dines wrote:Kick: Norse, orcs, skavens and probably necro are capable of securing the ball even if I have kick, so that’s not really essential there, but of course nice to have.
You're underestimating it. Skaven aren't very vulnerable to Kick (the best you can hope for is to kick shallow to the off-side and hope for a failed pickup), but those other teams have a hard time securing the ball if it goes really deep and/or wide. They can go pick it up, yes, and maybe cage around it, but if your opponent cages deep upfield and needs 20 squares to score, you've already done something important.
Some Orc/Norse teams will try to lock you out on a deep kick and stay behind blitzing range until they can pass or handoff into the cage. This works great with elves and rats, but is a suboptimal strategy for an AG3 Thrower with MA6 or less, unless he has Accurate
and Strong Arm, especially with your deep blitzing range (for a bash team). If you can run up and protect a screen between the line and the Thrower to force short passes with Int attempts, he can't get to the cage. That's how you run up the score, and build your players (incidentally, the kicker himself gets the most from this, except maybe the Bulls).
Also, AG3/SH has a 1/9 chance to fail, and if that fails in the +11 row, the drive looks happy for you. That's nine times the odds of failing an unskilled 2d block with a TRR and four times the odds of failing a skilled block without a TRR. This leaves the opponent with the unenviable dilemma of either marking the ball without picking up (pushing the dilemma up a turn), risking a turnover without marking the ball (potentially yielding you a free TD), picking the ball up out of risk-priority order and risking a premature turnover, or stacking the backfield. The latter ensures the cage will form where you want it, makes it hard for him to cover your rushers, and helps your line guys keep their feet if the first couple line-blocks yield pushes.
Of all teams, Norse and Necro tend to be more susceptible to Kick than almost any other (along with Undead, Chaos Pact, Amazons and Chaos Dwarfs). Norse Throwers need several improvements or an AG increase and a couple improvements to be able to consistently thwart Kick. Just KOR and Sure Hands is not really enough to
thwart the skill, though the combo sort of helps balance it out. Once they get Accurate, they can beat Kick fairly reliably, but they have to game for it in ways that are probably good for you. Only with +AG and Accurate, or Strong Arm, are they free really to cage up where they want.
Necro can't really afford to build against Kick, but on a deep kick they have the MA on Ghouls and Weres to get back to a cage ahead of the center-back square. However, they don't have the MA on their cage to zoom up or relocate, a necessity if your cage gets attacked before it joins the line. Also, they can't make open-field handoffs safely, and can only QP in safe or garbage conditions. What's more, the fastest guy on the Necro team is also the deadliest blitzer against Chaos Dwarfs, so there's a terrible matchup confluence there, from the Necro perspective. Lots of Undead teams go for a KOR Ghoul, but I've yet to see a Necro team do this: the Ghouls' starting Dodge is too important to waste an offensive skill on, at least when you only have two of them. KOR "passer" Wights can be built, sort of as tougher-but-less-effective Norse Throwers. That's not common, but it does happen.
Orcs have it better, yes, but MA5 Throwers still really have a hard go of it until they get some skills, and again they need doubles or an AG increase, plus a minimum 31+ SPP (KOR, Acc, AG/SA; if he takes Block he needs 51 SPP), in order to be relatively Kick-proof.
Sure hands: Essential against skavens with their AG5 leaping, wrestle, strip ball gutter and nice to have against all other opponents.
Agreed. That's next. Build one Hob (#2) with SH, KOR, Block, in that order. The rest get Wrestle as #2 skills, or maybe even #1 for one guy.
What is Nuffle's view? Through a window, two-by-three. He peers through snake eyes.
What is Nuffle's lawn? Inches, squares, and tackle zones: Reddened blades of grass.
What is Nuffle's tree? Risk its trunk, space the branches. Touchdowns are its fruit.
. The TD went to a bull. Second game was against a fresh orc team (2-1) so pretty standard scoring wise and the last TD was by a bull as well. Third game I already described, (1-3) against wood elves, not much I could do there. Two dwarves got mvp's and one hobbo just need a TD for a skill, so several are close to skilling up. 