Talk Fantasy Football

A while back, I had another successful outing with Chaos. This was the Australian State Champs in Melbourne (as part of the "Mainland Marauders", all kiwis, 2 of us from Christchurch, 1 from Melbourne). I need to state up front that 2 factors were very much in my favour:

- As the only Chaos team at the tourney (out of 30 teams), I got 2x50,000 cards for each match.

- Within limits, I was able to pick my opponents (there was a process for deciding which coaches faced each other, teams were made up of 3 coaches each).

But note that these obvious advantages were part of the deal. The house rules were TV110, no starting skills, with a more or less complex system for skill progression, approximating to normal progression (i.e. like a mini-league). A slight addition to the roster happened at mid-point in the tourney. I started with what is my favourite Chaos roster at TV110:

Minotard
3 Warriors
8 Beastmen
2 RR

I think 12 players + Apoth is the minimum numbers for Chaos. I don't think you can afford more than 2 RR in most tourney formats. Years of playing Nurgle has prepared me for playing with just 2 RR. Sklll-wise, I took Claw on the Minotard as first skill, and also ended up with Sure Hands, Leader (Warrior), Block on 2 Warriors, 3 Beastmen with Wrestle, and Block on the Minotard as icing on the cake. Also an extra RR, which with Leader seemed very luxurious (if not superfluous).

I took Chaos as an "anti-bash" team, knowing that the Aussie tournament scene has become quite bash-oriented. I had the intention of playing against Dwarfs or Chaos Dwarfs if I could, failing which Orcs. This worked out well, I ended up playing 3xDwarfs, 2x Orcs and 1xGobbos (in an all-Stunty team). I had considerable good fortune, not least from the cards, and ended up with 5 wins and 1 loss. The loss was in the first game (against Dwarfs), and was caused by a rookie blunder on my part (I took a push instead of a pow with the Minotard, in the hope of crowdsurfing a Trollslayer, the second Frenzy block was a double both down, Loner RR failed). Had I taken the pow, a draw was quite likely.

In the main, I overwhelmed the Dwarfs with raw ST, and made use of superior MA and AG against both Dwarfs and Orcs. The Minotard (Daisy is her name) had a mixed tourney, but kept me at least at parity of numbers in most matches. She had a good psychological effect, sometimes opponents would over-commit to taking her out. I only remember being badly down on numbers in one match (the last against a Dwarf team with some M-Blow), but some dodging Chaos Warriors, 2 good cards and some last ditch jam came to the rescue.

Wrestle worked very well (although I only had it late in the tourney). It is a strong skill on a Chaos team, I believe. Wrestle Beastmen can reliably bring down Blodge ball-carriers. Unlike Tackle, Wreste is never wasted.

The last round was sweet, I and another team-mate had considerable good fortune, and we managed to beat a more fancied team than ourselves to unexpectedly take 3rd place in the tourney.

Hope that is of interest.

Congratulations on a strong showing! The team approach sounds fun.

I enjoy reading your take on teams, so please keep sharing stuff like this!

Could you shed some light on how the team format worked?

How were teams decided and opponents chosen?

I'm involved in trying to put an event together at the moment, we want to make it team based, but are groping around in the dark a bit as to the best, most fair and most fun way to structure it.

Waldorf28 wrote:Could you shed some light on how the team format worked?

How were teams decided and opponents chosen?

I'm involved in trying to put an event together at the moment, we want to make it team based, but are groping around in the dark a bit as to the best, most fair and most fun way to structure it.

The team format worked well and was well liked. We are hosting the tournament in Christchurch in 2016 and will probably use the elements that we liked:

- Each team consisted of 3 coaches, each of whom must coach a different race. (3 seems to be a good number for the practicalities of putting teams together).

- A dice-off was held before the start of each round, the winning captain deciding whether to go first or second.

- The captain going first had to propose one of his 3 coaches/races, the captain going second got to choose whom to play against them.

- The captain going first then got to choose both of the 2 remaining match-ups.

This is expressed somwhat differently in the tournament rules:

QUOTE
Team Draft/Match Ups
When your team has been matched up with another team, the coach match ups are created with a little “draft”. The two team captains roll of to decide who’s going first, generally the loser of the roll will go first. Captain A nominates one of the coaches for Game 1, who reveals the race he is playing, and then Captain B chooses one of his coaches/races to play in Game 1. Then Captain B goes first, and nominates for Game 2, followed by Captain A. The remaining teams are in Game 3.
UNQUOTE

This is a rather neat game of paper/scissors/rock.

You can see more at http://www.ausbowl.com/viewtopic.php?f=236&t=9488. The other rules were a bit in the "too complicated" (skills) or "too random" (cards) baskets.

Hope that helps.

Thank you!