Flame Wings of Caledor vs Blackgate Raiders - Week 8

 Leading up to this game, Smet "The Corpse" Torwat was released due to events off the field. The coach also reduced support staff by reducing cheerleaders and assistant coaches down to one of each. He said it was in preparations for this game with the goal of maintaining the advantage of the injured Rat Ogre missing this game and not allowing inducements to even the odds. He cut a little over 100k from the team value with the changes. 

Before the game began the Flames Wings dipped into their gold reserve and purchased a keg of Bloodweiser expecting the Raiders to put elves on the sideline.

The Flame Wings won the toss and chose to receive. Jho the Scrubber takes his place on the line of scrimmage across from an orc lineman who's between the Troll and Ogre. The kick is made and the Blackgate Raiders get a jump for it with a blitz. The take the opportunity to defend progress up the sideline, but do not stretch themselves thin by going for the ball.

The Flame Wings make an opening on the opposite side of the field. Yodlam Elran picks up the ball and passes it to Ruhntinimas. Ruhntinimas takes the ball and hands it off to Nyt Hona on the other side of the field who moves up the sideline to the small pocket that was made for him by the others. Jho the Scrubber stands alone marking a troll, an orc, and an ogre.

The Blackgate Raiders manage to put a hole in the defenses and mark the ball carrier. Both of the big guys move to breakthough on the next turn. Trondjte clears the opponent off of Nyt Hona and Nyt pushes his speed to his limits inorder to score on turn 2 hoping to get the chance for the socring bous point in the league standings.

1-0 Flame Wings.

The Flame Wings set up with the catchers waiting in the back, just in case of a goblin throw attempt. They also make sure that their kicker, Yin Kumaro, is in position to kick. Once the kick is made, the crowd runs onto the pitch and 3 of the Blackgate Raiders are stunned in the chaos, including the dark elf intended to pick up the ball. The Raiders scramble to salvage the situation and the skaven Physst Plaguetail picks up the ball.

The Flame Wings move what players they can behind the troll and ogre in the middle of the field looking for a chance to get the ball.

With players spread out across the field for both teams, the Blackgate players make a serviceable defense near the sideline. Working to evade the elves that have into their side of the field. The ogre and troll do what they do best and hit elves. And Jho does what he does best and takes hits.

Caught out of position the Flame Wings reposition in an effort to find a way to get between the ball carrier and the end zone. The attempt to advance on the ball earlier has the Flame Wings split acrossed the field and the ball carrier makes it across midfield. With their superior elven agility, they eventually manage to build a defense to hinder the the chance of scoring.

The troll and ogre move in to challenge the agility with strength. A couple of blocks and Plaguetail has an exit through mid field to the other side of the pitch. A wall of muscle now separates the elves from the skaven.

Ruhntinimas skirts around the wall and takes a position in front of the ball carrier. With the support of a couple other Flame Wings, Emsi 'The Guardian' dodges away from a lineman and sprints from the other side of the field to blitz Physst, and puts him on the ground. The ball scatters away from the Flame Wings. The wall proved to be ineffective against the elves speed and agility as they dodged away and ran around it.

Zorg Hammerhead, the Blackgate ogre, decided that he had had enough and blitzed Zep Norre and marked the ball himself. The lineman, Jurgen Maladan takes down Emsi to clear the prone skaven to pick up the ball and get into the best defense that could be made for the ball carrier.

In order to keep the lead, the Flame Wings need to hold out two more turns until halftime. A blitz is made on the skaven, but results only in a push. The rest of the Flame Wings try to surround the area to make getting through difficult. Jho the Scrubber manages to make an uphill block which only resulted in a push, but managed to mark Physst.

Zorg makes a block to clear space for Physst and Zep Norre goes down hard. Zep Norre is dead. The apothecary is looking for the coach to signal him to get out there, but it never comes.

Most of the Flame Wings are too busy with the game to notice what has happened, but Emsi 'The Guardian' was next to the block when it happened. He was waving for the apothecary to get to Zep's side, but couldn't get noticed. He looked over to the coach who was staring out at the field. There was no way that the coach didn't see what happened as it was a few yards from the Flame Wings sideline. Emsi turned his attention back to the game, but the heartlessness of the coach was burning him inside.

The Flame Wings may have taken away the chance for the Blackgate Raiders to score. They have one turn left, but their options are severely limited. Physst tries to dodge away from the Flame Wings, planning to hand the ball off, but he fails to escape the elves. Turnover into halftime. 

The score is still 1-0, Flame Wings.

During halftime, the rest of the Flame Wings learn what happened to Norre on the field. While they all understand that this comes with the job, they had the expectation that the coach would be doing everything he could to preserve them should something like this happen. Just a couple weeks ago he saved Smet Torwat. Why not Zep? Back to the pitch they went with this question weighing on them.

They return to the field using a similar defensive formation, but without Zep, the thrower Yodlam Elran is forced onto the field. He takes a back positionwith the catchers preventing a goblin toss attempt. Yin Kumaro makes the kick and with their anger building up for the lack of decency of the coach for Norre, the Flame Wings take off immediately with a blitz before the ball comes down. But it's all adrenaline and no focus, so nothing really comes of it.

Blackgate's dark elf, Talon Darkblade, picks up the ball and a seemingly safe position is acheived. The Flame Wings push to make something happen. Irato Daktirin injures lineman Grantham Longstrider and a hole is made. Ruhntinimas sprints to mark Plaguetail who stand between him and the ball carrier. Then Emsi blitzes the skaven knocking him to one side and then moving to mark the ball carrier.

Once again this ended up more adrenaline than focus as the elf just dodged away and moved to the sideline and across midfield. The troll, Gorgi Bilebelly, makes a block on Soi 'Sparrow' Dang and while they both go down, Gorgi is knocked out and moved to the sideline. Turnover.

With the troll out, the Flame Wings make another attempt to get to the ball carrier. This time Yin Kumaro and Trondjte, both mark the dark elf. The speed of the elves is showing it's benefits as they move back and forth across the field as necessary. Ruhntinimas throws a block at Physst and the rat is knocked out as well.

Darkblade doges away from the two Flame Wings and blitzes through Yodlam Elran who was guarding the path between the ball and the goal. Blackgate is within scoring distance, but the ball carrier is vulnerable with only one lineman defending him from behind.

Kitro Kreshin dodges away from Zorg to mark Talon. Nyt Hona dodges away from a lineman to blitz the ball carrier and pushes the dark elf up to the edge of the field. A lineman comes to help Darkblade. The ball carrier blitzes Kreshin trying to move off the sideline, and while he knocks him the ground he is unable to make forward momentum. Kitro Kreshin moves to the sideline due to a knock out. Darkblade tries to dodge away from Nyt, but fails and falls to the ground stunned and the ball scatters off field. After the crowd tosses it around it eventually comes to settle about midfield 6 yards from the goal line on the Flame Wings side. Turnover.

There is a little over a quarter game left as the Flames Wings start turn 12. Nyt Hona runs to pick up the ball knowing that he will be on his own once he gets it. The only unopposed Raider is a lineman who will need to push himself to catch Hona. Malachai Ravenclaw makes the sprint and blitzes Nyt, but the elf stays standing and the lineman goes prone. Turnover.

Nyt takes the ball to the sideline and near the line of scrimmage while a couple of Flame Wings come to his defense. It is going to be hard to stop them from scoring again.

Hammerhead moves to mark two of the defenders and Ravenclaw marks another. Hona is still free to move unimpaired and runs to the 8 yard line. Ruhntinimas tries to dodge away from Hammerhead, but fails and falls with a head injury. The coach calls for the apothecary who is able to lessen the injury to a niggle. The Flame Wings in the vicinity are dumbfounded. Turnover.

Gilroy Fireblade takes advantage of the situation and makes a block on Emsi knocking him prone. Jurgen Maladan makes a blitz on Nyt Hona and he gets the same result as Ravenclaw. He looks from the ground up at the elf still standing.

Not wanting to risk another block, Nyt runs in for the touchdown. 2-0 Flame Wings.

The Flame Wings are down to 10 players, but with unrecovered knock outs the Raiders are down to 9. It's turn 16. The kick is made and an officious ref sends Talon Darkblade off the field. It looks like the Raiders are set up to throw a goblin towards the goal, but without Darkblade, it's just one more obstacle added. Blocks are made. Jho the Scrubber made it back to his spot on the sideline by completing his ritual of being knocked out at some point every game.

Gilroy Fireblade picks up the ball and successfully hands it off to the Raiders' goblin. The coach is giving the call to throw the goblin, but the ogre just can't get his bonehead mind to understand the signal.

With the final turn left on the clock, the Flame Wings skips the typical play of meaningless final hits. Emsi fights to get the crowd chanting Zep Norre's name. With the crowd roaring in support of their fallen teammate, the Flame Wings leave the field.

2-0 Flame Wings win.

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After the game we struggled to find anyone from the Flame Wings to talk to. Eventually, we found the catcher, Ruhntinimas. The elf was not in a celebratory mood, but agreed to give us a few moments.

Any thoughts on the game today?

"We did our jobs and won, but the victory is overshadowed by Zep Norre's death on the field. We all know the risk we are in playing this game, so it's not so much the fact that it happened. The team is dismayed by the fact that the coach didn't make the call to give Zep help from the apothecary. Just a few weeks ago, he made the call that saved Smet Torwat. Why not today, for Zep? Are we really at the whim of this coach's favoritism?"

If the apothecary would have been sent out though, you wouldn't have been stuck with the head injury that would have had more impact on your career. Do you think the coach could be making decisions based on value to the team?

"That's been on my mind ever since I came off the field after the call was made for the apothecary to help me. Why me and not Zep? Is it because my salary is higher? Neither Zep or I have any star power after 8 weeks, so it can't be from game performance. Was it my luck that my injury happened later in the game? With one game left of the season and the future of the Flame Wings uncertain, I don't know if I'm going to be able to shake the guilt that I was chosen over the chance to save Norre. My injury has taken me out of the next game anyway, but I'm not sure if I want to come back."

"The locker room is a madhouse right now. Emsi is trying to unite the team in order to hold the coach accountable or something. He thinks we can change something if we band together. There's a lot of anger and adrenaline in there right now. Maybe it will blow over. Maybe he'll accomplish something. I've got my own issues to deal with right now."

One last question. Have you heard anything from Smet?

"I haven't, but Nyt has talked to Torwat at least once since he was released. He said that they connected through some common interest or something. Nyt's been talking about some movement or something that he's been getting into. Something about strength and pain being related or something. It sounds like some strange philosophy or cult or something to me, but Nyt seems to be getting something from it. I think someone from that group got him in contact with Smet. From what I hear, Smet is up and about. He's still in a lot of pain, but he's not confined to a bed. That's all I really know."

With that Ruhntinimas left us. We'll see what we can dig up in the next few days about what's happening behind the scenes with the Flame Wings and try and talk to Nyt Hona about Smet Torwat.