Blood Spatter: Week Two

 

Greetings sports fans, and welcome to Blood Spatter, your weekly look at Blood Bowl! I'm Bill Billingham, and alongside me is Erin Eventide. Hello Erin!

Hello again, Bill!

This week we only had two matches, the Orange Rats against the Glenwood Okes, and the Banshees playing the Ridgeback Raiders.

High-Tec League Standings Board

The Rats versus Okes match was as exciting as expected. They played the throwing game well with a great touchdown by catcher Arya Zephyrwisp off  of a throw by Gildas Greenleaf. The Rats looked to equalise late in the first half, before Bran Silverhand pulled off an amazing tackle on the Rat's catcher, Tom Ratley, to deny the touchdown. Gutter runner Barry Ratten, nicknamed 'the Flash' by his fans, equalised in the second half.

The Rats lived up to their reputation, causing 4 casualties, and the numbers game caught up with the Okes, as the Orange Rats scored again, right in the final moments of the second half, with Silverhand unable to repeat his move from the first half, ending the game 2-1 in favour of the Rats

A real nailbiter, Bill. Ratley is the top scorer in the league so far.

Orange you glad you were watching, Erin?

... Nuffle save me.

A couple of days, Okes manager, Wade Wonfor, announced that they had hired a new lineman, Gregor Istari, who captained minor league team the Red Stars last year. He is replacing Legolas Moonglove, who died due to injuries sustained in a match against the Banshees.

Good news, hopefully this means the Okes will no longer need to hire temporary journeymen.

They will for the next match, as three of their plays are out for injuries, including crowd-favourite Aric Foxblade.

Bad news for his fans, Aric suffered a severe hip injury, and the apothecaries don't expect him to make a complete recovery.

The big story of the week, however, was the return of the Ridgeback Raiders as an undead team, for a rematch against the Banshees. Their new status sparked off quite a big controversy, with questions as to the legality of such a move. The Redcaps were actually scheduled to play them, but pulled out of the match, petitioning the NAF to consult the holy books of Nuffle to ensure such a move is not against the rules.

The Redcaps were well within their rights to do that, but as for those who are critical of the Raiders, they just wanted to improve the skill of their team after their defeat, and becoming undead did actually improve their skills. However, the Banshees team they played was not the one from the opening match.

You at home will remember our discussion of Laalia Tyrin-Stillwater's drive against the Redcaps last week. We may have been wrong about it being a spontaneous move.

Yeah, the Banshees have been learning from each of  their games, and have combined that right-wing drive - featuring a ball carrier being guarded by Dextra Windstrike - with Kori Starfire's signature dump-off pass that they used so effectively against the Oakes. The general setup of their new play is to send Kori down the right wing with the ball, guarded by Dextra and Hecate Shrike, with Veera Voidfire as a backup. It is really difficult to get past Dextra and Shrike, tackle Kori, and also stop Veera catching the dump-off.

Seems the Banshees were testing out this new strategy last week, with Laalia as a guinea-pig. They pulled this off twice against the Raiders, but the undead threatened to score a number of times, and eventually pulled one back. The final score was 3-1 to the Banshees.

They also played a lot slower, and didn't run out of steam like they had in previous games. They have learnt how to pace themselves!

So, tomorrow we have two big games: the Banshees play the Rats, and the Glenwood Okes play the Ridgeback Raiders.


I know the big game is the Banshee's and Rats, as they are both undefeated, and this result will probably determine who places first and second in the standings, but I'm really excited to see the fast Oakes fight the Raiders, who are quite slow, but really tough.

Well, that's all we have time for folks! She's Erin Eventide, and I'm Bill Billingham, and this has been Blood Spatter!