Let's Play Blood Bowl AGAIN - Skaven Team

[bardon777]

The problem I found against the Skaven is that the Dwarfs are, by nature, a low-scoring team, while it's quite possible for the Skaven to score 2 or even 3 times during a single half. All it takes is a few lucky rolls and suddenly you're facing a score deficit you can't hope to overcome. The best strategy is to murder as many Skaven as possible before that happens, but sometimes the block rolls turn against you. You seem to handle them pretty well with your Chaos team, at least.

In general with bashy teams, I like to go for to 2-1 victory over Skaven or WElfs. You kick the ball, let them quickly score(by turn 3 hopefully) while trying to kill as many as you can. Then turtle the ball down the field. After half time, repeat while not scoring until turn 16. While a relatively safe strategy, if your forced to score early or lose the ball you're screwed.

 

[Silellak]

PS: I said it before but I'll say it again: your passing stats are on the low side.

Actually, I'm not purposely avoiding passes. If I have a decent chance for a pass, I almost always take it, especially because it's worth SPP.

I think part of the reason I seem to favor running vs. passing is that a good deal of my touchdowns come from a Gutter Runner recovering a loose ball and running it back before anyone can reach him. Since they have higher agility than my Throwers, they all have Dodge, and there are more of them, it's more likely that one of them can scoop up the ball and make a run for it. If there's a Thrower nearby, and he can reach the ball without having to make a dodge roll, I'll go for it. It just happens less often than I'd like it to.

In general, the only time my Throwers are guaranteed to get the ball is when I'm receiving a kick-off, which can often only happen once a game if I'm keeping the other team from scoring.

Definitely not scared of passing, though. I wish I had a chance to use it more. I do try and keep my Throwers from getting tangled up with Blocking - if only to avoid any injuries - but sometimes I need the extra manpower so I have no choice.

 

[Silellak]

Holy. Shit. Game 11.

As I mentioned in my previous LP, this is another match against the Dwarves.

All of those players, and somehow the Dwarves still get enough in Inducement money to hire a Star Player. What the fuck? I don't care if it's standard in the Blood Bowl rules or not - the current way Inducements work is a load of bullshit.

Whining aside, this is a match against a very blockuing-oriented team, so as usual my fear is getting a ton of inj--you know what? Fuck it. I'm just going to show you what my sideline looked like on Turn 16. There's really no better way to say it.

So. How did we get to this point? Well, I guess I should start at the beginning.

Check this shit out. Dwarves kick out of bounds so JaKa gets the ball. With his +1 agility, it's really fucking easy for him to slip down the sideline. 2 "Go for It' rolls and I'll be one square away from my first point.

Jaka, you broke my heart.

The Apothecary brings him back from the brink, but seriously...I had to make two Go For It rolls at 2+ each, and I fucking fail one of them. Meanwhile, the Dwarves will make about 3 or 4 dozen "Go For It" rolls throughout the course of the entire match, without failing a single one. So, let this incident set the tone for the match.

Regardless of my bitching, we're actually off to a fairly promising start. Jasede injures their Star Player with his first Block, which really seems to be a theme during these LPs.

Murrow brings down another Dwarf (!), while Skyway goes to retrieve the ball the Dwarves failed to pick up.

Now, this is more what I expected. Shuma is down for the game.

Giving Block to my Gutter Runners proves to be a wise decision, as WhiskeyWolf and Skyway bring down their Runner. Skyway grabs the ball and...

...makes a touchdown that somehow I forgot to take a screen capture of.

Amusingly, this is the only turnover of the game where the Dwarves actually have more injuries than me.

An interesting event occurs at kick-off that I hadn't seen before. It turns out to be rather irrelevant, as the Dwarves prove quite able to slaughter my team without resorting to fouling.

On reflection, I may be partially to blame for the soon-to-come asskicking. They are slow and retarded, and kicking the ball that deep was just cruel.

Murrow is down. The Skaven Genocide has begun.

JoKa is next, and will miss the next game.

VD fakes an injury to go get more work done on AoD (hopefully).

I manage to get the ball away from them briefly, despite having only 5 players left on the field, but it won't last. My favorite part of this picture: Volourn remains standing, despite everyone else taking a fall.

Half-time. It's getting pretty crowded over there already. I can only field 8. And they get the ball.

I kick the ball long again, and they work their way down. On reflection, maybe I should've kicked it short and just let them score. On the left, Ratatosk goes down. Welcome to the team, bud. Lots of injuries and KO's later leads to...

This is where all the cool kids hang out.

Our ball. We can only field six players. Six. I really only have one shot at this. Anthony Davis grabs the kick-off...

...hands off to DU, who passes to WhiskeyWolf...

That's right, you slow fat fuckers. Suck my fat Skaven cock. One turn, outnumbered 2 to 1, and I'm 2 squares away from your goddamn endzone.

No. God fucking damnit.

It's my own fucking fault for leaving him next to the sidelines, but I wanted the extra distance away from those slow fucks.

Racofer goes down. Still not sure if he was actually injured, or just wanted to get off the field before the Dwarves ran him over.

Skyway does his best to get the ball back, but solo, he's pretty much fucked.

...and that's how we got to here.

The best part? Check out the log at the bottom left. That's right - Turn 16 and Volly is still going.

This was really a tie in name only. As is quite clear, I got slaughtered. There was a slight chance I actually could've won, if I hadn't mis-placed WhiskeyWolf there at the end. But honestly? I'm really just lucky my only permanent injury was JoKa missing a game, especially since I only injured two Dwarves the entire time, and one of them ended up with -1 STR (basically making him worthless as a Dwarf).

So, there's some slight comfort there.

Some pathetic end-of-match stats. Bleh.

I'm honestly at a loss as to how to do well against the Dwarves. Sure, I could've played a bit better all around - I made a few dumb moves with Jasede - but when your opponent is rolling an injury against you every other block, there's only so much you can do. I think my strategy of "score before they murder my team" is the only thing that saved me from another depressing defeat ala Game 6.

Of course, when I play against the Skaven as the Dwarves, the little fuckers may as well be invincible. Ah well. Next match is against the Humans, so hopefully that will go better.

 

[bardon777]

Best bet against dwarfs(or anyone you cant out bash) is to never leave any player adjacent to them unless its absolutely necessary. That way the most they can do is hit you once a turn. When they cage up the ball carrier, dont engage them but stay 1 step away. This will make them move very slowly unless they want to risk dodging, which is your best bet for opening up enough of a hole for a blitz.

 

[Ratatosk]

Welcome to the team, bud.

Thanks! Glad to be part of the team...

Oh, and also thanks for the compliment. Both of you.

 

[Brother None]

Dude, your fist lineup vs dwarves is the wall?

There's the reason AI does better than you summed up. Play your own game, not the dwarves'

 

[Elwro]

That was intense!

 

[Silellak]

Best bet against dwarfs(or anyone you cant out bash) is to never leave any player adjacent to them unless its absolutely necessary. That way the most they can do is hit you once a turn. When they cage up the ball carrier, dont engage them but stay 1 step away. This will make them move very slowly unless they want to risk dodging, which is your best bet for opening up enough of a hole for a blitz.

That's a good idea. I'll have to give that a shot next time I'm up against those little shits.

Dude, your fist lineup vs dwarves is the wall?

There's the reason AI does better than you summed up. Play your own game, not the dwarves'

Yeah, that was a mistake I noticed during the game but forgot to mention. I meant to start off with a more defensive formation, but I was so used to starting off with the Wall in order to get my Gutter Runners deep that I did it out of habit.

 

[Gold]

Damn you Silellak, I started reading this LP and ran home and bought this game. After about 4 matches I finally got some idea of what I was really doing. It is a very interesting and frustrating game.

 

[Silellak]

Damn you Silellak, I started reading this LP and ran home and bought this game. After about 4 matches I finally got some idea of what I was really doing. It is a very interesting and frustrating game.

"Interesting and frustrating" definitely describes my first few days with it - I actually almost gave up. I'm impressed it took you 4 matches to figure out what was going on; I think it took me double that.

No pity for making you buy it though. Anthony Davis' initial LP was what convinced me . Now that you have a feel for it, I'd recommend checking out the Living Rulebook to see some of the specifics regarding what is going on.

Rules are for fags RAAAR

 

[Gold]

Thanks for the rules link, I am going to print that out while I'm at work. Once I figured out that failed blocks cause turn-overs and reading the various LPs, I'm getting a hang of it with the Dwarfs. (Which have a very simple game plan.) I should finally learn tonight how to actually score twice with them, all of my games have been 1-0 affairs.

 

[Silellak]

Thanks for the rules link, I am going to print that out while I'm at work. Once I figured out that failed blocks cause turn-overs and reading the various LPs, I'm getting a hang of it with the Dwarfs. (Which have a very simple game plan.) I should finally learn tonight how to actually score twice with them, all of my games have been 1-0 affairs.

No problem. Dwarves are definitely a good "learning team", because as you said, they have a very simple game plan and you can learn the ropes without worrying about more complicated aspects like passing and (in some respects) dodging.

The dodging rules are especially tricky; I still don't fully understand them, even after reading the rulebook and having someone here explain it to me.

Could just be that I'm retarded, though.

 

[Silellak]

God fucking damnit. I rolled a +1 on strength for a Gutter Runner, decided to look through mutations real quick just for fun, and accidentally clicked on "Disturbing Presence" instead of "Cancel", and there's no way to undo that shit.

I am way too fucking stupid to play this game. That said, new match up soon.

 

[bgillisp]

Welcome to the team, bud.

Thanks! Glad to be part of the team...

Oh, and also thanks for the compliment. Both of you.

Nice picture! Made me laugh hard when I first saw it

 

[Silellak]

Quick-ish update for Game 12.

Playing against the humans again. Really getting sick of these same few teams. We kick-off to them...

...a few stupid moves on my part later...

...hip hip hoo-fucking-ray.

Another fairly rare event. Volourn is KO'd (guess it finally caught up with him), while the Human player takes a permanent injury.

I form up around VD for a pass while Anthony Davis smashes a human's face in. That always gives me a warm happy feeling inside.

Shuma goes for it and VD sends him the ball...

...etc.

Another rare-ish event, the riot, occurs at kick-off. The clock is rolled back a turn, giving the humans a slightly better chance to score.

Jasede sends their Ogre out for the game.

Second half, another rock-throwing! This one kills a human player. Guess you should've saved that apothecary.

I set VD up for another pass.

The AI rolls a 6 and intercepts the fucking thing...

...Brother None channels my rage into the skull of the nearest human...

...but it doesn't matter because they're just a pass and a jog away from another point.

DU fumbles the ball pick-up. Not really the sort of shit I need to happen right now.

Anthony Davis slams a human out of bounds.

WhiskeyWolf makes a break for it...and falls right on his ass. This is the sort of bullshit that sometimes brings me close to giving up on this game entirely. For the most part, it's really fun, but the randomness of it can drive me fucking insane. The AI gets to make a 6+ roll to intercept, but I faill two 2+ Go For It's...even after using a re-roll on one of them. I realize it's supposed to a little risky, but cut me some fucking slack.

A couple of turns I can't afford later, and WhiskeyWolf has recovered the ball.

I would be happier, but all I've managed to do is force a tie.

I blitz the fuck out of the right side, and actually manage to knock the ball loose...

...one turn too late.

But hey, at least I had a high match rating!

Another pathetic match for SPP, especially when I look at Brother None's numbers. I'm starting to wonder just how "balanced" the game is in regard to giving out SPP to certain types of teams. They are incredibly few events that actually generate SPP. Those are:

- Randomly chosen MVP
- Touchdowns
- Causing injuries during a block
- Passes

MVP is worth 5, touchdowns are worth 3, injuries worth 2, passes worth 1. If you ask me (and maybe I'm bias here), passes should be worth at least 2. They are much harder to pull off successfully than a block, and happen much less often. Passing is difficult enough that you can't really pass the ball around and 'cheat' to get SPP, so that's not really a worry.

On the other hand, a smashy-based team can easily cause 4-5 injuries a game, which alone gives them 8-10 SPP. Add any touchdowns they make, plus the 5 SPP for the MVP, and that's at least 20 SPP a match. I'm hard pressed to come anywhere near that close. The only thing I can think of is to score more often. Either way, it seems like the smashy-teams are able to advance their players more quickly. But it's also possible I'm just being a whiny bitch after my most recent games.

Speaking of SPP, my levels:

Jasede rolls a stat-up! I give him another point of movement.

WhiskeyWolf rolls another stat-up, just to piss off Brother None! But as you know if you read my earlier post, I am a dumbfuck, and accidentally gave him the Disturbing Presence mutation due to a mis-click:

As you can see, it's not necessarily a bad skill, but it is definitely a wasted opportunity.

Shuma levels up and I boringly take Sprint, because I'm doing oh-so-well at rolling those "Go For It" rolls.

Next game is against the Orcs! If I don't win, I'm pretty sure I'm out of the tournament. Not even sure what exactly happens if I do win.

 

[bgillisp]

Holy. Shit. Game 11.

That looks sadly like the last time I played the wood elves vs the Skraven (I was the wood elves). And yes, you saw that right, I went toe-to-toe playing as the WOOD ELVES and KO'd most of the players on a team. Then again I think my wood elves must be doping or something, as they went toe-to-toe against the Dwarfs and injured more of them than were injured in that game. Crazy huh?

 

[bgillisp]

Quick-ish update for Game 12.
WhiskeyWolf makes a break for it...and falls right on his ass. This is the sort of bullshit that sometimes brings me close to giving up on this game entirely. For the most part, it's really fun, but the randomness of it can drive me fucking insane. The AI gets to make a 6+ roll to intercept, but I faill two 2+ Go For It's...even after using a re-roll on one of them. I realize it's supposed to a little risky, but cut me some fucking slack.

You are aware that there is a known bug of the game not always re-rolling the die when you click re-roll? It seems to occur if you click it too quickly after seeing the result, most people have managed to avoid it by counting to 10 then selecting re-roll. The problem seems to be that if you click it too fast the animation doesn't go and therefore the die do not actually re-roll, sitcking you with the last result AND out a re-roll.

 

[HanoverF]

God fucking damnit. I rolled a +1 on strength for a Gutter Runner, decided to look through mutations real quick just for fun, and accidentally clicked on "Disturbing Presence" instead of "Cancel", and there's no way to undo that shit.

I am way too fucking stupid to play this game. That said, new match up soon.

After a match if you level save without quitting, then pick your skill/stat, if you make a mistake quit without saving and you get a re-do.

 

[Silellak]

Game 13.

The Decline vs. the Oakland Raiders! They get a re-roll and a star player. I am now entirely convinced that AI team ratings are not calculated the same way the player's team is.

An Orc gets taken out by a rock before the game even starts. I think this is one of maybe two injuries they take the entire game.

They don't have any gobbos, so I know this is going to be a running game. I move in to surround their wall without getting too close, waiting for a chance to nail their ball carrier.

Jasede tries to take down their star player and rolls two Attacker Downs. Then...re-rolls two Attacker Downs. Maybe this is a bug as mentioned a few posts back, but if so, the fact that a bug that serious remains in the game after 3 or 4 patches is pretty fucking sad.

They keep slamming their way through any defense I put around their wall. I feel pretty useless against this strategy.

Volly manages to hurt someone else, instead of the other way around...

...not that it matters.

I form my passing X around DU.

JoKa gets through, DU makes the pass...

...yeah baby.

Second half. Same X formation around VD.

They crowd me much quicker this time. My attempt to make a whole for a Runner and VD...does not end well.

Chaos ensues. The ball goes out of bounds in one of the most "fuck you" places possible.

Watch the marvelous Skyway who has a chance to scoop up the ball but fails a 3+ roll twice in a row. Because why the fuck not? I can't even remember the last time I made a game-vital roll successfully.

Next turn he fails a 2+ pick-up roll, just for good measure.

This gives the Orcs plenty of time to get a mob over to the corner, steamrolling Skyway and his escort Jasede.

The Orcs, of course, have no trouble making their 3+ pick-up roll. Rather than score, they're cocky enough they start fouling my players and delay the game an extra turn. I guess this is good AI, but it's depressing as Hell when a non-sentient, emotionless computer program realizes they have you beat so badly they can just start fucking with you.

...

An absolute fucking slaughter. I didn't take a picture of the stats screen, but now I'm sort of glad, because it probably would've just depressed me more.

No play-offs for me.

Both Throwers level up, at least:

DU takes Accurate.

VD gets a point in movement.

On that depressing note, I think I'm going to ahead and put this LP on hold a bit earlier than expected. I finished the tournament (though not exactly how I expected), and I'm not sure I can stomach another Human/Orc/Dwarf tournament (which the next one is). Really getting sick of seeing the same teams after 13 games.

So, while I may play a bit this weekend, chances are this is the last game for at least a couple of weeks. Not exactly how I wanted to leave it, but at least losing sometimes keeps things interesting. Unlike certain other LPs involving certain Chaos teams that shall remain nameless.*

* - just kidding, of course. I follow that LP pretty religiously. I just wish I was half that good myself.

 

[Jasede]

 

[Ratatosk]

Orcs, horrible creatures...

Anyway... can´t wait for moar!

 

[NotAnAlt]

Jasede tries to take down their star player and rolls two Attacker Downs. Then...re-rolls two Attacker Downs. Maybe this is a bug as mentioned a few posts back, but if so, the fact that a bug that serious remains in the game after 3 or 4 patches is pretty fucking sad.

Loner Skill?

 

[Brother None]

Loner Skill?

Yip, he failed his loner roll.

And owtch, Jasede

It kind of makes sense that the toughest teams for the skaven to play against are the physical ones. The biggest problem is the attack strategy when they have the ball. Perhaps letting them score to give yourself some extra time does make sense.

 

[wjw]

On that depressing note, I think I'm going to ahead and put this LP on hold a bit earlier than expected.

The Hivemind does not agree.

 

[bgillisp]

Loner Skill?

Yip, he failed his loner roll.

And owtch, Jasede

It kind of makes sense that the toughest teams for the skaven to play against are the physical ones. The biggest problem is the attack strategy when they have the ball. Perhaps letting them score to give yourself some extra time does make sense.

Maybe...but there are documented cases on the official forums of it happening on people without the loner skill