And a failed dodge is an automatic injury roll, right? That's how this game works, isn't it? ;)Originally Posted by LowKey
Good game to LowKey, the first half was hard fought and fun, even if the second was a bit of a walkover.
And a failed dodge is an automatic injury roll, right? That's how this game works, isn't it? ;)
Good game to LowKey, the first half was hard fought and fun, even if the second was a bit of a walkover.
You should take stand firm. Since you are playing against my skaven.
Lowkey, I am by no means an expert on building the Warpstone troll, but from what I've experienced, maybe claw and then tentacles next level? with them already having mighty blow, you can hurt any player on a 7 + the 1 from mighty blow, so your hurting a player the 3rd of a time? I know it seems low, but if your breaking armour every 3 turns with him and you can get lucky and put some players down for the game or even the drive, you are much more likely to be successful. Just my two cents on the manner and again, I'm not an expert and playing skaven next, he won't be as effective with claw as he would with tentacles.
Forget tentacles. Great in theory but not in action. The Beast path works so well on Nurgle because he has a lot of muscle to support him and the spammed DP and FA further inhibits finesse teams. One tentacled Troll won't even register on finesse teams. You don't have the guard or the ST to support him so without SF or a blocking skill even if you get the tentacles somewhere important they are easily removed. Even a half die block has a 70% chance of getting tents off so it really doesn't offer much by itself.
Tentacles are great when you've got the skills to support them. Experience has shown the quickest path to a useful tentacled Troll starts with claw. The team also needs the early clawed troll to limit the snowball matches. I imagine this is doubly true on Cyanide where we are denied a core part of the roster muscle in the form of Fezglitch, Glart and Nobbla.
I wont be available for Bloodbowling again until the 29-30 december, so merry christmas everybody!
I utterly disagree with Zoraster here.
The fact that the Underworld team has issues with stalling makes Tentacle all the more useful. And Tentacles is always handy on a ST 5 creature. No team is going to top Nurgle in the stalling stakes, but Underworld are faster and more slippery, with all the advantages of a Stunty team - they shouldn't have to.
Even if you just park your Tentacle troll, every successful Tentacle is another target you can punch next turn without having to waste a Blitz.
Whether you take Tentacle or Claw first depends on how the rest of your team is shaping up (do your blitzers have Claw already? If so, take Tentacle) but you should consider taking both, eventually.
I worked out the odds for tentacles once and promptly forgot about it. Ah, here we go. For a strength 5 player to hold a strength 3 player is odds of about 58% (and 42% for strength 4). The problem is that tentatroll doesn't level up very fast, which is I think the main rationale for picking claw first.
I'm curious how much of that is theory crafting and how much proper testing you've done. Tentacles without stand firm or at least block is useless. You won't be getting free blocks against failed escapees because the overwhelming majority of coaches will just push you off. Even when your Troll is inevitably left playing with fodder the half die block with blocking skill is still a better option than the ag3 dodge even without tentacles so only weak coaches will be failing tents rolls. It is simply an irrelevance.
EDIT: actually thinking about it that is probably the big difference. Internet vs TT coaching mindset... very few internet coaches ever seem to make half die blocks above a dodge even when there is no MB threat from the skull. It is rarely done even when the succesful dodge would serve no positional purpose. Maybe in this environment tents isn't totally horrid... just watch out for the TT coaches :)
Last edited by Zoraster; 22-12-2012 at 09:11 AM.
Tentacles are okay, but too unreliable for my tastes - nice as a starting skill, not so good as a pick when you have guard/claw/stand firm/break tackle on offer.
For what it's worth, I would take claw first. That said, I disagree re your opinion of tentacles. Yes you can be pushed off, but that will typically require three assists so your troll has dictated the actions of three players that turn, and perhaps also taken up the blitz.
yes, the half dice block has better odds, but only against ag3 players without dodge and with block, and you don't take tentacle because you want to hold rotters in place - it's for elves.
Finally, and with the greatest respect - this "Internet players are crap" stuff is getting a bit old.
Half die blocks? What does that even mean? 2 against?
I'm failing to writing a blog, specifically about playing games the wrong way
http://playingitwrong.wordpress.com/
I think you were right to do what you did - you forced me to score when I could and made it a chancy score to boot. I had to roll a lot of dice to get that score in and any time you're forcing that against elves/skaven you're doing a good job. I did my best in the first half to keep my gutters out of harms reach once you'd broken through and wrackle gutter failed the suicide blitz. Letting you stomp on him for a couple of turns is a price i'm willing to pay in order to keep the majority of my team healthy. A one turner gutter is a nice fallback should a defensive drive go to shit as its still a great shot at a tying score especially with a team reroll in hand. It just got more potent now he has catch :)
From leveling up a Nurgle team on Naggeroth I'd say lots of net coaches are happy to take two against to escape from tentacles, although I might just be bitter from the number of times it worked. As for Underworld, I think the troll ultimately wants both tentacles AND claws but I'd start with claws too (although going for that presupposes you'll be doing a lot of blocking or blitzing with it, which is an invitation for turnovers). Guard's always useful of course, as is stand firm, the specific order probably depends on how the other players are developing. Often wondered if horns would be worthwhile too for anti-big guy work and easier three dice blitzes (which of course goes nicely with claws), but it's pretty marginal I imagine.
I find a skill which has a near-60% chance to mess up your opponent's turn, or forces them to throw an unfavourable block, or forces them to commit extra players to assist, is pretty worthwhile. 60% is better odds than Diving Tackle against most Dodge teams, too. It makes your troll a nuisance and a target and tough to ignore, which is both a benefit and a rarity on a team comprised mostly of goblins. That's where I find value in the skill.
Interesting thoughts, though. I admit I don't ever look at the tabletop metagame/strategy side of things. (Nor do I play in Naggaorth, maybe I should...)
The comments above once more provide an example of how the RPS BB community (and maybe the internet community as a whole) is dividable into two groups of coaches. One group of coaches has a lot of experience with the game (obviously you'll have this group in any game, but still) and in many cases has a background in tabletop Blood Bowl. The other group of coaches has gotten into the game only recently (i.e., during the last few years) and only ever played people on the internet.
Both groups of coaches have access to the (admittedly growing) game documentation and knowledge that is available from various sources on the internet (bbtactics, plasmoid's site, talkfantasyfootball, to a certain extend also podcasts like threedieblock and zlurpcast, only to name a few). What differentiates them though is that the first group of coaches, the tabletop players so to say, get a much more direct feedback during and between their games, as they are both playing in a face to face situation which facilitates communication, and also often are part of a local gaming community that discusses rules, odds, standard situations, etc. .
In my opinion, for a new coach Blood Bowl is all about learning. The basic rules and tactics are quickly acquired, some team development strategies follow shortly thereafter, but then, when it comes to the more complex things like pitch control / positioning, planning turns in advance, playing to meet the opponent's strengths and weaknesses, progress in coaching skill quickly becomes slow and dependent on feedback. Which is, hands down, pretty sparse in the online format. The after-match-analysis often is restricted to a few spectacular situations (which, on closer inspection, might be less important than some smaller overlooked mistakes in team setup or positioning) and the occasional "Oh well, the dice were pretty bad for you today" (which is nice and friendly, but is of little help for deducting some kind of lesson for the next match). Maybe fumbbl is a bit better in this regard, admittedly I have little experience with that community.
As I said, this is my opinion and has been my personal experience in the time I've played in this excellent community here. Chances are that I am very, very wrong. Could be that the number of matches played and general intelligence or analytical skills are a much better predictor for a coaches success than anything else.
I agree with Squirrel on this one. Playing TT would give much more chance for feedback on your performance and help with developing the more advanced coaching skills. To help with this I may start asking my opponents what I did well/badly in after my matches.
Nice analysis squirrelfanatic.
I like this idea and in fact I might go further and start using Mumble during matches (if my opponents would agree to join me there). It may be worth a try.
The occ is chock full of tabletop players. One of the admins designed the khorne roster, for heaven's sake. The standard is not noticably higher than here.
i also think that people don't alwa ys want to be told when they make a mistake. Whether face to face, or over mumble, or using the in game chat, the medium of feedback is not the issue.
I never want to gloat someone into a rage quit so even when my opponent is a complete car crash I don't talk about it.
It's hard to read how someone will take advice.
I'm failing to writing a blog, specifically about playing games the wrong way
http://playingitwrong.wordpress.com/
I'd be happy to chat to people on mumble during a match, although depending on how the dice are treating me it might descend into swearing and death threats by the end.
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