halfling tips

[Jelliko]

Other than the chef, do these suggestions also apply to a goblin team?

[GalakStarscraper]

Other than the chef, do these suggestions also apply to a goblin team?

Mostly.

The star player thing is a little more questionable as Ripper is NO Deeproot to be sure.

Galak

[MightyMightyMootstones]

Hey guys, i'm brand new to the site, but have been playing Blood Bowl for about six years now. My first, and only, love has always been halflings. I can't explain it, i just can't get rid of the little buggers. I did want to say that in all my time playing, my record had been what i would consider outstanding for a halfling team. I average about 4 wins and two ties for every loss under my belt. I've never used deeproot, and only ever use one treeman. On rare occassion I will take a master chef. I've faced all the official teams out there, with the exception of vampire and lizardman teams, and i have to say the bigger they are, the more fun it is to see the look on your opponents face when you take them down. As a fellow halfling, I want to say always keep your head up. even when it seems all is lost, it's amazing what a few sticky buns can do for your spirits!

[dendron]

Master chief?

I think you use old rules! The Master chief is free. Or do you mean the ingredients?

Dendron

[MightyMightyMootstones]

well, your inquiry made me look into it, and the rules we were using for the league were slightly out of date. After going over them, the league decided to "update" before the first official game of the season. I REALLY apreciate you bringing that to my attention. Having the chef for free is going to become an unaccustomed luxory. Thanks.

[DrLoafingstone]

Hi there, I'm a novice bloodbowl player and I'm currently in a league in which i feel ever so slightly out of my depth. Granted I'm playing Halflings so i'm not expecting much, but in my first game (against Lizardmen) I got beaten 2-0 and the casualties were 6-1 to the lizardmen. My team is as follows:

15 halflings
1 Treeman
Apothecary
1 Assistant Coach
2 Cheerleaders
Treasury 70k
Fan Factor 5

I appreciate the cheerleaders and assistant coach were probably a waste of 30k but this is now set in stone as I've started the league. the only SPP's I got was for the MVP at the end! However I'm not looking for sympathy (The lizardmen went on to beat a chaos team 3-1 in its next game, so i'm counting myself quite lucky!). My next game is against a snotling team, so i'm looking for some advice against them! they won there last game against a team of Nurgles Rotters and aparantly they ignore tackle zones. So any help would be greatly appreciated.

P.S I read the halfling tactics post and I found it very helpful. However hiring star players costs double in this league so I didn't want to spend that much on 1 player for 1 game no matter how good he is!

[Pitch Dark]

I played hafling in the good ol´ogre days, and was fortunate to get Hail Mary Pass very quickly. My main tactic was to back up deep wich made the opponent (most often) follow up with all of his team and then, with good timing, use one or to flings to stunty past the opponent and making it harder for their mainthreats to retreat and the fling a hafling, preferably with diving catch or sprint or sure feet or +AG (as i also got after a while), hoping for the best. If he landed on his feet hed run like hell. Next turn i would continue with the rest of the team to make it hard for the opponent to retreat, and then the HMP pass.

This isnt a very good tactic, but when it works its anoying as hell for the opponent. And it worked suprisingly often. Having an ogre helped alot. In the swedish champinship in Linköping I won 2, tied 1 and lost 3 games. I wouldnt recomend it today though, and HMP might take forever to get anyway.

I think id probably go with sidestep now, and when the league matures, block. And then just try to stunty-blodge my way to the endzone. Break tackle on a treman is essential if you want to be able to do those TTM. Works well with stand firm, so its a very good skill to have in any case.

TTM is often forgotten by opponents, use it to reach those ballholders and get that 2 dice against you. After all, your a hafling, what ya got to loose?

[SolomonKane]

Well, being a newer player by your own admission, you probably shouldn't expect too much from your Halflings and just make sure you can laugh a lot no matter what happens to them. I'm going to rehash much of Galak's advice here because you should still be able to implement much of it yet.

First, you need to fix up your roster a bit. You should be able to buy your second tree after the next match. Do so. The less flings on the line the better they'll survive initially on defense.

After the tree, get more cheerleaders, to a total of 6. Why? Reroll denial. Flings survive by denying their opponents rerolls, which causes more turnovers (ideally) and saves your flings from extra blocks and abuse.

Along the lines of reroll denial, you should never be afraid to spend some cash on extra ingredients! You may have to wait a match or two to fully take advantage of this while you fix your roster, but once you do, start paying attention to how many rerolls the opponent is bringing to the match. Part of the prematch phase of any game is the ability to buy ingredients. Remember that you always get one chef roll for free, so if your opponent for example has three rerolls, spending 40k to gain two more chef rolls could very well make your opponent play the entire match without a reroll!

Why not purchase assistant coaches? Because your opponents will manufacture them quickly enough for you. Follow Galak's guidelines regarding when to retire a fling player, and before too long you should have as many coaches as cheerleaders to enhance your reroll denial.

Finally, there's the issue of actually playing your flings. I can't tell you much beyond this: be not afraid of risk! Take full advantage of your Stunty and Dodge to gang-block your opponent's players, and foul foul foul! You have more players than they do, and your players are probably going off anyway, so take advantage of your numbers to take out as many of the opponent's good players as you can.

On offense, flings tend to be a caging team, but the opponent has to respect your stunty. If the opponent spreads out, then consider knocking down his line of scrimmage players, build a cage, and threaten to just roll down the pitch, fouling players as you go. If the opponent plays a tight defense designed to stop a cage, then play a more fluid game where you try to take advantage of your stunty/dodge and Throw Teammate. Don't be afraid to go for it, either! Remember Throw Teammate and the fact you can score in one turn, if the dice work.

I believe Galak had a section for selecting player skills, so I won't touch that. I can't add anything there.

Last of all, good luck! You've got your work cut out for you, but hopefully you can steal a win or two and make everyone think twice about getting excited to play your flings...

[DrLoafingstone]

Thanks for the advice, I will put it to good use when I face a snotling team tonight!