Help with LRB6 Khemri Offense

[Smeborg]

It feels like with khemri all you can do is block a few people, hope for casualties and wait for mvps. I was hoping someone could tell me I was wrong about that, I like restarting teams, but this one is boring at the start.
...
With skills I could get block, mighty blow, guard, break tackle, fend, grab, etc... what can I do with no skills and 2 ag with this team?

Well, Khemri are meant to be one of the "handicapped" teams, i.e. challenging and more difficult to play than most. This seems to apply especially at the start. Some other teams are slow starters too, although perhaps Khemri are towards one end of this spectrum.

They look like a bash team to me, i.e. one that aspires to play the numbers game. With only 2 starting Block, no starting M-Blow, and relatively low AV, the quickest route to this aspiration would appear to combine a couple of early D-Player Skellies, M-Blow as first skill on the TGs, and a deep roster. I don't easily see how a full-roster Khemri team could be developed other than as a bash team designed to win on numbers. They are in good company - plenty of BB teams have this as their main hope. Perhaps this style of play does not appeal to you (I understand, I can tire of it myself)?

All the best.

[mattgslater]

One thing I really like about having 4x Tomb Guardian is that you can play what I call a "fence" formation (players one square apart, as in X - X)with great reliability against ST3. If you can use Skels to mark off ST4 or Guard players, then you can protect a broader cage-front, making it easier to break downfield by opening a hole on either side. With zones on his edges, a ST5 player with his front square exposed only gives up one assist, not enough for a ST3 player to blitz through on 1d.

If it's workin', and the MVPs are falling on the Guardians, you can pretty quickly get a couple with MB+SF, and then you start really cutting into the other side's options.

[nazgob]

matt, how would you guard the rear of your cage?

@smeborg: the trouble is that fouling is not a game plan. unlike blocking, you are actually more likely to lose a player than your opponent. even with a deep roster, you're unlikely to win the numbers game.

[plasmoid]

Khemri may grow into bash.
But starting khemri is control - they don't bash hard enough to be bash (yet).

If you manage to steal the ball on defense: Well done!
Regroup, sit tight and defend the ball. Scoring is not the main priority (as it is not very likely).

I don't know what you're doing wrong on offense. Where are your other players?
Your TGs should try to have 2 defenders in their TZs at all time - either forcing dodges or forcing even more players to be committed, allowing your skellies to dominate the rest of the pitch.

You shouldn't just "wait to get lucky" - you should be able to advance without getting cas'.
That being said, if you keep getting lots of blocks then it isn't luck when you eventually get KOs or a cas.
If your opponent blitzes your corner and puts a TZ on your carrier (repeatedly) then either run a much looser/larger screen-cage, or put a TG inside the cage to free your carrier.
You could also blitz off the defender and then move some.

If the opposing team keeps slowing you down by dodging back one square, then make a big block of TGs, move up and take your chances.

I usually move up to the LOS fairly quickly. Then the going gets tough, and I only advance a few (1-2) squares per turn. By turn 8 I hope to have 4-8 squares to the endzone, so my carrier makes a move for it.

Cheers
Martin

[plasmoid]

Hi Nazgob,
well he could defend the rear of his cage with his remaining 6 players(..?)

@smeborg: the trouble is that fouling is not a game plan. unlike blocking, you are actually more likely to lose a player than your opponent.

Not necessarily!
Check out "Fouling by numbers":
viewtopic.php?f=24&t=22760

Cheers
Martin

[nerdkingdan]

Its not that they break the cage in one turn, its that they blitz a corner, and are now on my ball carrier. To be clear, they mark the 4 corners and blitz one of them. Even If get the ball carrier clear with block, the cage doesn't move. With little or no block, I'm eventually gonna fall, before blocking free the cage. A few turns of marking the corners, and blitzing to be next to my ball carrier, is only 1 dice roll for them to put pressure on me. Me blocking free the ball carrier tends to require several dice rolls especially since its so easy to put multiple guys on the ball carrier in this fashion. This is a formula in which my opponent has the advantage.

Even if I manage to use my other six players to surround the cage all he has to do is stand in front of it 2 deep guys so I can't blitz and run through.

The only thing the cage does for me is open up the chance to hit him alot and hope for casualties, which I'm not getting.

I think plasmoid hit the nail on the head for me, I'm not a bashing style player. Which is exactly why I should have at least one team dedicated to it for variety of game play, and for the chalenge.

My favorite teams to play are dodge heavy, any Elf team, Goblins, Underworld, etc... Before I built these models I didn't have any bashing team painted. And what I owned I just used for one off games.

[plasmoid]

Hi Nerdkingdan,
well if you're a bash rookie, then you probably shouldn't start with the worst bashers of the bunch.
Dwarfs work quite a bit better.

But it sounds like you should switch to a looser formation, so they don't reach the core of the cage so easily.
Also, if you start with 11 each, try to get your TGs on 2 players each - that should give the rest of your players an advantage... And, if your opponent just dodges away from your TGs, then use that to advance the cage.

Finally, if they just dodge back, then you have to move up everything and gamble.
If it's an AG4 team, they'll keep dodging back.
Perhaps you'll have to resort to fouling!

[Ulthuan_Express]

I think plasmoid hit the nail on the head for me, I'm not a bashing style player. Which is exactly why I should have at least one team dedicated to it for variety of game play, and for the chalenge.

As plasmoid has followed up with, Khemri are the least-easy bash team to play. I'd recommend something like regular Undead for you to game with, as you've got the smackdown grind of the Mummies, Wights and even Zombies, while the Ghouls should keep you in the dodge-run style you're more accustomed to.

Then, when you've mastered how to grind with Undead, get your Khemri back out and see if the challenge is a little less frustrating and more achievable for you. Nothing's worse than being frustrated by the team you're playing simply because they can't do what you want them to with average luck on the dice rolls.

[TheDoctor]

Actually playing Ogres taught me a lot about securing the area around your cage, since Snotlings don't supply that -1 modifier for dodging into their tackle zones. So I started to lay a wide Snotling minefield around my cage which forces anyone who wants to get to my ball carrier to make A LOT of dodge rolls. Having 5 players forming your cage leaves (up to) 6 players that can be put around it, making it almost impossible for any opponent to get to your ball carrier.

I just finished my first season with Khemri and in 10 games I only admitted 4 TDs and those were the results of failed pickup rolls (Khemri seem to attract pouring rain ). Some Gutter Runner could then just sneak in, steal the ball and get away. But once I have the ball securely in my cage it's hard to knock it free again for any opponent - unless of course they induced a wizard. But that only makes it more important to surround your cage with a lot of tackle zones of yours so that even if you loose the ball it's still hard for your opponent to pick it up or even to lay tackle zones of his on the ball.

Now moving the cage downfield is another problem that is reduced by putting tackle zones around your cage, because that makes it harder to mark any of the 4 pillars of your cage, and even if they succeed, you'd still have adjacent players to knock the cage guys free again and move it further without having to dodge.
Still, a skilled opponent can slow your cage down. The only thing to avoid that is to outnumber the opposing team. As said before, you can't just rely on rolling casualties and KOs, so the first skill I put on my Blitz-Ra was Frenzy and that totally paid off. I was able to push some guys into the crowd and once you get the upper hand you get more assists on blocks, giving you more dice, increasing the chance of knock-downs and (eventually) resulting in more KOs and casualties. The Frenzy can also help on freeing up the cage (or ball carrier) if marked.

If that all works out you should be able to score a Touchdown every now and then and even win a couple of games. Khemri are not as bad as they seem at first, so don't give up on them.

[Pakulkan]

What I tried till now.

I played couple of matches with LRB6.0 Khemri, specially in resurrection.

The main change that I noted from 5.0 is that right now, this is not a bashing team. You have too much AV7 players and no Mighty Blow to hit first and not lose your skeletons and number superiority.

Right now, I found that Khemri Tomb Guardians can use Break Tackle better just by this extra MO point.

Before that, your improvement of the team will pass to get as many extra rerrolls and skeletons that you can. The four MO 6 players of the team are imprescindible.

With the rookie team, is useful to make "double cages" with not only one player standing alone in the corner of the cage. Try to get a mate in the tackle zone of the corner-box player. If your opponent try to stop your cage forcing you to dodge, you can help the advance by blocking.

Play Khemri 6.0 seems to me close to play dwarfs. You need to join your players all togheter to get advantadge blocking, and get some key players y key positions thinking in your next movement forward.

[mattgslater]

One good team for having fun with bash as a speed player is Orcs. They don't teach you the overall bash strategy because they throw the ball well, but on an immediate, tactical level they're a ton of fun, sort of a Cadillac ride.

[nerdkingdan]

I played Undead and Chaos Dwarf very heavily in 3rd. I learned to hate bashing as it was just to easy to win with back then, and I got bored. The people who made the rules noticed this and weakened bashing considerably.

Now in LRB6, bashing isn't nearly as easy as it was, and that is why I'm looking to start playing it again. I'm fairly good at any turn based strategy game, and playing the easiest thing never appeals to me. In the last league I played before this one I had the number 1 and number 2 records with the two teams I brought (underworld, dark elf). At the same time I've been playing the computer game a lot on single player, with agile teams I stomp the PC on hard mode to the point of ridiculousness. So I played Chaos for a campaign and I learned I completely suck at bashing and it goes against MANY years of habbits.

This makes me very excited about playing blood bowl more, as I found new aspect that is both challenging and new to me.
If Khemri isn't a bashing team as some of you have said, then its a different play style all together. I like that concept and keeping that in mind will lessen my frustration with it.

Also I will give your suggestions so far a try, I'll likely be playing this sunday and I'll let you all know how it goes, thanks for the advice so far.