Discuss Fantasy football-style board games - GW's Blood Bowl, Impact!'s Elfball, Privateer Press' Grind, Heresy's Deathball, etc. THIS IS NOT AN NFL FANTASY FOOTBALL SITE!
Welshy wrote:
The example I'm thinking of is a catcher/GR/skink broken through the line waiting for the ball. The single blitz that I get to 'shut down' this (or mutliple) chappies needs to put him down, if not out. If he's not down then at least he's marked with-out his dodge re-roll.
The counter-example is any team which doesn't have Dodge.
And then you have a wasted skill.
It's your call at the end of the day, you have enough to skills to consider taking one which will only be useful in half the games.
But maybe not enough skills for two...
Dodge is a common skill in tournaments. Only 5 teams (out of 24) do not have AG skill access on a normal skill advance roll. These teams are Chaos, Nurgle, Dwarf, Chaos Dwarf, Khemri. Chaos and Nurgle are relatively rare in tournies.
The 19 teams that have AG skill access break down as follows:
- 10 teams able to have 2 or more Blodgers ('Zon, Humie, Norse, Undead, Necro, Skaven, Dark Elf, Wood Elf, High Elf, Elf). These are mostly popular tournament teams in my experience.
- 7 teams with players who have or may have Dodge only (Ogre, 'Fling, Gobbo, Lizzie, U/Pact, Slann, Vampire). These include a number of less popular tournament teams.
- 2 unexpected teams with a small amount of Dodge (Chaos Pact with a DE Renegade and a Gobbo - who usually comes with 2 Heads; Orcs with 1 Gobbo - which I have seen a lot in tournies).
So, in summary, Dodge is very common, and Blodge (or Wrodge) is disproportionately more common than you might think (say half at least of all opponents). You need a way of dealing with it. Wrestle is fine for downing ball carriers or receivers, though Block/Tackle is better, as you are more likely to get an AV roll (90% or more of Dodge players are AV7), as well as preventing active use of Dodge.
You should be prepared to foul AV7 players as "targets of opportunity" in a tourney. I had one tourney this year where my successful targets (CAS) included a Witch Elf, a Norse Blitzer and Hemlock. I did not start the tourney with a fouling strategy, but somehow the targets just "presented themselves". I got a player sent off each time IIRC, but all were good "trades".
Pub-bowler: I understand your point on not all teams having Dodge, but feel smeborg has tipped the balance towards my 2x tackle with his statistics. In short; I'm unlikely to come-up against teams with-out dodge (or blodge/wrodge) and those teams tend to be the 'speedier' side which Orcs suffer the most against (Skaven especially in my experience). Dwarves are now my main concern, but feel that 4 Black Orcs with Guard will keep things in my favour. I'll let you know how I get on and 'chew the fat' once the tourney is over on the first weekend of February.
Smeborg: As above, your analysis has swayed me. You've also high-lighted another 'quirk' the the tournament team that I wouldn't have considered with my Orc league team: Fouling. With a mature Orc lasgue team not usually fielding a lineman (let alone 4) it wouldn't have entered my head to foul... If only I can get some practice in with the team before the big day. Fielding this many Linemen also present another challenge: Painting! I've only got two up to scratch, it's time to dust off the paint brushes once I'm back from my Christmas holidays in Blighty.
Thanks again both/all for the input,
Nuffle Rocks!
Welshy
Initial feed-back with some games over Xmas is very positive.
Wrestle Linemen: Great at taking down big-guys and creating gaps, also seem to be a frustration based deterant against one die blocks.
Guard BOrcs: Four of these is awesome, always one where you need them either in the cage or across the board allowing blitzers and Wrestle linemen the +1ST.
Tackle Blitzers: My two games have been against a Chaos side and have therefore not been optimal, while I can see this being a down-side and I can see the temptation to swap one for MB, both my experiences in league play and Smeborg's stats are keeping me keen on a Tackle double-bill.
Principle down-side is that I must remember the the team's average MV is 5 (i.e. pretty slow), the High AV (average 9) is a god-send.
You could try swapping one tackle for frenzy instead. With 4 guards you should be able to get 2 dice most of the time. Frenzy is nearly as good as Tackle for knocking down blodgers, so is a bit of a "tackle light" in that regard.
Thanks Ian, that looks like a good option and seems to solve several problems at once, i.e.:
1. Againt a Non-DODGE team the skill isn't wasted.
2. With only one Frenzy it usually means 'picking' a wide zone... oddly enough people then aim for the other one. Now I can cover both.
3. It's a good compromise between Tackle (putting down catcher types) and Mighty Blow (Causing CAS).
Played a 'demo' game versus Amazons with the 2x Frenzy line-up: 0-1TD 3-1CAS. This game only ran to T12 and would have been more likely to be 1-1TD.
My thoughts are that the Frenzy is still works well even with all that ST3, BLODGE/WRODGE on the amazon's side. The amazon's half (first) saw a series of screens/cages try to pull me out of shape in the centre. De-brief after the game shows that the twin Frenzy players kept the opponent away from the side-lines and in the middle with my 4x GUARD Black Orcs. Considering the lack of knock-downs (curse that BLODGE/WRODGE) the going was slow and I was quite happy to have shut-out the amazon's for so long. The T8 score was by no mean guarenteed.
The second (my) half saw a grind set-up, but I drove straight for the centre, which wasn't optimal, however by this point I was able to stay on top of the blocking war and watched the KO's and CAS roll-in.
Over-all I am quite happy with the team, and feel they still performed well, even against one of their 'arch nemesis' teams, the amazons... all that BLODGE/WRODGE is hard to knock-down, but a bit more crowd surfing and I should be well-ahead in the numbers game!
The conbination of all the guard being exactly where you need it and very hard to get rid of (ST4, AV9) meant that almost all Blocks (8+ per turn) were 2Dice. Positioning these B.Orcs central, and off the LOS meant that the were mobile enough to be a real pain. Combined with 2x Frenzy (one on each wing) meant that the opponent on offence had to either 'force their way' through 3x WRESTLE linemen and 4x B.Orcs or try their luck versus FRENZY/crowd surfing on either wing. on defence they had to amnufacture sacking attempts while avoiding surfing, wrestling and any 'leapers' had a guarenteed 2D uphill block on the ball carrier (if they even got that close). A very potent mix!
I'd like all who have debated on this topic as with-out your advice I would not have tried this 'experimental' lineup. A special thank you to SMEBORG and DOUBLESKULLS.
Welshy
Mainland Bowl Winner 2010
Christchurch, New Zealand
