Talk Fantasy Football

I'm little confused on the consensus on the use of apothecaries.

I play lizards so if that information helps you tilt your advice then so be it.

I've read the forums and I see two general (of course there are more) stances on apothecary use,

1. Save the apothecary for your star players, other players can get injured, even die, but you should save your apothecaries for your stars.

2. Use your apothecaries on any injury roll worse than "miss next game". These are niggles, -stats, & RIP.

I just had a game where one of my Skinks died & I saved him, then straight after one of my Saurus died, at about turn 4/5 of the second half.

Now obviously I would have preferred to save the Saurus, and I'm wondering if I made a good decision and fell victim to bad luck, OR I should have held onto my apothecary in case one of my stars popped it.

a)I'm wondering if letting Skinks die, get injured,niggle at 60k a piece is a good tactic, seems bad for the my economy, but will save the big"7" I care about...

b)or is this just bad luck and I should just save everything worse than "miss next game" & hope nothing happens later.

suppose what I'm asking mainly is should I or shouldn't I use apothecarys on skinks?

I think you have one of those teams where this is a rather hard decision to make (E.g. Elves and Lizards). I think it totally depends on the situation, It's hard to win without your Skinks... But your Saurus's are more expensive.

In general with a Lizard team i'd go with: Use your apothecaries on any injury roll worse than "miss next game". These are niggles, -stats, & RIP.

Though, if I have a Skink or Staurus or both on the field with alot spp's then I would save the apo for one of these stars.

In short, I would not use my apo on a rookie Skink if I have skilled-up players on the field. I also think you where unlucky having a Skink killed, use apo on Skink and then get a Staurus killed traight after.

ahh ok,

why is it a harder decision for elves and lizards?

I'm not worried about the cost of my Saurus, they are quite durable for cost & I don't mind paying 80k for another Saurus,

what I am worried about is paying 60k for skinks quite regularly because they are about 4x less durable than saurus.

however that said, 60k isn't THAT much, Infact its probably takes slightly more games to get the 1st skill back on a Saurus.

so I'm really stubbed, for deciding the best development strategy for the long term.

because if a skink dies and I do use an apothecary its highly unlikely that
a saurus will get hurt in the rest of the game, if I don't use it I'm down 60k.

If its still early in the game (first half or up to Turn 2 in 2nd half) I use those guidelines:

1) Never save a Lineman with 0 SPP (or whatever is closest to a lineman)

2) At Lineman or similar dont save him if he has only 1 Skill up wich is neither a Stat Increase nor a double.

3) At Niggling or -AV think twice if the safe is realy worth it on a fast developing Player that doesnt has a Stat Increase or a Double and only 1 Skill Up. A Catcher with only a normal skill can life with AV or Niggling for example since he should not get hurted very often or if he gets hurt in a future game and dies he is still no big loss

4) If you have slow developing Positionals (Big Guys, Sauri, Blackorcs or similar) with 1 or more Skill Ups always think closely if you dont want to keep that Apo for this player. Even a Dead Lineman with 1 normal Skill up or a Dead Catcher with a Skill up might not be worse the posibility of an maybe later dying Slow Player in this game.

just as a few guidelines.

In Half 2 Turn 6+ you can even start to use Apos on "cheaper" or easier developemet players cause its less likely one of the others gets hurt

You didn't mention what skills were on the skink and the saurus and I think that makes a big difference.

If the skink was a player with a valuable double or was pretty developed, I would say you did the right thin in saving him. On the other hand, if it was just to avoid a stat loss on a fresh player, then you botched it a bit.

Sauruses are worth saving because they advance glacially slow. I would not hesitate to use the apothecary on a saurus with two skills simply because of the number of games invested in getting him there. Sure a fresh saurus will do an adequate job, but two or three skills makes a world of difference.

Overall, the first thing I ask myself is "Is this injury really that bad?" For a Saurus, -MV or -AV isn't a game breaker (-Ag is a joke, so I won't bother there). -ST on the other hand is a no brainer. The next question has to be "is this player a key to my team?" He need not be a star yet, but could very well be the player you are grooming to be one, or possibly the one you just happen to find is lucky and always works well for you. If so, save him. As was already said, late in the game, you can ger a little more liberal with you apohtecary, but otherwise, there are a lot more skinks in the spawning pool.

Tough teams are rarely burned by using the apoth on the 1st permanent damage (stat decrease, niggle or death) - since generally you are really unlucky to suffer more than 1 in a game.

Other teams can't take the risk and generally need want to save the apoth for use on a star player or late in the game when the chance of further injuries is less.

Given so much depends on the relative toughness and lethality of the teams - and the state of the game - giving hard & fast rules is impossible.

For lizzies, I'd generally not use an apoth on a skink unless they were a star player, or it was really late in the game, or I'd already beaten my opponent to pulp and there was little chance of them getting any cas.

ianwilliams wrote: For lizzies, I'd generally not use an apoth on a skink unless they were a star player, or it was really late in the game, or I'd already beaten my opponent to pulp and there was little chance of them getting any cas.

Same here- you need your apoth for lizzies when your Guard, Break Tackle, Block, Mighty Blow gets killed on a down die block from a goblin of all things!

My definition of a skink star- one of the following:

1) Strength increase and a doubles skill
2) +AG and a doubles skill
3) 2 doubles skill and a regular skill
4) 2 stat increases of any sort

My skinks die in droves until my sauri skill up.

Roadkill wrote:ahh ok,

why is it a harder decision for elves and lizards?

I'm not worried about the cost of my Saurus, they are quite durable for cost & I don't mind paying 80k for another Saurus,

what I am worried about is paying 60k for skinks quite regularly because they are about 4x less durable than saurus.

however that said, 60k isn't THAT much, Infact its probably takes slightly more games to get the 1st skill back on a Saurus.

so I'm really stubbed, for deciding the best development strategy for the long term.

because if a skink dies and I do use an apothecary its highly unlikely that
a saurus will get hurt in the rest of the game, if I don't use it I'm down 60k.

what I was trying to say is: e.g. on a skaven team I don't care if my lineman gets killed, i'de rather save the apo for my runners. But on a wood elf team my lineman are 70k and all very useful out of the box, so imo worth using my apo on... But, and this is important, does my lineman have skills, do I have other players on the field that have allot of spp and what team am I up against? If I play a bashing team I'de save the apo for my e.g. WD instead or another player that is more important.

Ahh I see about the elves being hard now.

I didn't mention the skills that the players had because I wanted general advice for the future, and assumed everyone would be somewhat familiar with saurus and skinks and how they develop.

however I realise lizardmen teams can develop in different ways.

I am not developing my team in the conventional way, I am not using the skinks for scoring, and I'm using the saurus to score with (to speed up their progression).

The skinks are just there to make assists really, & to make the occasional 2die block/fill holes in the line.

so I suppose all my skinks are expendable, and I should just keep the apoth till the end for saurii, when I've got 8rr money should not be so tight as to not buy skinks neway.

It's very different on armor teams. With Orcs, I Apothecary the first BH, stat loss or kill (but not MNG) I suffer, on any player but a lino (and with Orcs, there aren't many linos). If I have a player suffer a loss as a result, I bear full responsibility for the shame of suffering two casualties in the same match, but it is simply unacceptable as an Orc coach ever to be down players, so the ability to automatically recover a BH is huge, especially in the first half.

Roadkill wrote:so I suppose all my skinks are expendable, and I should just keep the apoth till the end for saurii, when I've got 8rr money should not be so tight as to not buy skinks neway.

If the Saurus are more important to your game plan, then you should probably save the apothecary to help them. Be aware that Nuffle is fickle, and you will often save a lesser injury just to have another player die later on. A big part of the reason I'm currently playing an Undead team is so I don't have to agonize over the apothecary - when my ghouls die or I fail a regen roll, I can blame fate instead of my own decision-making.

OT note: don't buy 8 rerolls. 4 or 5 is the most you should ever need.

With Lizardmen, I'd take 12 players over an Apothecary any day (5 Saurus, 7 Skink, 3 RRs is a very good rookie team). I would use an Apothecary on a dead Saurus (or a -ST Saurus, but not any other injury), or on any characteristic loss or death to a Skink with anything that makes him worth keeping. I don't recommend Apothecarying niggling injuries except on star players. If you Apothecary what turns out to be the "wrong" player, just shrug and say you were playing the odds.

mattgslater wrote:It's very different on armor teams. With Orcs, I Apothecary the first BH, stat loss or kill (but not MNG) I suffer, on any player but a lino (and with Orcs, there aren't many linos)...

Ok, I'll bite... why wouldn't you Apoth a MNG, but you would a -1AG or what not on a troll or a Black Orc? On an orc team especially, some of the stat decreases (and arguably even a niggler) are no worse than a MNG in practice.

I don't disagree with the strategy, I'm just curious about the inclusion of MNG in there.

Jural wrote: Same here- you need your apoth for lizzies when your Guard, Break Tackle, Block, Mighty Blow gets killed on a down die block from a goblin of all things!

Just to be picky, did the goblin have that much sought after skill "Anti-Block"?

DDogwood wrote:OT note: don't buy 8 rerolls. 4 or 5 is the most you should ever need.

What do you spend your money on after you have 4 or 5 re-rolls and an extra skink then what?