No change! I fear change!
Triplets! I love triplets!
GC's lovely 1-2-quad based tier system. It's clearly the best!
Corkir continued on an unbeaten run and beat my skaven 2-0. I think the dark elves only failed two dodges in the whole game, pretty annoying and for some reason i was too worried about commiting rats to breaking or bogging down the cage enough to stop the 2nd touch down.
I failed 9 dodges in total and finished average in that respect. I mainly made good dodges into the open with skilled players. Do you know the difference between dodging into the open and into a tackle zone? You did that on at least one occasion when you had the movement to spare to dodge into the open before moving into the zone. I assumed misclick but in case you dont know each zone you dodge into adds a -1 modifier.
2-2 for the 2 already relegated teams in Division 2. Jarvis and I go down to the lower Divisions without recording a win between us.
Quite an eventful game, which saw one of my ag4 guys double 1 a pickup, then 2 the 3+ pickup he needed to rescue the situation next turn. That turned my drive into Jarvis's touchdown. On the other hand my guys redeemed themselves with an improbable elfball touchdown in turn 15 to even the score.
Nuffle giveth, Nuffle giveth away.
I beat Joose's dwarves 2-0 in Division K. Write up to come.
Yea i did know that Corkir, I misclicked twice, once when that guy stood up and once with my thrower. Yea when things go against you its easy to remember just the opponents success and not the failed dodges.
Division K - Boatmurdered Athletics FC (Dwarf, Joose) v Doomdark's Revenge (Chaos, me)
The mighty-yet-crap-at-Blood-Bowl-so-far chaos team lumbered onto the field led by their captain and most useless chaos warrior, Lord Doomdark, backed up by the mighty st5 Utarg of Utarg, and the minotaur Doomdark's Daughter. The dwarves were understandably unwilling to go up against the fearsome chaotic horde, and insisted on extra training and a mercenary deathroller being added to their roster (question - why not a bribe?).
The dwarves received the ball in the pouring rain, with the deathroller immediately knocking out a beastman and the irritating stunties stunning another. The chaos team stood off the dwarves, with the chaos warriors forming a formidable line and the mighty blow beastman Abandoning Hope being used in a hit and run capacity. A strong cage was formed by the dwarves, who moved forward to engage the chaos team directly. A massive fight ensued, with another beastman being carried off and the numerical superiority of the dwarves looking more and more important, but in their eagerness to more the cage forward the dwarf runner strayed too close to a downed chaos warrior, the Lord of Thrall, who promptly stood up and biffed him one.
The wet ball bounced around, until it was grabbed by the Utarg of Utarg, with the powerful warrior proving a huge obstacle to the dwarves’ chances of recovering the ball. The chaos team gradually shifted the fight from the centre circle to the right hand side of the pitch, away from the all-devouring maw of the deathroller, and despite a plucky dwarven blitzer who manage to knock over the Utarg with a plucky two-dice-against block, the ball was eventually recovered and handed off to Xajorkith Taken, the three-armed beastman, who sprinted clear up the right touchline.
The dwarves were unable to reposition in time, and the score was run in on turn 8 0-1 to Doomdark’s Revenge at half time
Glad to see the back of the deathroller, ten chaos players lined up against eleven dwarves at the start of the second half. The dwarves confidently put five blockers on the line of scrimmage, but these were made short work of by the chaos warriors and minotaur, with the minotaur getting yet another KO in the process (still no casualties for Doomdark’s daughter…). In response the dwarves lined up to batter a poor beastman on the right hand side of the chaos line, but this overcommitment to violence proved to be the dwarves’ undoing, as the more mobile chaos team simply charged up the left hand side of the pitch, with hardly any of the dwarf team able to get back and defend.
With only a runner between the chaos team and the line, and with the minotaur and a strength 5 chaos warrior holding the centre of the field to block the dwarves from recovering, a touchdown was all-but-inevitable. Some heroics from a blitzer and a troll slayer managed to delay the score, but a desperate attempt to shove the ball carrier into the crowd ultimately failed, and Xajorkith Taken scored a second touchdown. 0-2 to Doomdark’s Revenge on turn 14 and at full time
Two things, and quite long.
Firstly, I must say it's really nice of Cyanide to make it so that when a match is admin-ed, the winning team steals both MVPs and the losing team gets nothing. That's pretty much the nail in the coffin for me with regards to Blood Bowl, having ~18 SPPs including a badly needed level-up on a Tomb Guardian (And potentially, depending on where MVP landed, another level on a second TG) stolen from me because Cyanide can't code for shit just further convinces me I'm done for a while. 2 seasons break, a holiday for the first time in years (I'm not counting 2 tours of Afghanistan as a holiday :p), and some sunshine and I might mellow out. Plus some vineyard trips, that always helps.
Secondly, a more decent writeup than the post-midnight blast previously. I'm probably a little hazy on specifics, this was played at 11pm and I'd been up since 4am so I was hardly a bastion of concentration.
So coming into the final match of Division 1, both teams are playing to avoid relegation and thanks to an MNG Catcher the Wood Elves are given 160k inducements which lands on a Wizard. Amazingly, I have terrible luck with the damned coin flip, the Comics win the toss and elect to receive.
Interlude
No doubt people are gasping in horror at Khemri receiving against Wood Elves and not trying the 2-1 grind, but frankly I have never had much success with the 2-1 grind at higher TV. Your opponent knows you're going for that, so he's not going to score quickly and give you a leisurely 7ish turns to score and this is especially easy against Khemri due to their low speed.
Barring a lucky short kick or certain Kick-Off events, what will inevitably happen is the agile team hides the ball deep in their half, rushes a number of players through your line and waits for the opportune moment to pass and score. With slow-ass Skeletons and an inability to dodge, Khemri are left hoping they can bash a hole to pressure the carrier, but a smart agile player will simply not stand next to you and you're left hitting one player a turn. You then have to decide between bashing the players who are lounging around in your half or bashing a hole to pressure the carrier.
So I pretty much always choose to receive, as that gives me at least 3 players I'm (almost) guaranteed to hit and gives me the chance to decide the rules of engagement. While you're mostly going to be hitting trash LoS players, the name of the game here is to whittle the opponent down of 'trash' he can throw at the LoS or as markers so at some point he has to commit useful players.
Anyway, I digress. Essentially I've not had much luck with trying the 2-1 grind, I'm inevitably left not scoring in the first half because the opponent has stalled, so all I can squeeze out is an equaliser in the second half.
Back to the game
First drive starts off well, with the Comics BHing a LineElf and in a surprising display of ball handling collect the ball and cage up. Despite some Wardancer Leaping, the cage rumbles forward and in the continuing saga of being semi-useful, the SG/DP fouler snakeeyes his injury roll, merely stuns a Wardancer and gets himself sent off. Great. With the cage at the halfway line the Wizard comes into play and with obnoxious luck the carrier goes down, a Tomb Guardian is killed (But regens) and another cage corner drops. The Wood Elves easily prance in, scoop the ball and spend 3 turns stalling; the Khemri merely eventually managing to get one player in contact with the carrier who then makes a depressingly easy 2+ Dodge for the TD.
Setting up again the Khemri have 3 turns left to score, and again things go relatively smoothly with the ball caged up and rumbling up to the halfway line. The Wood Elves manage to largely stay out of trouble, but a failed Dodge (Notably the only one in the match) gives them a Turnover before being able to extract everyone and the Khemri have a field day with bashing. Of course they don't actually cause any damage, but still manage to knock over 6 of the opposition but thanks to player placement of Elves are left having to place the carrier out on the wing with only a Tomb Guardian (With Guard mind you) as support.
In a depressingly easy fashion the Elves waltz in, drop a 1D Block on a the carrier with their ST4 LineElf and roll up stumble which ends any hope of levelling the score. The Comics settle for some bashing, managing to KO a Wardancer and the first half draws to an end.
At this point I wasn't too disappointed with the performance, that first drive was nearly textbook but the stupid bloody Wizard came up trumps and handed an easy TD to the Elves. The second drive was a bit more ropey, some blocks ended up being Pushes when they badly needed to be something a bit more meaty. I figured an effective ST4 carrier, with Block, would have been reasonably sturdy but of course a frustratingly lucky 1D Block (In fairness the Elf was Wrestle/Tackle, so he had a 50/50 chance of rolling something useful but with Khemri I'll take 50/50 any day of the week) ended that hope.
Second Half
Kicking off to the Elves now, the Comics grab an extra TRR from the event but despite aiming short with a Kick player the ball sails miles away from the LoS. Thanks to a Cyanide bug the Elves had to field a rookie Catcher, but nevertheless depressingly easily slip 2 Wardancers and an AG5 player through the Khemri lines like they weren't on the pitch, and hide the ball well out of reach of any response. At this point it's 11.30 and frankly I'm barely awake, so I manage to mix up my players and leave the AG5 player entirely unmarked. Though in hindsight all I could have done is forced a trivial 2+ Dodge, with Dodge (As I left both Tackle players on the same side of the pitch. Tired. Fun), to score so actually it wouldn't have made much of a difference and as expected the Elves get their second TD. Still, a Blitz-ing Tomb Guardian lurched forward and punched a LineElf to the floor killing him on the spot and the Elf Apothecary helpfully suggests killing him to solve this.
Receiving this time the Comics complete what ended up being a pretty textbook cage run and get a TD, in the process handing out a number of Cas & KOs to the Wood Elves. I'm sketchy on details, but my backup fouler came up trumps somewhere in this half and KOed a Wardancer and BH another Elf and didn't get sent off.
Setting up again there are still 4 turns left on the board, so actually a draw is still entirely feasible. Of course once again despite aiming short and Kick, the kickoff sails miles away from the LoS. Sigh. In another depressing drive, the Elves run their AG5 player through the Khemri lines with trivial ease and setup to complete another textbook pass&TD. This time numbers are on the Khemri side, I think the Elves were down a number of key players, both Wardancers were now KOed and stubbornly refusing to wake up, so were unable to flood the Khemri half like last time in fact only having 6(ish?) players on the field. Despite a 2D Blitz, the Khemri were unable to roll anything other than a Push or Both Down so were left trying to mark the Elf. Naturally he easily completed his 2+, 2+ Dodges and pranced in their third TD.
With 2 turns left the Khemri have no chance of securing a draw so are merely playing for pride. The ball goes long however and a touchback gives a Blitz-Ra a feasible route in for a TD, especially with one of the few remaining Elves stunned thanks to an errant stone from a "fan". Running forward the Blitz-Ra gets within scoring distance, and the Khemri move to support him.
Network synchronisation error
And so ends the match.
I think I had a reasonable chance of a second TD, the Elves only had 3 players on their feet against a semi-cage of what would have been 3 players assuming I'd succeeded on the GFIs. It would have required a GFI, or 2GFIs if the Blitz-Ra had been pushed, but I reckon I had an outside chance of it all coming together. So quite annoying the game decided to crap out.
Analysis
I'm pretty fed up with Khemri actually, especially against any team who can easily dodge away from being marked. The team is too slow to put pressure on throwers and catchers simultaneously, and without a ridiculous amount of Tackle any agile team is going to be able to walk through your lines easily so you're left slowly shambling a few players towards the thrower and hoping you can mark/Blitz down the catchers. Of course, all it takes is a couple of players standing around with TZs and your pressure on the thrower is gone as you have no chance of getting past them, outside of a Blitz but that means the catcher is left unmolested.
I tried both methods, and while Blitz-ing up towards the thrower resulted in one dead Elf, the marking of AG5 players is basically impossible so he slipped free easily. The other method of Blitz-ing the catcher relies on rolling something other than Push/BD, which didn't happen, so that failed too. Bad luck for sure. I guess I could have spread the team out and attempted a 6+ interception, which actually has higher chances to succeed than stopping an agile player with Dodge or a TRR, once you look at the odds so perhaps that's a ridiculous route to go with.
Offensively the team was solid, I think all told handing out 3 KOs and 5 Cas including a dead Lv3 LineElf, but in what seems to be a reoccuring theme they were quite unable to roll those useful Pows when it was critical. The ST6 Block Tomb Guardian was a bit 'meh', though that was largely because only once did he not roll 2 Pows so actually the third dice always seemed superfluous. So really he was 'meh' by being superb, just the ST6 didn't make a huge difference. Drawlien however frustratingly only failed a single dodge to get his Elfs out of harms way (I'm calling a fail here one that causes a Turnover, if you have to re-roll but succeed that's not a fail!) so for most of the Offensive drives I was left only having one player to hit with a Blitz.
Fouling was going to be my main tactic here; hit one player to make him fall over, then stamp his face into the floor. This had a reasonable success rate actually, while my DP/SG fouler got himself (mostly) ineffectually sent off, the backup DP fouler got two players off the field and stuck it out till the end.
As Khemri, I probably wouldn't even go near the thrower - let him sit in their half if they want to. My suggestion would be to double up on any catchers who make it through your lines, and keep blitzing one each turn (with whoever your best blitzer is - mighty blow+ tackle is ideal :-D) whilst trying to hold the half way line (tomb guardians should help here). Keeping your team deep and forcing more difficult dodges/catches where you can is crucial, even surrender the half-way line to stack your half. Maybe send one (resilient) player upfield to act as a deterrent. Over-committing on the thrower will see a swift touchdown against as he dodges away and makes a perfect handoff/pass downfield. At least an elf team won't want to leave their catchers surrounded for too many turns, so you'll force the quick score if nothing else.
The only skill that will help you is diving tackle, really, tackle doesn't really slow an elf team down much, but diving tackle forces some pressure on those dodges.
'Course, I say this as someone who has a woeful track record against elves recently, but I think my own lack of diving tackle/pass block is somewhat to blame for my failures. That and causing NO INJURIES, despite my numerous tackle/mighty blow players. Elves are near-impossible to beat once levelled if they keep all their (good) players on the pitch IMO, regardless of your strategy, so you're always at the mercy of those armour breaks.
Benevolent dictator of the RPS Blood Bowl Divisions of Death - Join us!
Diving tackle also needs tackle, otherwise they use dodge to reroll the result and then waltz away laughing, the utter dicks.
Also, check their team out beforehand and make a note (on a post it or in notepad or something, don't use your mind because you'll just forget during the match and then get angry at yourself afterwards like I did last night) of who has niggling injuries and should therefore be targeted first. Also feel free to make a note of anyone who has a combination of really helpful skills and really low armour, but you can tell that yourself during the match. Niggle's the one you need to check in advance.
Diving tackle is better together with tackle, certainly, but its better than tackle as an elf-preventing skill on its own by giving an 8.3% chance of a turnover (they can't use a reroll after the dodge reroll). Assuming the elf player has a team reroll for the dodge, tackle only gives a 3% chance of the turnover (although, obviously, 16.6% chance of a turnover if they're out of rerolls...). In short, I'd want both (and tackle is obviously much more useful for bashing, too), but if i was picking one skill and wanted to prevent dodges? I'd get diving tackle.
Still, you'd want to force them to dodge into some tackle zones, too, as 1 in 11 failed dodges is still not all that successful if you're trying to prevent touchdown heroics :-)
/Edit - All numbers, of course could be corrected by someone who's spent more time on this. All dodges assuming we're dodging into free space...
/Edit edit - more number crunching suggest one tackle zone, diving tackle, no tackle, gives a 22% chance of an elf with dodge falling over, which is pretty good :-)
Last edited by groovychainsaw; 04-09-2012 at 12:42 PM.
Benevolent dictator of the RPS Blood Bowl Divisions of Death - Join us!
@Jaytee - The game doesn't actually sound *all that bad* actually. A 3-2 loss with 5 casualties caused when crucial dice go against you and you get wizarded is upsetting, but doesn't sound to me like compelling evidence that your khemri aren't competing.
(I'm not telling you what to feel here - it's just like you actually sounded like you had a fair shout at winning the game). Certainly I was about to weigh in here with tactical advice, but tbh it doesn't sound like you need any from me.
Was it the net sync error that's wound you up? And is there no way to fix this? Can you maybe replay the game and try to replicate the situation at least in touchdown terms (ie start the game, the woodie coach gets a merc elf instead of a wizard, let the woodies score 3 times, and you score once, let your TGs hit the "dead" elf and the merc elf in the hope of casualties, then spin it on to T15, put non-active players out of the way and see if you could have scored)? Should be quite quick and at least you'd get the winnings and 8 or 11 of your SPPs.
If timezones are an issue, you could ask one of us to play it out for you. I'm sure that one of the admins or longstanding members (who you'd trust with your password!) could have a bash.
EDIT - And isn't the point of the 2-1 grind that you don't need tackle or diving tackle to stop the elf coach scoring. If you can score on your own 8-turn drive (yes, the wizard, but with block on the TG instead of +1 ST he wouldn't have had the wizard - could you have cut a reroll or a bench skellie to deny him it?), then at worst you should draw 1-1 or lose 2-1 if you lose the ball on your own short drive. It seems to me that it's bash and offence that you want as Khemri, and you get that with tackle not diving tackle.
Last edited by Everblue; 04-09-2012 at 12:52 PM.
Yeah, AG5 especially makes it frustratingly hard to counter as even if you double-mark said player it's still only a 3+ followed by a 2+ to skip free. In hindsight I also spotted that marking a Leap Wardancer was a bit of wishful thinking as of course without being marked by 4 players (hah!) it's a 3+ roll to avoid any dodges together.Originally Posted by groovychainsaw
Elves. Bleh. I've beaten them once, thanks to a frankly obscene 9 KOs and 5 Cas, thus proving it's all about those crucial players not being on the pitch. Well in that case it was all about not having any players on the pitch...
My post-it note has that covered, hence why all 4 of those players were off the pitch by the end of the match ;) Niggle + Dirty Player/Mighty Blow is quite nice odds (~72%) to get someone off the pitch with a successful armour break.
Well it was 3-1 and the unfortunate wizard was annoyingly statistically almost the 'average' result when fireballing 5 players, still doesn't help much when you're left with such a scoreline. It's also not the first match where crucial dice have gone against the team, which of course is no-one's fault than dumb-ass luck, but my irrational side of course has other thoughts. You're right that the 2-1 grind means you're not trying to stop them scoring, but crucially you are trying to force them to score or they'll do what Drawlien did to great success and stall for a number of turns, leaving you with barely no time to reply.
I blame that useless Lv1 Blitz-Ra, ever since he came on the team it's been like the team can't roll dice for toffee. He has too many 'a's in his name, that's his problem; and some kind of fear of SPPs as he's at 12 matches with only 2 to his name.
The sync and loss of the SPPs just made me realise that actually I'm not enjoying the playing of the matches, it's more the number-watching side of me that wants to see numbers go upwards that is enjoying it. That's not what BloodBowl should be about, and I have been playing the Comics now for nearly 18 months so perhaps it's time to grab something else.
That's AG4, AG5 would be a 2+ then a 2+.
Dark, High, Wood and Vanilla Elf teams are all available if you want some sweet, sweet AG4 elfy vengeance.
The cruel book of irony dictates that if you did go down that route your first match would end up with 9 casualties. Its inevitable.
Incidentally - the another league I am in arranges dummy games between seasons for people who have missed out on SPPs and winnings due to disconnects or net syncs. Maybe something we could consider here? Just bung them into the RPS Open league, set up a game against a team of snots, admin it to 1-1, then bung them back out of the open league?
Everblue; off-season cat herding takes long enough already without adding further complications. It makes more sense at the end of long seasons with several weeks downtime between campaigns, but the DoD rely on fast turnover with so short seasons. It is a largely trivial – near rookie teams are the only ones who really suffer as a result of a missed game – and rare issue and does come with its own compensations. Very much a case of the medicine causing more harm than the disease from a DoD perspective imo.
No probs Zoraster. It was just an idea :)
I was about to say similar to Zor, so I'll echo his feelings, I like the idea in principle, but the admin overheads would be a little high for our 60+ band of heroes to turn around during the <1 week off-season here in the divisions. Missing one game is not going to leave you too disadvantaged here.
Benevolent dictator of the RPS Blood Bowl Divisions of Death - Join us!
I like the idea of "The Cruel Book of Irony". Sounds like a good read. I picture the front cover as a disgruntled man holding a fork in one hand, staring at an enormous pile of spoons.
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