Lizardmen and G access

oryxwild · Post by **oryxwild** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 9:12 pm

After playing lizardmen for a month, I've come to see the strength of the team. I feel that the team is a little overbalanced vis a vis general access; the saurii don't benefit enough from doubles, since they fill so many roles and so desperately need skills that they normally have access to, while skinks benefit rather enormously from doubles, and the strength of a given lizardman team can in my experience be traced to several factors:

1: any agi4 skinks?
2: how many saurus have 2 skills?
3: how many skinks rolled +str or doubles?
4: has the krox rolled any doubles?

denial of basic ballhandling skills like sure hands and strip ball and wrestle makes the effectiveness of the team very reliant on the amount of doubles a particular coach rolls, and this seems rather off to me. Furthermore, while kick is of course eligible to be taken by saurii, they need so very many other skills that it seems like too painful a decision.

At the risk of suggesting an overpowering answer to this dilemma, I'd like to suggest an additional positional for the team. This facet of the team may not need fixing according to the data collected by plasmoid - but I feel confident that much of that data comes from low TV lizardman games, where dodge is much, much stronger, and hence ballhandling skills are less necessary.

The positional I would suggest is borrowed from the Stunty division of fumbbl:

0-1 Adept of Sotek 8 2 3 7 dodge, stunty, stab 90k AG

to be honest, I don't care if it has stab, and I don't care about the stats or the dodge or the stunty, and I'd appreciate any other suggestions...

I'm very aware of the fact htat a lucky agi4 str3 adept of sotek could easily get out of hand.

Rather, I think it's vital to have a member of the team that can reliably get kick, strip ball, sure hands, and wrestle.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Reasonable criticism? Has anyone already tried this?

Especially curious if the BBRC has discussed this as an issue or concern.

Thanks, oryx

stashman · Post by **stashman** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 9:24 pm

Lizardmen team are good as they are.

With 6 ST4 and 1 ST5 player thats one of the strongest teams around. If you play them good, the skinks will be hard to blitz and you can always be in a strong cage and even if the cage is held up, with MA8 skinks that doesn't matter, you will score and often.

With LRB5 you can get +AV on skinks and that makes them even harder to take of the field.

If you are lucky to get a AG4 skink, he will be very, very hard to stop.

In my team I have one skink with Block and AV8 and one skink with Block and Side Step. Thats great!

If you wan't to keep a lizardmen team TV effective, you kick the skinks if they don't get any good skills on their third skillroll. Its easier to get 16 spps than getting 51 from 31.

If you have enough Inducements you can bring in one more ST4 player (Slibli) and that will be hard to break for most teams.

Darkson · Post by **Darkson** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 9:40 pm

Lizzies definetly do NOT need a G-access stunty player.

oryxwild · Post by **oryxwild** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 10:40 pm

Lizzies definetly do NOT need a G-access stunty player.

however, an agi3 nonstunty might be fine?

If you wan't to keep a lizardmen team TV effective, you kick the skinks if they don't get any good skills on their third skillroll. Its easier to get 16 spps than getting 51 from 31.

as much as I agree with you that lizardman teams are powerful and hard to deal with (although the str isn't quite as much of an obstacle to orc or chaos teams), you yourself admit here that skinks aren't worth keeping without doubles - because this team is completely reliant on getting doubles on skinks in order to succeed at later TV.

stashman · Post by **stashman** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 10:49 pm

oryxwild wrote:
If you wan't to keep a lizardmen team TV effective, you kick the skinks if they don't get any good skills on their third skillroll. Its easier to get 16 spps than getting 51 from 31.
as much as I agree with you that lizardman teams are powerful and hard to deal with (although the str isn't quite as much of an obstacle to orc or chaos teams), you yourself admit here that skinks aren't worth keeping without doubles - because this team is completely reliant on getting doubles on skinks in order to succeed at later TV.

Wrong! It's about having an effective TV, and thats part of the coaching. You don't need skinks with side step, catch, sure feet and wait for next skill after 20 spps.

If you have trouble to use your skinks with on G access, than this strategy maybe will do better for you.

Play a fanatsy game where you will give the skinks General skills, lets say two with block (good skills all the way), one with wrestle and strip ball (annoying cage breaker/ball taker), sure hands on one (safe from strip ball), maybe one with tackle (bringing down ST2 catchers easy) and you will probably see the problem with G access. Add to this 5-6 ST4 saurus.

oryxwild · Post by **oryxwild** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 11:22 pm

well, my suggestion isn't that skinks get g access - clearly that would be way, way too good. Rather, one positional with access to core skills such as sure hands and kick would be useful.

Let me phrase it another way. My basic question is, is the team competitive without doubles? Let us imagine a lizardman team where no skink or krox rolled doubles, and no stat bonuses were rolled either. Of course this is unlikely, but well within the realm of possibility. Would this team be able to succeed in a league environment?

Of course you're right - there is an element of TV management - but relying on inducements to make your team be competitive with other teams seems to me more the realm of halflings and other sub-par teams.

Darkson · Post by **Darkson** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 11:34 pm

oryxwild wrote:Let me phrase it another way. My basic question is, is the team competitive without doubles?

Categorically yes.

If you give them a AG3 player with G access, stunty or not, the team will be to good.

oryxwild · Post by **oryxwild** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 11:36 pm

well, Im not sure I agree with you entirely, but unless someone other than myself shares my concern about the seemingly necessary nature of doubles for a lizardman team, then I'll let it rest, and perhaps do some testing in my homebrew league to see if it dominates.

Jural · Post by **Jural** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 11:42 pm

I play lizzies. While they benefit from doubles, I don't think it's any more so than most elf teams.

Actually, I think the skinks really benefit from AG 4. 2 AG 4 skinks and the team is nigh unstoppable!

stashman · Post by **stashman** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 7:40 am

oryxwild wrote: Let me phrase it another way. My basic question is, is the team competitive without doubles? Let us imagine a lizardman team where no skink or krox rolled doubles, and no stat bonuses were rolled either. Of course this is unlikely, but well within the realm of possibility. Would this team be able to succeed in a league environment?

Yes, I do think so. They are good, but not broken.

Brokje · Post by **Brokje** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 9:22 am

Actually I dont think Lizzies need doubles to get competitive. The Sauri have so much to choose from a it is, that I usually skip double rolls anyway (especially early on).
Of course the Skinks and Krox do get a lot better. I just fire the Krox after it reaches 31 spp without a double roll or St increase. The Skinks die off eventually anyway. With skilled Sauri this is no problem. The fresh Skinks skill up so fast when protected by Sauri with 2 skills....

Cheers!
M

SillySod · Post by **SillySod** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 11:29 am

The only problem I can see with lizzies is the absolutely huge impact that an AG4 skink can have on the team. Then again thats not a problem with the lizardman team but a problem with the stunty rule.

tenwit · Post by **tenwit** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 11:33 pm

I had similar thoughts once. So I played a couple of games with an experimental lizardman roster, with only 4 saurus and 4 skink champions (7237 Dodge, Stunty, GA, 60k). Of course with only two games, there wasn't much information gathered, but that team starts off a LOT easier than the LRB5 team.. I trounced the rookie orc team I played both times, like 3-0 3-1. And I bet the team would do very well until at least 1.6M, as two Sure Hands/Block skinks and two Block/Diving Tackle skinks would be ideal on my normal lizardman team..

Later in the team's life the extra two sauruses would probably end up worth more than the G-access skinks.

PubBowler · Post by **PubBowler** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 1:32 pm

I wanted to type exactly what Darkson has typed.

So I thank him for saving me the effort and say only that I second both his responses.

MrBister · Post by **MrBister** » Fri Oct 03, 2008 8:53 am

I had the luck to get two +AG skinks in my lizardmen team.

I do lose matches in spite of that.

Lizardmen teams are good, but the tactics differ quite much from other teams, which is fun. G access on skinks would make the team broken. Not getting any stat increases or doubles on skinks makes it harder to win but not too hard.

On a side note, this is how my skinks looks now:
1. No skills
2. AG+, normal skill
3. Catch, AG+, Side step
4. Side Step, Sure Hands

I'm desperate to have a DT for next game since my last DT died.
Should I take DT on the AG+ skink or get something else?
Hard choice, since I rather not have him on the floor if I can avoid it. Side step would be better for him, DT better for the team as a whole.