Halfling Inducements

[Aliboon]

Hello all, I've taken the plunge and am playing a 'fling team, with pretty poor results thus far truth be told. But I was wondering whether other coaches out there prefer Puggy and Willow Rosebark or Bertha Bigfist or Deeproot if they've 300k to spend on players.

I'm up against a rookie chaos team with 390k to spend, so 100k is on the MC, no question but then Bertha, or the option of two star players. I think Puggy will be useful against a team with no block or tackle and Willow would just get hit on the LOS.

What do yous think?

[hancock.tom]

Can you cut anything from the team to get 400 against him? Fire a reroll, or cut a fling, cut an assistant coach or cheerleader then buy them back next game!

400 is the magic number because you get the master chef and deeproot. Master Chef is key because reroll denial is the great equalizer for halflings...

If you end up with exactly 390 and there is nothing you can do about it, take the chef and Bertha....

But your goal is to always take deeproot and the chef.

100-299 = Chef and either cards or star players
300-399 = Deeproot and cards or whatever you prefer
400+ Chef, deeproot, and anything else you can get.

Bloodweiser babes are probably the best buy for 50k, since you WILL be KOd.

[Aliboon]

I've only a TR of 600, no extra staff and i don't wanna go down to fewer than 10 flings. So Bertha it is, she's good at cage busting and as the opo has no block, they're gonna need POWs to get her down unless they wanna turn themselves over. That would be ok with me given she has MB, AV 9 and thick skull.

[Drool_bucket]

I just finished a game with my rookie Flings vs a rookie Necro team during our League off season, which is Open play to develop teams for a closed league... but anyways....

He was at 970 so I cut a Fling to get to 570. This hurt.

More Flings are really, really needed. I ended the game with the 3 Trees and 3 Flings. Needless to say I lost 4-1 in a tough match which saw my opponent roll up two Blitz! on the Kick Off chart to run the score up.

So, to answer your question, I would definitely not cut any players, and I would actually go for the Willow/Puggy root over Bertha for a few reason.

Its an extra player, plain and simple.
You still get a STR 4 player with Sidestep and Thick Skull, she can take a hit (a lot better than a Fling)
You get a ball carrier/blitzer type with Puggy. He should be relatively survivable against Chaos w/ no tackle and he has dodge.
Your Team speed picks up.

Now, I would prefer Deeproot against Chaos, but he's not an option IMO, so I would take the two Star Players and run with that over Bertha.

While I agree that Deeproot is the obvious choice for most opponents, against a particular few I might head elsewhere. For instance, I think I would have rathered Zara and another Fling against the Necro team today. He was dodging away from Deeproot with his Zombies. Yeah, they feel over a bunch, but he just keept away from Deeproot which was frustrating. Zara would offer some speed (not too mention +1 Stab, STR 4, Blodge) against a very fast Necro Team.

I have an upcoming match against Slann and I am considering Puggy and Willow or Puggy and a Wizard for the same type of reason. Puggy to ball handle because those Slann leap wherever they want and Willow to man the line, or the wizard to hopefully stop a TD and fry a Catcher if I'm lucky.

But in most instances I think Deeproot is the right way to go. It was so sweet knowing you have a STR 7 Block guy to blitz with every turn....

[Ullis]

I think Bertha will be better against a rookie chaos team than Puggy+Willow. With two trees and Bertha you have a lot to throw at the chaos side even before you commit any flings. I'd stay away from Willow. ST4 won't cut it against Chaos.

On the subject of Wizard, I've never tried it with flings (and my experience is limited to three games so far anyway), but I suspect that it won't do much against slann. They can keep the ball too far away from you so you won't be guaranteed to have a chance to grab it if you open a cage or hit a lone catcher with a lightning bolt. At least I'd much rather have Puggy over a wizard.

[Carnis]

I'd go puggy + willow hands down. Puggy is GREAT, giving you a free block blitz each turn (while bertha wastes a blitz every 6th turn, but does the other 5 with ST5(+)/MB(+)/no block(-)). Your cagebusting capacity is slightly worse, if your opponent carries with a CW, but if he carries with a beastman puggy is actually the better of the two with stunty. Your LOS is more secure with willow in it, and really, the extra player is needed here (especially, if he has a mino, a mino agaisnt flings HURTS - 6die + MB every turn).

Bertha is not bad either, though.

[Aliboon]

Thanks for the input guys. In the end, one of my trees got niggled by a rock before the game started and Bertha was pretty ineffective due to good positioning by my opo and crappy dice from me. She did managed to throw my player for my 1 TD though which Willow couldn't have managed.

With hindsight, I think the 2 star players would have been better, but the game started off about as badly as it could have done, so a 2-1 loss wasn't too bad.

[mattgslater]

Deeproot kicks behind. Willow is a good substitute, but that's all. Puggy is nice, but Deeproot first. MC is Job One.