More Wildsquigz advice needed: 5 ST4 players about to skill

[Jimmy Fantastic]

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.

Exactly. I think you need to adapt and focus on keeping your Blitzers top notch Guarding T-Pombing machines and not really caring so much about BOB skill retention.
As I said before I think RandomOracle is on to something with this team - http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=team& ... _id=649748
Now that sure does look like a lean, mean, killing machine! 14-3-1 in Box is very impressive.

[mattgslater]

Oh, and yeah, I totally agree that Orcs are at an advantage against elves. No claw, no attrition. Guard works against everybody, and most elf teams have real problems coping with a mass of ST4/Guard/AV9. I also agree with Hito's point that Chaos aren't the same at low TV, and that the Chaos advantage comes in at high levels.

The problem isn't beating any one style. The problem is surviving the attrition war in the new environment. Playing 50 games and having a good squad when it's done.

@ Jimmy: I can't play RO's style. My stomach hates it. I'm a constrictor, not a viper. A lot of coaches clear the pitch and take a screenshot: I clear the pitch and feel like I got robbed of a real win. Ranked is a nice curb on my tendencies, because of the social pick-up aspect, but still, it's how I get out my high school fix. You know, where fighting is an end in itself, but you don't want to hurt anybody? When I play BB, I want to dominate you, I want to give you the longest, most frustrating hour of your life, and I want you okay to take another, similar beating in a fair fight the next time we meet. If you're off the pitch, I can't hit you anymore, and if you're dead, your skills lost might put you out of my TV range and make it harder for me to smack you around again. Happy to take the SPP, and the first few casualties just make it easier to push you around, but selling out to do damage defeats my real objective: grinding you into hopelessness, making you sing a little "stand up, end move" song in your head. If I wanted to kill you, I'd play WFB.

That said, I'm definitely taking a Dirty Player on both my Orc squads from now on.

[Hitonagashi]

The problem isn't beating any one style. The problem is surviving the attrition war in the new environment. Playing 50 games and having a good squad when it's done.

In my experience, and I view this as a good thing, no team can last without a rebuild indefinitely any more. I seem to get 30 game cycles with my Box teams, peaking around game 20, and sometime between 20 and 30 getting that game that necessitates a rebuild. I've seen the killer teams do it too; Chuck has rebuilt from basically rookies at least 3 times, and WMD's 5 times+.

It raises the question of why you play your team. If you play it to win tournaments, get high TV then park the team and play a second one, bringing it out for tourneys. If you play it for fun and to win, don't worry about damage! Take each game as it comes. If you play to teambuild as high as you can go, play R and never play any chaos/nurgle. Whatever your style is, FUMBBL can suit it.

[mattgslater]

Okay, so how do I rebuild fast?

Since the crash (three consecutive Nuffle-bombs, no CPOMB required (some POMB, some luck)), I've gone 0-2-5. Still have those same rookie BOBs. I've never had a team lose 5 in a row before, or go 7 games winless. In fact, 7 games winless is my personal worst streak, and if you look at all games, I've still never lost 5 in a row, but only because I played some cool-off games with more competitive teams in the meantime. In fact, since the skid started, my other teams are 33-15-13, including 10-3-5 with my other (not beat to heck) Orc team. Right in da Face took BOB damage too, like the Wildsquigz did early, but since they only lost one, and then built a new one quickly, it was no big deal.

My Blitzers are great: I'm one or two skills away from having a legendary Blitzer squad. But the BOBs are still a problem. I can't protect them, so engineering SPP with them is really hard.

Advice on winning at high TV with a pair of 80k +ST Zombies in lieu of my Guard Machine? I've been BB'ing for 15+ years, but having to start over on the BOB squad is just totally new territory for me. I cut the Blodge/SA/niggle Thrower; can't afford the bloat. I'm hanging on to Karkagragraghkkh until he skills: if he doubles, he'll be a great player. If not, it's not that much bloat (40k less the considerable value of Grab/PO).

[Jimmy Fantastic]

Advice at winning at high tv with Orcs... pass.
You can however sack the troll and the lino which gets you down to mid tv so you can continue your quest for skilled BoBs.

[Hitonagashi]

Change your style of play. You said it, they are high ST zombies. Engage opponent's key players with them, or try and tie up multiple fodder. Throw them in the way to keep your blitzers unengaged so they can blitz. Your style of play needs to change from tight locking walls of guard to rows of loose caging, with the BoB acting as filters, so they have to overwhelm and blitz past them, leaving some of their team members behind, where your blitzers mop up those who get past.

[mattgslater]

Change your style of play. You said it, they are high ST zombies. Engage opponent's key players with them, or try and tie up multiple fodder. Throw them in the way to keep your blitzers unengaged so they can blitz. Your style of play needs to change from tight locking walls of guard to rows of loose caging, with the BoB acting as filters, so they have to overwhelm and blitz past them, leaving some of their team members behind, where your blitzers mop up those who get past.

In other words, Orcs aren't a bash team anymore. I play muscle teams because I identify with them. I play BB for the same reason I like to fight IRL: I like the feeling of overwhelming an opponent without hurting him. There aren't many fighting games where the goal isn't to take the other guy out, and having found one, I'm a little put off by this upshot of the new rules that says you gotta either skimp on the fight, or fight like a little sissy b***ch with your cowardly Claws and Piling On, 'cause you can't handle getting hit back.

I'm an orky person by psychology, and the idea of surgical strikes and tying down the nasties with linefodder is anathema to me. That's a recipe for throwing 30 blocks, and I'm the kind of coach who isn't happy if he didn't throw 60, at least with a bash team. I play BB because I like to hit things, not because I like to tie them up and waste their time. Same thing with ClawPOMB: weapons are for weaklings.* If you need damage skills to do damage, you must not be trying hard enough. So, in this new environment, how do you maintain face-smashing power that's not about stupid wargaming with damage skills? Used to be easy. Still is easy against low TV, but can't keep the Orcs there if I'm going to build the BOBs: I have to put them in the way of CPOMB if I'm going to build them, because the "natural" (now unsustainable) peak seems to be right around 2M or 2.1M.

Oh, and "high-ST Zombies" is another way of saying "a waste of 40k" by comparison with a real speed bump. Why bother? Why not use Linemen instead? Then it's only a waste of 10k. For that matter, if you're not going to load up on Guard and play smashmouth football, why not play Humans?

*Lineman mantra part one: "I don't have to injure you to make you hurt." Lineman mantra part two: "Handling balls is for girls."

[Hitonagashi]

Hmmm, I was just saying how I'd play them...but thats my style. I pivot fast, flip sides, probe and blitz. Looking back at my games, I'm a 30 blocks a game player. I rarely do more unless I happen to be playing against skaven or something. I take exactly the opposite philosophy to you...if I throw too many blocks, I wasn't maneuvering enough!

BoB's are better than zombies...you get +1av and +1st, losing regen for 40k extra..that's a bargain! When I tie up players with ST4, I tie up ST3 players, and block away ST4 ones. That way they need to commit 3 players(or dodge) to clear it, or take a block back...with 4 BoB's, that adds up fast.

I think the problem you have is that Orcs are no longer kings of the bash. In LRB 4, if built well, they could outbash anything, even Chaos with the grind. Now, if tooled up Orcs go toe to toe with a tooled up Chaos team, they lose. They can still bash everything else...but against Chaos and Nurgle specifically, they have to take a different tactic.

[mattgslater]

Actually, it's more like this.

If a tooled-up Orc team goes head to head with a tooled-up Chaos team, anything can happen. Either team can win, either team can survive, either team can be ruined.

If a tooled-up Chaos team is "ruined" they fall to a lower TV, where they're not hurt in a matching format, but get beat up a little in perpetual. No biggie: the line isn't meant to hold, so throwing rookies and journeymen up there is just fine.

If a tooled-up Orc team is ruined they run into big problems. You can cede the line with Orcs, but it's a totally different (and much less effective) game; what works for the Greenskins is their ability to stand their ground, keep the action at or behind the halfway line, and force the opponent either to throw everything at midfield or to abandon it entirely. Can't do that with rookies. You can still play the interior defense game, but that puts a lot more pressure on your offense. (Full disclosure: I prefer defense to offense. Funny enough, I give up a lot more points on offense than on defense, and score about the same on both sides of the ball.)

[dode74]

Why can you not buy replacement positionals? Unless it's very early on Orcs usually have pretty large treasuries.

[Jimmy Fantastic]

If a Chaos team loses their killers it is a big deal, far bigger than Orcs losing BOBs.
You could try changing up your style only until your BOBs are skilled again, then it doesnt hurt your team only your playstyle.

[mattgslater]

Why can you not buy replacement positionals? Unless it's very early on Orcs usually have pretty large treasuries.

Yeah, this is why Mercenary BOBs are not an answer. Money is no object: One BOB dies, and you buy another right away. The problem is SPP, specifically 16 of them. BOBs are only good out-of-the-box players at low values, when they're not facing much Block/Guard. A rookie BOB can't play against veteran players the way a veteran BOB does. You need that Block/Guard to play the stand-and-grind game against developed teams.

@ Jimmy: I know this is the Zen solution, though I can't offhand think of any other "basic" team races who can easily build into a viable style, which may have to turn on a dime like that. But it's often a problem, in that when you lose the BOBs the other, more expensive key players remain. As such, TV doesn't fall far, and you're stuck getting outmatched until the MVPs land your way. While it's happening, you can't really work to skill your BOBs too much: you have to make lucky Cas+MVPs do your dirty work, unless you get a big numerical advantage. On the plus side, the skill progression isn't really any different, except that I'm gonna need some PO if I don't have a massive B/G/ST edge. Boo.

As for Chaos losing its killers, it only hurts if they lose most of them; besides, BMs and CWs are really easy to skill, while BOBs are much harder to improve. And you've got a lot of other potential killers to skill. If the best ones die, maybe you lose a game or two while you build up the lesser lights. But if two BOBs die, there are only 0-2 potential replacements.

A lot of the difference is in the utility of the players who need skills. ST3 teams, including Chaos for these purposes, can put three schmoes on the line, then respond. Grindy Orcs, OTOH, have much bigger DLOS investments. This translates into an unpredictable on-pitch advantage, that's fine. I don't mind occasionally losing a game because of bad T1 injury rolls, because I occasionally win a game when my opponent's first block is a push negated by SF, and it just goes downhill from there. I just find it frustrating losing a team that way, especially after so much work had been put into making sure that other team races never had this problem.

[Carnis]

Okay, so how do I rebuild fast?

Since the crash (three consecutive Nuffle-bombs, no CPOMB required (some POMB, some luck)), I've gone 0-2-5. Still have those same rookie BOBs. I've never had a team lose 5 in a row before, or go 7 games winless. In fact, 7 games winless is my personal worst streak, and if you look at all games, I've still never lost 5 in a row, but only because I played some cool-off games with more competitive teams in the meantime. In fact, since the skid started, my other teams are 33-15-13, including 10-3-5 with my other (not beat to heck) Orc team. Right in da Face took BOB damage too, like the Wildsquigz did early, but since they only lost one, and then built a new one quickly, it was no big deal.

My Blitzers are great: I'm one or two skills away from having a legendary Blitzer squad. But the BOBs are still a problem. I can't protect them, so engineering SPP with them is really hard.

Advice on winning at high TV with a pair of 80k +ST Zombies in lieu of my Guard Machine? I've been BB'ing for 15+ years, but having to start over on the BOB squad is just totally new territory for me. I cut the Blodge/SA/niggle Thrower; can't afford the bloat. I'm hanging on to Karkagragraghkkh until he skills: if he doubles, he'll be a great player. If not, it's not that much bloat (40k less the considerable value of Grab/PO).

Talking about this purely as a fumbbler, not a generist bowler..

I tried orcs btw, in the box, they were much harder to win with than I thought MA6 is LOW. My orcs are now 17-5-7.. Did better with my early nurgle (had early mb claw on one rotter ;>). Did MUCH better with my lizmen (15-0-1 the first 16 games).

Anyway, as a generalist metagamer/minmaxer. Thinking as a box coach here. How to rebuild your orcs/BOBs.

At that tv range you are way over your head now. You're 1760k tv with 2 unskilled BOBs, one missing BOB. You've become a bit of a cherry, even though you have an awesome carrier in that ma8ag4'er. What bloats your tv now is the troll, and the lineman:

http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=playe ... id=7882963
http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=playe ... id=7892959

Together they are 300k TV!

Drop them both (Troll without block, ever worth 190k?) 110k on a lineman..

Replace with 3 linemen, TV drops to 1610 which is a TV range where I think you'll be competetive enough to handoff touchdowns to the rookie BOBs.

Also, #9 or #7 really needs piling on (use on stuns), if you want to keep skilling your BOBs in the online environment, you will need to get them touchdowns, to do that you need a bit more space on the field than you are likely to be used to having. It usually takes least 2-3 turns to handoff to an ag2 player..

When you've got your BOBs to 1-2 skills (depends on preference, block guard mb or the more ambitious mb block guard), you can hire a new troll (this will up your TV quite significantly, so fire a lineman). Then refresh your troll at 16 spps until he rolls the mandatory double for block, he is not worth the 190k TV with just 4 s skills.

I would, as a box basher coach, prefer a block/guard/piling on/grab troll in general. Piling on used as a luxury pick on stuns, end of half blocks, generally preferring just to grab opponents around & force the ST5 block&guard.

[mattgslater]

Yeah, I'm kind of sentimental about Karky, and I wanted to give him a chance to go up (one more shot at doubles), but I get what you're saying.

[Carnis]

Yeah, I'm kind of sentimental about Karky, and I wanted to give him a chance to go up (one more shot at doubles), but I get what you're saying.

You can name the new troll Karky too . It's just a pixel.

Anyway I dont have better metagame advice than that, playing without full guard at that tv is tough, dont pick clawpomby opponents. Play some low CR coach with dark elves, high elves, humans, or some genuine low tier team.