Help on skilling up 2 Pestigors with doubles

[Smeborg]

Well done, Greedy_Snitch, that sounds like a good game.

[Greedy_Snitch]

Thanks! Btw, I heard the threedieblock podcast with your Nurgle tactics at match 6 or 7, so the team development with SF is really influenced by your builds. However, I am now a firm believer in SF first on the Beast. After 19 games now, I have not dodged with the Beast at all. The problem is perhaps that I tend to fail the really stupid roll about 50 % of the time (with helper, of course) so I usually just let him stay in one place. So I do not dare pushing my luck with a dodge as well. But, having BT on the Beast is of course a deterrent for the opponent: It’s no use tying him up, since I *could* dodge if I wanted. I just don’t do it.

[Greedy_Snitch]

Nurgle vs Dark Elf

I managed to play a game last night as well, and this time I got some skill ups. First just a short recap on what happened.

Since this is Matchmaking, I had no idea whom I am going to meet, so when I saw that it was a Dark Elf team, ranked 244th on Auld World, I knew this was a tough match (my team is ranked 1100th or so, I think there are 6000+ teams in the league, at least). I had 150k inducements. I gave Wizard a quick thought, but went with Igor and a babe.

I kicked to him and set up the I-zig. Going through his players, I found at least 4 linemen with Guard, 2 blitzers with dauntless Tackle MB Dodge, and a Witchelf with +AG, MB, Block, Leap. And a runner with pass, SH, Leader. 3 rerolls.

My line held again. He put loads of guard players on the line to try to beat my 3 NW’s. Then he moved his runner close up behind the line.

Again, I frenzyblitzed a guy on in his widezone and punched a hole to mark the runner with a sidestepper. The other sidestepper managed to go around and started being annoying in the upfield as well.

Then we had a blockwar around the LOS, and the game spilled over into my left widezone, where he tried to set up a cage. I managed to get 2 DP clouds on the runner, and blitzed him with a sidestepper. He dumped off, but fumbled the pass (He had -3 on the roll due to DP and TZ), so ball scattered, and went on the ground. I did not attempt to pick it up. Next turn he leaped in with his WE and managed to get hold of the ball, but did not dare passing when in 3 TZ’s and 2 DP’s. I tried to take her down, but failed. Opponent had a dodge lineman that was tied up to my tentacle NW, who managed to escape and went to the endzone. The WE leaped and dodged and ran to make a handoff (I think) to the lineman, but failed the last GFI. Ball went to the ground. I surrounded it with my available players, and tried to pick it up. Ball went out of bounds, and landed in the centerfield (center downfield? I’m trying to get used to this lingo…) After some more leap magic he had his WE set up in the endzone and picked up the ball with a lineman, but failed the pass roll due to DP. I crowdpushed the WE and the half ended.

I forgot to mention, pouring rain throughout the whole game. Anyway, I thought I would try to form a cage in the midfield and march my way up, so I set up Beast and 2 NW’s with 1 square between them on the LoS. But disaster struck! He got blitz, ganged up on my Beast and blitzed him with a MB guy. Down, Armor failed, injury, dead, regen fail, Igor fail…

…

Luckily, he did not flood my backfield, so I picked up the ball (phew, 4+ due to pouring rain) and ran to stand behind my line. I repaired my line with all NW’s and started pounding the crap out of him. He leaped in again with his WE, but failed the leap roll. I tried to make a semi complete cage around my ball carrier, but he managed to mark him with a guard guy, and again blitzed with his WE, successfully leaping out of the ST 4 tentacles and brought my ballcarrier down, picked up the ball and ran for the endzone. (I totally forgot about jump up. What an excellent skill. Really, I should have fouled her when I had the chance the previous turn.)
With some lucky dodges and GFI’s, I got 3 guys, including tentacles, marking the WE, but could not blitz her. He blitzed my NW with a blitzer, but failed to take him down. He tried for a leap, but this time tentacles worked, and WE stayed put . I blocked her with NW and she went down. I surrounded the ball with my 2 pests, and just stayed there. Next turn, he blitzed my sidestepper, I moved into the square with the ball and ball spilled over the sideline, landing again in my centerfield. I picked it up, but he scrambled 3 guys, including that WE, to his side and effectively nullified my chances to score. I set up a cage with NW’s instead, and started pounding his remaining guys with the ballcarrier safe inside the cage.

Again, he leaped into the cage with the WE but failed the leap roll. In my last turn, I CASed one player with a sidestepper, made a passcompletion with the other (lucky me in the pouring rain, without reroll) and fouled that damn WE: MNG.

Match ended 0-0. CAS 1-1. After 19 games, I now have a 11-6-2 score.

So, Beast got killed, and both sidesteppers leveled up w normal skill. Bought a new Beast, so lineup is now:

Beast: Rookie
NW: Block, Stand Firm, Tentacles
NW: Block, Stand Firm,
NW: Block, Stand Firm,
NW: Block,
Pest: Block, Sidestep, (Level!, normal skill)
Pest: Block, Sidestep, (Level!, normal skill)
Pest: Wrestle, Frenzy
Pest: Block,
Rotter: Block, Tackle
Rotter: Block, -MA
Rotter: Block

So, I would like some thoughts (again) on these two guys. As seen, they work really well at marking the ball carrier when kicking, and I want to do that in the future as well. So, tackle could be good here. But, as with my orc match, I also see the benefit of having sidestepping guards. Guard would be great on offense.

As before, I want to skill them up the same way. What do you think are the pros and cons on the following skills considering my present lineup:

Guard?
Tackle?
Sure Hands?
Fend?
Extra Arms?
Mighty Blow?
Big Hand?
Any other?

[Ullis]

Given your lineup, I'd take Guard on both. You don't have any and Guard and Side Step combo well anyway.

[Smeborg]

Thanks! Btw, I heard the threedieblock podcast with your Nurgle tactics at match 6 or 7, so the team development with SF is really influenced by your builds. However, I am now a firm believer in SF first on the Beast. After 19 games now, I have not dodged with the Beast at all. The problem is perhaps that I tend to fail the really stupid roll about 50 % of the time (with helper, of course) so I usually just let him stay in one place. So I do not dare pushing my luck with a dodge as well. But, having BT on the Beast is of course a deterrent for the opponent: It’s no use tying him up, since I *could* dodge if I wanted. I just don’t do it.

S-Firm and B-Tackle are the best first two normal skills on the Beast (IMHO). However, the order in which you take them (B-Tackle first or S-Firm first) has major implications for future development (and play), especially if you get a double or stat increase as second skill. It can be 4th skill before you get to take the second "normal" skill.

You are correct not to over-use B-Tackle. It is a threat that the opponent has to deal with. But there will be times (2 or 3 times per game, perhaps) when it is well worth using. The frequency of use is determined more by your opponent than by you.

All the best.

[Smeborg]

Either 2xGuard or 2xTackle. I don't think either is wrong.

[Greedy_Snitch]

After much consideration, I took Guard on both. I can totally see the benefits of tackle on the wings, and the use of screening dodgers, but I felt that Guard is a more useful skill for the whole team right now. The last 2 games showed that I have trouble winning if opponent is having an abundance of guard guys. Even the darkelfs outblocked my NW's with dauntless and guard guard guard.

Played another game against a superfast Skaventeam, with GR's with jumpup, +MA, surefeet etc. Immediately thought that taking guard was a big mistake, but it turned out fine. With the help of a Block RatOgre, he managed to take down both my corners on the line, and sneak 2 GR's between my Strongpoints (yeah, I used vanilla I-zig again). But Sidestepper was there again, marking his GR ball carrier way upfield. Beast and Tentacles fell back and marked the GR's that had come through, and the blockwar started. He had parked his remaining GR just behind his line, and broke away with the GR attached to the beast and put him in the endzone. Next, he dodged away with his ballcarrier to try a handoff to the GR behind the line. But 3 DP clouds covered them, and ball bounced away. Next turn, I KO'd the GR attached to the Tent NW, and crowd surfed the GR in the endzone with a rotter. I tried to surround the ball, but a Extra Arms GR snatched it and ran upfield to try to get away. (my Tackle/block Rotter was the main threat downfield, just waiting for a nonblock GR to come his way ) I KO'd a third GR, and CASed the Rat Ogre, and finally managed to crowdsurf the remaining GR and score with block Pest by halftime after a lucky throw with a rotter.

Opponent conceded in the second half after I had CASed 5 of his players.

So, this time the Block only NW skilled up with normal skill. What now? Even more Stand Firm or Guard? Please share your thoughts.

[mattgslater]

Guard. Then you're done taking Guard for a very long time, with no worries.

[Smeborg]

Stand Firm.

[Ullis]

Nice work taking out all GR's by half time!

I guess Stand Firm would be the right choice. Then all your warriors have it which is pretty nice. The two Guard pestigors should help a lot.

Another alternative is MB followed by Claw.

[Greedy_Snitch]

Yeah, it was a combination of luck, bad positioning (opponent put 2 GR’s on the sideline) and the fact that 2 of GR’s had already 3 skills, but neither of them had block nor wrestle. But all of them returned at half time, if I remember correctly.

Took Stand Firm on the NW in the end. I noticed that the other Block/SF NW’s has 26 and 30 SPP, so they can get Guard soon if I want to.

[Greedy_Snitch]

Managed to play 2 games last night. Once more, an Ogre team. 0-0. He had 3 piling on Ogres that KOd’d many players, and he gang fouled every turn with his snotlings. Not much to say, except that the block only pest skilled up with normal skill, and I took Sure Hands. Finally a ball carrier! But he was MNG for the next game.

Next opponent was a Chaos Team. With 55+ games played and a score of 27-4-23 (W-D-L) or so, it was apparent that this was a slayer team, dedicated at winning by taking out the opponents players. At TV 1720, he had 3 Block MB Claw Warriors (and one + frenzy), one beast with Block MB Claw, and the rest either Block or Block/MB. Finally a beast with +2 AG, FA and Accurate. 11 players, 3 re-rolls. Nightmare.

I kicked, and set up the I-zig. He plowed his way through my line, picked up ball with +2 AG guy. Again (seems like this is my preferred tactics with this team) I ran upfield with my sidesteppers but the closest guy failed his second GFI, landing beside the ball carrier. But since I had 2 players on his side, he somehow wanted to go for a quick score and scored in turn 3 after KO’d 3 of my players.

I concentrated by forces to the right side and tried to push my way through. Handing off to a rotter, he ran towards the endzone but failed his second GFI (2 squares from the endzone). +2 AG was there and picked up the ball, but fumbled his pass to a beastman close to 2 of my NW’s. Luckily, one of my sidesteppers was near, managed to pick up the ball in one TZ, dodge out, GFI one time without reroll. TD!

In second half I was down to 10 players, while opponent had his 11. I tried once more to push through on the right side and managed to get a rotter free 6 squares from the endzone. Opponent did not bother mark him. Seeing that in the next turn opponent would take down all my Stand Firmers and put TZ’s and even blitz my ball carrier, I made a crazy 4+ pass over a bunch of beastmen and CW’s ganged up around my Beast and tent NW. He failed the interception roll, I rerolled the catch and GFI once to the endzone.

He had 4 turns to even the score. With a couple of men down, I put 2 rotters and my Rookie Beast (expendable at this point) on the line and NW’s as flankers and Sidesteppers as wingers using normal ziggurat in the widezone. He picked up ball with +2AG and moved the rest of his players behind his line. Yet again, I dashed with a sidestepper to mark him, and the 2 GFI succeeded. The other sidestepper was 3 squares away as well. Due to this, he had to blitz my sidestepper instead of pushing forward, and took him down. Then he overcommitted his player to tie my other players that was about to go around his line on both sides. Then, he blocked with his frenzy CW and moved him 2 square towards the sideline, smashing a rotter but opening up a hole in his line(!) I moved my standing Guard/Sidestepper remove assists to make a one die blitz on the ballcarrier with the downed sidestepper. He went down, and ball scattered into an empty square. I managed to move the tent NW through the hole in his line and put a TZ on the ball.

The rest of the match was all about preventing his +2AG beast from grabbing the ball. The SF’s and the sidesteppers made a great job there, although my KO box was getting more and more crowded.

So, a 2-1 win. W-D-L is now 13-7-2. 1 rotter got BH/BH, the tackle/block got BH/MNG. A stand firm/block leveled, normal skill. Now, I am really thinking Guard on this.

What do You think?

[Ullis]

A 11 player Chaos team is very vulnerable to casualties and KO's, especially when paired against enough Guard. A few beastmen off the pitch and the chaos side will start to struggle to get assists, let alone make a decent push. It sounds like you couldn't really scratch his players, at least not enough to make any difference. To that end, I'd give that warrior Mighty Blow. It'll also help the warrior get to the fourth skill (Guard would be nice but he'd never get to skill 4 with it). This is a perpetual league, right?

[Greedy_Snitch]

But Guard will help his Block/SF buddies get to their third and maybe fourth skill faster.

It is Cyanides Matchmaking system in the Auld World League, so you could say it is perpetual. It goes on until either I get tired of the team or people stop playing the game (or that partuicular league) online.

[TuernRedvenom]

When paired against 11 man slayer teams with my Nurgle on Cyanide I usually try to receive (normally I kick) and try to get a few gang fouls in early on (frenzy helps getting those juicy targets away from their team mates). This tends to keep them honest and makes them very reluctant to move into contact and use PO.