‘This lot’s worse than the last buggers!’ the murmur in the stands went up from the Wood Elves which made up half of the modest crowd. Once more, the Hackers were facing the diminutive might of the dwarfs, this time on their own (depressingly stony) turf. However, not only was Flint Churnblade once more greasing up the gnarled teeth of his trusty chainsaw, but something much more menacing had rumbled across the stone pitch to the scrimmage line.
It looked like one of those new-fangled ‘Patented Modyrn Woode Chippyrs’ that had taken the Old World by storm, all spikes and wheels and groaning gears. The dwarfs were more succinct though, simply naming it the Elf Grinder...
The journeyman (or elf) in the cursed number 6 shirt broke out in a cold sweat as he stood in front of it and the first whistle blew.
The dwarfs started as they meant to go on, receiving the kick-off and flattening every elf they could get their hands on before even thinking of picking up the ball.
It was a slow, grinding, bloody half. Girth the Treeman stood proudly before the death-roller in the defence of his team-mates and was flattened, but he got up again. Then he was flattened again (and again) until eventually he was knocked unconscious for most of the rest of the game.
Meanwhile, the few elves who remained on the pitch after the initial onslaught managed to hold off the Ironbreakers until the last moments of the first half, when one of the dwarfs managed a spectacular interception followed by an equally spectacular throw. Unfortunatley, the inevitable touchdown was thwarted by the receiving player tripping as he ran over the line!
Half-time came and, having forgotten to bribe the referee beforehand, the Elf Grinder was ejected from the pitch. The dwarf fans cared nothing of this though, as the roar of Flint’s chainsaw echoed through the stands.
The Ironbreakers’ defence was almost unstoppable, allowing no easy path across the pitch for the nimble Hackers. Flint’s chainsaw raised a healthy (or unhealthy...) tally as it butchered its way through the elves, even bringing low Stormwind, the greatest of them.
In the end, fate sneered upon the Hackers as, seconds from the final whistle, Athelan the Wild tripped as she bolted for the line, ending the game with an echo of the dwarf’s earlier misfortune.
The crowd shrugged miserably, ‘that’s Blood Bowl for you,’ but such a lack of touchdowns, fouls and (more importantly) too many serious injuries on either side, left the fans sorely disappointed...
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