THE FINAL

[J-Reedy]

All righty, ladies, gentlemen, wenches, rogues, halflings, ogres and everyone else, it's time to conclude the exciting unlimited season 33 of the Norsca Union League. The final will be all-Norwegian coached with Barmution's Kislev looking to prove that Kislev can win the trophy both as a rookie and a veteran team and Kvasilad's Lizardmen looking for recipes on how to cook and best devour that extra big hamster of the circus folk.

The league "Season 33 Finals" has been created and is eagerly waiting for the finalists. Good luck to both of you!

[tags]

We've tentatively decided on Tuesday 20:00!

[tags]

The final match has been played, and it's fair to say that Nuffle decided this one, unfortunately. Then again, that's probably the only hope I had :D

First thing that happens is that BB&B rolls snake eyes for F.A.M.E, setting the tone early. Well actually, the first thing was BB&B losing the coin flip, but after that..

Event is riot, oh well, pretty neutral. Turn 1 is gone.

First block of the game KO's a Kislev lineman, but Bonkers Bertram uses his first turn to blitz-leap into the cage and tackle the ball-carrying skink. The scatter ends up well within Lizard control, though.

Turn 3, there is some non-consequential scuffling which ends when I fail to observe a Diving Tackle and send a skink tumbling head-first into the ball. Once again, the scatter sends the pigskin safely behind Radio Rangers' lines. Bonkers Bertram jumps up to block (which requires a RR), and Bouncy Biscuit decides to go for broke - he jumps over the Sauri guarding the ball, cheekily picks it up and dodges away, and procedes to throw the ball towards the end zone where no-one is at the moment.

Turn 4 is where it starts sliding. The first block takes out the circus bear with an MNG apo'd into reserves. Omnidirectional Oliver (the MB Saurus) then blitzes Bouncy Biscuit and KO's him. It's 8 Kislev vs 11 scaled ones on the field. Bonkers Bertram tries to jump-up block again, but fails again, so that's 2/3. He then re-rolls and fails yet another time, so that's 3/4 failed 2+ rolls. Yeowza. This is very consequential for the match, as he has MB and tackle and is next to a skink, making it scary to be small. The rest of turn 4 passes without much incident. Brittle Brian leaps behind enemy lines to approach the ball still on the ground, but there's a lot of blue between him and it still.

Turn 5 sees another Kislev leave with a KO, this time a guard lineman. Bonkers Bertram again goes for the jump-up block, and again rolls a 1 re-rolled into 1... which is... stunning. He has now failed 5/6 2+ jump up block rolls. And again, this is BB&B's most dangerous blitzer. Brittle Brian inches closer to the ball, while a gang of Kislev abuse my careless positioning of Impedance Impaler, chain-blocking and pushing him into the crowd. He's injured, but the apothecary puts him back into the reserves.

Turn 6 marks the low point of luck in the game... the Nuffle Equinox, if you will. At one point in this turn, Radio Rangers' luck was about +4 while Ball, Bounce & Beyond's was about -7.



It starts with Omnidirectional Oliver blitzing Brittle Brian and causing a BH injury. There are now 6 Kislev on the field. Bonkers Bertram finally gets up and tries to leap into the cage for a blitz, but fails his leap roll. It's re-rolled, but that fails too. It's been that kind of a day for Bertram.

Turn 7 is just getting into position for scoring... but I was careless, and Bertram was actually in range with a leap and jump-up. I trusted BB2's range preview, which I shouldn't have done. Bonkers Bertram indeed gets the 2d block on the lone ball-carrying skink... but rolls push+push. And there are no more team RR's. The last grain of salt in the wound for the first half has been poured.

Second half, BB&B's dice actually picks up significantly, and there are skinks'n'sauri flying left and right. Within a few turns, all 4 skinks have left the pitch, 2 with injuries and 2 KO'd. I still haven't used my Wizard, and still have a couple of re-rolls left. I decide that I cannot avoid the equalizer, and make no real attempt to block it. Instead, I play safe blocks on other Kislev and refrain from putting myself in more danger. After a few less eventful turns, the inevitable TD is run in with just 1 turn left in regulation time.

Turn 16, I come closer than I ever have to scoring a one-turn TD. Literally the last dodge roll into the end zone failed. Oh well, extra time it is.

I win the coin flip again (of course) and chose to receive. The kick from BB&B scatters into a touchback, so my star skink gets it.

Now, 5 Kislev had set up in a star formation. That really was the moment I'd been waiting for, and the fireball artillery is radioed in. It hits with startling precision, taking out 4/5 players, including one KO and one stunned. BB&B already being short one player on lining up, that really was the nail in the coffin. With such a massive advantage in numbers, there was little difficulty in advancing quickly, caging up and scoring.

So really, the match felt a lot more skewed luck-wise than the final stats showed. With the exception of a good run in the first part of second half, Barmution's dice was a cavalcade of hilariously bad dice, especially in critical situations.

So it may be undeserved, but as I feel I've said before in a recent final, I'll take it :D

Thanks for the match, Barm!



Oh, and remember to sign up for season 34 everyone!

As always, if you know anyone that would like to join NUL for a weekly-ish friendly BB game, then this is the perfect season to do it, all fresh teams! :)

[Barmution]

Thanks for an exciting final, Kvasi, and congratulations on the championship!

There was a couple of pivotal moments that I would've liked to have seen at least marginally better dice but I've been nuffled harder (*cough* Chorfs *chough*) and the good dice in the second let me put up a fight and more or less put the match down to the flip in overtime, so I don't feel too hard done by all in all.

Looking forward to a new season and hope I will see the rest of you there too!

Cheers!
-Barm

[Lars]

Grats to the win Kvasi

[Gnaarkill]

Well, sounds like the overtime was a bit of a anticlimax.

Buuut anyway, we have a champ! And it is a worthy one! Congratulations Kvasilad! 8) ;D
And as always, an impressive feat by Barmution who is the finals regular. Barm is for NUL what New England is for NFL xD

Although, it's fun to have different winners in all three of the seasons for this series ;D

I hope we will have a good stretch for the next three coming seasons aswell, see you guys on the pitch soon again! 8)

/Gnaar

[hakos]

Congratulations to the win Kvasilad.

Fitting end to this set of three season. The best three ended with 5-1-1 and in the end they have shared the top prize equally. Well played.

/hakos