Orcs in fumbbl or similar eternal formats

[poochée]

Hi there,

during the last months there has been a lot of discussion about eternal formats and what teams are competitive in those.

As far as I have understood from several posts Orcs apparently suffer very much under these conditions, falling prey to claw-teams and having a hard time recovering.

Now what I would love to know is what people who actually play Orc teams in these formats think about the situation and how they mitigate this weakness. Whether it's skill-choices, tv-management or tactics.

It would be great if people could post their experiences and share tactics and ideas. I myself have started an Orc team in fumbbl blackbox a while ago and until now it works out quite ok (considering that I am not the world's best Orc coach) but it's yet to early to derive any special knowledge.

[spubbbba]

I disagree that Orcs struggle in these type of formats. It is just that in LRB4 Orcs were one of the strongest teams at all TR stages and were the easiest of the basher races to build into a monster team.

They do find life harder at the 2000+ range against killer claw teams which are overly prevalent in Blackbox and Cyandie’s MM. But it is pretty easy to hoard a decent bank balance if you build the team slowly and maximise TV efficiency. If you get beaten up then your TV will drop so you’ll get softer games and more cash so can easily rebuild. You can still get plenty of MB and get a few PO player to target squishy AV8 players or DP linos for any killer opposing players to pile on away from their friends.

Even above 2000 I’d put them firmly in the top 10 as they are unchanged against elves and better than all the hybrid teams bar possibly skaven so it’s really only Chaos, Nurgle and Chaos Dwarfs that will give them tough games. Unfortunately they seem to make up the vast majority of high TV teams and there are a fair few min/maxed Pact team lurking in the mid TV range.

[Chris]

The problem I face is losing developed black orcs. They are slow to skill and it is even harder when the rest of the team is developed and you have a couple of rookies bobs hanging about as the opposition is a lot tougher. Ways round this? No idea.

[Overhamsteren]

My last 11 games in the fumbbl blackbox has been in the 1540k-1750k TV range, I try to keep a 13 man roster(should probably get a goblin to make it 14) and don't fire uninjured players but with attrition getting over 1800k TV range doesn't happen that often, and well under 1800k TV I think you are competitive vs chaos teams even with some rookie black orcs.

Of course you lose to the clawplomb sometimes but I think you just need to remind yourself that other clawplomb teams lose in the same way all the time, when cas are skewed and you are not elfs you most often get smashed. At least orcs can try a 1 turn touch down with the gobbo if they get smashed, clawplombers don't even get that.

[Master Wang]

My orcs on fumbbl were raged retired. If I were to try again, I would consider minimaxing to the max and keeping the team very lean and away from the uber Chaos teams. I might even consider being super uncool and firing players (probably over-skilled blitzers) while waiting to get the black orcs functional. I'd ignore the troll and goblins and just suck up the loses and draws I might have fluked into wins as my troll was a nasty bump in my TV that the team never coped with. I'd also go for a max of 2 rerolls once the black orcs have block and would consider dropping the thrower, if I even took him, too. It would be lame as hell and still wouldn't avoid the silly Pact teams that can minimax even better. To be creative or if I felt like going into high tv range, I would aim to get Fend on everyone and Guard on the 8 that could take it. This would then allow you to risk swarming those ClawPOMBers... but this is all just theory based on my own crumby experiences and watching some weirdos experimenting with Fend on dwarfs