A few thoughts on Khemri

[Smeborg]

I share some thoughts on the Khemri team, which I have tried in practice last year (tabletop league, about 25 games):

THRO-RAS: These much maligned players have an appropriate place in the team. The key, I believe, is to appreciate that their role is not simply as Runners, but as utility players, especially on defense. As one of only four MA6 players on the team, they are often the ones in a position to blitz the opposing ball carrier (or Receiver). For these reasons, I like to go Block/Tackle/Fend as their first normal skills, only giving consideration to specialist skills such as Leader and Kick-off Return as 4th skill (if at all).

PICKING UP THE BALL: Because of the high likelihood of dropping the ball instead of picking it up (1 in 4), I often form a cage around the ball before picking it up. This brings greater ball security (at a cost in position, of course). Kick-off Return is not needed in this method.

STAYING UPRIGHT: In the clumsiest team, and one of the 6 slowest teams in the game, Khemri players cannot normally afford to go prone voluntarily. Better to keep Tackle Zones in being. For this reason, skills like Wrestle and Piling On (and by extension Diving Tackle) do not suit the team.

FOULING: Khemri are not built to foul systematically. Situational fouling is better (against targets of opportunity). Getting superiority in numbers (especially near the ball) is hard enough for them without getting players sent off.

Hope that is of some interest - I found this "system" worked well enough in practice. Glad to hear all your views.

[mattgslater]

My experience

1) Khemri can't survive down numbers. They need to keep their numbers above their opponents'. There are several ways to do this, but none are automatic. You can build a bench; in fact, you should. That's not helpful in the moment, though. You can field fewer Thro-Ras, which is a bummer because 2. You can keep cash, later on, to replace lost Tomb Guardians. You can take Mighty Blow and Guard on multiple TGs, then get lucky and not see them all die suddenly one day. You can give in and pay a ST3 TZ that you're not too concerned about (yes, TGs are worth something!) to a) make your expensive guy unblockable by going prone, and b) be that much more likely to take a guy off the field. You can run the risk of losing a 60k player to run up the odds of taking out that Leap/JumpUp/AG5 guy you'll never catch in a million years. So, I don't fault Khemri coaches for POMB (esp on Blitz-Ras) and Dirty Player.

2) You are SO right about Thro-Ras. Thro-Ras rock. They let you build a real game-plan. Two is a totally worthwhile investment. Forget about throwing and Pass: your track with them is Block, then Fend. Doubles can be Dodge or Side Step.

3) You need to get skills on Skeletons. You need a Dirty Player and a bunch of Block or Wrestle. I think one tactical Wrestle, plus Wrestle as #2 on the DP Skel, is enough. But you need to keep skilling them, because Guard Skels win games.

[Hitonagashi]

When I played Khemri, I had a fair bit of success with bench + fouling method. (35 box games)

I maintained 14-15 players, with 4 DP's, and got into a pattern of "3d blitz something down with a mummy", then foul it with 3-4 assists. I only stopped fouling once 2 players had been sent off in the drive, and didn't field all my DP's at once.

I kinda like thro-ra's, if only for MV 6. I didn't cage the ball completely, instead, I always formed a double layered screen. First screen is usually the LOS (block everyone away), then I formed a second screen of skeletons before the ball, and then the thro-ra picks it up and moves in between the screens, therefore forming a cage (or if they are close, behind the second screen).

I loved my MB/PO/tackle blitz-ra. Khemri are best numbers up, and fouling + MB/PO is the best way in LRB 6 to go men up!

[swilhelm73]

One of the Khemri teams in my division has a ST4, Frenzy, MB, PO, Tackle Blitz-Ra. He managed 18 CAS in 10 regular season games leading his team to the playoffs - so Blitz-Ras can be quite a force.

In fact both Khemri teams in the league made the playoffs (30 teams, 12 playoff slots).

Overall I would argue Khemri's weakness - AG2 - is not nearly as bad as you might think, and Khemri are very much a tier 1 team.

[Smeborg]

Thanks, guys, I agree with all your comments, but note that not all of these strategies can apply at the same point in time!

One of the main things that intrigues me with Khemri is that they try to win on numbers when they can, but often they can't, given that their AV is, at best, average. This is unusual for a high ST team. Thy also lack Claw, and have no starting Tackle or M-Blow. So Khemri have to employ a more subtle strategy (or set of strategies) than just winning on numbers. Therein lies the challenge.

All the best.

[mattgslater]

Definitely, there's an evolution here. Here's what I see happening on FUMBBL Ranked.

1) Khemri team forms up. As rookies they're pretty decent, because the ST advantage really helps and the lack of Block on both sides more-or-less negates the penalty you take on your AG2/SH pickups vs non-SH basher teams.

2) As the team progresses, it gets harder and harder to stay competitive in the early going. For a little while, you've got your TGs waiting to improve while your Skels, TRs, and BRs tend to pick up intermittent skills. In the early going, your BRs are going to get lots of 75% shots while your TGs do the unglamorous tie-down work. Your high ST overall means that Guard is a bit less important than it otherwise would be, so your BRs tend to go down the TPOMB track just to maintain skill quality. Your TRs take Block and maybe Fend, and you get a few G skills on Skels. Since you're going to be POMBing with your BRs, you're committing to play an attrition game. What skills do you take for that? Dirty Player, right?

3) Eventually you get your TGs up to MB, and with a ton of MB and ST and DP, your opponent really has to take some TGs out, just to give himself a chance. By this point, you're consistently out-Guarded, but your ST advantage generally more than makes up for it. However, once four guys are gone, you're screwed.

4) Eventually eventually, you can get Guard on your TGs, and maybe a couple with Block. Then it becomes a lot easier to protect your Skels. Now you rock.

[spubbbba]

4) Eventually eventually, you can get Guard on your TGs, and maybe a couple with Block. Then it becomes a lot easier to protect your Skels. Now you rock.

But with decay how many guardians make it to 2 or 3 skills? I wonder how many of those good mid-high TV [R] teams are new or leftovers from lrb4 that already had 4 block mummies.

Usually once you get to that stage the other bashers have plenty of guard, PO and Mb themselves. Plus the Chaos teams will have claw.

I think that khemri are probably best at mid Tv if you can get a couple of skills spread out and ideally some block guard and MB on the guardians then they will be a nasty prospect.

[Hitonagashi]

4) Eventually eventually, you can get Guard on your TGs, and maybe a couple with Block. Then it becomes a lot easier to protect your Skels. Now you rock.

But with decay how many guardians make it to 2 or 3 skills? I wonder how many of those good mid-high TV [R] teams are new or leftovers from lrb4 that already had 4 block mummies.

Usually once you get to that stage the other bashers have plenty of guard, PO and Mb themselves. Plus the Chaos teams will have claw.

I think that khemri are probably best at mid Tv if you can get a couple of skills spread out and ideally some block guard and MB on the guardians then they will be a nasty prospect.

My experience with them is Box, but I found they were awesome against the clawbombers. Once my LRB 4 players died off, I embraced the decay.

Basically, I used the mummies like rookie saurii. Their sole role was to attempt to tie up 3 players as consistently as possible, and just spread out tying up. 3D's were great when I took them, but the main players I skilled/protected were my blitz-ra's and thro-ra. All my skeletons took DP, and I'd put a beastman down, and if he'd po'ed with a clawbomber, I'd probably foul it.

I don't think Khemri need skilled mummies any more. I give mine MB, and guard if they get that far, which certainly helps, but I don't plan on any surviving.

[swilhelm73]

Usually once you get to that stage the other bashers have plenty of guard, PO and Mb themselves. Plus the Chaos teams will have claw.

This might be a problem with the team design. Playing in open matchingmaking league there are a lot of high TV Chaos/Nurgle teams. This will eventually winnow TGs down - though ST5+regen don't make this easy necessarily.

Playing in a structured league though the math is very different.

My division in GOBBLN was:

Amazons
Necro
Khemri
Human
DE
Dwarf

My necro team does have a CLPOMBer...but he's ST3 and I have 2 players with guard. Needless to say the Khemri team didn't lose many players. And in the other divisions there might be one Chaos or Nurgle teams that may or may not have much claw since the divisions are not all bash teams.

In this structure Decay isn't much of a penalty - especially on an ST5 player...

[dode74]

This might be a problem with the team design.

Team design, or TV-based MM design?

[spubbbba]

Well Khemri often struggle more in a scheduled league than they would in TV matched open play. They tend not to score many TD’s and rarely complete successful passes. The Guardians are very hard to skill up since they are no better at causing damage with a 2D than a rookie human lineman and you don’t get spp’s from fouls.

So they will tend to gain spp’s more slowly than other teams, this is countered somewhat by having a lower attrition rate thanks to regen, though decay may cancel that for the guardians. I’m sure Dode has the stats somewhere about that.

The difficulty Khemri have always had was their lack of mobility and low armour. This meant that agile teams could easily avoid the mummies/guardians whilst the bash teams can either tie them up with fodder and beat up the skeletons or only need a couple of assists to get a 2D block. The guardians are not that hard to knock over without block and even MB/PO has a reasonable chance of doing damage. If you get unlucky with regen/decay then buying and skilling up new guardians can be a long process.

I still think Khemri were never an overpowered team in lrb5 they were nasty at low TV (though not as good as undead, dwarfs, orcs or wood elves for instance) but poor at high. I can see why they were changed as to be most effective you had to make them boring, 1 dimensional team destroyers. But they went too far and now they are probably the only tier 1 team worse than humans.

[RogueThirteen]

I've never played as Khemri, though I've played against them quite a bit in local TT League. I've also played a few seasons as Lizardmen and Ogre, which while they're obviously worlds apart, are somewhat Khemri-esque in that they have low agility "strongmen" and weaker, vulnerable, more agile players. So, in a sense, I see Lizardmen/Ogre/Khemri as dichotomoy teams.



This is probably a very unpopular view, but if I were to build a Khemri team I'd opt for Break Tackle on at least a few Tomb Guardians over Block or Mighty Blow as a first skill. These dichotomoy teams like Khemri are incredibly unforgiving on your positioning because you've got to protect weaker players and will almost always be going up against teams that have more Block and Guard than you do. This means positioning has to be air tight, all the time, or your entire drive can collapse like a house of cards. Given that, I think a skill like Break Tackle is far more important to the team's success* (Note: I define BB success as winning games, not earning SPP CAS points).

Most good opponents, I think, will be more than happy to man-mark your TGs with fodder pieces (Dwarf Lineman, Chaos Dwarf Blockers, Zombies, Orc/Human Lineman, etc.). Sure, this will give you a 2-Die block against each of them, but this will likely burn a TRR every two or three turns. Then, the opponent can at leisure threaten the ball and hunt your frail skellies and Thro-Ras. Break Tackle lets you keep your TGs in the game, and heck, it even makes them a fairly potent screen/cage breaker.

But, like I've said, I've never actually played Khemri for a league season, so I'll defer to those who have had the patience to do it. I have enjoyed success, though, giving two Sauruses Break Tackle as a first skill and on my Ogre team every ogre took Break Tackle as a first skill (barring doubles).

[Hitonagashi]

Meh, same argument against BT first skill on mummies as Saurii in my opinion.

You take a risky 2+ to get there, and then you have a risky 2d without block when you get there. Too risky a strategy for me...

[Smeborg]

Basically, I used the mummies like rookie saurii. Their sole role was to attempt to tie up 3 players as consistently as possible, and just spread out tying up. 3D's were great when I took them, but the main players I skilled/protected were my blitz-ra's and thro-ra.

I think there's a case to be made for doing that in tournaments too, giving no skills to the TGs.

[Smeborg]

Regarding Break Tackle (RogeueThirteen and Hitogonashi), I think this may be a valid strategy. It works a treat on Ogres. I will consider testing it. My inclination would be to go for it as first skill on all 4. Of course it means arrested development, but so what.