Help on skilling up 2 Pestigors with doubles

[Ullis]

Right now there's zero killing skills on this team. I'm not counting MB on the beast as it's a skill the beast should be using only when the drive being played is already decided.

Controlling the other team is easier if there's less players to control. On the other hand, controlling becomes harder when you have less players than the opponent.

I must say that I'm coming around to sharing in Carnis's frustration. The low appreciation for killer players on Nurgle teams has gone a bit too far in my opinion.

[Ullis]

Anyway, this is what I'd probably aim to do now in terms of new skills:

Beast: Stand Firm, Break tackle
NW: Block, Stand Firm, Tentacles
NW: Block, Stand Firm, MIGHTY BLOW
NW: Block, Stand Firm, MIGHTY BLOW
NW: Block, STAND FIRM
Pestigor: Block, Sidestep, GUARD
Pestigor: Block, Sidestep, GUARD
Pestigor: Block, SURE HANDS
Pestigor: Wrestle, Frenzy, TACKLE

I think Guard will be excellent on the pestigors. Pestigors usually end up where the action is due to their relative speed on the team and that's also where you need Guard. If one of those Sidestepping goats die, then I'd look to build a killer. But I wouldn't go down the killer route with Side Step.

[Greedy_Snitch]

Thanks again for all input. Hopefully I manage to have time to play a match tonight, and we’ll see how it goes and if I get any skill ups.

The 3 rotters have grown in importance the last few games. With all having block their survival rate has increased dramatically, and they are not so expendable to me anymore. Sure Hands on the next rotter to skill up? Interesting!

I can see the benefit of having more Guard on the team, but with my Sidestepping Pestigors I am now thinking either Sure Hands or Tackle on both, and go for the MB /Claw combo on the Block Pest. Then skill up Guard on the rest of the NW’s. Doubles and stat increases (and the fact that I might drop any player due to injuries) can of course change my plans.

[mattgslater]

I must say that I'm coming around to sharing in Carnis's frustration. The low appreciation for killer players on Nurgle teams has gone a bit too far in my opinion.

What you're observing is just the team's development curve. Killers need blocking skills first, and Nurgle is a control team with no Block and a lack of control skills. So Nurgle has a huge wishlist. Something has to give. What's more, the team has to build all but one of its Pestigors from the ground, so the best "killer" types take a long time to skill, as opposed to Chaos, which gets at least seven Beastmen right out the gate.

Also note, spammed positioning skills are in themselves sort of a lesser version of a killer track. If you can't push your opponent, you'll take more hits and get fewer assists.

[Smeborg]

Also note, spammed positioning skills are in themselves sort of a lesser version of a killer track. If you can't push your opponent, you'll take more hits and get fewer assists.

This is true. I have found Nurgle teams developed in the "stymie" style to get good casualty ratios. You deny blocks and follow-ups to the opponent with your positioning skills, and the same positioning skills give you more blocks in return.

You can't have everything with Nurgle. You have to decide which poison you prefer. As I have said before, I think Chaos make a better slayer team than Nurgle.

[Greedy_Snitch]

Ok, new match played. Against Khemri again that had 250k to buy inducements for. He/she bought 1 wizard and 1 reroll.

Opponent received, and filed his 3 (that was all he/she had) Tomb Guardians on the line. Blitzing my tackle/block rotter, he/she managed to get a blitz-ra between my strongpoints. My line took a beating, but held its ground. I blitzed with my SS Pestigor on my right wing to start the hunt on his throw-ra. In his next turn. He ran the throwra just behind his line and tried to pass his blitzra, with whom he had just blocked my marking pest with (both strongpoints were engaged already.) Anyway, ball fumbled, and I let it be for a couple of turns, surrounded by the strongpoints and others. Finally I picked up the ball and ran towards TD, but waited 2 turns for him to waste his/her wizard on me. But no. 1-0 at halftime.

Second half I was recieving, and had KO'd one throw-ra. All my players were alive and standing. I picked up the ball with my Block only Pest and started beating him. But my line did not hold, and he managed to mark my ballcarrier with a Tomb Guardian! But, I had enough players to spare and, due to horns could blitz him into the Beast. But I got CAS on him, so he was out of the way anyway. With the ball carrier free, I moved my ball carrier towards my line, which had recovered by now. Then the fireball hit me, and ball carrier got knocked out and some others got stunned. However, I had enough ppl standing to keep opponent from grabbing the ball. Since he only got 2 TG's now, I tried to overwhelm him and knocked out quite a few of his players. I picked up the ball with a rotter, and handed it over to a SS Pest that ran towards TD. But opponent had a rookie skeleton as saftie and did 1 GFI to blitz me. Got Push, reroll Defender Down and stunned. Then, it was not possible for me to score, so I continued to beat him up.

So, a 1-0 win. CAS 2-1, KO'd 5-1 (!)

The time limit was just 2 minutes in this match, which made me perform non-optimal. With more time, I would have been able to position my players a little bit better in the second half, and perhaps would have been able to blitz the saftie instead of just running near the sideline.

No skill ups, but my Block only NW has 15 SPP now, and both Sidesteppers has 28.

Btw, I am starting to really like the Wrestle Frenzy guy. It's great having him push opponents into the Tentacles!

[Carnis]

Also note, spammed positioning skills are in themselves sort of a lesser version of a killer track. If you can't push your opponent, you'll take more hits and get fewer assists.

This is true. I have found Nurgle teams developed in the "stymie" style to get good casualty ratios. You deny blocks and follow-ups to the opponent with your positioning skills, and the same positioning skills give you more blocks in return.

You can't have everything with Nurgle. You have to decide which poison you prefer. As I have said before, I think Chaos make a better slayer team than Nurgle.

Chaos make a really nice killer team, but they are prone to losing their precious killers in mutual assured destruction.

Said team used to be 2.65million with 4x MBPOClaw. Faced an opposing more dirtyplayer oriented team twice, and is now 1.49million running 3 journeymen .

http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=team& ... _id=641004

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Smeborg your calculations on the probability of success for a simple mbpoclaw man are of course correct. However you ignore the rest of the team and the fact that such streaks happen relatively often (1/6th of any 2 consecutive turns), and the fact that the biggest downside of piling on (not being in range for the blitz) is negated by jump up, and the fact that jump up gives you a scorer that is very hard to stop from receiving a 2turn TD.

I built my newest nurgles ultrakilly just to prove a point. Until I had a night of 3 random losses, the team was having a pretty nice record as well . Most of my draws are games I have won, but been unable to stop a high MA/AG team from scoring and then not having enough time to score in 2 turns due to lacking a +AG passer. I really miss my beta passing pestigor /:.

http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=team& ... _id=641013

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About positioning skills, I wouldnt touch SF with a stick on NWs. However, I have found sidestep supremely annoying on the one NW to get it so far. Plan is currently go killy with one position skill for each NW. So something like Block,Guard,MB,Claw - then either Tackle or Tentacles and either Fend or SS. Fend only as a 176's skill, a skill level not at all unreachable with killy chaos/nurgle. Making one killer skip guard for piling on, too.

[mattgslater]

Fend over SF on a non-carrier? No comprendo. Unless you face Claw every game....

[Greedy_Snitch]

Chaos make a really nice killer team, but they are prone to losing their precious killers in mutual assured destruction

Do you mean that Nurgle teams do not have this same problem? Only FA makes them somewhat harder to take down. And they only have 4 Pests compared to the full roster of beastmen that you can develop in any way you like. And you can induce 2 Apothecaries if need be with Chaos.

[Smeborg]

I built my newest nurgles ultrakilly just to prove a point. Until I had a night of 3 random losses, the team was having a pretty nice record as well . Most of my draws are games I have won, but been unable to stop a high MA/AG team from scoring and then not having enough time to score in 2 turns due to lacking a +AG passer. I really miss my beta passing pestigor /:.

I think that's the point. I try to develop a Nurgle team which is equally good (approximately) against all opponents, whether bash, AG or whatever. Slayer teams have relatively easy wins against the right opponents, but (generally) are weak against AG. And of course any slayer team is vulnerable to M.A.D., as you point out.

I suspect my preferred team builds would (a) be quite a bit more likely to stop a high MA/AG team from scoring, and (b) be a little more likely to score in 2 turns when they have to. Of course, part of the trade-off for this is that these teams would miss out on some of the easy victories that slayer teams get. But they still get the victories, they just have to work harder.

All the best.

[mattgslater]

I built my newest nurgles ultrakilly just to prove a point. Until I had a night of 3 random losses, the team was having a pretty nice record as well . Most of my draws are games I have won, but been unable to stop a high MA/AG team from scoring and then not having enough time to score in 2 turns due to lacking a +AG passer. I really miss my beta passing pestigor /:.

You know... positioning skills help with that. That's why I'm so high on them. They help you beat up on the speed teams, and still have some (albeit reduced) application against the heavies.

[Carnis]

I built my newest nurgles ultrakilly just to prove a point. Until I had a night of 3 random losses, the team was having a pretty nice record as well . Most of my draws are games I have won, but been unable to stop a high MA/AG team from scoring and then not having enough time to score in 2 turns due to lacking a +AG passer. I really miss my beta passing pestigor /:.

I think that's the point. I try to develop a Nurgle team which is equally good (approximately) against all opponents, whether bash, AG or whatever. Slayer teams have relatively easy wins against the right opponents, but (generally) are weak against AG. And of course any slayer team is vulnerable to M.A.D., as you point out.

I suspect my preferred team builds would (a) be quite a bit more likely to stop a high MA/AG team from scoring, and (b) be a little more likely to score in 2 turns when they have to. Of course, part of the trade-off for this is that these teams would miss out on some of the easy victories that slayer teams get. But they still get the victories, they just have to work harder.

All the best.

1) Yea bashers get M.A.D - mutually assured destruction, stymies get A.D - assured destruction, see here for example:

http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=match ... id=3118291

I know which I prefer.

2) My point about not scoring was about lack of +AG a random roll not affected by skill choices but by bad luck in advancements.

3) A generic tackle heavy plan does that (stops stymie scoring), killing skills in no way make you worse off vs elves. Elves are just great scorers, it can be very very difficult to stop a pitchwide run + handoff + pass game after 2-3 turns of elven shotgun offense spreading the elves around the pitch. Obviously they will easily brave 3+ dodges if their ball is out of blitzrange.

3) How does it exactly help you two-turn to go wrestle+fend on your pestigors over Block/ju or Block/dodge? I'm missing something.

[mattgslater]

I'm so down on Fend for players with S access, that I don't think the last question is fair. Comparing Block/Dodge to Wrestle/Fend isn't fair, either. Instead compare it to Block/SS, which makes it much easier to cover your downfield cage with fewer men, or to get a takeaway score. Two-turners don't work very well for Nurgle without +AG players (in fact, the only slow team that does two-turners well is one with a Thrower, like Amazons or Orcs), but two-turners without either hedging skills or speedy players are pretty much guaranteed to fail.

[Smeborg]

1) Yea bashers get M.A.D - mutually assured destruction, stymies get A.D - assured destruction, see here for example:

http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=match ... id=3118291

I know which I prefer.

2) My point about not scoring was about lack of +AG a random roll not affected by skill choices but by bad luck in advancements.

3) A generic tackle heavy plan does that (stops stymie scoring), killing skills in no way make you worse off vs elves. Elves are just great scorers, it can be very very difficult to stop a pitchwide run + handoff + pass game after 2-3 turns of elven shotgun offense spreading the elves around the pitch. Obviously they will easily brave 3+ dodges if their ball is out of blitzrange.

3) How does it exactly help you two-turn to go wrestle+fend on your pestigors over Block/ju or Block/dodge? I'm missing something.

Hi Carnis. (1) I'm not sure of the relevance of a Chaos/Lizzie match result (particularly one where 4 out of 8 CAS results were Deaths). To give a counter-example, the other day my Ogre team beat well coached Orcs by getting 3 CAS on the first 2 turns - this does not show that Ogres are bashier than Orcs. However, I am happy to accept that there is a difference in our playing environments and tastes.

(2) In my playing experience, DE and HE teams are very much the underdogs in matches against stymie Nurgle. WE and PE teams are quite a bit better (approximately even, perhaps better than even). Of course Elven teams will score if their dice run hot, but you could say that about any team. I certainly don't fear playing against any of the AG4 teams with stymie Nurgle.

(3a) I don't rely on Tackle against Elven teams (I tend to have limited Tackle, as it is the 3rd skill on 3 Pestigors). It is the S-Firm that is the most use (it magnifies the effect of D-Pres on receivers, not just on players that are being marked, but those that are within 3 squares, in both cases because the Warrior cannot easily be pushed away). It is the inability to receive (Catch) at good odds that causes problems for Elven teams, combined of course with well placed Tentacles. These problems are compounded by grinding down the Elven re-rolls (for example with F-App).

(3b) Wrestle/Tackle on at least one Pestigor is good for punching holes for the receivers to get through (it's much more reliable than Block/Tackle against Blodgers). Fend can help receivers to be unmarked, or at least to be in a more favourable position to dodge away on the second turn (1 marker instead of 2, also better to receive the ball). However, it is more the Pestigor Runner build that matters (starting with S-Hands, KoR, X-Arms, plus perhaps +1MA or S-Feet if you get lucky). This speed and raw distance of ball movement is crucial for a 2-turn score with Nurgle (because of KoR, you may manage a hand-off on the second turn, rather than being forced to pass; where you do have to pass, you will likely reduce the range by 3 squares).

Hope that helps.

[Greedy_Snitch]

Since last post I have played 2 games with the Nurgle team.

One against yet another Ogre, with 4 4-skills Orges and 2 rookies. He played well, but my tackle rotter did his job and took out those annoying snotlings.

1-0 win No skill ups unfortunately, and no change in line up.

My last game though was against a very skilled orc team. Opponent coach must have played some 30-40 games at least to get this lineup:

Blitzer: +2ST, +MA, Break Tackle, Tackle
Blitzer: Sure Feet, Frenzy, Side Step, Guard
Blitzer: Rookie
Blitzer: +MA, Guard
Lineman: Block, Dodge, Guard
Lineman: Block, Dodge, Guard
Thrower: KoR, Block, Strong Arm, Accurate, Leader,
BOB: Rookie
BOB: Block, Guard
BOB: Dodge
BOB: Block
TV 1820. 3 Rerolls.

This was my first game against a really developed bash team, and of course very interesting to see how my team would perform. Seeing those 2 super blitzers really made my heart sink. Obviously the coach was replacing BOB’s and Blitzers that did not fit into the playstyle. With them 2 linemen though, I can really see that that is possible. The only things I could think of that was to my advantage was that perhaps the opponent did not have much experience against stymie teams, and especially stymie Nurgle. And, perhaps he was not used to be receiving in the first half, since I thought he was aiming for the 2-1 grind. So, I chose to kick, and the game was on.

I used the Nurgle I-zig (this is what I really wanted to test as well: How do my I-zig perform against bash teams?). The only exception from earlier post was that tentacle NW and the Beast had changed places, and that was totally my fault and a mistake. My right wing was now my weakest.

Opponent took advantage of this and set up his BOB on the line and concentrated his forces to my right field, and setting up his rookie BOB and Guard Blitzer on right upfield. Blitzing with his frenzy guy on my sidestepper, he did not manage to get through.

In my turn, I frenzy blitzed his guard blitzer and aimed to mark his thrower with my Sidestepper , who had the ball way upfield. Unfortunately, I fumbled the second GFI even with reroll. He moved his thrower closer to his LOS, but since he overcommitted with his players to try to bash me, he had only one (the blitzed Guard Blitzer) to form a “cage”. Meanwhile, he tried to bash my whole line but had little success. However, that +2 ST Break Tackle Blitzer was totally annoying.

Further on, he did not manage to form his cage and I had both frenzy guy and sidestepper marking his thrower, who finally bit the dust and the ball scattered between my SF NW’s. The rest of the half I just stood my ground and prevented him from getting to the ball. Even though he had Guard advantage etc it does not help when he can’t move my players except when KO.

The first half ended 0-0.

In second half, I picked up the ball with my block only pest, and moved him behind my line. During the entire half, he had the +2 ST Blitzer as a safety, which minimized my chances to score. On offence, I could really see that his guard guys were doing their work, and I was out strength’d most of the time. But still the line held and he could not get to the ball. However, his guard sidestepping blitzer was a real pain. I had to wrestle him down to prevent him from putting tacklezones on my ball carrier.

In my turn 7, I had a slim chance to make a dash for the end zone and try my luck against his +2 ST. But Nuffle was against me, I failed the handoff w reroll to a sidestepper and ball scattered. He blitzed my sidestepper and since the ball was on the sideline, I moved my sidestepper in such a way that he had to dodge to the ball, and failing the pickup the ball would go out of bounds, and his star player would be on the sideline. So, he didn’t dare doing that. In turn 8, I marked his only realistic TD scored with a NW, and put another NW close as well. In his turn 8, he tried a throw but it failed.

Final score 0-0.

I was really glad for a draw. I had thought he would destroy my team, but I finally had 1-0 in CAS as well. From the chat he had, it was clear he was frustrated, and might have done a lot of mistakes due to this. And in this case, I think his team build worked against him. If he had had 4 BOBs with Block Guard MB, he would have managed to take my NW’s out instead of just knocked down and stunned.

Yet again no skill ups. But now my sidesteppers both have 30 SPP, so NEXT game perhaps.

One of the key points I learned in this game was how annoying the sidestep guard combo is. This might affect my choice of how to skillup the sidesteppers. As I wrote before, I had tackle in mind for both.