Norse remain tier1 at high TV / vs AV9

[Carnis]

After writing a guide to norse to martin's site I've played some 33 more matches with my norse, this time in FUMBBL. Also I've been following a fellow coach Emeyin's Norse team Fight Gone Bad, who has also had great success. At the time of writing of my playbook I was in the camp, which claimed norse dominate the TVrange at 1000-1400, become lower tier1 at TV1400-1700 and get smashed at TV1700-2000.

I have since then changed my opinion. I think norse are competetive against AV9 teams at higher TV, even as high as TV1900's, provided the teams are similar in TV. I haven't got enough experience at even higher TVs, but I suspect this team will remain competetive there as well.

There's a bunch of stuff working in favour of viable higher TV norse teams. For one, norse expect to lose players, hence a good norse team should have no irreplaceable key players.

Also here's some minor stuff I've changed my mind since writing that playbook:
Reckless use of MB/PO is fine early and late in a half, but never reroll KOs if the game isnt 100% won, don't reroll armor with PO, if the opponents ballcarrier is near/tacklezone could be used for something useful or you will get gangfouled next turn. Foul instead.
Fend is GREAT.
Both runners are worth buying to be used for tagging frenzy/MB/PO (with dodge/fend).
Piling on is mostly a poor pick for snow trolls (not because it'd be ineffective, but because the norse team bashes strong enough without it and losing the ST is BIG), take multiblock instead if you want to maximize Claw usage.

Here's some stuff that'll win games at high TV with norse:
Against low # of players teams, against ALL basher teams - always receive. I'm normally a kicker, because winning the def round will mean you can spam TDs on offence. And winning defence is easier with a full squad.

3 Fend on the LOS is big, the opponent's best round to pile on is the first one. Expect the linemen to die nonetheless.

Foul. Get 2 dirty players, 1 for each half (my team has one, but the other died, and I was playing <16 players earlier so didnt have two).

The receiving half you will dominate more often than not by taking the three MB/PO or MB/Claw blocks from the LOS, taking a MB/PO blitz and fouling first turn (if done right, it's 4-8 armor rolls, 1 gangfoul with DP - usually enough to get rid of 1-2 players).

For the kicking half I use two formations. One is against bashers

Code: Select all

-- -- -- --|-- -- Fe Fe Fe -- --|-- -- -- --
-- -- -- --|-- -- -- -- -- -- --|-- -- -- --
-- -- -- --|Ru -- -- Bl -- -- Bl|-- -- -- --
-- -- -- --|-- Uf Gu St Dp Uf --|-- -- -- --
Fend/no skill linemen = Fe
Runner = Blodge/Fend
Bl = non-doubles blitzers or Blodge blitzers
Uf = Ulfs
Gu = Guard lino
St = Troll
Dp = dirty player

The corners are the most likely toget blitzed, so having blodge there with fend if possible is very nice!

Against flair I use standard ziggurat 2 squares back. There I try to protect my star ulf & my rarest lineman (in my team +ST/Tackle/Guard/+AV).

Your toughest matchups will be orcs, chaos dwarves & dwarves. They are all teams that cannot lose their positionals (Bulls, Blitzers, Runner/Trollslayers). Foul out the positionals in your offence half and you should at *least* draw.

[plasmoid]

If you want to add this to your playbook, please do

[Oxynot]

Good to get an update on this. And also I'm happy and a little puzzled to see that formation, since it has been the same I've been using with my norse. Though the three players protecting the back row have been ulfwereners and a kick lineman.

Maybe I'll take my norse out for a spin in a league for a change.

[narg]

Great to have an update on your guide!

I have since then changed my opinion. I think norse are competetive against AV9 teams at higher TV, even as high as TV1900's, provided the teams are similar in TV. I haven't got enough experience at even higher TVs, but I suspect this team will remain competetive there as well.

I disagree with that. I think that at high TV the Norse might be the most fearsome opponents of low AV teams and can completely wipe them out, with 8+ casualties in the game. However against high AV teams like orcs, chaos, dwarves or chaos dwarves it'll be an uphill battle. I have a very good track record (16/7/5) with my Norse but I've systematically lost all my games against mass guard / mighty blow teams: mass guard gets your Frenzy to backfire badly; mighty blow is painful on an AV7 team that doesn't have a lot of Dodge; and as they have high AV the mighty blow / piling on is much less effective. In my last game against chaos dwarves I took four casualties and I didn't even get a single SPP in the whole game (apart from the MVP).

For the kicking half I use two formations. One is against bashers

Code: Select all

-- -- -- --|-- -- Fe Fe Fe -- --|-- -- -- --
-- -- -- --|-- -- -- -- -- -- --|-- -- -- --
-- -- -- --|-- -- -- -- -- -- --|-- -- -- --
-- -- -- --|Ru -- -- Bl -- -- Bl|-- -- -- --
-- -- -- --|-- Uf Gu St Dp Uf --|-- -- -- --
Fend/no skill linemen = Fe
Runner = Blodge/Fend
Bl = non-doubles blitzers or Blodge blitzers
Uf = Ulfs
Gu = Guard lino
St = Troll
Dp = dirty player

The corners are the most likely toget blitzed, so having blodge there with fend if possible is very nice!

What is the rationale of this formation? You just plan to let the opponent score without defending? It doesn't allow you to take advantage of a Blitz or of a bad turnover on the opponent's part.

[Carnis]

I have since then changed my opinion. I think norse are competetive against AV9 teams at higher TV, even as high as TV1900's, provided the teams are similar in TV. I haven't got enough experience at even higher TVs, but I suspect this team will remain competetive there as well.

I disagree with that. I think that at high TV the Norse might be the most fearsome opponents of low AV teams and can completely wipe them out, with 8+ casualties in the game. However against high AV teams like orcs, chaos, dwarves or chaos dwarves it'll be an uphill battle. I have a very good track record (16/7/5) with my Norse but I've systematically lost all my games against mass guard / mighty blow teams: mass guard gets your Frenzy to backfire badly; mighty blow is painful on an AV7 team that doesn't have a lot of Dodge; and as they have high AV the mighty blow / piling on is much less effective. In my last game against chaos dwarves I took four casualties and I didn't even get a single SPP in the whole game (apart from the MVP).

The definition of tier1 is winning 45-55% of your games. Not 85% or 15%, just 45-55%. Should be easily achievable. Checking your team stats you've lost twice to a savage orc team (a houseruled team), once to amazons and once to chaos dwarves and once to skaven. Not much of a trend, just one bad game.

My team's stats against higher AV bash teams are:
W-D-L
vs Chaos 6-0-0
vs Orc 1-0-1
vs Nurgle 2-0-0
vs Dwarf 1-0-0 .. interestingly there are almost 0 Dwarves in FUMBBL/FFB div.
vs Chaos Dwarf 0-2-1 (+1 would be win that turned into loss due to a gamefreezing bug & restart.. client in testing atm)
vs Chaos Pact 4-2-0 .. interestingly there are 1000's of chaos PACT teams in FUMBBL/FFB div.

So like you say, orc, dwarf, chaos dwarf are easily the toughest matchups .

And about frenzy, well I've never had issues with frenzy backfiring. I plan my blocks with frenzy in mind. In my last game a 2 die frenzy turned into a 1die double skull with a little bad luck, but its not very common. If the 2nd block is bad I either dont take the block or take the bothdown to avoid pushing my opponent or block with a non-frenzy player if possible.

Your team has 0 Dirty Players, that's a big issue. I try to gangfoul every game at start of each half. The up to 58% chance to get a (key?) player out for an up to 31% chance of ejection is too good a deal to pass out totally on.

Your team has 13 players, which is fine on an AV9 team. With an AV7 team against higher TV/AV bashers you need all 16 imo. Expect to lose 5 on the first half. Having <11 players for the 2nd half will cause a snowball effect and you will take even more CAS than you would if you had brought reserves. It'll hurt more too, as you can't protect your high SPP stars with expendable linemen.

I do about 80% of my blitzing with my ulfwereners, the ST4 also helps a lot with guard & pushes. My ulfs always include a break tackle in their build at some point.. Yours seemed more like stable guard blockers, which will be stuck more vs orc/dwarf blockers & guard spam.

For the kicking half I use two formations. One is against bashers

Code: Select all

-- -- -- --|-- -- Fe Fe Fe -- --|-- -- -- --
-- -- -- --|-- -- -- -- -- -- --|-- -- -- --
-- -- -- --|Ru -- -- Bl -- -- Bl|-- -- -- --
-- -- -- --|-- Uf Gu St Dp Uf --|-- -- -- --
Fend/no skill linemen = Fe
Runner = Blodge/Fend
Bl = non-doubles blitzers or Blodge blitzers
Uf = Ulfs
Gu = Guard lino
St = Troll
Dp = dirty player

The corners are the most likely to get blitzed, so having blodge there with fend if possible is very nice!

What is the rationale of this formation? You just plan to let the opponent score without defending? It doesn't allow you to take advantage of a Blitz or of a bad turnover on the opponent's part.

The rationale is to avoid losing an important player on the first turn to a gangfoul or MB/PO/Claw blitz. The bashteams will not be fast enough to outrun your 5 players that are "hiding". After the first turn your 5 players commit to either a MB/claw blitz +gangfoul, or a MB/PO blitz + gangfoul. After T1 the opponent won't be able to run past you. The first turn is for surviving. Also I disagree about not being able to use blitz, I have 8 players available to go blitzing if I happen to roll a 10 on the Kickoff.

[Smeborg]

Carnis - thanks for this post. It's always good to hear the fruits of experience.

"3 Fend on the LOS is big, the opponent's best round to pile on is the first one." I agree, and as an opponent, I always find 3 Block/Fend players on the LoS to be a pain (and that's without P-On!). But it cuts both ways. If their opponent has 3 Fends on the LoS, the Norse also won't get to use P-On on their first turn of offense.

With Nurgle, IIRC, I have always beaten Norse in tourneys, but have a more difficult time in leagues. This suggests that the Norse roster in leagues is more powerful, either from a fuller complement of positional players, or from more acquired (and multiple) skills. It suggests, perhaps, that Norse get better as they progress in a league (in corroboration of your argument).

While winning on numbers is often a good and "correct" way to win for any team when the opportunity presents, I don't believe it is a universal style of play which will work against all teams nor in all situations. I don't agree that Norse strategy and tactics should be based solely on winning the numbers game, especially since they will find themselves in the minority quite often due to their AV7. I'm a bit surprised therefore to see you recommend a complete abdication of space when defending against bash teams. I have never played BB in this way, and would expect to get beaten more often than not if I did so (but then I am not a Norse coach currently). On the other hand, I note that your experience is based on FUMBBL. I am not a FUMBBLer, but I note that bash and CAS seem to be everything there. A racially balanced tabletop league does not seem to operate in this way, in my experience of 5th and 6th editions.

All the best.

[Carnis]

On the other hand, I note that your experience is based on FUMBBL. I am not a FUMBBLer, but I note that bash and CAS seem to be everything there. A racially balanced tabletop league does not seem to operate in this way, in my experience of 5th and 6th editions.

All the best.

Cas & bash don't matter for Elves, Skaven, Vamps or other pansies!

But if you strip down the norse from bashing, all they have is humans with -1 armor and -2 max movement, so I dont think there's another very effective way to go about it . I also agree they take a lot of punishment and are harder to manage at high TV than some other teams (like orcs), but easily Tier 1 material. Not sure if they could win a major due to recurrent injuries on AV7, but I suspect even that could happen with the new (to FUMBBL) ruleset..

And yes, FUMBBLers are very good at managing gangfouls (due largely to the very long tradition of playing LRB4 with Eye + the old +2 DP), that's why protecting your key players is more important than protecting your side of the pitch on the first turn. The first turn is also the best turn to get a gangfoul in with minimal actions wasted.

[sunnyside]

Lets talk about the formation a bit.

I agree with playing Norse strong in the middle. It makes for fewer blitz options, and tempts the bash team to drive down a sideline. With Norse speed supported by all that frenzy, fend and blodge/sidestep I find that they soon are in deep trouble when they try that.

They often know that as well and don't try, but that just means you aren't giving up anything for the defensive gains.

I'm curious about setting up that deep though. I usually try and be closer to the linemen, the idea being to prevent players from running behind linemen which aids in gangfouling and I think makes things harder for you on subsequent turns (without an opponent behind them the linemen often are blocked free on a subsequent turn).

I also like being a bit closer to the line in order to exploit blitzes, deep kicks, failed pickups and things like that.

Are you avoiding grab related schenanigans or just think you gain a positional advantage that way and would be more than happy to risk a lineman for a foul?

Are you games saved for viewing? The are on mbbl, but I know know about your system. How about seeing what their teams looked like when they played you? I wonder if Pact and Chaos actually build themselves poorly for Norse by clawspamming.

I still don't see why Norse should do well against Orc, dwarves and CDs. Except for the sidestepping runners, Orcs/Dwarves/CDs can bring the same skill selection to the table, particularily the CDs.

Do you think it's possible you're just outcoaching them? Either on the field or in skill selections, for example if they think for some reason that fend belongs on wussy teams and neglect it.

Actually wait, you're only 2-2-2 against those guys, but are 12-2-0 against the other teams you listed. Sounds suspiciously like you're a higher teir than the coaches you're playing so you can eeek out a 50% win rate when your team is outmatched.

[Carnis]

Lets talk about the formation a bit.

I agree with playing Norse strong in the middle. It makes for fewer blitz options, and tempts the bash team to drive down a sideline. With Norse speed supported by all that frenzy, fend and blodge/sidestep I find that they soon are in deep trouble when they try that.

Are you avoiding grab related schenanigans or just think you gain a positional advantage that way and would be more than happy to risk a lineman for a foul?

There's an extra line in that diagram, should be 2 squares back to avoid a quicksnap accident ;p. Dunno where it came from. Sometimes I set up like that vs Werewolves with MB/PO. I'll edit it to avoid further confusion.

Are you games saved for viewing? The are on mbbl, but I know know about your system. How about seeing what their teams looked like when they played you? I wonder if Pact and Chaos actually build themselves poorly for Norse by clawspamming.

Do you think it's possible you're just outcoaching them? Either on the field or in skill selections, for example if they think for some reason that fend belongs on wussy teams and neglect it.

Yea, they are available, but older games show random replays instead of the intended teams. No idea why, but the newest should work, like this - http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=match ... id=3071513 . Clicking the view replay link should install the viewer/client and show the replay. If you want to watch other games, go to the team in question, click view matches, and click the small green icon that says D or R before the team, and the summary page shows. The replay link is on the summary page (like the link I just posted).

I'm sure there's a lot of coaching skill issues. But its not just that. The other big norse team in fumbbl I've been following, Emeyin's norse has been using a bashy-troll + gang DP foul strategy and beaten said teams too.

Chaos dwarves: 3-2-0
Orcs: 1-0-0
Dwarves: 1-0-0

So I dont think it's anything unique to my team. A good norse coach will regularily give chaos dwarves/dwarves/orcs a run for their money. Even one Claw/MB/Frenzy will be a real problem for a dwarf coach, who is RELYING on gaining a numbers advantage.

[sunnyside]

Do you think, as I've been suspecting, that the troll is key? While in tournies Norse have a high lose rate vs Undead and Khemri, I think at this TV level the AV9 teams are the biggest problem, and claw could be the solution (along with rolling doubles on the troll).

It seems a full bench is also involved. On that note do you feel you lack when playing underdog games? I like leaving one slot open for a star player, and have had a fair bit of luck with the cheap boomer against bash teams.

Still, I could see just having enough raw bench that you can suck up a CAS every other turn and still put 11 on the field for the last drive.

Also one other tactical question. When you're paying defence in the half they recieve (particularily if it's the first half of the game), do you really fight for the ball, or try and provoke them into forming up a cage with five of their players...and than only continue to threaten it with a player or two while ganging up on their other six players. They idea being to make them choose between scoring quickly and giving you the chance at equalizing or watching their teammaktes break under claw and gangfouls and than possibly having to deal with being swarmed on turns seven and eight.

Or are you always going for the ball.

[Purplegoo]

Just a note - I think drawing conclusions from games played in a beta test division on FUMBBL is dangerous. It's currently an area where people are looking for bugs, trying new things out, and generally playing sub-optimally in a variety of ways. I've played forty odd games there myself, and it certainly lacks the cut-throat competitive nature that games (and some notable coaches) in 'live' divisions have.

Like all leagues or groups of players, FUMBBL will develop a LRB6 route of least resistance considered optimal for each team, but only when the division becomes official and competitive. Until then, any data gathered will be anecdotal rather than quantitative. I would imagine, for example, the minute it 'counts' - those Dwarves you're missing will come out of the woodwork pretty rapidly. After all; what's the point in running boring old Dorfs in a division where winning and losing doesn't matter? That's no fun! And in the same way - Pact are new and thus interesting!

I'm not saying that doing what you're doing over there isn't valuable (I certainly have made some progress on development decisions based on playing during the test phase; ironically (in most cases) deciding that changing player development in the new rules is folly, as it goes), but I think presented findings at the minute deserve an asterisk. Give it until six months after the client goes official and everyone is fully in the swing; then we'll see how it goes.

As a post script - I don't really have anything to add on Norse themselves, since they aren't something I've ever liked or got on with. I would say that, on paper, I'd love to draw them with a tier one team at high TV, but I'll hold final judgement until it actually happens competitively.

[narg]

The definition of tier1 is winning 45-55% of your games. Not 85% or 15%, just 45-55%. Should be easily achievable. Checking your team stats you've lost twice to a savage orc team (a houseruled team), once to amazons and once to chaos dwarves and once to skaven. Not much of a trend, just one bad game.

True, the difference being that when I lose against low AV teams I feel like it was really bad luck whereas when I lose against high AV teams I usually feel like my team was helpless from start to finish.

And about frenzy, well I've never had issues with frenzy backfiring.

I find that surprising. I mean just on the first turn when you're receiving and the opponent's LOS looks like that with four ST4 players with guard:
---X---
--XXX--
How can you not get the frenzy to backfire? You just don't block them? The follow-up block is bound to backfire, unless you throw blocks with linemen without frenzy instead of with your ST-access players, which is clearly suboptimal. I'm not saying that I get a turnover every time but you end up doing a lot of risky 1d blocks and then the opponent can throw a lot of 2d blocks at your out-positioned players during his turn.
Likewise, when you try to open a cage against mass guard the second block is bound to backfire.

[Greyhound]

it costs a skill, but if you really have issue with Frenzy, Multiblock allows you to not follow after the block.
But you give +2ST to your opponent, so it's best to have dauntless, here you go two skill wasted.

I don't have frenzy risky blocks very often but it does happen once in a while. Admittedly Norse have 5 frenzy whereas I usually have one or two.

[Carnis]

---X---
--XXX--

Err? Block sideways, like you would anyway?

---XZ--
--XXX--
-321GGL

1 blocks first towards the right, then 1 blocks towards the right, then 3 etc.. Possibly replace #3 with a non-frenzy player, or your snowtroll to go ST5 to avoid the problem.. If you're blocking with S3, then you have to put an extra man with guard their side of the pitch at Z, so it's easier to use the snowtroll or the ulfsies here. But certainly not an issue unless they also come with sidestep..

*

Pgoo you're ofc right about the mentality of R vs FFB, but FFB is still a very competetive environment with very few of those "just the heck of it" games, although with a lot of "just the heck of it" teams (80% of which are pact). But I'm not making a very dramatic argument, with Claw now ineffective against AV7, RSC gone, DP less deadly but more common, and the improvements on the snow troll & the 2 zerkers & the runners norse can imo play reasonably competetive BB at TV2000's. It'll never be as universally murderous as chaos, or as agile as elves, but they can fit their own niche in the 45-55% win% teams.

The example teams are ~70% winrate, but drawing the conclusion the same teams could do 45% in a cutthroat environment is not far fetched imo. If it turns out to be 45%, they'd still be tier 1. Also I reckon most of the stuff made out at FFB/fumbbl holds water just as well as open-league TT stuff , the # of games compensates a fair bit. Are you the underdog vs orcs even then, sure? Can we win/draw it, yes we can! Also, new norse with gangfouls & snow troll brings many of the AV9 teams out of their comfort zone of "I bash 3 of your guys out for 0 lost myself, to I bash 4 of your guys for 3 of mine lost"..

*

The snowtroll is big, I dont think there are many teams who it's not strong against (but protect it fiercely). But also fouling, which you can do more liberally now with the Eye gone.

*

Caging. I dont really see it that much of a problem if you're playing the numbers game, just get rid of his player # advantage and don't let the cage outrun you while doing that. If he is properly caging, just dont engage the cage early in the half and play a 11 vs 5 game instead. Not guaranteeing you'll win but a 50% winrate is *easy* achievable. Especially if you got to receive first half & took out a few runnery/lower AV players (Trollslayers, runners, orc throwers, gobbos, beastmen, hobgoblins, minotaurs).

If he has MB-less cage corners, you can stall a few turns by just giving him freehits on your Fend linemen.. I'd not advice it early in the half, though.

[Carnis]

it costs a skill, but if you really have issue with Frenzy, Multiblock allows you to not follow after the block.
But you give +2ST to your opponent, so it's best to have dauntless, here you go two skill wasted.

I don't have frenzy risky blocks very often but it does happen once in a while. Admittedly Norse have 5 frenzy whereas I usually have one or two.

That's a great idea with a Block snowtroll, to spread the MB/Claw love. I'm planning to test that later on.