Brettonia for 12 game league + playoffs

[Smeborg]

Hi rolo -

M-Blow is a good skill, I take it on other teams, often as first skill. I just think there are other skills that will work better for this team. In particular, I think the Yeomen need Guard, Tackle first, and my first doubles pick for the other players is Guard, not M-Blow. So if I took M-Blow, it would be a long time before the team gets any, and only in small quantity. Wrestle + M-Blow is sub-optimal (whereas Wrestle + Guard works fine in practice). And I have prioritised defensive and positional skills (Dodge, Sidestep, S-Firm, Grab).

Partly it is a matter of playing style. Some coaches like to blitz every turn with a hunter-killer. I don't, I find this "habit-ridden and systematic". For me, the priority for Brets on defense has to be to attack the ball (especially against a killy team, which will likely take out 1 or 2 Peasants on the LoS).

I am planning to build a crowdsurfer, though (Blitzer with: Dodge, Frenzy, Sidestep). That will help with numbers (as well as keeping opponents honest).

Partly I am planning by analogy with the ST3 Elven teams, which excel once they have (say) 4 x Guard (but I don't recall ever having had M-Blow on such teams). I am hoping to get 6 or more Guarders on the team...

My arguments against D-Player are in a similar vein. Of course only time will tell.

All the best.

[Smeborg]

Well, time has already told, in that I did some light playtesting against Orcs (because I expect to face at least 2 Orc teams in a small league).

Because of the telling advantage brought by the odd CAS/KO caused by "natural means", I have decided to amend my strategy somewhat towards damage, namely:

- D-Player on the 1st Peasant to skill up normally (Wrestle for the others)
- M-Blow as likely first doubles skill on the Blitzers

These are slight changes, aligning more with advice from you guys.

Thanks.

[El_Jairo]

- D-Player on the 1st Peasant to skill up normally (Wrestle for the others)
- M-Blow as likely first doubles skill on the Blitzers

That's my thought exactly. Yet I only face one Orc team in my league, so I feel I might even push for MB on 2 Yeomen, especially if they are only 7-8 SPP away from 16 SPP. With a low number of strength based teams in my league (and I face Orcs last) I don't think that Guard will be needed more than 2x early in my league.

Yesterday I had my first game with Brettonia in TT, vs Elf union. They scored fast first half: in two turn. Yet I wasn't able to to hurt any of their players. I made the mistake trying to force them to over commit by switching sides. I was mainly stopped by the Side-stepping Blitzers. They are a pain to take down, because they mess up positioning, you rather not blitz them, unless you can follow up with a nice foul.
So long story short: I did manage to put some hurt in but aimed at (and got)a draw, even when both of his catchers were injured.

So I am probably doing something wrong if I can't manage to score under 4 turns unless I horribly expose my ball carrier or try to push forward on a flank to have a knight waiting to receive a hand-off.
Or could it be quite normal that as long as elves keep their numbers up to 11, it's hard to break through their elf screening?

Now the long term outcome for my 1100 kTV team is the following: Tackle and 2x dodge on my Knights, -AG on a Yeoman and 50k in treasury. So my dilemma is: should I buy a Peasant directly now? This would only remove Loner from my Journeyman or save up and either replace the Yeoman or try to buy 2 more Peasants. Next games are vs Skaven and followed by Chaos Pact.

So I'm inclined to go towards a bench ASAP as this allows fouling and in my appreciating, Bret's don't play down in numbers well. They simply don't have the AG to make fancy plays work. In desperation mode, you will still need to do so, but at best you have 33% failure chance on all but catching agility based actions....

[Smeborg]

Hi again El Jairo -

I've done a little more playtesting against Orcs, this time I modified my playstyle (to engage less) and came away with a hard fought 1-1 draw. Hard to see how to do better with only 11 players and such a big AV disadvantage. The main problem is starting drives with less than 11 players (e.g. 8-9 for many drives). This problem ought to disappear in the main with a few purchases (only 150,000 for 3 more players). I'm already wondering if I will need 15 players (easily done).

I don't know what races I will face (so far 2 Orcs, 1 Slann, 1 Gobbo). Possibly more Orcs and Pro-Elves to come. But it is looking like a very even mixture of bash and AG in the league (but as much as 1/3 to 1/2 Orcs!). This matches the "bi-polar" roles and development paths I have chosen for the Blitzers and Yeomen. I am starting to wonder if I should give higher priority to Dodge for the Yeomen (for mobility and protection).

I am still getting used to the playing style of the team. They don't do grind, they can stall a little, that's all. And they don't really do finesse, they can struggle to score in 2 turns, for example. But they have interesting boxes of tricks up their sleeves on both O and D. Probably quite frustrating to play against. But I'm struggling to come up with game winning strategies (assuming well-coached opposition).

Martin, if you are reading this, how would you describe the style of the Bret team, on both defense and offense?

All the best.

[Smeborg]

I notice that Martin's most successful team has no Tackle. Interesting. I have run very successful teams (e.g. Slann) who never got as far as Tackle. It seems Wrestle may be enough.

[plasmoid]

Hi Smeborg,
well - I'm not sure I know how one should play Brets, but I know how I play them.
Some of it may well be habits for how I generally prefer to play BB, and Brets kind of suit that style. Luckily.

Anyway, on offense, I don't rush to score. 2 turn drives are for when there are only 2 turns left. I like to burn some turns off the clock, but I don't expect to be able to grind out all 8 turns - sometimes because the peasants can't take a beating and sometimes because I just can't keep my opponent securely away. Burning some turns on offense gives your defense a fighting chance. I do a basic loose running game, and hope to score with the same guy that picked it up. That said, I tend to position one (or more) blitzers so at the edge of the action (just a tad further to the side or ahead than "needed") so that in a pinch I can do a hand-off and 2 GFIs to get out of reach of the opposing team. It's a viable scoring threat that hopefully will draw opposing players away from the action.
Other than that. I improvize(!).
I have to say I don't foul much. Probably less than I should, given that peasants are so expendable. But I just hate getting a player sent off. But if I have a bribe, I'll happily foul.

On defense, I've managed to play a pretty stingy defense. Slowing down the offense with space-restriction skills, and definately not over engaging - and certainly not early in the game where lost players will hurt for many turns. That said, if I need to score a defensive TD, or if it becomes clear than a conservative defense will fail, I'll throw everything in for a scrum, hoping that both the blodgers and the wrestle skill will cause a mess for my opponent.

A few random notes:
For a starting team, I've had success with 4 blitzers, 2 yeomen and 7(?) linemen for a rather deep starting bench. Not sure it would work again, but it certainly did on 2 occasions.

With the full team I still prefer having 13 players, 2 rerolls and a leader. Then, if the oppo is bashy, I hire an extra lineman for the match.

Edit: Oh - highly controversial, but if my opponent isn't that killy, I risk putting yeomen or knights on the LOS on defense. The extra AV and the protection from "both Down" really matters, and I think it is worth the risk. YMMV.

I hope that helps some
Cheers
Martin

[plasmoid]

Also, this may sound cheeky, but some teams are strong enough to just play to their own strebgths.
IMO, Brets aren’t, but they’re flexible, so I tend to (try to) play to my opponents weaknesses instead.
Cheers
Martin

[plasmoid]

Hi Again Smeborg,
I read your team blog, and a few further comments:

1) I think Orcs are one of the worst rookie match-ups for Brets, so if you're struggling then I'm not surprised.

2) Do you know your first round opponent before you create your team? If you do, then it is worth considering going apo-less. Even more so if you think you can beat your first opponent.
I've used the roster described above, and after game one had both an apoth and a leader. I felt pretty good about my Outlook for game 2 and 3

3) First skill for first blitzer is tricky, IMO.
Dodge is always great.
But I think it is at least worth considering sure hands and leader. Personally, I think I prefer Leader over Sure Hands (unless I'm meeting wood elfs soon), and then I run the ball on the leader. I'm still not quite sure if the early blodger would be a better....

Cheers
Martin

[El_Jairo]

3) First skill for first blitzer is tricky, IMO.
Dodge is always great.
But I think it is at least worth considering sure hands and leader. Personally, I think I prefer Leader over Sure Hands (unless I'm meeting wood elfs soon), and then I run the ball on the leader. I'm still not quite sure if the early blodger would be a better....

Cheers
Martin

I do appreciate that impact that sure hands and leader can have on a match. If your start with only 2TRR, then leader is the first skill for a knight. But my logic is that dodge, has more small potential impact throughout of tipping the balance. Unless you meet dwarfs in the next game..

The remark about Bret's needing to play on their opponents weakness is very much resonating with me. So yes I do think that early skills should be based on the next opponents (in a league) or tendency in a league. With heavy bash, I would try to get as much guard ASAP.

So for our first game we got 3x MVP (non stack-able) and I picked tackle on a knight because we have a lot of dash in our league and my first match is vs Skaven. Who heavily rely on their gutter runners, so I need to be able to take them down and foul.
The other two skills went also to knights and I went 2x Dodge, as I already have 3TRR. I will drop to 2 TRR later, when I have Leader and Sure Hands. I'm not 100% sold on picking Sure Hands before Dodge on a knight. Because Blodge is too good to pass up, it's the best skills for a ball handler. On the other hand, the sure hands knight can pick the ball up and hand it off to a blodge knight, so scoring faster is becoming more realistic.

[Smeborg]

Thanks, guys, all good stuff.

I think my Brets are already playing in a style similar to Martin's. On defense, they stand off, deploy their positional skills, and go all in at some point. Offense likewise as per Martin's description. I can see myself putting rookie Yeomen on the defensive LoS at times (so far I have done so only when facing Frenzy - in order to put Fend on the wings), but not Blitzers (the first time I did that with Amazon Blitzers - a long time ago - 1 died and 1 was crippled). I am reluctant to put Yeomen on the line once they have skill-ups (perhaps 1 Guarder against ST3 teams lacking Guard). This team gains SPPs at a relatively slow rate, making skills precious. As a matter of record, a high proportion of armour breaks on the LoS on Linos so far (3 games) would also have broken AV8. I have not fouled much (not at all so far IIRC), but am starting to think fondly of a Bribe as inducement.

But I take Martin's suggestion to more often put positional players on the defensive LoS seriously, and will think about it. Yeomen could even be specialised in this role (e.g. Guard, Fend, T-Skull). Perhaps not to everyone's taste!

For the starting roster, I seriously considered:

3 Blitzers
3 Yeomen
8 Peasants
2 Re-rolls

But I went with my first plan:

4 Blitzers
3 Yeomen
4 Peasants
2 Re-rolls
Apoth

This was based on my unpleasant experiences starting in leagues with relatively low AV and no Apoth. For once my plan worked, the Apoth saved a Blitzer from -AV in game 1, and another from -AG in game 2 (traditionally the first Apoth roll is a 6, lol).

I did not know who I would face in the first round. In the first game (Gobbos), where I was facing 2xM-Blow, a Ball&Chain, a Saw and a Bomber, the 14-man roster would have been better. In the other games, I think I got to the last drives (or at least the second half) with 11 men, but what hurt was a loss of players to the dugout during at least 1 drive.

Although I feared Orcs, my first game against them was a win (player match-ups actually seem favourable: Bret Blitzers vs. Black Orcs, Yeomen vs. Orc Blitzers). The team that caused me the most problems was DEs, where I was at a numbers disadvantage for most of the match, and perhaps more importantly, at an "agility disadvantage" of -16 in aggregate(!). My opponent could more easily choose whether to engage or disengage (and had better AV).

First (normal) skill on the Blitzers is Dodge for me. It works throughout a game, protects the player, and sets a good base for further skill-ups (especially including doubles and stat increases). I'm looking forward to Leader and S-Hands (but am prepared to wait).

[Omalley69]

Intresting read so far. Keep it up guys.
And I totally agree that mighty blow is a very late skill for bretts (have 20 ish games in total on 2 teams, purely league)
My current team has 2 s4 blitzers and they still easily struggle aganist alot of teams on defence. Bretts just dont grind well.

Just wanted to mention that a friend of mine thinks that bretts can do a underworld approach and go for in-deuce-ments.
Zug bretts for instance. Not sure how the roster should look though. But Zug is some much needed muscle especially on defence were dauntless dosnt work.

[Smeborg]

2 QUESTIONS FOR MARTIN

(1) Why Block and not Wrestle on the Linos (I am a Wrestlemaniac, but am open-minded, I want to know your thinking)?

(2) Why a 13 player roster (seems a bit light to me on a somewhat squishy team)?

All the best.

[Smeborg]

Omalley69 - I think Brets will get inducements in most games, once a league is well under way.

With a 14 man roster and 2 Re-rolls, their base TV is 115. Many teams will be around 125. In addition, it looks to me as though Brets will earn SPPs at a slightly slower rate than many teams, meaning a further increase in TV gap. Perhaps anywhere from 100,000 to 150,000 on average, perhaps a bit more.

The challenge is that cheap inducements for Brets are not necessarily game-changing:

50,000: Babe
70,000: Merc Lino
80,000: Horatio
100,000: Bribe or Wandering Apoth or 2 Babes
120,000: Merc Lino with skill (e.g. D-Player)
150,000: Willow or Dolfar (or various combinations of the above)
[220,000: Merc Lino with D-Player + Bribe]

On the plus side, all of the above inducements look handy in the right circumstances (excepting the eccentric Dolfar).

Other Stars are good, but pricey (Zug: 260,000, Zara: 270,000, Griff: 320,000, Morg: 430,000), so likely to be rare. If Zara is demised in favour of Karla (my guess), that would be good for Brets (because Karla costs only 220,000, good value, I used her in a tourney recently).

I like Willow, I've used her quite a bit with 'Flings (e.g. in tournaments). She is reasonably reslient on the line (AV8 + T-Skull), can be annoying against caging teams (Sidestep), and good against ST5 players (ST4, Dauntless). As she is a Loner lacking Block, she often goes last (or late) in the turn. She has even been known to dodge (AG3) if it means a chance of sacking the ball-carrier.

Perhaps coaches with league experience of Bret inducements can enlighten us as to what works well.

All the best.

[plasmoid]

Hi Smeborg,
2 comments after reading yoyur blog:
1) I too don't foul much. Even with Brets. I'd take a DP eventually, but not in a short League. Linemen benefit a lot from Block/wrestle, and fouling gets a Whole lot better when there are developed opposing players worth fouling.

2) Yep - pbem play is special in that you can potentially think a lot about each turn. I normally don't, but when the game is on the line I do. So to some extent pbem allows you to position "flawlessly".

Cheers
Martin

[Smeborg]

Thanks, Martin -

After 4 games, I don't have a single SPP on the Peasants, so the question of D-Player vs. Block/Wrestle means little! But I am expecting my main rival in the league (so far at least) to have at least 1 "monster" worth fouling. And looking at inducements, it seems a Bribe might be good at times, but only if you have a D-Player on the roster to begin with. That's my current thinking, anyway.

My brief experience of PBEM many years ago was quite instructive. I remember making a "flawless" positional play that I would not have thought of in tabletop. And for sure, you tend to make fewer, or no, blunders in PBEM (ditto for your opponent).

All the best.