Witch King's Cauldron results

The playoffs for the first season of the new NaBBLe league were played out today.

The Semis
The first was between 1st seed (me) with my Karond Kar Raiders and 4th seed (Tyler - actually placed 5th, but 4th place couldn't attend the playoffs) with his Warpstone Stealers - harbouring his dreaded OTT gutter runner Kritsskabak - who won league MVP (most SPP), league top scorer (most TD) as well as most hated (by coaches voting), he gained a free Pro skill, a free Fend skill and a free Fan Favourite skill.  Due to being named most hated, he has a bounty of 100K on his head!

From my first kick off roll of Pitch Invasion (subsequently stunning 5 of his players to my 2 - including Kritsskabak.  I took advantage to try and foul him out (we played in Naggaroth which meant as long as you break armour - doubles don't get you kicked out + any casualty counts for SPP) things went my way.  I didn't manage to do anything to Kritsskabak until KO'ing him in the second half - and Tyler did score an early touchdown due to my focus on the league MVP.  I ground out the rest of the first half and scored on my last turn. In the second half, I received the kickoff and drew his players in by keeping the ball in my end.  Once they were all spread out (well and 2 dead, and several KO'd - including Kritsskabak) I pushed my ball carrier forward and blocked off his return path to hold out until turn 8 to score, giving him 1 turn.  Fortunately for me, he failed to get more than 1 gutter runner back from the KO box and he only had 7 of his 16 players available, making it pretty difficult for him to tie it up.  The kickoff result was brilliant coaching so he had no benefit of an additional turn, giving me a pass into the finals with a 2-1 win (4-1 CAS).

The second was 2nd seed (Alex) with his Bilgewater Brawlers  vs. 3rd seed (Chris) with his Innsmouth Invaders.  They met twice during the regular season, with Chris winning once and the other game ending as a draw. Apparently a tight game, where any time an advantage was gained, it was quickly torn away (how fickle nuffle is...) - Alex managed to even out the head to head match up with a close fought 1-0 win, putting him into the finals with me, and relegating Chris to the 3rd place match vs. Tyler.

The Finals
The finals saw me face off vs. Alex and his Lizardmen.  I was again very fortunate that Chris had armour busted his Kroxigor and thus a very important piece was missing from Alex's team for the final game.  He had 400K inducements and took a dirty trick, 2 bloodweiser babes, and a wizard (he had 4 rerolls in his base team)

Early I was able to put pressure on the ball, and it traded possession for the first four turns of the first half.  Around the 5th turn I managed to get a witch elf away from the scrum carrying the football, when Alex had another spell of misfortune, when he managed to roll a 1 for his wizards lightning bolt.  This combined with my focusing on his skinks (and any saurus unfortunate to be stuck on the ground during my turn) meant he rarely had enough players to really make an impact on the game.

Second half I received the ball, and just maintained my space while slowly whittling away his few players left (he started the 2nd half with 5 saurus and 1 skink - and finished it with 2 saurus) scoring on turn 8 to avoid giving him a chance to roll his KO's back for much of the game - holding out for a 2-0 win and taking the Witch King's Cauldron.  Therefore my Karond Kar Raiders will be touring the olde world for next season as season 1 champions (dynasties are boring!!) and I plan to bring my Jawbreakers "counts as" Slann for season 2.  Finished the season 10 / 1 / 1 and am really happy with this season - wish me luck in season 2!