Norse remain tier1 at high TV / vs AV9

[narg]

Err? Block sideways, like you would anyway?

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

Well two issues with that: getting Z there isn't necessarily easy and it mobilizes seven players, which prevents you from building an early cage and doing a blitz. Usually I don't mobilize that many players on the LOS and I throw blocks with a couple of non-frenzy players instead, I guess my playing style is to put less emphasis on blocks and more on scoring tds; I like to send one or two runners down the pitch as well and as you're limited to 11 players you have to make choices. When you don't play against mass guard you can have your cake and eat it too as you can destroy the opponent's LOS, do a blitz, build a cage AND send a couple of runners down the pitch.
Next time I play VS mass guard I'll have to try to use this set-up to see how it goes.

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.

Well here the disagreement comes from a different definition of "Tier 1"; I don't think the Norse have what it takes to win a major cup / league, but a 45% win rate even at high TV is of course easily achievable.

it costs a skill, but if you really have issue with Frenzy, Multiblock allows you to not follow after the block.

Good idea!
Never tried, as Carnis says it's better to have block first and I never got Block on a snow troll...

[Carnis]

Well two issues with that: getting Z there isn't necessarily easy and it mobilizes seven players, which prevents you from building an early cage and doing a blitz.

Only mobilizes 1 extra player as opposed to a normal LOS block (4 in total), the GGL do not need to move. But if the oppo is properly prepared outside of that setup, he will indeed force you to either cornerblock with linemen, or use your ulfs. Using ulfs to T1 block is not a problem to me though, esp if they have block/guard/mb like your ulfs do..

I like to send one or two runners down the pitch as well and as you're limited to 11 players you have to make choices. When you don't play against mass guard you can have your cake and eat it too as you can destroy the opponent's LOS, do a blitz, build a cage AND send a couple of runners down the pitch.

That's odd, my runners or my cage would get ganged if I spread out like that that . Norse aren't elves!

Well here the disagreement comes from a different definition of "Tier 1"; I don't think the Norse have what it takes to win a major cup / league, but a 45% win rate even at high TV is of course easily achievable.

45% is the lower range of tier1, but I do believe they will remain around 50% in fumbbl, when FFB goes "live". The difference between FFB & R is not as big as people make it out to be over in FUMBBL. Ofc I'm not a good judge of that as I havent been playing R because of the ruleset for a while, just speccing cup games.

[Oxynot]

I wan to add to this by saying that I've also had good experiences with the defensive formation presented in the first post. I originally picked it up from an older post, where it was called the smile.

I use it only against bash teams. And with my limited experience, even though I bid them welcome, they never used the opportunity to form their cage on either side. Usually they've just knocked down the line and formed the cage there, like usual. Maybe having Kick helped. Sometimes I've spread the LOS men out in order to have the opponent commit more players.

Having those five players safe from a blitz on the first turn has been great: they're free to take a good position on the following turn.

In any case it is good to have a bit of high TV follow-up to the playbook since it seems to be where norse struggle the most.

[narg]

That's odd, my runners or my cage would get ganged if I spread out like that that . Norse aren't elves!

Well at high TV you can play them in a similar way, if your thrower has accurate and your runner diving catch they're as good as elves with 2+ pass and 2+ catch. I used to have a ST4 runner, which obviously helps. And if the opponent gangs up on one of your runners it's not that bad, is it? It makes it easier to move the cage forward and score.

And yeah overall I noticed that we seem to have completely different playing styles, I can spend entire games without making a single foul, I don't really like the snow troll, and I actually use a thrower. I'll have to take a look at the replays of your games but apparently you go for an "all or nothing" style where you focus purely on injuries, when it works obviously you wipe out the other team and win but when you roll low on armor / injuries I guess you don't go far and get a draw at best.

[Purplegoo]

The difference between FFB & R is not as big as people make it out to be over in FUMBBL. Ofc I'm not a good judge of that as I havent been playing R because of the ruleset for a while, just speccing cup games.

Obviously, we're in agree to disagree territory (as it seems we always end up in when we discuss things; I think we live in totally different BloodBowling Worlds, you and I) here, but I think the difference is marked. I'm yet to play a FFB game that has felt like a 'real' encounter. In no way, of course, am I suggesting the assertion Norse will win 45% of games at tier one is incorrect, merely that you don't have a FUMBBL environment yet that can prove that. You have to remember as well that when all is said and done and enough real data is collected, it will also be an average across all coaches that decides that win % figure. A superb coach can win (for example) 45% of games or better at high TV with Vampires (insert other team considered poor here, you catch the drift), but will that be the average figure? Any race (well, maybe not Stunties or Ogres these days...) in the right hands can win 50% of high TV games, it's all hands that matter.

And with that, enough thread hijack from me.

[sunnyside]

That's odd, my runners or my cage would get ganged if I spread out like that that . Norse aren't elves!

Well at high TV you can play them in a similar way, if your thrower has accurate and your runner diving catch they're as good as elves with 2+ pass and 2+ catch. I used to have a ST4 runner, which obviously helps. And if the opponent gangs up on one of your runners it's not that bad, is it? It makes it easier to move the cage forward and score.

And yeah overall I noticed that we seem to have completely different playing styles, I can spend entire games without making a single foul, I don't really like the snow troll, and I actually use a thrower. I'll have to take a look at the replays of your games but apparently you go for an "all or nothing" style where you focus purely on injuries, when it works obviously you wipe out the other team and win but when you roll low on armor / injuries I guess you don't go far and get a draw at best.

You know narg if you're putting diving catch on the runners, throwing them ahead, and don't like the snow troll, are you sure Norse is really your team?

I find the passing play for Norse drains skills from the all important defense and is fairly easy to shut down. Not that I don't occasionally pass, but it's almost always a running play that's starting to go wrong or a two turns left in the half situation.

[SillySod]

I doubt that norse will pick up a majors win on FUMBBL.

Norse are definately one of the outsider teams at high TR in LRB4. Probably only goblins and nurgle are less well equipped to win a major.

Between rulebooks norse gain:
- better, bull centaur-ish blitzers
- piling on (it becomes a powerful skill)
- claw on the minotaur
- frenzy/fend on linemen
- an advantage in foul wars (elves arent gonna go there any more)
- a boost to on-pitch attrition in the form of crappy apothecaries
- character (yay?)

However, norse lose:
- horns on the minotaur (this is huge, even at high TRs)
- frenzy as a superduper skill (fend will ruin your day)
- zara the slayer (ok, not a biggie)
- permanent wizard access....

Norse lose the permanent wizard they had in LRB4.

A norse team with plenty of guard and at least one AG4 player will be very strong in the right hands. Unfortunately their playstyle is quite unusual and involves picking people apart with frenzy, often while grappling with a substantial part of the opposing team. Alot of the time you have to chuck av7 guys into tacklezones. This tends not to be a popular style amongst top fumbblers so I dont expect to see many of them taking norse to majors.

Av7 isnt actually a huge handicap for majors level norse. If the norse can hold a winning spree (which you have to do in a tournament) then the team shouldnt take too much damage because when norse win they tend to dominate their opponents. All that frenzy does strange stuff.

Ultimately the relatively tiny number of norse that will ever enter a major and stand a genuine chance of winning will stop them from actually carrying home a prize. Frenzy and fend might mix things up though.

[SillySod]

Obviously, we're in agree to disagree territory.

Aka loser territory

[narg]

You know narg if you're putting diving catch on the runners, throwing them ahead, and don't like the snow troll, are you sure Norse is really your team?

I'm not saying that's what I'm doing, I'm saying it's possible.
I never actually gave Diving Catch to a runner but I'm considering it. I see the Norse as a team of two halves: you have the ST access players but you also have a thrower and two agility-access runners. I could return the question to you, what's the point of playing Norse if you develop them all in a bashy style? Chaos are better for that.
In some situations you're forced to score in two or three turns and having a developed thrower and developed catchers is then very useful. I know that most of the time, when I try to score in only two or three turns with my orcs it's a huge fail whereas with my Norse it's doable. That being said I think that my team averages less than one pass per game, so I don't pass all the time but merely the threat of a pass can be very useful as well. If the opponent isn't careful with the runners then a hand-off does the job as well.
Re the snow troll there are very different opinions but I'd say that he's generally seen as an erratic player to be used with parcimony, mostly at the end of the turn. Some players like it a bit more, some players a bit less. I do have one in my team but I use him only as the last action or when I have no other choice.

Anyway we digress here, my point was just that at high TV it is hard for Norse to play against high AV, mass guard teams, notwithstanding the specific skills or tactics.

Norse are definately one of the outsider teams at high TR in LRB4. Probably only goblins and nurgle are less well equipped to win a major.

Lots of changes since LRB4! I'm curious to see how they'll fare on Cyanide...

[sunnyside]

Ultimately the relatively tiny number of norse that will ever enter a major and stand a genuine chance of winning will stop them from actually carrying home a prize. Frenzy and fend might mix things up though.

Actually I think this might be more of the bottom line.

The concept of Teir one is a bit vague. When you hear the term an newcomer might think we mean the best couple teams. But in reality we mean the "will on average win 55-45%" bit, and Tier 1 includes about 75% of the teams.

The Norse problem is that to be a real contender fo a league major a well coached team has to be able to take on all comers. A chink in the armor against a team or especially a playstyle can often knock them out of contention.

One other thing that bugs me about Norse is that I think it might be harder to develop super stars (did I mention this before?).

For example we've been talking about the Troll. Narg refered to them as an "erratic player to be used with parcimony, mostly at the end of the turn".

And that's fairly accurate...until you get block, at which point I find things change fairly dramatically.

Similarly choice stat increases. The AG4 thrower, +ST blitzers and so on can dramatically alter playstyles and options.

This holds true for other teams as well. The problem, then, is that it would seem those other teams generally have an easier time keeping those stars around.

[mattgslater]

Yeah, I've kept out of this because Norse aren't my bag, but the real problem is that what's called Tiers 2 and 3 are really one tier, and what's called Tier 1 is really two. Norse are pretty clearly in the lower "Tier 1" tier: I've seen competitive Norse teams long into a season, but they definitely fall off. You can definitely win with them, but they're also not Orcs. The old Norse were awful, but not "Tier 2/3" awful, so ditto there. Nothing I've read here has had any impact on my opinion.

The way I think of it:
Cadillac: Amazons, Chaos Dwarfs, Dwarfs, Orcs, Skaven, Undead, Wood Elves.
Yugo: Goblins, Halflings, Ogres, Vampires.
Everything else is on a spectrum of sorts. Dark Elves are not-quite Caddy, like those black Lincolns the hit men drive in the movies, while High Elves are more of a Honda, that starts out kind of tinny and underpowered, but ages really well. Norse are somewhere about the middle in short formats and the lower middle in long formats: you know, a Pontiac. I'm not at all surprised that a good coach can maintain a winning Norse team; so too with Amazons, Skaven, Pro Elves and all sorts of other teams that suffer lots of attrition. I know this guy with an '85 Grand-Am....

I don't think aggregate win rates are all that valuable. You can identify broken/sucky teams that way, but some teams tend to appeal to some kinds of coaches, and skill level is definitely relevant. There are a lot of coaches out there who pick teams to showcase their BB skills or cover for their lack thereof.

[Carnis]

Norse lose the permanent wizard they had in LRB4.

Oh? I never knew they had their own special handi? I've only played LRB6 norse and 3rd ed (pre-LRB) norse. The 3rd ed norse were insane with the 7448 star players with block/frenzy/mb etc .

Still, I agree with what you said, the team in the right hands played in the right way is very capable of winning, but picking up a major win needs luck so that would mean a lot of coaches would have to try so it's not very likely .

[soranos]

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.

so, we have to wait until the BB gods of the FUMBBL Olymp decide to enlighten us mere mortals.
I have played over 150 Ranked games and the difference is just not that great. Just because you did not have a "real" encounter, nobody else had? I will never understand how people can get so arrogant over a dice-game.

I disagree with the OP though. When you try to play the full-out bashing game against AV9 teams, you will run into problems more often than not. It is simple math: MB/PO is less efficent against AV9 and so is fouling. While on the other hand it is very efficient against you. The statistic over a few games don't mean much. This could be bad team-build, some bad decisions during the game or straight-up dice.As long as the 9s and 10s (or 5s and 6s, or vice versa 1s and 2s) keep coming, the AV is an afterthought...

[sunnyside]

The way I think of it:
Cadillac: Amazons, Chaos Dwarfs, Dwarfs, Orcs, Skaven, Undead, Wood Elves.

I've heard that Amazons and Undead fall off later on. Amazons in particular seem to have a glaring weakness against Dwarfy types. I used to think Undead were about the best, but I've been hearing that they have serious trouble in perpetual leagues long term. Maybe because their star SPP earners are AV7 and don't have regenertion or an apotacary backing them?

There are a lot of coaches out there who pick teams to showcase their BB skills or cover for their lack thereof.

Again something I really like about BB. In a lot of other games if you're the beardy guy in the bunch you kind of have to choose between not really playing at your full capabilities or creaming the newbs. Whereas in BB you can start up a halfling team, call 'em the Strawberry Turnovers or something like that, and go out and have fun while giving it your all.

[mattgslater]

I've heard that Amazons and Undead fall off later on. Amazons in particular seem to have a glaring weakness against Dwarfy types. I used to think Undead were about the best, but I've been hearing that they have serious trouble in perpetual leagues long term. Maybe because their star SPP earners are AV7 and don't have regenertion or an apotacary backing them?

I've definitely run into this with Undead. Amazons, not so much, except the bit about Dwarfs. Amazons do suffer a fair amount of attrition, but they can plug in rookies pretty fluidly, and they can spread the SPP love, so everybody peaks on schedule. For Undead, they have about the same hazard as any team that tends to concentrate SPP on soft players: if the hard-to-build guys don't bulk up, the team is subject to sudden reversals if more than one key Ghoul/Wight goes down. Wights are tough-ish, and Ghouls build fast, so even losing the best one isn't that big a killer. But losing a couple of them, that matters quite a lot. (The same is true of Dwarfs; it's just not so apparent because they're tougher and their blockers skill faster, but if you've ever had to run just one each Runner and Blitzer, you know what I mean). Generally, when I see an Undead team that's competitive in the postseason, it's one that's got a couple Guard Zombies or Block Mummies, maybe with an AG4 Wight, and/or a +ST player, or something like that. Those kinds of improvements stick around. Zombies peak out after one roll, but there are two good skills on the track, and they seldom make it to 31 without +ST or something, so their access problems aren't all that scary.

I'd imagine Norse are kind of like that too. I've only played one season with them, while I was also running High Elves, and really, Block/Fend is no +AV/SS. Except for your Kicker, your Dirty Player, and maybe one hunter-type or backup winger, your Norse linemen start at peak value without a doubles or +Stat. With their low value, +AV is neutral, and the same for +MA with 0-2 MA7 players on the team. Fend and Tackle are just better than inducement-value; everything else is either redundant (Dauntless, Frenzy) or suboptimal (Strip Ball, Pro) or some combination of the two (Sure Hands, Wrestle); it's not that there's no place for those, but they're not like the options open to elves and orcs/dwarfs. Even the Hobgoblin has it better: without Block to start, he's got one skill to take before the dilemma kicks in, and without a dedicated passer and on a team that has 9 other positionals that you'd actually want to field all at once, including good speedbumps as dedicated linefodder (best linefodder in the game; anything better, like a BOB or Saurus, isn't really 'fodder'). You may build one Lino as a retriever type, but since Pass and P access pull their weight, I tend to use a Thrower this way.

Norse are an AV7 team, without the AG to build free formations. They take damage, they need their linefodder, and they need the linefodder to stay on track. But there is no "track," because they need doubles or 11 within 16 SPP to justify their cost, and there's no major value jump at 6SPP. The odds of that are 1-[(7/9)^2], or 32/81 ≈ 40%. So 60% of your non-Kick linemen fall into diminishing returns at 16 SPP. The positionals all have nice tracks open, but the ST3 guys are AV7 SPP hogs on a team with a high peak value that takes a lot of damage, and that's never a happy mix.