Please stop ignoring and belittling the human factors involved in collaboration at scale.

It is both ignorant and harmful.

I say this especially towards leaders: be aware of the consequences of your words and how you choose to present a viewpoint.

Inaccurate views like this cause outsized harm.

Maybe my favorite Food Map, ever.

Black Orcs don't have many easy rolls, so I've learned to be very careful with what risks I take when, and I'm always willing to eat a late-turn turnover to save rerolls for when it really counts. Now if only I could figure out how to position my molasses boys properly, then I'd really be cooking.

In this regard, I think Black Orcs have been a good teacher. Watching a Vampires coach, who benefits from damn near every roll being 2+, just take needless risks without a second thought, because failure seemed so unlikely, showed me that you have to start rolling ones eventually.

One aspect of the game that I feel pretty good about, especially after the stark contrast presented by my recent opponent, is managing risk. I have a rough hierarchy of probabilities of failure that I try to follow from low to high, minimising the need for rerolls and the occurrence of turnovers.

It was a game that should have at least been a tie and probably a 2-1 loss, but I made some big plays to pull off the win.

My setup for kickoffs was bad enough to almost cost me the game, so I need to remember to leave some safeties back next time. Positioning in general is still a weakness.

I managed to pick up the ball and march towards the end of the field in that slow grinding way that's a Black Orc speciality. Eventually, my opponent, visibly frustrated, decided to formally concede before I could even try to talk it out, which is how I got the second TD.

The only orc that could reach the ball carrier for a 2-dice block required two rushes to make it, but make it he did, and knocked her into the dirt for the trouble. Then my sneaky got fouled her for a stun for good measure.

For some reason, it was really important to my opponent that she win (maybe she couldn't endure the shame of tying the lowly Black Orcs?), so she went for another 2-turn TD. Once again, I didn't set up far enough back to make this difficult.

The thing is she was literally on the sideline. I was able to push her into the crowd, and the half ended with my being up 1-0.

Ridiculous Vampire shenanigans ensued, and the runner had the ball on the sideline a few spaces from scoring. I could only reach her with a couple of gobbos, giving me a 1-die block to prevent a score.

Now, to my main mistake this match: not respecting the Vampires' speed and throwing game. I set up with most of my team about halfway back from the line of scrimmage, but this was not enough for slow orcs to keep up with a fast vamp hellbent on running full tilt to the end zone.

My opponent had 2 turns to score, and between her runner and throwers, all with bonus skills coming out the wazoo, she had a good chance of accomplishing the task.

Thankfully, the vampires had butter fingers, and on my next turn a lone goblin got up, dusted himself off, dodged, picked up the ball, and rushed twice for a touchdown.

I received in the first half, and managed to control the line of scrimmage reasonably well despite HG punching holes in my structure left and right. My gobbo ball carrier held up against a couple of blocks, but finally hit the dirt one turn away from the end zone.

Well, the Vargheist didn't prove to be a problem, because it dove deep into my line on turn 1 and was summarily dispatched with a pow followed by an assisted foul on turn 2. Just a whole group of little green feet stomping on a snarling vampire's face.

I didn't come up with a plan for Hypnotic Gaze, because I didn't know how to handle it. I still don't. Just set up your screens, marks, and cages and dare them to roll 2+s I guess.

I also didn't focus on eliminating Thralls, because my opponent had only 4 vamps, so it was a Thrall-heavy list.

Going into the match, I had two key strategies:
1. Occupy the Vargheist with goblins as much as possible to keep its frenzied claws away from my orcs.
2. Focus fire the lone Vamp Runner (who had dodge but not block) to take her out of the game.

I won 2-0, but it felt more due to a mix of good luck at key moments and my opponent's mistakes, so it's kind of difficult to identify what I did well, so like any hardass coach, I'll focus on what I could have done better.