Talk Fantasy Football

Can a lineup that included 2-4 goblins be a true force? I am leaning towards an Orc team fronted by a troll and with a backup force of 4 goblins. I feel that with the 4 BO blockers, and the 4 Blitzers on a finished team, with one thrower and the rest filled out by lineman, you would have a team with several options. TTM is a fun skill to play around with, and I feel that it is worth it to field the extra goblins. I feel that even with goblins on defense it would be a decent setup giving them perhaps diving tackle to make them more of a nuisance. As our league currently doesn't use Secret Weapons or star players, they aren't a consideration.

Two goblins can be a good thing, TTM is the only one-turn touchdown option for the orc ... and since goblins are fragile (and cheap) you should affort two of 'em until you need extra room in your roster for better player. Also, with their stunty racial caracteristic, you can give them skills that will annoy the other team.

I am thinking of taking 2 goblins on my starting roster, with a troll and more possitionals... I'm hoping the lack of rerolls won't hurt me... I'm just trying to think of something different and some tactics I usually don't use. I think it's much easier to win and compete when you use tried and true standard methods for everythning, but what's the fun in that .

i like starting orc teams with goblins, simply because IMO they are more useful than line orcs AND cheaper too! I make it a habit to never field line orcs unless absolutely necessary, except against dwarves. usually not too tough.

I'd suggest that you drop the Troll from your starting lineup. The Troll is nice, but I found him to be a nuisance in some cases because of Really Stupid.

On offence against agility teams, I never fielded him. I would try to advance my cage forward, but the stupid Troll would go, well, stupid, and not follow. And lose his tackle zone. Dope.

So I had to keep a guy next to him all the time to reduce the chances of him going stupid. And when the plays started to move around, he would be left by himself near the LoS, staring at the ground.

Against agility teams, it didn't take very long for them to run away from the Troll. So you'd get one good hit on your first turn, then the Troll became a liability more than anything else. If anybody has suggestions on how to use the Troll on offense against agility teams (asside from the obvious TTM), them please let me know.

I actually had much more fun chucking Goblins next to the enemy Thrower on defense than trying to chuck Goblins on offense.

I would start with 1 Goblin, and a bunch of Blitzers and BoBs and a few linemen. I had started with a Thrower, but I am now convinced that he is not necessary at the beggining. All depends if you want to develop a passing game or not.

Once you have 12-13 players, get the other Goblin and the Troll last. By that time, your lone Goblin ain't that useful anymore as every team will have a tackler on him all the time. Goblins aren't fast enough to run away too far from enemy block/tackle players, the bane of stunties.

Linemen are useful IMO, but no more than 1 or 2. They get Dirty Player and Kick, and go on the field only when necessary. Goblins and Trolls can't get those skills on normal skill rolls, and you don't want to give those skills to your Thrower, BoBs or Blitzers (or Troll for that matter).

I would also use linemen to stand in front of enemy killer beasts. Very tough, they just stand there and take a beating, making sure that the beast is not attacking your more important players.

Goblins are useful on Orc teams, not so much for their dodge, but for the fact that they can get AG skills (ok, stunty and TTM are pretty useful as well ofcourse).

On the original subject: I have started an Orc team in the past with 4 Goblins, with the idea of using them with abandon, seeing if any survive with a double roll and then ditching the remainder as soon as my team reached 15 players.

(My preferred final roster is 4 Blitzers, 4 Black Orcs, a Troll, 2 Liners, 2 Thrower, 2 Goblins and one free spot for Goblin Secret Weapon stars.)

It sort of worked, but you get into trouble if you have to face a block heavy team in your first few games, so I never repeated the setup and went for the more traditional ones.

Zombie & I are both big fans of 4 goblins in starting Orc lineups.

I would say that its onyl really good for long term play (20 games+).

Many starting teams have real trouble against goblins. Dodge can appear to make them almost invulnerable to block-light and tackleless teams. Stunty can give all sorts of options that wouldn't otherwise be viable (using them to 1/2 dice block players into the crowd who are sideline caged is a sweet tactic).

However as teams develop goblins get very soft and squish so get killed off. IMO Orc teams don't replace them but buy the remaining positionals instead. After a while you'll still have all the positional players, and a couple of pretty nice gobbos (Sure Feet, Sprint & Catch) just for TTM plays (or more against teams that can't hurt them easily).

ianwilliams wrote:However as teams develop goblins get very soft and squish so get killed off. IMO Orc teams don't replace them but buy the remaining positionals instead.

My experience has been that my Goblins have a bigger chance of being eaten, thrown to death or Age into unusability than actually getting killed on the pitch. Goblins are surprisingly tough to get rid of with a lot of bigger green friends around.

My favourite development route for goblins on an Orc team (barring doubles): Catch, Sure Feet, Sidestep, Diving Tackle. But as Ian, I mainly use them for defensive actions. (Having a Dodge, Sidestep, DT goblin next to your thrower is annoying for nearly any team)

I like to have a few gobbos on an Orc roster, especially on defense against elves and scum like that. I try to develop 1 with catch, etc.. for TTM plays, the others get DT first. I generally place the DT guys in a TZ of the player my opponent would like to use for his blitz next turn.

To keep them alive for the special stuuf, I normally don't field them that much. The 10 positionals / 1 troll starting line-up is just too tempting

Sorry, missclick

The problem with Orc teams is that you don't really want SS/DT gobbos longer term - and they die off easily enough.

I really prefer Sure Feet to Catch first though because catch is a skill you'll use maybe once per half. SF means you can GFI twice every turn - so you get a lot more use out of it - especially on an MA6 player. Once you've got Sure Feet, sprint is alot more useful and then catch is a good skill to get.

Gorbad wrote:

ianwilliams wrote:My experience has been that my Goblins have a bigger chance of being eaten, thrown to death or Age into unusability than actually getting killed on the pitch. Goblins are surprisingly tough to get rid of with a lot of bigger green friends around.

I don't toss goblins, much

ianwilliams wrote:

Gorbad wrote:

ianwilliams wrote:My experience has been that my Goblins have a bigger chance of being eaten, thrown to death or Age into unusability than actually getting killed on the pitch. Goblins are surprisingly tough to get rid of with a lot of bigger green friends around.

I don't toss goblins, much

Thus spoke the man who wondered why everyone thought it was strange he made, what was it?, 5 out of 7 TTM's at Carnage?

Well I failed 1 out of 6, but scored from it anyway in the next turn. I'm just a lucky b#$#$^%

ianwilliams wrote:Well I failed 1 out of 6, but scored from it anyway in the next turn. I'm just a lucky b#$#$^%

Well if I could keep my current rolls form this league I'd be making 3db against and getting triple :POW:. Anyway thanks for all the advice everyone I believe I am going to start with a 2 goblin roster, but not start with a troll to maximize the possitional I start with. That way I can take as many of my scary players up front as I can. I would LOVE to start with a troll for the off TTM chance, but I think he can wait 4-5 games.