all krox/saurii starting lizards - insane, or genius?

[Marlow]

In other words, it's a great way to burn a reroll and end a drive, but I surely wouldn't count on it for anything more, even occasionally.

If you give a Saurus PRO he will have a 44% chance to pick up the ball and will not waste Team Rerolls. He can then use it for Dodge, Block and other rerolls as he heads down the pitch to score. I would propably only give it to one or two of them, but I think it will help.

[Ullis]

If you give a Saurus PRO he will have a 44% chance to pick up the ball and will not waste Team Rerolls. He can then use it for Dodge, Block and other rerolls as he heads down the pitch to score.

With the Pro skill the odds of success are 44,5%. Those are really bad odds. If the kick is good and you have a solid frontline, you can probably attempt one pick-up with a Pro Saurus and if (or when) it fails, you have to use a Skink on the next turn.

And once the Saurus gets the ball, he surely won't be dodging anywhere unless really desperate as a fail means a turnover and a loose ball. Moreover, when the skulls turn up, you're likely to use a reroll unless you're out of those as again, failure means a turnover and a loose ball. Really, when you're at it, the Pro can be used on those passing rolls as well

[Marlow]

With the Pro skill the odds of success are 44,5%. Those are really bad odds.

However it is better than the 33% Chance they have with no reroll, and not much worse than 55% they have with a Team Reroll. If someone is determined to score with Saurus I think it is the way to go!

[DoubleSkulls]

With the Pro skill the odds of success are 44,5%. Those are really bad odds.

However it is better than the 33% Chance they have with no reroll, and not much worse than 55% they have with a Team Reroll. If someone is determined to score with Saurus I think it is the way to go!

Only if you are really determined to score with one particular Saurus, or are you saying that all Saurus should take Pro as the first skill?

Given how slowly Saurus skill up I suspect that a faster technique is just to give them all Mighty Blow first since that should roughly double the number of SPPs from casualties. Then other, unskilled, Saurus can be the ones trying to run the ball.

[Marlow]

Only if you are really determined to score with one particular Saurus, or are you saying that all Saurus should take Pro as the first skill?

I did say two at most, and definatly after Block. However on the Premise of the Thread, while Pro is not the best skill, it is still useful to them when not trying to score. Whereas Sure Hands is only useful if you are making a dedicated Saurii Ball Carrier.

[Joemanji]

I can't see that this tactic is going to earn you more SPPs than simply using skinks and trying to win all your games. In a run of say 10 games, your Saurus will have more blocks if you win all those games than if you lose them all. If you really want to maximise MVPs on the Saurus then just keep the minimum 4 skinks required for an 11 man roster. Over those ten games you will get on average over 6 MVPs on your Saurus/Krox anyway. Skilled skinks aren't great, but any doubles roll or stat increase suddenly makes them ridiculous, as Jural mentioned. I had a Lizzie team with an AG + block skink and a MA10 + sprint skink once. Almost unstoppable.

[SillySod]

In other words, it's a great way to burn a reroll and end a drive, but I surely wouldn't count on it for anything more, even occasionally.

If you give a Saurus PRO he will have a 44% chance to pick up the ball and will not waste Team Rerolls. He can then use it for Dodge, Block and other rerolls as he heads down the pitch to score. I would propably only give it to one or two of them, but I think it will help.

Pro is a terrible terrible skill. If you want a saurus to ball handle then they need surehands which is better than pro for picking the ball up and provides you some measure of defence against strip ballers (who are annoying because they counter your St4). Of course pro has some utility outside of ballhandling but really its effects are marginal, especially if it is holding the ball you dont want to be using pro on the blocks when you could be using team re-rolls.

[oryxwild]

As a side note, I probably won't pursue this strategy - it works better in a place like fumbbl where I can choose my opponents, especially as fouling is so deadly to a 7man team.

Joemanji, while you are possibly correct, in my experience many opponents spend enough time chasing the ball that you will frequently get lots and lots of blocks. This would also be only 9vs11, one of those 9 either a chainsaw or another skink with a skill, so ideally I'd either have two reliable scorers or a reliable scorer and a cas machine (or so I'd hope).

This strategy HAS worked for me in fumbbl - all of my saurii have at least two advances, and the spp gain on saurii has decreased dramatically since I bought skinks again.

[Storch]

Skilled skinks aren't great, but any doubles roll or stat increase suddenly makes them ridiculous, as Jural mentioned. I had a Lizzie team with an AG + block skink and a MA10 + sprint skink once. Almost unstoppable.

I had a run of incredible luck rolling for my lizzies and ended up with a team with the following super skinks:

AG5, Block, Sure Hands (Terrific for grabbing the ball once it's loose)
AG+, ST+, Block, Sure Hands
ST+, Side Step, Diving Tackle
Side Step, Diving Tackle, Block, Sprint, Guard

The first two were usually the ball carriers (for obvious reasons) and the second two were mostly free safeties to engage anyone who broke through the line. People don't expect a skink to get 2 dice blocks against ST3 players and catchers tend to not have block.

[Marcus]

[quote="oryxwild"
I'm not worried about losing.[/quote]

Does not compute. Why play?

[Marlow]

Pro is a terrible terrible skill. If you want a saurus to ball handle then they need surehands which is better than pro

However you are not wanting a dedicated Saurii Ball Handler.

The OP said "I plan to rehire skinks once I have saurii with at least two skills each". Pro is a way of helping Saurii score without being a wasted skill once you go back to the more traditional method of playing.

I'm not worried about losing.

Does not compute. Why play?

For the fun of it! After all that is why lots of people play Goblins

[oryxwild]

In my [limited] experience with lizardmen, it's not too hard to win games at low tr, but as you get to mid and high tr [in lrb4], it's very difficult to do anything without skilled saurii. Therefore, I'd rather lose an entire season if necessary in order to skill them up, than have a high tv team with shit saurii... We'll see what happens, I'm going to have a go at the infamous "hand-off to saurii" tactics.

[SomeGuy]

Is the idea here that you played this in LRB4, and are going to try it out in LRB5?

If so, it's not necessarily bad. The league champ in the inaugural season of our office league started with 6 Sauri and Kroxigor. I tmay not work as well in a league with already-established teams, but if you all start at 1,000,000, it can certainly work.

[Ullis]

The league champ in the inaugural season of our office league started with 6 Sauri and Kroxigor.

But don't you have to buy 11 players to start a team? Can't remember the costs, but that doesn't add to too many rerolls does it seeing as you have to pay for the 5 skinks too?

[SomeGuy]

But don't you have to buy 11 players to start a team? Can't remember the costs, but that doesn't add to too many rerolls does it seeing as you have to pay for the 5 skinks too?

Yep. He was a newb, and didn't get many re-rolls. But he also managed to go undefeated (a few ties, though) all season, and two games into this season remains so. Once his team started developing, it really took off, and he's got more than enough re-rolls now. Not to mention, the one from being the current holder of the Bloodweiser Cup. I almos beat him last season when he went up against my Skaven- he had lost a few players to MNGs the week before. Then a Blitz result allowed him to catch his own kickoff, and I went from either tied or leading by a point to being either tied or down by a point, and wasn't quite able to get that last turn TD and tie it up.