Wednesday 3 April 2013

Dudes of Hazzard: Game Five

The Dudes played their fifth game of the season last night against Alex's Nurgle team Necrotic Crevice and it most definately was, as they say, a game of two halves...

The first half saw the Dudes kick to the Crevice who caged up deep in their own half. But not deep enough and the Dudes quickly got to the box and bashed its corner in, putting a tacklezone onto the ball carrier. Turn two for the Crevice went badly as the ball carrying pestigor went down on a double one trying to dodge out of the box which, given that he needed twos was pretty uncalled for. The Dudes capitalized on this and had scored by turn three with star catcher Wopat taking the ball over the line. This left the Crevice five turns in which to score...

The second drive saw the Crevice box up again, this time even deeper in their own half and the Dudes were left trying to fight their way through the main line to get to it.  By turn seven things were looking good for the Crevice who had the ball three squares from the Dudes' endzone with only Blitzer Schnieder within striking distance and he was on the floor and needed to make two dodges (4 then 3) to get to the ball carrier for a 1D blitz. Which he duly made and, to add insult to injury, scooped up the ball and stood their looking lonely. In their last turn the Crevice prepared to get that ball back and score but a QUAD SKULLS! block early on ended their turn and the half was over. 1-0 to the Dudes at half time, it's fair to say that as I set up for the second half I was feeling fairly confident.

As I said, it was a game of two halves...

In the second half I got the chance to make one mistake before handing over all intiative to the dice gods who clearly decided that enough was enough. My mistake was pretty basic and one that came from being out of the game for a while. I got the ball and caged up too near to the LOS and then discovered that a combination of tentacles and disturbing presence make this a pretty poor place to be! And then it all went wrong, the handoff predictably was fluffed in turn two (that much was entirely probable). I then watched in horror as my three attempts to catch the bouncing ball failed only to see it jump into the hands of a Rotter who was entirely unphased by my TZ and who caught it on a five. That wasn't expected! The next surprise was seeing the Crevice decide to play for a draw and stall out the touchdown. The next four turns fell into a familiar rhythm of watching my players being blocked off the pitch (across the end of the half at least nine players went off KO'd or injured) while I'd throw the odd block and fall over (it was my turn to QUAD SKULL this half - the tables had literally turned). The Crevice scored in turn five or six when my squad was pretty much gone.

One drive to go... The Dudes had clearly had enough and just one of the four KO'd players returned leaving me with 10 men on the pitch. I set up aggressively planning a run down the right with catchers on the line ready to get moving. PERFECT DEFENCE! With my players now entirely hemmed in by S4/5 monsters I had no way through, fluffed a few more blocks and just managed to keep the ball by grabbing it with a catcher and hiding him in my own endzone! In the last turn of the game the Crevice took the catcher down with a 2D blitz. The ball spilled free and scattered nicely for the Nurglers but finally fortune smiled on the Dudes as the Crevice rolled a two for the pick-up roll ending the game with the final score at 1-1. In the after game stuff the dice decided that no, they weren't really going to side with the Dudes and the gate came up with a 1 and the MVP went to my already SPP'd up catcher. Curses! 

Overall it was a fun if at times frustrating game. My mistake in the second half proved costly indeed -  had the dice stayed with me (or not turned against me) I could maybe have come back from this but it wasn't to be.

Oh, and as an aside, the Necrotic Crevice were one of a few teams that I've painted for others and it was cool to see them on the tabletop. Here's a pic:

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