Fleagles Top Black Rock Brutes 2-1 With Stunning, Unlikely Second-Half Rally

 

The Filthasmellfia Fleagles pulled off a late-game miracle to steal a 2-1 victory from the Black Rock Brutes in their second game in the UKBBL’s Kolsa Hills East Dvivision. Despite suffering 2 rat casualties, 6 KOs, and 1 death, the Fleagles got a pair of touchdowns from gutter runners Devermin Sniff and A.J. Brownrat. The Brutes got their lone TD from beastman Nadzybar “The Archon of Chaos” and were poised for a 2-1 grind victory of their own until a second-half desperation blitz by Sniff turned the game around.

Devermin Sniff, who would later make a game changing sideline blitz, scores the opening TD in the rain to put Filthasmellfia up 1-0

“Heck of a play by Sniff there,” said Fleagles Coach Nickon Spearinme. “Asking a gutter runner to make a physical play like that is about as smart as hiring a beast of Nurgle as a pediatrician, but we were in a tough spot, and sometimes these little fellas have to do more than dodge.”

Filthasmellfia opened the scoring in the first half on a touchdown scamper up the eastern sideline by Sniff. With the pouring rain making the ball hard to handle, skaven thrower Jaflegm Squirtz set up as a blocker, while the more agile Sniff went for the ball. Despite bobbling it once, Sniff soon secured the ball and slowly approached midfield behind a screen of blockers.

Forced to be one of those blockers, Squirtz looked less than comfortable with this new role. As chaos chosen blocker Abadon “Blood Legion” blitzed, the skaven thrower appeared to close his eyes, turn away and whimper.

“Yeah, apparently, there’s a reason they call those guys throwers and not blockers,” said Coach Spearinme.

Defenseless, Squirtz took a brutal punch from the chosen blocker’s mailed fist directly in the side of his neck. The blow opened a deep wound that gushed a fountain of blood, and as Squirtz slowly slumped to the pitch, it was clear he was dead.

“At first I thought, yeah, that’s gonna leave a mark,” recounted Coach Spearinme. “Then I thought, that’s a lot of blood. Then I got a little dizzy and threw up on the sidelines. And then, I was like, crap our thrower’s dead. Poor guy never even got to make a pass, and I really thought he had a bright future ahead of him. Former Cheesman Trophy winner, great leadership potential. Ah, well, we’ll make sure we send a rotting-garbage basket to his family with our condolences.”

Jayflegm Squirtz cowers in fear moments before Abadon delivers the death blow.

Unfazed by Squirtz’s death, Sniff dodged his way up the sideline and moved deep into the Brutes’ territory with a cadre of blockers. As beastmen and chosen blockers closed in, however, Sniff was unable to milk much more time off the clock and scored a little over halfway through the first half. 

After catching the ensuing kick despite the downpour, Brutes’ beastman Invictus “World Eater” was able to move quickly into Filthaspellfia territory. The rats raced downfield to try to cut off his path to the endzone as the clock ticked down the final seconds. Racing to get into position, blitzer Ratdon Grime tripped over his own tail, leaving a slight opening. The Brutes quickly took advantage, punching away as many rats as they could, as Invictus handed the ball to Nadzybar, who raced across the goal line just before the halftime whistle.

“I guess we scored a little too quickly, and gave them too much time for the equalizer,” said Spearinme. “That’s the problem with skaven. They tend to do everything with a little too much speed. I mean, they also tend to do everything with too many fleas flying around them and too much rotting garbage in their mouths, but those are different issues.”

Nadzybar scores just before half time to tie the game 1-1

Down 2 players going into the second half, the Fleagles’ only hope for a win or a tie looked to be the rain keeping the Brutes from securing the ball. But beastman Taramino “Warsmith” easily scooped up the kick off, and Black Rock put their numbers advantage to use, bashing a slow path up field. The winning touchdown looked to be inevitable, as the Fleagles lost 2 more players to KOs, but then a glimmer of a chance opened up as Taramino ran along the sideline with only one blocker and the few skavens on the field were able to stay on their feet and tie up multiple Brute blockers.

Filthasmelfia had two options. The conservative play would be to dodge up field, threaten the runner, and force a score with enough time on the clock to still tie the game. The aggressive option—send a gutter runner on a desperation two-against-one sideline blitz and pray for a crowd surf.

“That’s one of those plays you look at and you say, on paper it’s a bad idea, on the field it’s a bad idea, heck, even in the deepest cavern of the Under-Empire it’s a bad idea” said Spearinme. “But I was running out of ideas and running out of rats, so I figured, why not?”

Spearinme signaled Sniff to blitz, and the little gutter runner charged at the beastman. Leaping into the air, he threw all 98 pounds soaking wet (literally!) of rodent body at Taramino. The collision was just enough to push the beastman off the pitch, where the crowd stomped on him, grabbed away the ball and threw it up field.

“I justs thoughts of itsss like dodging in reverse,” said Sniff of his miracle sideline blitz. “Insteads of scampering aways from the beastman, I trieds to scamper though hims.”

Brownrat ran into Brutes’ territory, scooped the ball off the muddy pitch, and sprinted toward paydirt. But he wasn’t able to break into the clear, as a beastman grabbed the gutter runner by the tail and slammed him onto the pitch. From there, a muddy scrum broke out near midfield. The Brutes regained possession of the ball, but Filthasmellfia line rat Doormouse Goddirt threw a fist spike into the beastman ball carrier’s ribs, and the ball bounced off a few wet paws and hands before splashing into a mud puddle right beside Brownrat, who still lay stunned on the pitch.

Shaking off the cobwebs, Brownrat rolled through the mud to dodge away from the beastman beside him, grabbed the ball, got to his feet ,and raced up field into the clear. Golgoth “Tainted Son” gave chase but was unable to catch Brownrat, falling at the gutter runner’s feet as the rat high-stepped his way into the endzone to give the Fleagles a 2-1 win.

A.J. Brown rat scampers off for the winning TD as Golgoth loses his footing behind him.

“In this game, you got to be tough and you got to be lucky,” said Spearinme on the unlikely win. “And sometimes, like today, when you’re not being that tough and nearly half your rats are feeding fleas in the KO and casualty boxes, well, then you just got to be extra lucky.”