block of the game – Coach Shrugged that off as it was a journeyman! That’s what they’re there for. Eventually the humans committed down one flank and the Norse took full advantage of a couple of chances to give crowd autograph opportunities from the visiting team.

After some scuffling, the Norse were able to pop the ball clear and make a break down the opposite sideline. And, in the final turn of the half Hlornolfr the Crow was able to convert the turn-over into a score, but not before the Norse had attempted to issue a few more punches in delicate spots.

Half time – 1-0 to the Exiles

The second half started well for the Humans, with the coach calling a Blitz, caught on the back foot, the Norse were under pressure and unable to pick up the ball. NKOTB thrower Franklin demonstrated admiral ball handling skills as it bobbled around in midfield, catching the bouncing ball in midair and evading a couple of Norse defensive lineman before sprinting in to score in the corner.

1-1

With most of the second half remaining after the quick defensive score from the NKOTB, the Norse coaching staff were still semi confident of a win. The Exiles set up an undisguised attempt to force a path down the left, relying on the fear of the sidelines to give the Humans pause for thought. The plan largely worked as the NKTOB were unable to break the sideline half cage, and the full frenzied power of the Norse was able to shoulder aside some stout human defence and force score in the 6th turn.

2-1 Exiles

The final turns of the match saw the now depleted NKTOB with the ball but seemingly little motivation to score or expose themselves to further collaterol as the clock ran down for a 3rd win of the season for the Exiles.

In the post match sequence it was clear the fans had appreciated the efforts of both teams in a hard fought game with both teams receiving maximum possible return from the gate.

So, that went pretty well. As was to be predicted by now, I got yet another seriously injured lineman, but -1MV is fine, I’ll just put him on the LoS until he sustains something more annoying or gets killed. He also has 5 SPP so I could potentially give him DP and use him as my first fouler. Postmatch was even better than the win in my view. I have been struggling to skill up the Ulfwereners so picking up a casualty and then the MVP on the same guy was a big win.

Then to top it off, my runner skills up with 2 TDs and rolls his way into +AG. That’s going to me amazing if I can keep him alive long enough to get Dodge. He’ll become a royal pain in the butt as a ball retreiver / carrier in a league where I’m not expecting to see a whole bunch of tackle given how much bash is on show.

The winnings was also awesome – Fame +2, winning, and bringing food meant I took home 100K for the match. I spent a decent wadge of cash post game – buying my 3rd reroll and shellingout for one replacement lineman for the niggle guy. I’ll probably do the same next week for another lineman to try to grow the squad past 11 within the next couple of weeks.

Onwards!