Monk's Mountebanks 2 -1 Scaly and Lazy
Hell of a match all around. Pouring rain soaked the pitch the whole match, making ball control difficult for both sides. The Lizards received, but the Skaven got a blitz on a short kick, managing to secure the ball with a Gutter Runner and putting a lot of bodies around him. The Lizards rallied quickly, putting the ball back on the ground and recovering it with a skink. The Skaven pushed forward, but couldn't break through, suffering some armor breaks (including the fatal blocking of Stanley's Snake Oil the Gutter Runner, may he rest in peace) and Scaly and Lazy managed to get a cage away from the scrum and ran downfield, scoring on turn 6 to go up 1-0.
The Skaven set up for (and failed to execute) a OTTD, but fortunately there are actually 2 turns between 6 and 8, so they managed to flood the pitch with the remaining Gutter Runners anyway. The opposing Krox caused a turnover before the runners were properly marked up, and the Mountebanks made an easy pass to tie the match up at 1-1.
The Mountebanks received the ball to start the second half, and advanced it down their left flank, attempting to cover the ballcarrier and stall out the match. That plan quickly went to shambles as Sauri smothered the screen while Skinks dodged through and knocked the ballcarrier down, but they were not able to secure the ball themselves. Half a dozen turns of nailbiting scrum ensued as both teams jockeyed for position on the ball, but ultimately the Skaven surprised the Lizards by opting not to use the wrestle skill, causing a critical turnover and freeing up a Gutter Runner to snag the ball and run into the endzone... except the coach thought it would be better to stall another turn against the speedy skinks, because that turned out so well before, right? Not unexpectedly, the skinks managed to put the ballcarrier on the pitch, and the ball bounced out of the Scaly endzone and a pair of throw ins put it WAY THE HELL down the Mountebank half of the pitch. Fortunately, in the 2 turns remaining to race to the ball a skink failed a GFI, a Gutter Runner made a rainy pickup, a GFI, and a 4+ pass, another GR caught it, and then managed to scramble 2 GFIs into the endzone for the goahead score.
The Mountebanks deserved to draw that one, but half the appeal of Skaven is being able to score on crazy plays like that. Of course, the other half of playing Skaven is the attrition, and I'll be in the market for a new Gutter Runner for my next match. On the plus side, the winnings were good from that match, and a Stormvermin caught a levelup to help maintain the team's momentum.