lizards in perpetual leagues

[poochée]

hi there,

after my last topic I have been thinking about some more topics concerning perpetual formats.

there has been a thread on this forum a while ago about which teams were viable in very long leagues and which suffered in these formats. A lot has been said about Orcs and whether they lost their edge or not.

There has not been, as far as I have seen at least, much talk about Lizardmen though.

In my theoretical opinion they should suffer even more in this kind of theatre of operation.
My theoretical ideas don't seem to add up though. After reviewing the stats of the best Orc and lizzard coaches on fumbbl, it seems that Lizards beat Orcs in black box, at least if you look at the top coaches and their stats.

Can anyone share his experiences and results? How is it possible to coach lizards successfully in a perpetual league (especially in match making formats) without getting sliced and diced by clawpomb teams? Or at least, how to do it better than Orcs, who for me at least seem to be team that can recover easier?

[Jimmy Fantastic]

Lizardmen are amazing in TV based MM because you don't need to go high.
Skilled Saurus and skilless Skinks is one of the most competitive builds there is.
My record in Blackbox is 17-4-1, just lost recently to PeteW, one of the all time greats. He was using Dwarfs and had a decent TV advantage. I didn't really struggle vs C-Pomb teams because I have 7 strong boys and they don't.
At high TV C-Pomb teams need to choose between Skinks and Saurus to go after so you will still have a decent win% but of course you are gonna get smashed sooner or later at high TV (just like all teams).

[Hitonagashi]

If you want to stay low TV in a perpetual league, and don't mind being hyper cheesy;

2 rerolls (or 1+leader), no apo, no skink reserves, fire any skink that skills. Once you've got some block, MB and tackle, you'll gut anything else at that TV, because your main weakness (wood elves) typically performs very badly against the other low TV races when min-maxed in a similar manner, and elves aren't popular in the Box atm.

This can get you scary win percentages (Tarabaralla managed 28/5/0 with his lizzies before he lost a game).

If you want to grow properly...it's tricky. You will take damage, and I'd design your build around the following principles
1) 2 saurii for the LOS. You won't be able to get away with more than this, and there's no point trying hard to skill these 2, as they'll snuff it frequently against claw.

2) Against clawbomb, put at least one skink on the LOS. 2d with tackle and 3d with tackle isn't a huge difference, and your main chance of staying on the pitch is if they fail the armour roll. There is a significantly higher chance of a skink leaving the pitch than a saurus...but it's also much less of a loss when they do.

3) Don't underestimate Mighty Blow. You can't take chaos on in a direct punchup, but unlike any other race, if the chaos man mark you, you will almost certainly get some hits back. If you are handing out 4-5 MB hits a turn, that hurts the bashers. They need to bring in assists to get 2d's on your saurii, and the MB that comes the other way hurts.

4) Roll doubles. However much you try, you will run into problems with saurii that don't double. At 1900+ TV, I'm not sure Lizzies can be competitive for more than 5-6 games in a row, given the fact that there's a pretty good chance that all 5 will be chaos with clawbomb as every skill. Dodge won't protect you against the dedicated killers, but it's a pretty good protection against the "lineclaw", as most chaos teams aren't carting around more than 2 legend killers, and Blodge protects well against anything but tackle. On the bright side, you don't need to worry about sacking healthy players...just don't expect to get many players over 76 SPP without either blodge, +st or minmax.

5) Don't forget Guard. As you are growing, mighty blow spam is the easiest way to target claw, and I see a lot of Lizardmen coaches neglecting to take Guard, as it's pretty much useless against Chaos. Under 1800, there's a lot of orcs and dwarves...I'd estimate at 14-1600, about 50% of your games will be against them (and this is the sort of TV you'll drop down to 1 in every 4 gamesish), and if you run into a guarded up orc/dwarf team with 0 guard of your own, that's going to hurt.

6) Skinks win games. At low TV, your saurii win the games, and if you have a huge chunk of your TV on skinks, you are stuffed. At high TV, your saurii still should be winning you most of the games...but when(not if) you lose a lot of players early, your only hope is to mob the ball carrier with skinks (after a saurus shatters the cage), turnover, and go 2-0 up. Most Chaos/Nurgle players in the Box much prefer to guarantee a draw with no damage to them than risk a win, and so they'll 5 turn grind you, clear the pitch, and then score in 2-3 turns for a draw. If you've taken 5 cas in 5 turns, a draw is a fair result for you (being as with Lizzies, you should be winning the games where cas dice is even), and the only way to get those is with skinks.

7) Stall. Do NOT score early, do not score fast. It's okay to start scoring fast when you are 2-0 up and have the ball in your claws, but always maintain a 2 TD lead. Usually, when I hit 1-0 and have the ball relatively safe, I start handing it off to a Saurus. You can usually manage a saurus pickup in 3-4 turns, and that's at least slightly more interesting than just hitting end turn repeatedly. Generally, I stall by punching 3 squares into their half and making a sideline halfcage there with skinks, then darting back and forth repeatedly while my saurii hit stuff. 3 squares is the magic distance that a skink can score with 2 gfi's from, and most opponents don't appreciate that fully. In an emergency, 3+3+2+2+ with a dodge rr and team rr isn't impossible to score from. If they leave a place where my saurii can punch a gap, I'll punch it and stall on their TD line, running back and forth along it with the small skink cage. Remember to use your speed. If your entire team is sticking stationary each turn, learn to move it, or go play Orcs.

Hope that helps, I've had a fair bit of FUMBBL Box experience...it's a bit random, just all written down in the order I thought of it .

[RogueThirteen]

I was going to weigh in with a bunch of feedback here, but if it's a TV-Matching online league, it seems others have hit the nail on the head. I've never played in a TV-Matching league, but I am glad I haven't--so much gaming of the system.

[fidius]

I was going to weigh in with a bunch of feedback here, but if it's a TV-Matching online league, it seems others have hit the nail on the head. I've never played in a TV-Matching league, but I am glad I haven't--so much gaming of the system.

Yes -- you really have to not mind playing against pricks to enjoy the Box. I played about 4 games there (went 1-3 with Elves, vs Amazon/Orc/Lizzie/Wood) and realized I'm a social player -- if there's no chat, hyper min/maxing (btw the no-Skinks scenario Hito describes is actually contrary to the Fumbbl TOS), and poor sportsmanship (smacking the end-turn button when the 4 min horn sounds with no notice, for example), I am not interested. Me, I will stick to tabletop.

Sorry to troll but I had such a negative experience there I'm having trouble letting go!

[poochée]

oh ok, now I understand. Thank you all for your explanations.
This whole blackbox minmaxing-thing is something I haven't quite undestood yet. Most likely because I don't really play on fumbbl. But it seems definitely interesting, at least from a meta gaming standpoint. Whether it's really fun to play or play against though, I can't really tell.

[Hitonagashi]

I was going to weigh in with a bunch of feedback here, but if it's a TV-Matching online league, it seems others have hit the nail on the head. I've never played in a TV-Matching league, but I am glad I haven't--so much gaming of the system.

Well, not that much. Very few of the players you play are minmaxed, and if you want to counter it, grow to 1600-1800 TV. If you want to hang around below that, then you are going to encounter min-maxers...but if you are going to hang around below that, you probably are! To me, the majority of my post is just how to survive...it's not "perpetual" league as much as any league which you encounter approximately 60-70% of your games as heavy clawbomb games. Admittedly...having 6+ clawbomb players on a team is unlikely to occur outside a perpetual league, but I play my scheduled league using similar tactics.

Yes -- you really have to not mind playing against pricks to enjoy the Box. I played about 4 games there (went 1-3 with Elves, vs Amazon/Orc/Lizzie/Wood) and realized I'm a social player -- if there's no chat, hyper min/maxing (btw the no-Skinks scenario Hito describes is actually contrary to the Fumbbl TOS), and poor sportsmanship (smacking the end-turn button when the 4 min horn sounds with no notice, for example), I am not interested. Me, I will stick to tabletop.

Sorry to troll but I had such a negative experience there I'm having trouble letting go!

Which part is against the TOS? You can't use loners while you have the cash to replace them (within reason), and have to stay at 11 players, but there's nothing stopping you sacking a healthy player as long as you immediately buy a replacement.

Regardless, as you say, you will meet pricks. I wouldn't say you meet many of them, but I'm not going to say there are none. I find more players have trouble having a nice chat with the person busy clawbombing your team, than the clawbomber being antisocial...despite not playing the hyperbash races, if I start a conversation, and they speak English, with 2-3 prompts you can usually get a conversation going. There are a few exceptions, but if you try and talk, most people will chat happily.

[fidius]

Which part is against the TOS? You can't use loners while you have the cash to replace them (within reason), and have to stay at 11 players, but there's nothing stopping you sacking a healthy player as long as you immediately buy a replacement.

My apologies, I misunderstood you. You can sack down to 11, no issue there (cheesy, yes, but legal). My game #3 was vs Lizzies with 12 games played (to my 2), 5/6 Sauruses with MB (1 with MB/Frenzy), 3 Loner Skinks, and about 300k in cash. Anecdotal I know, but consistent with my limited experience.

I didn't meet C-POMBers at such low TV, but the culture of the Box seems to be to get as many games in in as short a time as possible, and chatting runs counter to that goal. On the other hand sometimes people don't chat because they can't -- they're on a tablet in a cafe or something. Fair enough, but I find it annoying not to be able to share comments on events in-game. I'm willing to concede it's a flaw in my character.

The bottom line is probably that you need to enter the Box with your eyes wide open -- expect a min-maxed meta-game with ruthless competitors who are often playing for purposes other than winning, ie: team development, griefing, personal CAS records, etc. I imagine it's fun for some people but it's not my bag.

[Jimmy Fantastic]

Griefers gonna grief

[RogueThirteen]

I certainly don't have an issue with min-maxing individual player builds and managing TV in a general sense -- that's an important part of the game. Stalling on the goal line, fouling every turn, Clawpomb, etc. are also all legitimate aspects of the game.


What I find less appealing, though, is the sort of "gaming" of the system that occurs in perpetual leagues and in scheduled leagues where the opponent and his/her TV is known beforehand (allowing for the on-the-spot roster modifications to ensure/deny a wizard, for instance).


I guess my issue is with the sort of team management and development that occurs in a league environment where the opponent's TV is known with enough detailed prior knowledge to influence the post-game sequence (e.g. Cyanide or any TV match-making context where you can anticipate TV equal-ish to your own).

[Hitonagashi]

Well, technically, TT would have the problem too, if your rosters are held online, and one game finishes before another.

As far as I can see, if your rosters are online based, the following 'abuse' is still possible in a 4 team TT league:
1) Team 1 and 2 play. Both complete their post games and upload the result etc to the web
2) Team 3 player logs in and examines Team 1's roster, and memorises it's TV.
3) Team 3 and 4 play, and complete their post game. Team 3 captain uses the fact he already knows what Team 1's TV is in order to ensure that when he plays him next game, he gets a wizard.

FUMBBL's solution to it is that the higher TV team must always ready first, the logic going that the underdog gets a slight boost out of it. The only 'other' way round that is for a team that's in the post-game to carry out it's post game modifications, and the result of the game, and all injuries etc incurred in the game are hidden from the other coach until both teams are marked as ready. Obviously, in any sort of online environment, that's a no-go.

[RogueThirteen]

That's a good point. My own preference is probably due in large part to the experiences within my own local league. It's run with an "everyone show up this night of the week and the commish make pairings from whose available based on who has played whom in the past" method that quite nicely facilitates a sense of community and also avoids problems of challenging/scheduling that require the players to coordinate play times amongst themselves and doesn't have the problem of what to do when a game isn't played on time or a coach drops out of the league.

TV bloat and roster management are still very important, but there's no hyper-specific TV pruning going on to ensure certain inducements or favorable TV opponents.