Kompressor Grinds Down Taints

The forces of Chaos faced their worthy adversary, the orcs, in the Wraithfire conference championship. With the New Orcleans Taints tipping the scale of team value, the Slaaneshgrad Kompressor evened the odds with the hiring of fan favorite, known cheater and all-around poor role model Max Spleenripper. They also brought in a beer-dispensing cheerleader to boost morale on the sidelines. A lovely day greeted the crowd, which was slightly skewed in favour of the Kompressor (likely due to their ability to cram more people into enclosed spaces). The coin toss was won by the Taints, who elected to kick off first.

The first kick of the game went off course when a strong gust of wind happened by, and the ball sailed out of play, subsequently given to beastman Thanatos. Quickly, the Chaos team fell into formation, creating a strong cage around their ball carrier. Undeterred the orcs put their aggressive defense to work, led by the mighty Grim Jong Kill, who mowed down Babur the Tiger so hard they had to drag him off the pitch, his day over with early. The Kompressor was quick to retaliate, however. the rambunctious Baal made a bone-crushing hit on black orc Gaul Gut, severely damaging the big fellow's hip and rendering him useless for the rest of the tournament. Max Spleenripper followed that up with an overhead chainsaw smash on the professor of pugilistic provocation himself, Coagula Seizure. Fortunately the blow caught Seizure square on the forehead, causing him to miss only the rest of this match.

Fewer and fewer the orc forces dwindled. Next to fall was Goresef Skullin after an intimate encounter with beastman Hades' horns. Still, the green warriors wouldn't give up. Grim Jong Kill moved in and laid a blitz on Thanatos, hard enough to knock the ball free. Coming up behind him, Grimerick Grimmler snatched up the lost ball and threw a great heave of a pass to blitzer Flaydolf Critler, who caught the pass despite everything you may have come to expect from an orc offense. The forces of Chaos barely seemed to notice and continued their wholesale battery. The enraged beastman Ankou effectively pummeled the hapless Kroney, doing what team doctors are calling a "real bad ouch" which will likely haunt him for the rest of his career. Max Spleenripper did catch sight of Critler as he ran down the sideline, but his attack only succeeded in giving himself a brief stunner when he flat-ended himself in the head on the chainsaw's backswing. With nothing else to stop him, Critler opened the scoring for the Taints.

The next kickoff involved a very clever misdirection play by the orcs, shuffling their defense to confuse the Chaos team despite their reduced numbers. Unfortunately, this kick was also badly off target, and the touchback put the ball into the gnarled, determined hands of Loki the beastman. The Kompressor hurled themselves as one downfield, taking full advantage of the depleted orc squad's less-effective coverage. Still, the Taints were hard to shake, particularly the incomparable Grim Jong Kill, who leaped headlong into Loki and showed the beastman what a REAL headbutt to the sternum feels like. Serious skeletal fracturing seemed to be the order of the day, and win or lose, Loki wouldn't be playing until the next season.Still, the numbers game was paying off for the Kompressor, as an unguarded beastman managed to retrieve the ball and hand it off to kinsman Hades, who took it to the end zone for the tying score.

There was time enough in the first half for one more attempt at a scoring drive, but after orc thrower Brick Chiney's pass was dropped by Flaydolf Critler, the opportunity vanished, and the teams went into the locker rooms deadlocked at one point apiece.

The Slaaneshgrad Kompressor came out for the second half to the rousing bellows of their coaching staff, but unless the advice given was "hurt more orcs", it likely went unnoticed. Once again, the kick was poorly made, and strangely the touchback saw black orc Maulhammer Goredafy in possession of the ball. Undeterred by having a tougher nut to crack, the Kompressor renewed their cavalcade of mayhem, knocking the big orc down and stunning a pair of others before a massive hit from beastman Azrael fractured the skull of orc lineman Cryatolla da Meanie. The assault wasn't perfect, though, as an unscheduled tumble by Ankou put a temporary stopper on the beatings.

Getting his mitts on the ball once again, Goredafy pressed forward into a sea of raging beastmen, and was joined quickly by his teammates on a rampage of their own. Goredafy punched Ankou hard enough to send him sprawling awkwardly (but conveniently) into his team's infirmary, and Flaydolf Critler steamrolled into Baal to send the unconscious beastman off for a nap. Sure enough, the Kompressor retaliated, with armored menace Subutai finally knocking down Goredafy and pulling the ball free. The orcs were briefly encouraged when it bounced right into the arms of Flaydolf Critler, but Azrael put him on his back and this time, the ball wound up in the unforgiving grasp of Subutai.

Much shoving and generally unfriendly behavior ensued, the only anomaly being a successful handoff from Subutai, who would much rather continue violently spreading the word of Chaos than scoring touchdowns, to the ever-dangerous Hades. The orcs managed a clear run at him from the mad-eyed Maulhammer Goredafy, obviously inconsolable at the loss of the ball, but Goredafy should have paid more attention to his feet. His attack failed, and it was instead he himself who was dragged off by the medical staff. Hades continued to wade through the melee towards the goal line.

Bodies flew this way and that, along with blood, spittle, sweat, rocks, misplaced equipment, and at least one very lost groundhog. At one point, Subutai's merry rampage saw him trip up and land on that groundhog, which by now was in a full rodent blood haze, and it very nearly cost the mighty chaos warrior his life. Only with the skilled labor of three surgeon-cultists and a "volunteer" from the stands, was the hulking brute of a man kept in the land of the living.

The orcs continued to pursue Hades as best they could, but their depleted ranks simply couldn't find a way through the protection of his teammates. As time expired, Hades lurched over the goal line and lay down for the briefest of naps, after which he was immediately swarmed by legions of fans carrying him around, and very graciously not ripping parts off of him a souvenirs. The day was won for Chaos, the score 2-1. The Kompressor would advance to the Dungeonbowl finals match against the Winterplague Embalmers.

Match MVPs were the surprisingly agile Flaydolf Critler for the Taints, and the dramatically athletic Ankou of the Kompressor.