Talk Fantasy Football

Hate to be the bane of the forum with all of these specific team strategy guides, but since all old threads are hard to find and there is none I can find about humans I will make my own. I have thought about using Lizardmen as a team because of their versatility in ST, and Speed. I then reconsidered my idea, due to the fact that a player in my league is using them and I hate to start the same race at the same time, and the more realistic reason is that my friend a league champion suggested to me to use a team with a passing game if I would like to win more. He said that with my play style I should either use a team with mutations or passing game. After further discussion we ruled out Skaven due to weak armor. We also ruled out Nurgle due to the fact they lack an apothacary and can die easily. Chaos everyone plays at one point or another and I don't want to use them, they just don't please me. So that leaves the passing teams left for me to try. Well I was thinking if I use the elven teams that causes what for me.

AV7 I don't like solid armor that low, eliminating wood elves, pro elves, norse, and amazons.

In the end we decided that humans are the best way for me to play. I generally know some about the human team. First way to make any team is to formulate a roster. There were a couple I came up with

4x-Blitzers
1x-Catcher
1x-Thrower
5x-Linemen
3x-Rerolls
9x-FanFactor

That was my favorite of the rosters I formulated.

I figured I would develop my catcher into getting block as first skill so he could become a good offensive drive only guy. The blitzers get casualities here and there, as they get passes, TD's, and MVPs. But gettign block is key. My thrower I want to keep on early. I know many teams don't use their thrower but mine will become a very key part to my game. I plan on using him a lot to pick the ball up (sure hand baby!!), and toss it to a player. This gets his poitns. I have a skill progression chart I want to use, I don't know what you all think. Let me hear some advice.

For a pure passing game without AV 7, you would be better looking at High Elves. Humans are not really a passing team - they are an all-rounder team that can develop a reasonable passing game.

Humans are a difficult team to play well if you are a rookie. The important thing to remember that the greatest strength of the Human team is their versatility. Against a slow team, use your speed. Against a weak team, bash them around. If you set your heart on a passing game with Humans, you will get your heart broken when you come up against a real specialist in that game. As you seem to have implied, Human throwers are best used to pick up the ball and toss a short pass to your desired ball carrier. They don't really have the long range powers of an elf thrower. Even then, 3+ with a reroll will fail fairly regularly.

One thing most people forget is that Humans are fast. Only Skaven and Wood Elves can field an XI faster than a Human team. Bear this in mind ... it can allow you reposition to cover mistakes that you make, or to take advantage of mistakes made by your opponent!

As for skill development ... this is how I tend to develop my teams.

Linemen
First skill : Kick for one, then some with Block, maybe one with DP.
Later skills : Tackle
Doubles : Guard, Leader

Blitzers
First skill : Guard, Guard, Guard. Always Guard.
Later skills : Tackle, Mighty Blow, Pro
Doubles : Dodge, Stand Firm, Dauntless

Throwers
First skill : Accurate
Later skills : Block, Safe Throw
Doubles : Strong Arm, Sure Feet, Dodge

Catchers
First skill : Block
Later skills : Side Step, Sure Feet, Sprint, Pass Block, Shadowing
Doubles : Jump Up, Nerves of Steel

Lastly, always take any stat increase on any player - always! Human players benefit accross the board from them.

I made the mistake of saying pure passing game, but it is nice to be able to develop a team with a passing game unlike the previous two teams I have played. I am no rookie, I have played 4 Leagues with Necro, and 1 with Khemri.

That was the thing that I was thinking about them so if I seemed happy about tossing the ball it was because I never could have had a thrower ever before. Now with this team I can throw on a 3+ and catch on a 3+, not 2+ on anyone anymore. I do realize humans are fast so they can easily beat Skaven, and other fairly fast teams by utalizing their speed, and their ST advantage. As for your skill progression I like it, and think it works well for the team. Every team I use I like to create two dirty players, a kicker, and the rest block tackle linemen. This way line fodder goes down fairly quickly. I am definately a seasoned Blood Bowl player, and since I only didn't play for 1 league in my store, I am also a vetran player (at my store). I think I could play humans and make them a good team using my ability and the help of my friends and other expert human players. I just like the "new" capability of being able to pass the ball on a 3+ with any player, and catch it on a 3+ on any player. It is also good to have a thrower, and a catcher. I think I will be able to strive with humans, and am going to try and use them today if I can in my first game as a human player. If I play I'll update you on how I progressed

Bizzy wrote:I am no rookie

My apologies!

Best of luck with your team.

Don't worry about it, I know how hard humans can be to play especially for a guy that is inexperienced.

But I played my first game today. In my store we have an open league, and a closed league, you can enter any team you want, at any time you want into the open league using a team with TR100. I did that, and played a rookie Nurgle team. The Nurgle had 1 Rotter, 10 Beastmen, 3 Rerolls, and 8 Fan Factor. My team has 4 Blitzers, 1 catcher, 1 thrower, 5 linemen, 3 rerolls, 9 Fan Factor.

I ended up winning the game 2-1 in overtime due to the fact he scored early and I bashed him up but only causing Knock outs and not wanting to risk the potential of playing against a full team I waited till turn 8 to score.

My roster looks like this now.

Blitzer
Blitzer
Blitzer 1SPP
Blitzer Guard
Thrower 2SPP
Catcher 4SPP
Lineman
Lineman
Lineman
Lineman 5SPP
Lineman

Next game I will probably play either an Amazon team, Lizardmen team, or wood elf team. Any suggestions on what I should do?

I agree with a lot of what Nazgit says. Personally I prefer to start with two catchers but thats by the by now.

Good Human offense tends to revolve around strong fast sideline drives, with short passing used to get the ball into the pocket. From there you can either use your speed to roll the other way if the pocket gets swamped or continue the drive. Guard blitzers can give you a big strength advantage in this situation even against the stronger teams. Against stronger teams use your lineman to tie up the stronger less agile players so that you can get the numbers advantage in the important area. The biggest threat to this style of offense is wardancers - use every trick in the book to get rid of them, and you'll need to try and put guards on either side of the ball on your drive.

On defense - gamble. Humans are ideally equipped IMO for risky plays on defense. If you can get a crack at a ball carrier with a couple of dodges, do it. Always try and get someone into the backfield, they'll either draw players away to cover, or leave them free if you can pry away the ball. Basically, get in the road as much as possible and force as many rolls as you can and don't give ground too easily, while launching raids on the ball carrier. Try and always have players free to get the ball if you manage to knock over the ball carrier, and have a go even if the ball ends up in a couple of zones.

For skills, I like Guard on Blitzers, but its important to get some Tackle and Strip Ball as well for getting the ball. Mighty Blow isn't a priority IMO - if you really want to do some damage, get some DP instead - its much more efficient to do it that way. Block, Sidestep and Nerves of Steel is about all you need on a catcher IMO, if they last past that any skill you get is gravy. Accurate and Block are the thing for throwers, and I prefer NoS to Strong Arm as you really don't want to encourage long passing with Humans IMO. Block is always first skill for my linemen - I use them too often for holding up the opposition to give them anything else first up. Ogres are good to stick on the line, tie up players and absorb hits - try and use them as a moving roadblock rather than a hitter. If you like the position they're in, don't do anything, they can't Bonehead that way.

About 1 in every 10 games you'll get hammered on casualties in my experience. The key is to have a nice deep team with a good spread of skills to overcome this. A lino with Block is a Blitzer with -MA, a Thrower without pass, etc. They can still carry out these tasks if you need them to.

Bizzy wrote:Next game I will probably play either an Amazon team, Lizardmen team, or wood elf team. Any suggestions on what I should do?

Take tackle instead of guard, more than likely.

Did you have enough to buy an apo? I'd suggest getting a spare catcher or thrower to round out to 12 and then saving for an Ogre. Alternate between tackle and guard on the blitzers, take MB as the 2nd skill on one of the Tacklers, and develop the Catchers as defender/blitzers. Block, Sidestep, Shadowing etc.

One of my favorite starting human rosters is 4 blitzers, an Ogre, lineman and 3 rerolls - gets the strength of the team on the field early. Yours has some real advantages though. Good luck, and looking forward to more updates!

Just take a look at: http://www.specialist-games.com/assets/ ... aybook.pdf

I think this could help playing humans. I personly prfer to start with two catchers as well. So my starting line up was:

4 Blitzer
2 Catcher
1 Thrower
4 Linos
3 Rerolls
8 FF

Good luck and let us know haow your player perform.

Dendron

Sweet. I just started playing in an all human league (an experiement we've started) and I have never played them before. For that matter its been years since I've played AGAINST humans, so I'm just getting my feet back with them. Thanks for the advice!

That was a good article that you posted. Showed some light on the scene. I only started with 1 catcher and 1 thrower because on many teams they can be SPP hogs, just as a guy that starts with block can be. Like the blitzers will probably hit more then the linemen only because the blitzers have block, and then get tackle or guard. For a blitzer taking guard he opens the field up for other players on his team to get skills by using his free assist. I didn't want the catchers to be running around scoring too much when it came down to using them, and I figured getting one now, then picking up the Apothecary (which I already have as well as 20gold in the treasury) I can buy a second one next, then save up, or just hold onto the money and see what happens as I need it buying players when I have a lot of gold.

They can be, but the way I play on offense I tend to find is pretty much ideal for spreading out spp. It usually becomes pretty easy to decide who is going to get the TD.

I played my second game with the team today and lost. Let me explain how the league works before I explain the game.

The "open" league I am in is sort of a pyramid construction. We have 4 rows and a "pit" the four rows go 4, then 3, then 2 then 1. Every team starts out at TR100, and in the pit (unlimited teams can be in there) To advance up the pyramid we challenge guys equal level to us, the winner moves up the loser does not. If you want to challenge above you for example Person A is in the pit and Person B is on the first row, the guy in the pit can challenge up to play the game. If Person B wins he takes the other guys spot on the bottom row, and advances up. If the person higher up wins no change occurs. The goal is to get to the top of the pyramid and if you do you get 2 D6 money, and you get 2 MVP's a game for each title defence and victory over the champion. The champion at the top may challenge down to the second row for his games. Also to prevent a player from playing a weak opponent multiple times over and over, we are limited to only 4 games per week, and you can only play against a team once a week. So if I play against the Rotting Killers, I can't play them again until the next week. But if that coach decides to start a TR100 team again I can play that team. I hope I explained it well enough for you to understand if anyone doesn't understand anything I will re-explain that section.

I made a mistake on who to play next. I played an Amazon team with over 150 Team Rating. Realize guys my team is Team Rating 109 so I get three handi-caps. I cut his rerolls in half for the first half, I get a free reroll for the game, and I give one of his players bonehead. What horrible handi-caps when other choices are unbelieveable. I am stuck with those so I had to deal with it. I figured he might let me life and gain massive SPP by out scoring me, I figure since it doesn't affect my standing or record I can lose the game and get skills. This I thought after he smashed my first attempt to drive the ball to score. Ok I lived with it. I figured at this point lets just earn SPP hope to score, get completions and the random Cas. That casualty part wasn't easy once I realized every single player on his team had Blodge, 2 Guard guys, and a ST 4 guy. I was like well I don't have a prayer. I only knocked out 3 guys the whole game (on 4 knock downs), and scored no Touchdowns. That is very annoying. But to make matters even worse, he would be unfair, and try to knock my guys down as I am giving him the touch down to save my men. I got angry, but nevertheless made some passes with the thrower to earn some SPP. Last turn coming up I have no rerolls, and am down 4 men( I was down this many by turn 3 of the first half so not going my way). Thrower has the ball, he puts my only potential reciever in a tackle zone, I dodge away. I make the pass, I go to catch it, I fail. If I got the pass my thrower would get a skill. He didn't.

After the game here is my stats:

Blitzer 0-SPP
Blitzer 0-SPP
Blitzer 0-SPP
Blitzer 7-SPP Guard
Thrower 5-SPP
Catcher 4-SPP
Lineman 0-SPP Miss Next Game
Lineman 0-SPP Miss Next Game
Lineman 5-SPP
Lineman 0-SPP
Lineman 5-SPP
Fan Factor 9
ReRolls 3
110K in treasury

Now I was considering the options with the amount of money I have buy a catcher, or save up one more game for an Ogre. I need the beatstick for the line and protection from other guys. I want to know whats best for the team when it is going into the next game containing only 9 players. What do you all suggest?[/u]

The danger of starting a game with 9 people is to be beaten up again. So you need a "fresh" elf team that wants to score a lot of TD or a team that needs a recovery game as well.

I would buy a least one player! So in your situation I would go with the secound catcher. He brings the speed to score a back to back TD and can lend assist where they are needed. Some people could be tempting to buy 2 lineman to have a full squad again. If there are only bashy teams around and no recovery game is possible you should try that maybe.

I hope you are luckier in your next game.

Dendron

Buy a catcher.

Think about freebooting a lino depending on you organise your next game with.

Don't get impatient and try and get to the top of the pyramid too soon.

Go for the catcher indeed! One is a target...

I started a team without catchers as Skummy proposed, although I added a thrower. My 4 blitzers develop quickly (2 with guard, 2 with an +1 ag), my Ogre has block and my linos start to get skills (one kick, rest block/tackle, guard on doubles). Catchers will come in when I have the money for 2 of them, but they will arrive in a team with skilled linos, being able to protect them better.

Good luck, though, hummies are tremendous fun!