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Strategy and Tactics - new Halfling coach
DarkAngel - Dec 05, 2003 - 07:59 PM
Post subject: new Halfling coach
Hey all! this is my first post...
Just starting playing Blood Bowl recently and decided if I was going to lose all the time, I might as well have fun. What better team to lose with than Halflings?
Well, that didn't work out the way I planned. The "Mighty Taters" are 8-0! Is this a fluke or are the Halflings actually a competitive team?
Zombie - Dec 05, 2003 - 08:42 PM
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Halflings are actually a competitive team in the low team rating bracket (say, up to 120 or 130). At that stage, they can beat anyone. It's after that point that they start to lose, because other teams improve while halflings have nothing to spend money on and no good skill to use their SPPs for.
But still, 8-0? Are you playing against monkeys or 5 year olds?
GalakStarscraper - Dec 05, 2003 - 08:45 PM
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Several questions first:
1) Ogres or Treemen
1a) If Ogres, does your league roll Bonehead to go from stunned to prone or standup?
1b) If Treemen, does your league use the LRB rules for Take Root or an onpitch varient
2) Does your league use a house rule that passes only fumble on a natural 1 (even TTM plays)? IE range does not effect fumbles.
3) What handicapping system does your league use? LRB table, or MVPs and Cards
4) Were you allowed to pick your opponents or is your league scheduled?
5) Did you get an AG 4 Haflling quickly or at all in your team development?
6) Did you league allow you to purchase the Master Chef or did you need to freeboot him for 50k a game?
7) Are you normally the best player in your league?
The answers to these questions will very much help me tell you if there are any special reasons here.
Galak
Clan_Skaven - Dec 05, 2003 - 09:16 PM
Post subject: These Questions....
These Questions & Many Others Will Be Answered On Next Week's Eppisode Of SOAP!
Sorry I just couldn't resist!
Man I bet I'm showing my age with that TV show referance!
Sorry bout my interuption, carry on.
Rod
DarkAngel - Dec 05, 2003 - 10:24 PM
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oops, sorry. we're 8-2. Two of my rematches wen't horribly wrong for me, hehe.
Ok, let me see...
1) I use Treemen, 1 at first and another about 6 games into the season. I've been very lucky with my Take Root rolls. yes we use the rules that on 1-3 they don't arrive until halftime.
2) and nope, my Treemen fumble often! I've only ever sucessfully passed a Halfling once but it did win me a game against some Dwarfs.
3)we use the latest edition (4th?) for handicapping
4) opponents were chosen because we didn't have a full league at the time. In January our official league begins with 16 teams and schedules in advance.
5) I was lucky enough to get an AG 4 Halfling after game 6 and another after game 10. the former being my only sucessfully hurled stunty!
6)Yes they did allow me a Master Chef, but believe me, they won't make that mistake again! Stealing up to 3 rerolls was just too much. I believe there are alternate (or official) rules that allow 1 reroll with a an ability to buy more? I think thats what we're using next..
7)Actually, these games are some of the first I've ever played! Currently, I think I'm tied for second with a Khemri team.
right now, my roster is maxed out with 13 Halflings, two Treemen, and a Human thrower ally. Most of my extra cash goes towards replacing casualties, hehe.
Xtreme - Dec 05, 2003 - 10:37 PM
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Quote:
Human thrower ally.
What other house rules are you using and what kind of a role does the human play on your team. If he is the main componet of your offense as I think he would be then this may be a key to your success especially with 2 AG4 halflings to compliment him.
But whatever your house rules and how I feel about them it doesn't matter if you guys are having fun. Hope you can turn the losing streak around. Good Luck.
Zombie - Dec 05, 2003 - 11:41 PM
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DarkAngel wrote:
and a Human thrower ally. Most of my extra cash goes towards replacing casualties, hehe.
That explains it all. Allies greatly unbalance the game, especially on stunty teams where nobody can normally get general skills, and even more so if you allow position players as allies. Stunties should never be given access to a thrower. The poor little bastards throw a quick pass at 4+ and fumble a short pass on a 1-2, and it should stay that way.
You should strongly discourage the fellow coaches in your league from allowing allies next season. There's a reason why they're not permitted in the official rules!
DarkAngel - Dec 06, 2003 - 07:05 AM
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actually, I wanted to get rid of allies myself because I do believe they "dilute" the flavor of a team.
The Khemri team on our league lost three straight and then picked up a Gutter Runner ally. He hasn't lost since and that damn rat has 16 TDs
Only two of us have allies anyway, so I wouldn't miss him too much.
DarkAngel - Dec 06, 2003 - 08:08 AM
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We also have house rules for customized stadiums. Each stadium has about three special features such as soft turf or bad officials, their own kick-off and weather tables.
We're pretty much playtesting them now, but they seen pretty balanced so far.
Zombie - Dec 06, 2003 - 10:47 AM
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I've seen those stadium rules on the net before. They seemed pretty unbalanced to me.
DarkAngel - Dec 06, 2003 - 05:27 PM
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well, we made these stadiums up ourselves so I'm not sure how they compare to the ones you saw...
Zombie - Dec 06, 2003 - 05:54 PM
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One of the features i considered most unbalancing was some sort of long grass on it that gave -1 to all injury rolls. If your "soft turf" is nothing like this, then it may be better.
GalakStarscraper - Dec 06, 2003 - 09:30 PM
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Zombie69 wrote:
I've seen those stadium rules on the net before. They seemed pretty unbalanced to me.
Purchased stadiums are by nature unbalanced. Its why they are gone from the MBBL2 after using them for a couple seasons.
However Neo/JKL's rules for having the stadium determined by the gate roll only ... now that looked like fun .... cannot add it to the MBBL2 because it was unfairly slanted toward cold based teams for the MBBL2, but I am working on adding those rules as an option to the PBeM tool as the REBBL has wanted to use them.
If its purely random Zombie ... I think even you would agree that would be okay.
Galak
GalakStarscraper - Dec 06, 2003 - 09:33 PM
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DarkAngel wrote:
right now, my roster is maxed out with 13 Halflings, two Treemen, and a Human thrower ally. Most of my extra cash goes towards replacing casualties, hehe.
Oh okay ... a Human Thrower, and a purchased Master Chef explain it all to me. Both of these are changes from the LRB rules that really do go a very long way to explain your success.
Galak
DarkAngel - Dec 06, 2003 - 11:39 PM
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I understand and agree that both allies and the current Master chef are unbalancing. And yes, our stadiums are somewhat geared towards their "home" team. But, I'd like to think my coaching might have a little to do with it too...
GalakStarscraper - Dec 07, 2003 - 01:15 PM
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DarkAngel wrote:
I understand and agree that both allies and the current Master chef are unbalancing. And yes, our stadiums are somewhat geared towards their "home" team. But, I'd like to think my coaching might have a little to do with it too...
Oh don't get me wrong, you still need to be a decent coach to pull off an 8-2 record with Flings. My record with the pure LRB 2.0 rules (no house rules at all) with Flings in the PBeMBBL is 8 wins - 8 losses. But the Human Thrower (Sure Hands to get the ball and Pass to move it downfield) go a long way to helping the team move the ball by total negating their probably picking up the ball and given the team a very real passing game. The purchased Master Chef meant you lower you opponent's ability to reroll against you while making you game easier.
So yes, coaching ability is very important but having catchers with the ability to ignore TZs with a good thrower and the rerolls stealing powers of the Chef every game definitely gave you a big helping hand with the team.
Galak
Zombie - Dec 07, 2003 - 03:23 PM
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I believe that these two modifications are enough to make halflings one of the best teams out there. Of course, even with the best team, you still need to know your game if you want to win.
DarkAngel - Dec 07, 2003 - 04:29 PM
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actually, the human thrower is playing less of a role now that 2 of my flings have AG 4.
My Treemen have been hurling them downfield with not much success, but now it's much easier to land them on their feet now.
My latest game, although a victory, was very rough on the little buggers. I scored 4 touchdowns at the cost of one dead, three serious injuries, and two badly hurt. My Treeman was seriously injured too but you know my Apothecary was all over that! hehe.
BenArd - Dec 09, 2003 - 08:34 AM
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Although I have only recently started my Halfling team I have the awesome record of 0-6. with the grand total of 0 touchdown’s. Needless to say that I don’t have any allies and have to rely on the plucky fella’s pulling off the plays by themselves.
I have been getting nearer to scoring in every game I play, I was only 5 squares away in the last game before it all went horribly wrong. In my defence all the teams I have played are veterans and there aren’t any new teams at the moment and the only reason I picked Halflings was for the crack.
It just makes it more fun when you fail spectacularly at everything, and you can really annoy opponents with shouts of Olé every time you survive a block attempt. And then sit all smug when you foul an opponent to death!!! 
Or wipe out their star player with an inaccurately thrown team mate
Oh yeah, the new Master Chef rules are much better for me as our league doesn’t allow wizards to be used (although it isn’t very effective at the moment as all the teams I play have 6+ Rerolls ) 
GColeman76 - Dec 10, 2003 - 11:01 AM
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Sounds like you're having a little whinge Mr.Ard, I have to agree scraping bits of Halflings of my Goblin Team's boots is great!
Grettel - Dec 10, 2003 - 09:27 PM
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And Treemen!! The Chaos boys loved that game.... 
BenArd - Dec 11, 2003 - 10:44 AM
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No whineging here. and i would just like to refer both you and grettel back to recent matches against my Lizardmen where i do belive i opened a couple of king size cans of whoop-ass? What was it.....14 odd casualties between the two of you? 
And my Skink really enjoyed niggling Grettels Norse's Ogre. 
GColeman76 - Dec 12, 2003 - 02:31 PM
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The only thing with that is didn't you lose to the gobbos with your fine Lizards!!?
BenArd - Dec 17, 2003 - 08:45 AM
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Absolutely correct, however shouldn't it be pointed out that my team was only in it's 7th game and had only 3 or 4 players with additional skills whereas your gobbo's were playing thier 20-odd-th game and had many additional skills (including 3 players with AG4)? and by the end of the game didn't you only have 1 AG4 player left?
In any case would you like a rematch now that the teams are more evenly matched?
Oh,.........and aren't you out of the tournament whereas my Lizards have made it to the semi's? (although i'm guaranteed to go out seeing as i have yet to register a single tournament final stages win!!!
ps. please ignore the fact that it has taken nearly a week to reply, apparently my home pc won't let me post as it is an invalid session. I've been trying to reply since saturday.
Respect my authoritaah!