Which is the hardest team to coach?

Post by **DoubleSkulls** » Sat Aug 31, 2002 11:15 pm

In your opinion which is the hardest team to coach successfully in a league?

I'd exclude Goblins and Halflings since they aren't supposed to be serious teams.

Personnally I believe Dwarves the hardest. Their lack of mobility means that any mistake can be disasterous - and its hard to score with only 4 AG 3 players and most of your team having a move of 4.

Ian

Colin · Post by **Colin** » Sat Aug 31, 2002 11:26 pm

I don't know, I have always liked playing dwarves. Yes they don't score many TD's but I have always done well with them. The worst team starting out is Chaos IMO, no skilled players so no real ball handlers. Many unsuccessfull attempts to pick up ball after kick off by BM (this is in early stages before gaining skills).

Deathwing · Post by **Deathwing** » Sat Aug 31, 2002 11:32 pm

Torg wrote:I don't know, I have always liked playing dwarves. Yes they don't score many TD's but I have always done well with them. The worst team starting out is Chaos IMO, no skilled players so no real ball handlers. Many unsuccessfull attempts to pick up ball after kick off by BM (this is in early stages before gaining skills).

A chaos team won the MBBL this season, started with just Beastmen and stacked up on rerolls. The more I think about it the more sense it makes!

Ghost of Pariah · Post by **Ghost of Pariah** » Sat Aug 31, 2002 11:36 pm

Around here it would have to be wood elves. I compare them to wizards in D&D. They start out wimpy but if you stick with them they can get nasty!

DaFrenchCoach · Post by **DaFrenchCoach** » Sun Sep 01, 2002 12:12 am

Finally, I think it depends on what you call "hard": winning games, building a team strategy, developping your own team ?

I would say dwarves, but some coaches really seem to have found some keys with it (ie Longfang, for example

).

Skavens and Wood Elves aren't easy to manage in a league... But it also depends on what teams are playing in your league.

longfang · Post by **longfang** » Sun Sep 01, 2002 12:44 am

I do like Dwarfs but I'm not a specialist. In our league I play them quite often and enjoy them but I recognise they're weekness and they struggle to get enough points to qualify for Trophy finals. They're slow to score as to protect your ball carrier you can't let yourself get too spread out and your cage is limited to slow progress. Lose just one Dwarf and become out numbered on the pitch and there is no way to cover enough of the pitch and your defence won't work. If you can squeeze your opponant so that dodging becomes difficult you can pound away and hope for a few casualties.

Zombie · Post by **Zombie** » Sun Sep 01, 2002 12:51 am

Definitely lizardmen. They're a team of extremes. You need to really maximize your players' strengths and minimize their weakenesses in order to be successful.

This is the team i'd recommend the least to a rookie coach. You need a lot of experience just to know what to do with that bunch.

Vesticle · Post by **Vesticle** » Sun Sep 01, 2002 3:32 am

I recently started a Chaos team in Christer's Open FUMBBL League, and have been able to start with 4 wins, 4 ties, and no losses. I'd only ever played games with elves and humans before, and had less than 20 BB games under my belt total.

It was definitely difficult starting out, I had a stretch where I failed 10 pickup rolls in a row, and was thus, unable to win more than 1-0, despite having knocked most of my opponent's team off the field...

From what I've seen, and what I can gather theoretically, I'd say the hardest team in the first games or two is Chaos. Expensive Re-rolls means you don't start with many to make up for your complete lack of skills.

Access to strength and physical skills will help you later, but if you take all Beastmen in your first game with a bunch of re-rolls, you basically could've had a better 1st game taking all human linemen, and even more TRRs.

The hardest team to develop in the beginning, I'd say, is Woold Elves. The AG4 will help you win games, even down players, but with A7 it's almost impossible to not lose players right off the bat in your first match... and unlike other A7 teams (Skaven, Amazon, Norse) they neither have Dodge or Block to protect them, nor are they cheap to replace.

The hardest team to coach effectively, I'd have to agree is Lizardmen. It's hard to figure out what to do with them...

Twist · Post by **Twist** » Mon Sep 02, 2002 1:35 am

What about Chaos Dwarves? I have never seen them do well, even after they added the Bull Centaurs...

Zombie · Post by **Zombie** » Mon Sep 02, 2002 1:52 am

Chaos dwarves totally dominated our last league, with 10 wins, 0 loss and 0 draw. And no, i wasn't their coach! Never got to face them though, as they were not in the same division as my halflings and i lost in the division semi-final.

The league before, my own chaos dwarves finished 3rd out of 7 teams.

Those two chaos dwarf teams are the two favorite teams going into next season, which will include teams from both leagues.

I would have picked chaos dwarf as the most difficult team to coach in 3rd ed though, because like lizardmen, they're a team of extremes.

Deathwing · Post by **Deathwing** » Mon Sep 02, 2002 1:56 am

CDs are plenty good enough in the right hands. 2 of the 4 teams at Res. that went 4-0 were without Stars (in a Swiss format), one of which was Chet's 'Zons, the other was a CD team. Haven't played them enough myself to get to grips with them yet, but I'm convinced the potential is there..

Post by **Thadrin** » Mon Sep 02, 2002 6:15 am

CDs won our last league - narrowly beating woodies in the final after having taken out my normal Dwarfs in the semis - seven casualties in that semi. Not bad for dwarf against dwarf.

Marcus · Post by **Marcus** » Mon Sep 02, 2002 8:52 am

Dwarves and Bighats can be hard to coach if you don't approach them the right way. They each have their own playing style which doesn't necessarily correspond with any other team's style. If you can't get your head around it you won't do well.

I think that's true of a lot of teams tho. I coached Orcs in the first season of the ECBBL. I had trouble with almost every match - I never quite knew what I was doing. Basically I was a finesse coach trying to play a power running game.

I think that's the problem most coaches have with Dwarves: they try to play them in a way that isn't Dwarfy, and as such have difficulty coaching them.

Marcus

Mestari · Post by **Mestari** » Mon Sep 02, 2002 9:26 am

Marcus wrote:I think that's the problem most coaches have with Dwarves: they try to play them in a way that isn't Dwarfy, and as such have difficulty coaching them.

I returned to playing dwarves just a few days ago. What I noticed is that I hadn't succesfully made the transition from an elf coach into a dwarf coach. For the first game, I constantly noticed that my players would need either MA 7, AG4 or both in order to compete succesfully.

For the second game, however, I managed to get a better hang of things. One must really keep ones head cool when playing dwarves: with that much block surrounding it's hard for the opponent to get a hold of your ball carrier even if things look grim, so you can really prepare for the moment you finally dash towards the end zone.

Post by **Thadrin** » Mon Sep 02, 2002 10:18 am

We're heading into discussion that has been had before...
viewtopic.php?t=1615

Incidentally....don't the rules that Finnish guy came up with bear a striking similarity to this....
viewtopic.php?t=420

Playing Dwarfs is an attitude, a mindset. You can or you can't. Do or do not, there is no try.
(Hopes a few others appreciate the work of Kevin Smith and followed that line with the correct, non-lucasian retort).

I'd like to think I'm a good enough coach to at least be competitive with pretty much any race...not sure how I'd cope with Goblins or Halflings though.