Necro tactics

[narg]

Would anyone know good links to necromantic tactics? And I'm really talking tactics, not skill selection because a lot of guides just cover the skill selection but not the tactics. If there's a good thread on this forum I'm interested as well, haven't seen any.

I played two games yesterday with a rookie necromantic team against a more experienced chaos team (TV around 1,300) and I got completely smashed, I didn't manage to get in control a single turn. The opponent's only developed player was a minotaur with block claw and mighty blow who on top of that was on the lucky side on the Wild Animal rolls (blitzing most turns and I remember him failing only once in two games), just ripped apart my golems, ghouls and werewolf and then with only zombies on the pitch I couldn't do much. And then I was comparing that to my blockless snow troll on my norse team, block on a big guy really makes a massive difference (my snow troll mostly casualties himself instead of opponents).

By the way my starting roster was with one werewolf, one ghoul and three rerolls but I guess that was a mistake, one werewolf just doesn't seem to be enough.

And I also played a while ago with orcs against a necro team that had a block / mighty blow / piling on werewolf and another one with block / mighty blow and they smashed me as well, looks like the block / claw / mighty blow combo really has massive synergies and is much better than anything else, so do you just fire werewolves that don't roll doubles or do you still keep them? I got two skills on mine and no doubles so far...

[The Dazzler II]

The opponent's only developed player was a minotaur with block claw and mighty blow ...

And you say only!!! Ouch

[ulvardar]

2 wolves with 2 skills each one, and you complaining you had no doubles?

Your best players are now block +dodge (i hope), increasing your chances of survival so much... so don't EVER think about firing them.

Your opponent was a heavily developed one (at least the mino)... so don't worry about the defeat. Keep going. Just look for a fair match.

[JaM]

Where's Digger when you need him...?

1 ghoul, 2 rrs, 2 wws, 2 wights, 2 golems, fill in with zombies.

Use the ghoul to carry the ball, hand off to a ww who is in scoring range or can go out of range of the opponent, and score.
beware the frenzy of the wws, guard on wights really help them (so does block on a ww).

Try to (loosly) cage, and vs chaos, try to minimize the damage a str4 blitz can do. make him pay, too with claws. Try to set up a blitz for the ww, so that the pushes favour your tam in more blocking. and dont go toe-to-toe with them. your players are either more fragile or more expensive.

[narg]

2 wolves with 2 skills each one, and you complaining you had no doubles?

Nope only one werewolf in the team so far, he's got two skills, not doubles but I'm not complaining, just asking if I should fire him when I have two werewolves and the money to replace this one as a werewolf with mighty blow is way more efficient than one without.

1 ghoul, 2 rrs, 2 wws, 2 wights, 2 golems, fill in with zombies.

Yeah I guess I should have done that but I took one werewolf and three rerolls instead. I figured that I wanted three rerolls in the long run and that as they were more expensive afterwards I would be better off buying them right from the start.

Use the ghoul to carry the ball, hand off to a ww who is in scoring range or can go out of range of the opponent, and score.

I get the principle but I had difficulties pulling it off. The main problem is that there's nothing like a minotaur (with frenzy) to destroy a cage. I'll just have to improve on execution I guess.

[Piousman]

Improve on execution. The Mino is "only" S5 when blocked, so get him down, and foul him with those 40k Zeds.

The Wolfs are keepers. They are far to expensive and useful to churn over in an effort of hunting doubles. You may get it, or not. Still, a WW with Block, Dodge, SideStep is a great tool to use. Everything after that is gravy.

- Piousman

[MKL]

Hi Narg

Yeah, there are few info on actual Necro tactics . You can find something searching into these threads:
viewtopic.php?f=25&t=34377&start=15
viewtopic.php?f=25&t=32416
viewtopic.php?f=25&t=34411


About your starting roster... well, that's my opinion:
1 W-Wolf, 1 Ghoul, 3rr is my roster of choice.
Many take both WW at once, but I think two puppy-wolf aren't a boon, but a burden.
A single strenght3-frenzy-blockless-precious guy is easy enough to protect, two of them mean trouble. Just 6 spp -get Block- and the Wolf is able to fend for himself.
And while the WW is the defining piece of the team, I think the Golems are the backbone. WW are fast to skill up, Golems are painfully slow.
Alas, with Ag3 and no Sure Hands I feel 3 rr are mandatory.

Starting Necros are a weak team: not enough positional, not enough block/dodge, not enough rr. What you got are Zombies, the perfect roadblocks.
If your opponent's St5-Block-Frenzy-Mb-Claws monster don't succumb to WildAnimal/Loner and keep rolling 8+... well, there is not much you can do

[Smeborg]

narg - our very own digger has published a Necro playbook at Plasmoid's site:

http://www.plasmoids.dk/bbowl/LRB6Playbooks.htm

I favour starting with one Wolf, as do other coaches in our league (but I like to start with 2 Ghouls). I doubt if the missing Wolf was the cause of your problems. Playing with a rookie team against a partially developed one is tough; you have to get the playing style right, as well as picking the right inducements. Before Necros skill up, they are not very bashy (no M-Blow, no Guard, only 2 Block). Against

Out of interest, what inducements did you pick? I would have considered things likely to bring down and/or hurt the Mino. Some of: Hack Enslash, Merc Zombie (D-Player), Bribe, Wizard.

All the best.

[narg]

Thanks for the links!

About your starting roster... well, that's my opinion:
1 W-Wolf, 1 Ghoul, 3rr is my roster of choice.
Many take both WW at once, but I think two puppy-wolf aren't a boon, but a burden.

That's what I thought when I chose the roster but when I got smashed two games in a row I thought that it was maybe due to the roster, so glad to see other people think it's the best as well.

Starting Necros are a weak team: not enough positional, not enough block/dodge, not enough rr. What you got are Zombies, the perfect roadblocks.
If your opponent's St5-Block-Frenzy-Mb-Claws monster don't succumb to WildAnimal/Loner and keep rolling 8+... well, there is not much you can do

Well, thinking that you're only losing because of bad luck or the opponent's team being "too good" as opposed to lack of skill is a sure way not to progress so I always try to get away from that temptation and see how I could have played better. But in some cases I guess that losing is really just down to bad luck or the opponent having a better team.

By the way I managed to get an improbable draw in the second game: even though the opponent dominated during the whole game he didn't manage to score in the first half (he was slowed down with the ball bouncing in the hands of his minotaur for example), he scored on turn 8 of the second half and then on my turn 8 lots of my knocked-out players came back, I got a riot on kick-off and somehow managed a 2-turn score.

Out of interest, what inducements did you pick? I would have considered things likely to bring down and/or hurt the Mino. Some of: Hack Enslash, Merc Zombie (D-Player), Bribe, Wizard.

Well when I saw his minotaur I thought it would be wise to take an Igor. In the first game I then had 120,000 left and I took Hack Enslash, he just managed to stun the minotaur once before being knocked-out so not a great investment. In the second game I went for an Igor again and a Good Karma card, which turned out to be the one that allows you two passes or two hand-offs in the same turn. Needless to say I never had the opportunity to play it.

[mattgslater]

Well, thinking that you're only losing because of bad luck or the opponent's team being "too good" as opposed to lack of skill is a sure way not to progress so I always try to get away from that temptation and see how I could have played better. But in some cases I guess that losing is really just down to bad luck or the opponent having a better team.

Been there. Just watched replays of a lot of my games, and noticed that a lot of my best play came in losses and my worst in wins.

[The Dazzler II]

I'd settle for winning ugly right now

[Wanchor]

Nothing to do with you, narg, but I love it when this team loses.

As for starting rosters, I don't really know. The Necromantic coach in my league decided to go with all the positionals and one re-roll, preferring to make a long, hard climb to get the others and taking Leader on a ghoul along the way. Naturally, it took a while before the team got into winning gear. I would probably take one ghoul and two re-rolls to start. Also, don't be afraid to use the wolves to score instead of block or blitz until they've levelled up and can level out the odds.

[Uldreg]

I wouldn't cage against a team like chaos. They can either crack it with a str 6 mino blitz, or they can man up and force you to block out of it.

I prefer a sideline screen. Were 5 squares upfield, and a wight 6 upfield screening him. Then the FG's screening ablout 4 squares up and maybe 3. Zombie roadblocks thrown in to make and blitz on ballcarrier or were impossible. His speed is ok, but unless he is leaving a couple deep safties he won't be able to stop you on your second turn. Trying for a traditional drive could make things hard, because of his str advantage.

[Uldreg]

Well i need some advice on The un-Grateful Dead, champions of Sturm von Stahl a perpetual league using Cyanindes game. My division is pretty heavy with only one DE, 1 human, 1 Liz in my next 8 games. The rest are heavy teams. I got really lucky late with some rolls on the WEre's but am starting to feel a little top heavy. I just won 4-0 vs skaven due some incredible blitzes and luck.

1. Jerry Bear Jr. Werewolf: Block, Dodge, Sidestep, Tackle, Mighty Blow
2. Casey Jones III Werewolf: Block Dodge Mightyblow, Piling On, (skill)
3. Phil Flesh Flesh Golem: Block, Guard, Grab
4. Bobby Weirder: (skill)
5. Shakedown Street Wight: Guard
6. Tennessee Jed Wight: Guard, Tackle
7. Scarlet Begonia Ghoul: Block, Fend, Sidestep, Sure Hands, Tackle
8. Sugar Magnolia Ghoul:
9. Delilah Zombie Block Guard Fend
10. Uncle John Zombie: Dirty Player
11. Piggy Pen Zombie: (skill)
12. Big Gram: Block [he was raised so I didn't get to name him!)
13. The Waviest Gravy Zombie:

any ideas on the skills? I am leaning toward Dauntless for Casey Jones, but Jump up could be awesome too. Guard would be great for the Fleshy, but block=quicker skill and survivability.

Thanks for any input.

[swilhelm73]

My take:

WW:JU
FG:Block
Z: Wrestle

JU stacks well with PO, Block will keep him up and causing problems, and wrestle zombies are awesome.