"A rematch? Thisssssss early?"
This time, the Breakers have an extra wad of cash, practically doubling their team value as over one million gold coins are available to be spent. On the flip side, the Stormers have their hard-hitters back, although coach Charmander, as he's known, is still debating on the prospect of a Krox hire. Nonetheless, apothecaries alike get a rather substantial donation from the Breakers' coach, as well as the Halfling Master Chef returning to the fray. A pair of freelancers and a metric tonne of drugs round out the roster, but whether it'll be enough is a big question.
Given last result? Probably.
The dwarves win the toss and elect to receive, as a full compliment of lizardmen line up to receive the shortarses. Against them, however, is the rather intimidating deathroller - despite being flagrantly illegal, the ref isn't about to get close while the engine's running, and running hard. Immediately the skinks charge at the onset, with Novv heading deep fast, but being brought down by a drugged Forsaken. The dwarves quickly pound the sauruses down under the might of a lot of shortass muscle, and most of the skinks find themselves on their backs as the dwarves run over them. Kaian collects the ball without worry.
In response, the saurus line hops up and drives back, bouncing off the stocky side's... well, stockiness, but there's little the lizards can do save for Novv running forth to hassle Kaian. For his efforts he gets smashed to the floor as Kaian moves to set up the immortal box. And it might as well be immortal, despite the skinks having a full complement of muscle... although the skinks start taking themselves out as Ravv smashes his face against Ivefan and gets knocked out for his trouble. Nirr soon joins him as he is sent spiralling off the pitch with a combined shove from Sneaky Pete and Forsaken, but a rather obvious crunch to the head of Rexx leaves him unconscious and the Deathroller with an early sending-off.
Seizing the opportunity, the weight of Saurus breaks the still-forming box, and a tackle from Novv lets him recover the ball and hold it, firm, in his claws, while the rest of the skinks converge on his position to back up Novv for the impending counter-tackle. Forsaken promptly slips away from Tyrr, bolstered by drugs, and the ball leaves Novv's claws and hits the astrogranite right in the midst of skink and dwarf alike. Japa fails to maneuver enough to slip from the swipes of Takk. Although the skinks manage to shove the dwarves away, a scrambling Garr can't get a good enough hold to the ball and it skitters enough to land by the prone feet of Japa... and as Garr lands on it, the ball bounces to the feet of Mejj. Weyy gets a stomp that knocks him out from Greatorder, while a couple of combined shoves sees Tyrr first snatch the ball sent skittering, and then seeing him brought down with a punch from Girlinhat. While the shoving goes rather unsuccessfully, a scrambling Tyrr gets ahold of the ball, and thanks to his experience, hurls it over the dwarf line straight into the claws of Novv, who takes the opportunity to score, rather dumbfounded he managed to get the ball in the first place.
All three unconscious Stormers manage to get up, and the teams take to the field with a little less than half the half to play. Tyrr kicks off with an embarrasingly short hood, and despite the wind picking up for a brief moment, there's little remarkable about the kick. Jarr goes down hard as Forsaken receives the ball, though. He shifts back, once more forming a box for the Stormers to break forth, as the dwarves resort to underhanded tactics once more to try and stop Rexx from getting up. For all their efforts, though, the Stormers can't break the mass of dwarves despite their best efforts. Weyy moves to support the line, but goes down with a sharp crack that signals the end of the match for him, while Nirr follows him with a shove off the pitch. While Kaian makes a scramble for the line, he fails to make good on the pass hurled to him by Forsaken, and it bounces gently to the floor by his feet. A triple-skink assault from Irzz, Tyrr and Garr put him down as Garr recovers the ball, moving back safely to deny the dwarves a chance to score. While Japa gets knocked out by Rexx, Ravv imitates him trying to slip past for a late, late-game play.
With too little time to score for either team, the pitch settles down into a general beatdown, the dwarves expending a lot of effort to try and cheat the skinks out of important things, like consciousness, while Garr spends a few precious moments seeing if the ball can be thrown. It can. Tyrr receives, but the inagile Rexx just has the ball bounce off him as he attempts to hand off, it remains safely in Tyrr's possession as time tick down and the half ends.
Both Stormers get back up, but the lone Japa remains out of it for the start of the new half. While the setups are nothing outstanding, the ball flies deep as the smells of the HMC waft over the team, distracting them only faintly - obviously not a patch on the scent of fricaseed teammate. Despite the deep kick that requires Tyrr to drop pack to receive, the Slipstreamed skink manages to get a hand to the ball after an initial fumble, and hurls the thing to Novv, diving forward in an opening made by Mejj, the rest of the Stormers looking to give any dwarf that tries to escape and chase hell.
Urist McDorf takes that warning on the chin, being a troll slayer and all, and surges forward to bring the skink down. Vattic takes the opportunity to very nearly kill Vorr the Sharktoothed with a puncn, followed by rather a lot of kicks from the surrounding dwarves, but the skink bonedoctor manages to pull him out and patch him up before he bleeds out all over the astrogranite. Novv scrambles to his feet, and manaes to smash Urist's hand with a crunch, before running the ball in to go up 2-0 for the experienced skink side.
Unbeknownst to the ref, the skink sneak a twelfth member onto the field (by misclick! honest!) and Tezz kicks the ball. The dwarves get the benedit of a quick snap, however, and the shortarses swarm the line of sauruses, caught flat-footed. The overall effect of the first-turn melee is to create a wall of midgets, although neither Kaian or Sneaky Pete are able to secure the ball, and it remains in play, if at the feet of the pair. Vorr opens the proceedings to smash Girlinhat to the apothecary's bench, Garr and Vorr moving to defend the ball from being (easily) picked up. Vorr goes down, though, and Kaian recovers the ball with a little luck, who tosses it to Ivefan.
Ivefan doesn't hold onto it particularly well, though, and he goes down hard enough to send the ball bouncing away. Tyrr scoops it up and hurls it to Garr, but the runner can't hold onto the ball well enough, bouncing into Ravv's claws instead. The skinks, unable to escape for the moment, instead shore up the defences, knocking dwarves away with shoves and punches, looking to cover Ravv for a sprint. Tyrr gets knocked out for his position in the defence, soon followed by Garr, fending off the attacking dwarf to the last. Mejj surges forth to bring down Ivefan, letting Ravv dip around to hand off to Novv, and the fast little skink manages to dart for the endzone and plant it safely, 3-0 up with little time to go.
For once, no-one gets up, and the dwarves are still two runty-assed vindictive bastards down, while the skinks are still short a single, lithe, blue-skinned teammate. The dwarves quick-snap once more, but only Kaian moves any, heading towards the ball that landed on the touchline. Girlinhat proves capable enough to frenzy Novv off-field, depriving the skinks of a runner, but at this point the dwarves are slow enough to make equalisation a non-issue. The sure-hands of Kaian find the ball, although he doesn't move from his place on the touchline. In response, both Mazz and Irzz swarm him, looking to stop him from moving all that easily, while the rest of the Stormers get stuck in elsewhere, 'though little ground is gained.
While Svenent, loner on-loan moves to help Kaian, backed up by LosBoccacc, the rest of the dwarves look to harm as many skinks as they can in the remaining time, going to town on the rather outnumbered sauruses on the ground. Still, a shove to Svenent shoves him into Kaian, who stumbles close to the sideline, while Mazz follows up in a risky attempt to shove him off. While he gets knocked out, the ball sails off-field to land a little way around from the group, in the middle of nowhere. LoS shoves Takk back and Kaian recovers the ball, but Sneaky Pete shuts down Vorr's second wind with a punch that sends him back to the apothecary's tent, and Takk follows him soon after as a tackle against LoS goes ball-shaped and drops him hard.
While that was going on, Ivefan manages to slip past deep, letting him receive the ball from a quick pass and score with the last play of the game, preventing the skinks from claiming a clean sheet. Greatorder gets MVP for knocking out Weyy, while Rexx gets his for being the star of a comedy of errors, mostly involving his face, various fists, and the ball.
(Did not expect to win. I got lucky with a couple of passes, and that's what secured it, I think.)