I'm currently playing Ogres in a league. You'll need a long season (we have 26 games +playoffs) and lot's of patience to play them. But i still hope in the end they will be a decent if not awesome team.
http://bblh.chleja.de/team_view.php?team_id=94
After 7 games i have won 2 and lost 5. Wins were in the first game against Necros (he had an odd start lineup and very bad luck) and a bit later vs. Vampires (CAS, CAS, CAS). Due to bad luck with 2 dead gobbos and poor winnings rolls i played most of the the first 6 games outnumbered and got wiped off the pitch completely (!) once against Chaos Dwarfs.
My strategy is to spend cash (after the inevitable Apo) on Ogres ONLY until i have 8. This is the number is feel comfortable with and a number that can reduce the danger for the gobbos. After that i'll replace dead gobbos and then spend cash on RRs only until i have reached 6
(then the league will be over most likely). Also in the beginning i do not care about winning that much as all teams will get a chance to play in the playoffs. My priortity is to get skills to the Ogres and keep TR reasonable. Thus my Gobbos have a strict ball handling permit unless it's a situation where an Ogre could not possibly score, so the Gobbos have to be tossed (1-turn, 2-turn mostly). Most Ogres are getting Break Tackle (over Guard) first to gain some mobility. Currently i've rolled 6 skill rolls with 2 doubles (Surehands and Block) and an AG+ (blessing!) for the Ogres.
I feel the team is slowy getting competitive. In my last game against Chaos i had 8 Ogres due to "that boy's got talent" and it was a pretty close game that i lost due to failing 2 bonehead rolls in one turn, followed by a double skull at the wrong time. The AG3 Ogre is truely awesome, he made 10 SPP without MVP in one game against the Vampires (2 TD, 1 CAS, 1 INT). I also have a grand-slam Ogre (1 in each stat category) and the team is leading the league in Interceptions
Key to playing Ogres is a couple of simple things in my opinion:
- low risk plays (save your precious RRs)
- positioning: 1 Ogre tied up by a Zombie is bad, 1 Ogre tieing up 2 Longbeards good.
- 3 dice blocks (gets more pows and less skulls, obviously)
- take your time, always prepare for failure. keep the gobbos around to replace actions missed due to BH. Try important moves as early as possible in your turn, so you can react to players losing their TZs.
- Doing nothing with an Ogre is a good option because it's guaranteed he keeps his TZ.
- Always try to move prone and BH Ogres up first to regain TZs.
- Although several MB players looks dangerous, in the beginning your team (at least mine) is not a grinding team. The reason is that the gobbos drop out a lot easier than most other players in the game and your Ogres lose a lot of actions due to BH. So try to find a way to score against 11 players and do not wait for the advantage in numbers.
- If all fails, do crazy stuff with the gobbos
...)
. Painted teams have more luck.(And they're more fun to play with too)
