Necro blog

[landrover]

So we started our new season here in Auckland. I was running a little late due to other commitments (see other threads about lack of time while planning/getting married vs Bloodbowl commitments).

My necro team, the Transmogrifieds, started the season some 2-4 games behind all the rest. FYI, there are 2 orc teams, one Pro elf, one chaos, one dwarf, one human, one lizzie, one nurgle and a zon team in our league.

Team roster at the start was:
0FF
2x werewolves
2x flesh golems
2x wights
6x zombies
2x RR

12 players in total, I was thinking I would pick up with either the wolves or the wights, and cage with the zombies/golems until I could sprint away.

First game against the zons: nothing doing. They caused 4 cas, I got none in return, they managed to get single dice blocks to stick every time, I was rerolling double skulls into, you guessed it, double skulls. Thanks Big N. Zombie number 6 failed his regen roll and suffered a case of terminal death. Winnings of 50K bought him back.

Only SPP was the MVP to Zombie #1.

Second game was against the minions of Nurgle. They had no beast at that point (and still don't), just the standard rotters, etc.
Moderate inducements gave me a chainsaw, a bribe and a card. He got 3 cas, I had none. Score was 3-0 to Nurgle.

MVP was the only points I got, randomly selected: zombie #1. He got block.

50k winnings helped ease the pain and bought another zombie.

Third game was against the elven horde. Massive inducements of a chainsaw, a zombie with Dirty Player and a couple of cards. Nothing doing. The elves ran circles around all my players. I got 5 cas and he got 1. It was on one of my wolves who was out for the next game and niggled to boot. MVP: again it went to, you got it, zombie #1.

Fourth game last night was against chaos. I am one dog down, he has 4 warriors and the rest are beastmen. No special skills, just a couple with block and a Mighty Blow.
Inducements were a chainsaw and a bribe. Managed to stall his drive from the kick-off and strip the ball towards the end of the first. The last play of the half saw my dog trying to dodge into the endzone for the lead: No dice. Tripped and fell, end of half.

Receiving, he kicked the ball pretty close to the LoS, so I immediately caged it and went to work with the chainsaw on his LoS players. Yay for the chainsaw, nothing doing. Plenty of stunned results, none of them off the pitch. Woot.

Managed to drive the ball up towards his endzone, but got blitzed by a chaos warrior. The ball went into the crowd, who enthusiastically threw it over to the other side of the pitch towards his free players.

From there he caged successfully and drove up the right hand side of the pitch for a turn 8 TD and the game. In the process he managed to kill the werewolf and MNG one of the flesh golems.

Hot damn

So my next game, I still have 11 players, not even a journeyman to throw at the line. I'm down to one wolf, one golem, two rerolls and I'm sorely tempted to hire a couple of zombies with DP and just foul every turn.

One of my wights has a normal upgrade, gave him dodge cos he's now the go-to ball carrier. One of my zombies (#1) has block. Those are the only two skills in the entire side.

20,000 winnings now puts me at a TR of 86, a treasury of 50K, I have 7 zombies, 2 wights, one dog, one golem, half a pack of cigarettes, darkness, sunglasses and 106 miles to go before Chicago.

Can somebody, anybody, please tell me what the hell I did to go so badly wrong with this team, and what the hell I should sacrifice, and to whom, in order to put it right?

Please?

Pretty please?

With cherries on top?

[bouf]

Well, some different inducements is all I can guess. You can't out think bad dice...

I'd get the Igor since you seem to suffer a bit.

The Saw and DP is good but it doesn't do much for SPPs... Just use the Saw to foul instead and put the DP cash towards a wizard or some such. Having said that NEVER FIREBALL!

Just save that lightning bolt for a TD attempt.

Mobility wins over power and Strength. I'd look at buying the Ghouls ASAP.

But without seeing how you play I can't offer much...

[tenwit]

You gave Dodge as a normal skill to a GS player? I think what you're doing wrong is not reading the LRB closely enough. Careful, you'll make me think that "jafa" is a fair acronym...

Ahem, sorry, back to the serious side of BB.

Hit less, run more, earn SPPs through TDs not CASs, earn skills. Necro is well known as a late-blooming team (like Chaos, Nurgle, and now Slann, through probably not as late-blooming as those three), so until you've earned your core skills, stay out of unnecessary fights.

And get ghouls.

[Cramy]

Yep, can't give dodge to a Wight on a normal roll. Sorry. Wights should get guard or tackle first on a normal roll (which one depends on your play style and who you are facing).

Starting Roster: Too late, but I'll still comment. Flesh Golems are good, but overpriced for what they provide IMO. If you start with them, they will skill-up faster and hence you should end-up with a better long term team. But short term, they are not that great on a starting lineup. Ghouls and Zombies are better investments.

I keep being amazed that people don't start with Ghouls. They start with dodge (often underrated skill I might add), can get block easily, and move 7. One of them gets Sure Hands next and he's your ball carrier. IMO the best player on that roster after the Wolves. Get them.

Inducements. Card are fun, but often not that useful. And if you are like me and my mates, forget to use them at the right time, or forget altogether. The Saw is fun, but not always that effective. Use the Saw to foul more than block IMO. A Bribe can keep him on pitch for a second drive (but never field the saw on defence against a fast team). But I would pick other inducements first.
An Igor is good to save the Wolves and Ghouls. I also like Extra Training. No ball handling skills, limited block, and medium agility means lots of rerolls burned. If you have 50k left, get a Babe. I like the Wizard as well.

So Igor, Extra Training, Wizard, Babe(s). The order could depend on your opponents (maybe no Igor against Elves, Wizard instead).

And score TDs with the Ghouls and Wolves. They are fast, so use your speed against bashy teams. Zombies keep the nastier players busy with TZs, while your Ghouls and Wolves run the ball. Wights provide support with Block and Guard. Until the Wolves get Block, use the wights for important blocks and blitzes. Make sure you get the Wights to score once in a while so that they skill-up as well. You want all 6 AG3 players to skill-up so that if you are missing one or two, the other ones can still do the job.

Against fast agile teams, I think that it will be more difficult. You are still very fast. Try to outbash them where it counts. Crowd surf some opponents if you can to get man advantage. Then keep control of the ball. Don't score too quickly, as they can score fairly easily on their drive. Keep zombies in TZs of his players. Force him to dodge away and fail AG rolls that way.

Hope this helps.

[PubBowler]

Cramy has all the bases covered but I'd go further and say that Golems are too expensive regardless of how long you're league is.

[Andromidius]

Golems are annoying. Thick Skull and Stand Firm makes them a pain to shift out of the way, and coupled with a couple of Zombies they can stop you from making a break for the End Zone quite easily.

~Andromidius

[PubBowler]

Agreed but as roadblocks go, a Golum is a very expensive one.

A zombie is nearly as good for 70k less and it's not like the Necro team is short of excellent low-mid priced inducement options.

[Marlow]

You would think having the same stats as BOB the Golems would be effective, but I would agree that they do seem to need a couple of skill ups before they become more effective than Zombies. Then you can really use there Str 4 and Str skill access.

[landrover]

Weeks 5 & 6.

Week 5: Humans. They have scored well against all teams thus far and are looking to continue their form. Four blitzers with a mix of skills: dodge, MB, tackle, one lino with ST4, one with Guard.

Not, it must be said, the necros' best game. Limited the loss to 0-2 somehow. Rolling at vital moments still sucks, and the fact that he had four rerolls to my two helped in the second and fourth quarters.

I was down to one werewolf and one flesh golem and managed to induce Hack N Slash and Willem Chaney, along with a couple of Dirty Tricks cards.

No dice. His 13 players managed to tear mine apart, with plenty of KOs and knockdowns. Some more unlucky rolling in the second half meant that the 50k winnings were very much not deserved.

But I'll take it anyway.

Game 6: Dwarves. The amazons continue to run scared of the dwarves, so I stepped into the breach to play them. Despite the return of the second golem, I was able to induce Hack and Willem again.

The dwarves won the toss and elected to receive. Might be worth reporting that I had 2,000 fans show up, and he had 18,000. Go figure. Despite kick-off return on his runner, he was held out in the first half, with a desperation last-turn throw from his side-stepping blitzer towards the runner in the endzone..... which was intercepted by a flesh golem!!!! All the evil stuff I said about him was totally untrue!! He's obviously made of the stuff of legends. Willem Chaney had been unable to send anyone crowd-surfing, but the combination of two wolves on the pitch and some very lucky dice meant that the dwarves were suffering at least two stunned every turn.

At last.

Second half saw Hack strut his stuff to the delight of the few necroid fans who had bothered to show up. Continuing the work of the first half, many a dwarf was visciously ankle-tapped by the chainsaw-wielding skelly. Unfortunately, their stout armour meant that they couldn't quite be gotten from the pitch, but hey, the ball was progressing down the pitch.

The two dwarven troll-slayers and Willem Chaney were engaged in their own private tussle vis-a-vis the frenziest person on the pitch, with the slayers finally winning that particular battle late in the second, managing to push ol' Willem into the crowd. They beat the snot out of him but he managed to regenerate after the fact and went straight into the reserves box.

The dwarves equalised with two turns to spare, after a single dice blitz on the wolf ball carrier freed up the pill. At which point the crowd rioted and the ref put the clock back one turn by mistake.

Back with the ball and three turns in hand, the necros pushed forward into stiff resistance. With two turns to go, the lone wolf sprinted forward into open space, leaving himself open for a single dice blitz by a slayer. Guess what? The slayer scored a pow. A direct hit on the wolf's delicate bits. Brung low by a foul dwarf, he coughed up the bladder and lay moaning on the ground. Prone, but not stunned. The dwarves crowded round the ball, hoping to prevent the undead from getting it in their last turn. After some assistance from a zombie, the surviving flesh golem blitzed the troll slayer responsible for felling the wolf and knocked him into the ball. After 5 bounces off various players, the dumb twit caught hold of the ball. Duurrrr. What an absolute @^GFF^#^)Q@#. Obviously the training hadn't taken root in whatever was left of his brain.

So there it was. So close to the endzone for the winnner, but so far away. A few desultory blocks later and the necros called it full-time and their first point of the league.

70,000 gps winnings too!!! Yay.

But now the dilemma: with a TR of 101 and 13 players, do I buy back the second wolf or continue to rely on inducement gold to get Willem Chaney to play every game?

Over to the audience...

[landrover]

You gave Dodge as a normal skill to a GS player? I think what you're doing wrong is not reading the LRB closely enough. Careful, you'll make me think that "jafa" is a fair acronym...

Easy up on the jafa allegations. The wight rolled double 3 and I was trying to think outside the box and use him as a ball-carrier in the absence of any ghouls or cash to buy them. I've only lived in Dorklund for 5 years or so and the full jafa effect certainly hasn't sunk in.

[tenwit]

Fair enough, apologies offered.. still, it's not a normal roll, it's a doubles.

BTW Dodging wights are nice. Nearly as nice as Mighty Blow werewolves

Re: inducement vs. buying a new werewolf. I'd say, once your 1st wolf has Block and maybe Dodge, get the 2nd one. Wolves are your stars, you need them as soon as you can protect them. With Block, the 1st guy can look after himself, so you can get the 2nd one and protect him with a zombie or wight. Two TDs later and you're in business.

[mattgslater]

Whenever it's roster player vs. inducements, the roster player always wins. Especially when it's your 2nd Were. Besides, when your linos are 40k and you can't have an Apothecary, 14 players is perfect.

Got a Ghoul? If not, got 140k? If so, get two... then you can fire a Zombie if you want.

[PubBowler]

I'd also buy the Were for your roster.

But I'd also not hire Wilhelm, it's Setekh for me.

[necromancer]

Wilhelm Chaney is a really good starplayer for 240K!!!

[PubBowler]

Wilhelm Chaney is a really good starplayer for 240K!!!

Yes but I prefer Setekh for 220k.