Sunday, September 15, 2013

The Psychedelic Furs at Chaos Cup 2013: Game Three


Following Game Two, The Furs slipped down toward the bottom tables after their two loses.
I didn't feel too bad about the loses: a challenging team and very different than the teams I normally play.
Checking the projection screen I found my table..

CHAOS CUP 2013 : GAME THREE
Opponent: Sex Panthers. Humans, Coached by Tom

Wow. Another Human team? It's odd, since Humans are one of the two teams that come in the starting game box, but I don't run across human teams very often.  So twice in the same tournament is very rare.
A shame they don't get played more often really, I think they are a very fun & flexible roster. I'd never played them myself until last year when using the Apes as a human team, and found I really enjoyed the team.

The Panthers were different than the last humans I faced: they had an Ogre with Block.
To make room for the Ogre, they had just one catcher, but what a catcher! Block & Side-step.
Pregame rolls were very favorable: I got +2 Fame, won the toss and elected to kick.

Turn 1 before any of my actions, the Ogre injured Ultra Vox!  Ouch! Well, that's the risk with kicking first.

The Goats get in and exchange blows with the Panthers.


Pretty gets knocked down, but no harm done.  The Furs look for a way past the panther defense line.


Echo sees his chance: he dodges away (success!) and blitzes the fancy catcher: the catcher goes down!
Push my luck: Go For It to pick up the ball: make it, but rolled a 1 for the pick up. So close to perfect, but at least the ball is free, so I'll take it gladly!


Inxs recovers the ball and we look for a safe path to take advantage of this upset.


Pretty knocks a Blitzer out, and Inxs blitzes an opposing player off him to move the ball.

As Inxs moves down to scoring range, the goats knock down the thrower, then foul him when they see his armor held..after the fouling he was stunned, so Inxs is safe to score when he wishes.

While he waits, back around the midfield,Squeeze wrestles down the Ogre and Adam Ant fouls the big brute!  The ref must have been watching the endzone because he never saw those cloven hooves repeatedly stomping into the big thick skull of the Ogre! When the medics dragged him off the field they discovered he was dead!  This was too much for the Ref to allow, and he ejected Adam Ant from the game.. to the roaring cheers of the Psychedelic Furs fans.

... Aside:  Yes!  It worked!  This was why I took 2 wrestle and a bench of 2: so I'd feel more free to foul, and wrestle.. a couple players with block isn't much help, but I liked the idea of wrestling down a key player then fouling him! It may only have worked once, but it was worth it!

Inxs Scores: 1-0  Perhaps I should have stalled a bit more, but it would have been at risk of the faster blitzers taking the ball from me.  With just a couple turns remaining the razzle-dazzle catcher managed to tie it up at the half: 1-1.


2nd half I receive, but in a very dangerous environment: those humans punched right through my defense and threatened to do what I'd done: steal the ball and score.


Falco came to the rescue, and Inxs slipped their net.


The humans were now playing catch-up, but with their faster movement, blocks & dodges I know they are well equipped to do that, so Inxs breaks for the end zone.


Inxs scores!  Pulling the Furs ahead: 2-1 on Turn 5 of the 2nd Half.


Next Kick-Off: Blitz!  My team gets a free turn!
Falco and Mena T'work charge out and sack the thrower! They can't reach the ball, but that will slow the humans down.

Or so I thought.  The Thrower simply got up, ran & go-for it to reach the ball, threw a long pass to the catcher, who caught it (well, that is his job after all)  Uh-Oh!

Squeeze blitzed the catcher in a letr turn as he tried to break past, wrestling him down and the ball bounced to Mena T'work who held it.


The back & forth scuffle went on and the clock ran out, leaving the score 2-1 for the Psychedelic Furs!

It was another very enjoyable game with a great opponent.
His blodging, sidestepper catcher was a serious pain all game: a constant threat.  Well worth 2 skills on 1 player for this combination.

But my team MVP has to go to the ejected player: Adam Ant.  Granted, Squeeze was vital again with wrestling down the catcher in the late game, but removing that Ogre early in the game ... that's a value that is hard to anticipate and measure, but I was sure grateful when he was gone! that might have made the difference right there.

So with just half the games down I'd already met my goal for performance: Don't lose all my games.  Check!  Achievement unlocked: On to Game Four!

Thanks for watching!

For our MVP Adam Ant...

Enjoy!

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Woot woot you won! I was expecting you to pick Squeeze as your MVP, but Adam deserved it as you say.

So what kind of feedback did you get from the other players regarding the conversions and the brushwork on your team?

Simon Quinton said...

Great game that was quite exciting to read. Looking forward to the next one :D

fireymonkeyboy said...

Going to have to try out the Blodge / Sidestep combo. Sounds fun ;)

FMB

Laughing Ferret said...

Anne: Squeeze deserved MVP too, but since I can only give it to one, it had to go to Adam Ant: being willing to kill for your team deserves to be rewarded. I got a lot of nice feedback at the event: lots of praise for the team and many appreciating the theme of all-beastmen.

Thanks Simon! 3 more to go

FMB: It's a great combo.. hard to put them down, and with sidestep you usually get just 1 chance at it. For a ball-carrier it is great: blitz him but if he doesn't go down, you probably just helped him since he side stepped one space closer to touchdown.

fejwe said...

Loved reading about our game, and seeing your pictures! I had a great time losing to you, and we did have a really exciting game right up to the end. You definitely earned the win with smart, thoughtful play, but there were some crazy swings in momentum too.

I did end up being pretty happy with that catcher overall, he caused a few opponents some trouble, though he also got taken out early once or twice.

And @Anne, at about turn 4 of the first half I had to recuse myself from touching any Furs because they were by far the best looking team I have ever played against or seen in person, and I was terrified of damaging them.

Laughing Ferret said...

Thanks Tom! And thanks for the game, it was one of the best I've had. Glad you enjoyed the game report.

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