More Wildsquigz advice needed: 5 ST4 players about to skill

[mattgslater]

I don't agree that taking orcs is silly to be honest, have a look at Purple chests team - http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=team& ... _id=439449

10 guards is pretty scary for chaos and of course he has a lot of mb spam with a bit of po too.
It is important to remember that chaos are an av 8 team so enough mb/po will give you a good shot in the attrition battle.
Orc teams can also afford to take a lot more tackle than the chaos teams and to be honest I fancy the chances of an agility team winning the FC rather than a clawpomb team.
Rejecting one of the best basher skills on a basher team seems strange to me but of course it's your choice to handicap yourself.

Oh, I'm not saying I reject it. I'm just saying that this old dog knows his way around massed Guard and Block and Stand Firm, and he's struggling with the application of the new tricks. I definitely have an eye on some Piling On... but as I'm only now really feeling fluent in FUMBBL, I've been saving it as a late skill for guys who keep dying young. My last 3 intended PO Blitzers all planned on getting it as a #5 skill, but all died before they could.

Certainly, if I had left well enough alone and taken Jokaero's advice, I would have gone into the FC with a team that I thought had a shot. I had 4x Guard BOB with 2x SF and 1x SS, 7 MB and 6 Guard, Guard/SF/Grab/PO Troll, plus a statfreak Blitzer and a Blodge Thrower. But no... I had to keep playing them, and I broke them. So I built up another Orc team, and with loads of Blodge and Guard, they looked like they had a shot until they got Nuffled in a mirror-match against a competent French coach.

On paper, Right in da Face should be a lean, mean, killing machine. But they're 12-6-10. I frequently offer my opponents their choice between Face and my 1.4M Humans, and they all take the Humans, who are now 8-1-1.

Hmmm... I've revisited my game since the FUMBBL Cup, and I think the discussions today and yesterday, on this thread just now, and in talking with Garion and Dode and co, I think I just got some insight into what my problem is. I'm a defensive coach, and as such I think like a defender all the time. That's part of my problem, offense. (I knew that: my defense is consistently stifling, but my offense gives up more than half as many points as it scores.) I used to be able to hide it, because you could think like a defender on both sides of the ball, and play sort of a pitch-wide offense that moves like water. But now, you've got to be able to play tight 5-man offensive formations all the time, no matter your AV, and while I can handle it okay if I've got some speed (nothing really changed for elves, except that Tackle has more competition), I'm not used to that with armor teams.

The other part is that "stifling defense" is only stifling if most of the pieces stay in play. ClawPOMB means you can't really build for that. If we're at the same TV level, and my defense doesn't give up two KO/Cas, the offense has terrible odds. Sometimes a redirect or deep passing route works, usually they don't. Otherwise, it's run into the wall, move it to the sidelines, bunch up at the LOS, get crushed, turn it over, hope for a good bounce and some shenanigans. If my defense does give up two KO/Cas, the offense has great odds. It's that simple. It's not that simple for all coaches or all teams, even with the same build. But that's the way it goes in the BB defensive style I learned. It's why I'm not ranked 20 points below where I am, 'cause Lord knows I make enough stupid mistakes. And now, as my opposition's experience (in FUMBBL, my TV) goes up, my core coaching skill gets less and less reliable.

The Wildsquigz got a weird Cas distribution for their first 10 games or so, but generally I do very well with young teams, because the opposition doesn't have the pieces to remove guys and it's all 11-man positioning games, which I almost always win. I always thought that was the skill behind the game; that's why it's my favorite game, because that's what I'm good at, and there's enough randomness and enough other relevant (but lesser) skills to master that my friends can play against me and sometimes give me a fight. Now, winning the positioning war is still important, but it's unreliable, and easy, pointless skills like building a linear track and saying "I use Piling On!" are dominant. I don't get it. My friends are perfectly happy to play Checkers with or without handpainted minis: why make BB into the same thing?

Sorry for the rant. But it's what I don't like about the new rules, and it's the only thing. Frankly, though, here I'm not so much complaining as identifying a problem. In the paper-scissors-rock of BB, the intersection of rules changes and perpetual format just made scissors a lot more powerful, and I'm a paper coach.

So, I ask you champions of the Finnish School, short of joining in your ClawPOMBing (just not my way, I'd rather not play), I need to find a way to beat it with my game, using Orcs.

[Jimmy Fantastic]

I think Orcs have decent game vs chaos up to about the 2.3 tv range.
It is hard for Orcs to hold up to teams like Chuck, Oulun or Griefers.
However if you win the toss, have 9mb 4 po and 10 guard you can sure make a game of it even at high tv.
A lot of Chaos teams skimp on Guard in their lust for clawpomb , I have 6 I think and RO and Carnis have about the same.
We have more guard than nearly all the other Chaos teams I am sure and would still get out guarded heavily by most orc teams.
Maybe you could try fend dwarfs?
I think it is hard for any team to stifle defend reliably at high tv.

[Carnis]

Oh, I'm not saying I reject it. I'm just saying that this old dog knows his way around massed Guard and Block and Stand Firm, and he's struggling with the application of the new tricks. I definitely have an eye on some Piling On... but as I'm only now really feeling fluent in FUMBBL, I've been saving it as a late skill for guys who keep dying young. My last 3 intended PO Blitzers all planned on getting it as a #5 skill, but all died before they could.

The Wildsquigz got a weird Cas distribution for their first 10 games or so, but generally I do very well with young teams, because the opposition doesn't have the pieces to remove guys and it's all 11-man positioning games, which I almost always win. I always thought that was the skill behind the game; that's why it's my favorite game, because that's what I'm good at, and there's enough randomness and enough other relevant (but lesser) skills to master that my friends can play against me and sometimes give me a fight. Now, winning the positioning war is still important, but it's unreliable, and easy, pointless skills like building a linear track and saying "I use Piling On!" are dominant. I don't get it. My friends are perfectly happy to play Checkers with or without handpainted minis: why make BB into the same thing?

Sorry for the rant. But it's what I don't like about the new rules, and it's the only thing. Frankly, though, here I'm not so much complaining as identifying a problem. In the paper-scissors-rock of BB, the intersection of rules changes and perpetual format just made scissors a lot more powerful, and I'm a paper coach.

So, I ask you champions of the Finnish School, short of joining in your ClawPOMBing (just not my way, I'd rather not play), I need to find a way to beat it with my game, using Orcs.

The finnish school . It's starting to stick .

I do not agree that right in da face is a lean strong team. It has weaknesses. Goblins. Skill-less BOB. No POMB on any blitzers. Weak/slow ballcarrier. People prefer your humans, because losing to orcs means 0 cas 1 td. Losing to humans means they at least get some random cas from the linos / blitzers.

About your comment on positioning. You should watch some of Purplechest's games from LRB4. He was a god of positioning, he still barely won any big major matches despite being a superb coach, because his opponents were using dirty players, oneturning elves etc. A big number of old school Blood Bowlists feel let down by the current rules in their weaker focus on positioning.

The big counters to a blockwar with a "finnish school" team is guardlocking, hitting back, dirty players. For instance, my nurgle have yet to defeat RedFish's Papirpunkere although we are 5-0-1 against other khemri. Here are the matchreps:

http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=match ... id=3121283 - outblocked, outfouled.
http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=match ... id=3122990 - blockwar drawn, outfouled
http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=match ... id=3125280 - blockwar drawn, outfouled
http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=match ... id=3135147 - blockwar won, game drawn

*

Anyway the way we pro "clawpombers" play defensively is:

1) Make a screen (to stop opponent running through).
2) Find the softest or the most dangerous blitz target (if possible, try to chainblitz to get more than one block out of it).
3) Keep a safety.
4) Try to protect our piling on player from gangfoul.
5) Try to get a gangfoul or a sneaky dp foul without compromising our screen too much.
6) If numbers game or the on pitch guard-situation favours us enough, commit into guardblockwar & win. Otherwise stay behind screen.

You guys play the blockwar, you commit, you start blocking, you move your opponents 1 square at a time. You trust your block guard & your AV9. Eventually you get 1-2 man advantage just throwing enoug MB blocks around. Possibly 1-2 stuns is enough to move the cage five squares for a win. Piling on fits badly in this scheme, as it eliminates a player from your play.

SO.. How do you hardcore positional players counter us?

Like in a recent movie, "make hard what is soft" . Do NOT field goblins, except for TTM or rarely as ballcarriers (a gobbo with +AG, surefeet etc..). Goblins are targets. They when hit by a pomber with tackle go down almost guaranteed with a possible +2 on the injury with a reroll.

Spam dodge doubles. Remember for a positioning battle, blodge is really useful. Also remember that Clawpomb is 4 skills aka 51++ SPPs. The first place to get a clawpomb with tackle reliably is at 31 with mb, claw, tackle (no block no piling on - weak target player). The first good antiblodge clawpomb is at 76 (block,tackle,mb,claw,po). Not likely that your opponent has more than 2-3 of these players even at 2300's.

Get some good +AG blitzers, like your Jarromrolrg, stopping a ma8+2 ag4 player is truely terribly hard with a slow side such as nurgle. If you can make a 2+ handoff to some other ag4 blitzer you are basicly guaranteed a score in an 8turn half if you dont go down 3 men the first 3 turns.

Oneturners, I know it's a bit lame but I really think you should read this: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3605828/oneturner003.gif

Orcs can also oneturn using TTM gobboes. The best is one with +AG+MA/Sure Feet, but shy of that I've seen more than one major game turn from a Catch/Surefeet/Sprinter gobbo who was tossed the required 6 squares & rushed the remaining 9. Especially your wildsquigz could really do wonders with TTM as you have a ag4 ma8 player to handoff with.

Hit back! The main thing you want to avoid is getting outnumbered & tentacled. ALL the real clawpomb squads are vulnernable to POMB. I don't think this is a coincidence. CDs have hobgobs, no reserves for CDBs. Chaos, pact & nurgle have av8 linemen. So you try to setup so, that the chaos player can only get hits on blodge guards. You get 1 pomb hit/turn, while you try to maintain your position otherwise stable. Try to incorporate a fouling lineman to your offence (fouling with your cage). Fouling is weaker on defence in general. Remember that a downed AV8 player goes out 44% of the time with piling on MB, that's extremely powerful to consider skipping it till skill #5.

Remember fouling odds. If you consider a sentoff as equal to a KO/CAS, then fouling AV5 or less without DP is worth it, and fouling AV7 or less with DP is worth it. If your opponent has thick skull too, then you can basicly foul him starting from AV5 and onwards with DP only so it becomes a bit expensive, granted.

Bottom line, you have to start playing a bit of our game without sacrificing too much of your own game to beat us in the game.

Here's a theoretical orc squad for your TV that I'd build to counter chaos based rougly on the rolls the wildsquigz have been rolling. I'd like to have another pomb in the squad & more bloding BOBs if it was my squad but didnt seem to fit in 1910.. Still, its 4 blodge, 7 guard, one turning gobbo, oneturning blitzer ballcarrier. Pomb killer and a dirty player. Guaranteed to give a run of their money for most Clawpombers.

TV 1910

BOB Guard, Block, Dodge 150k
BOB Guard, Block 120k
BOB Guard, Block 120k
BOB Guard, Block 120k
Blitz MB, PO, Tackle 140k
Blitz MB, +ST, Dodge, Guard 200k
Blitz Guard, MB, Dodge 150k
Blitz Sure Hands, +MA, +AG, +MA, Dodge 230k
Troll Guard 130k
Line 50k
Line Dirty Player 70k
Line 50k
Gobbo Catch, Sure Feet 80k

3 RR 180k
7 FF 70k
1 APO 50k
Staff & fans = 300k

[Hitonagashi]

Hit back! The main thing you want to avoid is getting outnumbered & tentacled. ALL the real clawpomb squads are vulnernable to POMB. I don't think this is a coincidence. CDs have hobgobs, no reserves for CDBs. Chaos, pact & nurgle have av8 linemen. So you try to setup so, that the chaos player can only get hits on blodge guards. You get 1 pomb hit/turn, while you try to maintain your position otherwise stable. Try to incorporate a fouling lineman to your offence (fouling with your cage). Fouling is weaker on defence in general. Remember that a downed AV8 player goes out 44% of the time with piling on MB, that's extremely powerful to consider skipping it till skill #5.

Great post, but wanted to re-emphasise this point. It's the core of my lizzie in box at high TV strategy.

[garion]

There is some very good advice here. Khemri seem to me to be the best team at guard locking about but they are serioulsy dull to play with imo. I agree with all of what is said above, but what annoys me about that is both that example orc team and Hitongashi's Lizardmen are soo geared towards playing one race they are both seriously dull teams with so much uniforimity and hitongashis Lizards are much the same, as many blodge saurii as possible with guard and MB then a super skink or two to do all the scoring. Not knocking the coaches they have done well to fight back and I think they are both very good coaches but this is jsut more proof to me about the tedium of this edition that everything has become sooo geared towards fighting this onme kill stack.

On a side note why not jsut play with Skaven or Elves, they are perfectly build to beat everyone really and they are lots of fun too, unless you get dull elf mirror matches.

[Jimmy Fantastic]

In the paper-scissors-rock of BB, the intersection of rules changes and perpetual format just made scissors a lot more powerful, and I'm a paper coach.

Well this is interesting. So Elves are rock and Orcs beat them?
I think Elves are heavy favourites vs all races in terms of winning the game.
Which just leaves us with Elves > Chaos > Orcs, rather than rock paper scissors I feel.

[Hitonagashi]

There is some very good advice here. Khemri seem to me to be the best team at guard locking about but they are serioulsy dull to play with imo. I agree with all of what is said above, but what annoys me about that is both that example orc team and Hitongashi's Lizardmen are soo geared towards playing one race they are both seriously dull teams with so much uniforimity and hitongashis Lizards are much the same, as many blodge saurii as possible with guard and MB then a super skink or two to do all the scoring. Not knocking the coaches they have done well to fight back and I think they are both very good coaches but this is jsut more proof to me about the tedium of this edition that everything has become sooo geared towards fighting this onme kill stack.

On a side note why not jsut play with Skaven or Elves, they are perfectly build to beat everyone really and they are lots of fun too, unless you get dull elf mirror matches.

Naw, I disagree. I'd do the same whatever the environment I played in. My team is ultra-effective against clawstack teams, but I'd still take that build against any other team. The only thing that distinguishes my team from a more traditional lizardman team is that I took dodge on doubles and rolled 7 doubles! I mean, how would your skill progression differ with my team?

I find that when you play the killer teams, positional play is ultra important. Killers are an important part of any team, because if you remove opposing players, it becomes that much easier to out maneuver them. I dislike any strategy that relies on getting a numbers advantage in order to be able to get the positional edge to win, but I have no problem with using it as a part of existing strategies.

[Hitonagashi]

In the paper-scissors-rock of BB, the intersection of rules changes and perpetual format just made scissors a lot more powerful, and I'm a paper coach.

Well this is interesting. So Elves are rock and Orcs beat them?
I think Elves are heavy favourites vs all races in terms of winning the game.
Which just leaves us with Elves > Chaos > Orcs, rather than rock paper scissors I feel.

I disagree. The thing with Humans and Orcs is that their blitzers come with block, and can't take claw. This means that at the same TV as a chaos team, where the chaos team is maybe getting block on their killers, the humans/orcs have 1 or more block/mb/po/tackle player...so are hellishly more effective. In terms of damage I was likely to take, I feared drawing humans and orcs far more than chaos with my elves.

Sure, at the ultralegend level that the Majors on FUMBBL are played on, you see other teams falling by the wayside, but Orcs especially are very good against Elves at high TV.

[Jimmy Fantastic]

Yes I understand all of this Hitonagashi, hence why I recommended 4 T-Pomb Blitzers to Matt.
Of course having to skill your killers with Block and Claw makes a lot less tackle overall on Chaos teams.
However I wouldn't reduce the game down to rock paper scissors and I certainly wouldn't earmark one team as having a marked advantage over Elves.
Especially at high TV with natural one turners on the scene and/or a wiz available.

[garion]

Naw, I disagree. I'd do the same whatever the environment I played in. My team is ultra-effective against clawstack teams, but I'd still take that build against any other team. The only thing that distinguishes my team from a more traditional lizardman team is that I took dodge on doubles and rolled 7 doubles! I mean, how would your skill progression differ with my team?

In this ruleset it wouldn't you have done it perfectly but that is my issue really. If we were talking lrb4 - I would have taken Stand Firm on 3 and Dodge on 2 (for the LoS) and Frenzy on 1. But anyway this is all sadly moot now, and yeah the advice is solid, spam guard and blodge with a dedicated blitzer for removing key targets and you are solid really.

I also agree with you that Orcs are great for dealing with elves, them and Norse are prety much ideal starter skills to build anti elf teams. But because teams are so heavily focused on defending against CPOMB at the moment it leaves a lot of them open to beatings from elves, even orcs seem to take tackle a lot less than they used to. This is typically why the Ranked Orcs fair better against elves than the BB Orcs because ranked orcs tend to build in a more balanced way to deal with all teams, while BB orcs are built solely for winning against CPOMB.

[Carnis]

I also agree with you that Orcs are great for dealing with elves, them and Norse are prety much ideal starter skills to build anti elf teams. But because teams are so heavily focused on defending against CPOMB at the moment it leaves a lot of them open to beatings from elves, even orcs seem to take tackle a lot less than they used to. This is typically why the Ranked Orcs fair better against elves than the BB Orcs because ranked orcs tend to build in a more balanced way to deal with all teams, while BB orcs are built solely for winning against CPOMB.

Are you sure that is the case though? Any numbers? It seems to be the forlorn orcs are almost all from R division and almost all dropping like flies from the FC.

[garion]

Well it is certainly hard to say. Orcs havent even played an elf team yet.

Orc - Lizardmen - lizardmen won against the odds.
Orc - Orc - The higher CR coach won
Orc - Ogre - Ogre won, they were an lrb4 team with a tv1000k higher
vamps - Orc - Vamps won 172 Cr coach vs a 154 cr coach
and Orc - Khemri - khemri won.

There are hardly any orcs in the tourney this year period. Probably the lowest amount of Orcs in any Fumbbl cup ever. Any ideas why ?

[Carnis]

Well it is certainly hard to say. Orcs havent even played an elf team yet.

Orc - Lizardmen - lizardmen won against the odds.
Orc - Orc - The higher CR coach won
Orc - Ogre - Ogre won, they were an lrb4 team with a tv1000k higher
vamps - Orc - Vamps won 172 Cr coach vs a 154 cr coach
and Orc - Khemri - khemri won.

There are hardly any orcs in the tourney this year period. Probably the lowest amount of Orcs in any Fumbbl cup ever. Any ideas why ?

Because they all fell in R1-2 (which are now hidden by default in the schedule!). Originally there were 26 orc teams!

304 teams
Races:
Dark Elf: 34
Orc: 26
Chaos: 25
Dwarf: 23
Chaos Dwarf: 23
Skaven: 16
Undead: 15
Necromantic: 15
Nurgle: 14
Wood Elf: 14
High Elf: 13
Human: 12
Amazon: 12
Lizardman: 9
Khemri: 9
Ogre: 8
Chaos Pact: 7
Norse: 6
Elf: 6
Slann: 5
Vampire: 5
Goblin: 4
Underworld: 2
Halfling: 1

They've lost their first matches, mostly. They have played elves too.

For the complete picture about orcs:

http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=group ... llrounds=1

[mattgslater]

Reply to Carnis: haven't read beyond that.

1) Yeah, I coined "Finnish School" about six months ago, off of something you said, and when I noticed the gusto with which you picked it up I started using it regularly too. Hopefully it will stick. It's hard work, building an informal games lexicon, and putting names to playstyles will make it easier.

2) I know all that, actually. I know how to win individual games against great Chaos teams. The problem is not this game; I know how to win that. It's how to compete with Orcs in the long haul. The occasional outlier effect, is a terrible killer if your strategy is built around having 9 guys with Block and Guard, most of whom don't handle the ball well. BOBs die a lot, and are hard to skill, and losing two at once can put you back like losing two 2-skill Beastmen or Warriors doesn't. Especially if their replacements develop a case of fumblefingers, and don't get any lucky Cas or MVPs for a long stretch. Nurgle are subject to this problem too, but it's rarer because of Regen and Foul Appearance. It's always been true, but it was so unusual back before LRB6 that two BOBs would die in a short span (and also because 6 or 7 Guard was plenty, when you didn't have ClawPOMBs to contend with. Now, stuff like that is much more likely.

3) For Face, the Goblins were part of the "Orcazon" theme: I'd never played a Goblin-heavy Orc team, because I've always liked having 12x Orcs/Troll. It's kind of crazy to think you'll earn more SPP off a Human team than off an Orc team with three Goblins. It's also very, very wrong. The Humans surrender an average 0.3 TDs and 1.0 Cas, while the Orcs surrender 0.86 TDs and 1.65 Cas. Part of that is coaching style (I can be turned over, but I'm hard to break through, applies with Humans as well as Orcs except that Humans are harder to turn over). Part of it is just that I decided to run with a silly build at first, and then evolve the team out of it when it was ready to break into SE territory. (Yes, I should have hired a Lineman before the FC). They keep losing emerging-star Blitzers: I had one with +ST/Frenzy/Tackle (was going to go for MB, then PO), and one with Guard/MB/Tackle (PO next). Both died on Apoth failures. Until the last game, when I took four more, I had only taken five Cas on Orcs in 27 games, so at least that part of the model was working....

Face it, man. Orcs were great because they made up for being slow by being strong and having very little SPP turnover. Now, they're just strong, which isn't really enough. Ageing was bad, but 2-skill BOBs were at their peak, and really not subject to it anyway. Claw comes down disproportionately on your BOBs, and is no respector of skill levels, so it makes it much harder to keep your key cogs intact.

[garion]

Cheers for pointing that out Carnis -

Orcs vs elves in the fumbbl cu, still not many matches -

Orc vs dark elf - Dark Elf have won 1 orcs have won 3
Orcs vs wood elf - Orcs won 1
Orcs vs high elf - Orcs won1

not really enought to say anything.

Orcs vs other sutff
Slann vs - orcs - slann won 2
Necro vs orc - Orc won 2
Undead vs orc - Orc won 2
Orc vs Dwarf - Orc won 2
Orc vs Khemri - Khemri won 1
Orc vs human - Orc won 1
Skaven vs Orc - Orc won 1 rats won 1
Orcs vs Chaos - Chaos won 2
Orcs vs Lizardmen- Lizardmen won 1
Orcs vs Norse - won one each
Orcs vamps - Orc won 1

the rest are all Orc vs Orc.

edit this is discounting those previous results i posted, so add them on too