S#3 - Game Day #3

[NiX]

Lost the screenshot of me alt+tabbed surfing Facebook with LOTRO login screen waiting.

[Teleku]

That's the spirit!   

One the one hand, I feel like an asshole for pushing so hard for extra TD's even after it was obvious I won.  On the other hand, the mechanics basically say I'm a dumb ass gimping myself if I don't go for as many spp's as I can (also TD's count towards tie breakers, right?).

 

[Sjofn]

Man, I'm not looking forward to playing Ingmars team on day 4.

At least you're in a matching time zone! How novel is that!

(You are in the Bay Area somewhere, right?)

[ezrast]

Well, they say the best thing to do when you're losing is laugh. I guess the complement to that is that the best thing to do when you're winning is be as ruthless and unforgiving as possible.

I know what you mean about feeling bad, but every TD counts (you are correct, they are tiebreakers) and the random nature of the game means any shown mercy can come back to haunt you. He can always get back at you next season.

Anyway, it serves NiX right for giving one of my skinks -1 str.

Also, these words will come back to haunt me when I play Llyse next game.

[Llyse]

Ouch, sorry Nix...

Holy shit.

Match report please for people at work... 

[Teleku]

7 - 0, Hippies.

There was 1 injury, and 1 knock out I think.  Uh, I got some lucky rolls in the beginning, and he got some very unlucky rolls, and it just sort of went downhill for him.  Later in the 2nd half, he was pretty much just trying to kill my important players, like Naeltor....

I'll write up something later, but thats pretty much it.  My Wood Elves just kept running through his defenses over and over again....

[Cadaverine]

Oh my god.  

[lamaros]

Golly indeed. I've seen 6 scores in a game a number of times, but I don't think I've seen 7 before. A big win that puts you in a good place to get out of the group. I mean after all, you've played the two hardest matchups all ready...  

[Sky]

Yeah, fuck this game. My cat spills my glass of water (no pun intended), losing me one turn of the few times I had possession. Then I misclick the apoth and take a -1 str for no reason at all. Then proudft beats the absolute shit out of my guys.

So, I'm not finding this game fun anymore. It wasn't even that much fun beating the shit out of Haem, since I felt bad for him, and everyone else in this division is actually good at the game, and apparently I'm very bad.

Right now I don't see sticking around for another season, though I guess I won't be a dick and quit now though I'd rather go do chores than sit through four more of tehse fucking games. I don't even remember what the score was.

[proudft]

Beetles 2-0 over Bashtards.  I won the toss, elected to receive, which is not my usual plan with these slow-ass undead hulks, but my theory was not so much to get the ball first but to hit his dudes first and take some down, as it was bashy vs. bashy, with me being more bashy.

That concept was probably flawed due to orc armor, as the first few turns was just a bunch of knockdowns and standing back up.  However, I did manage to score in the first half and prevent the orcs from scoring (couple of failed orc dodges helped here), so things were looking ok.

Second half went totally poorly for Sky.  His cat caused a problem at some point leaving him with like 20 secs on his first turn (I got confused as well because he somehow failed a pass on that turn but didn't lose his turn -- a reroll, I guess, but it was confusing), and then I nailed a Blitzer for a -1 Str injury and he misclicked the apothecary (though, I dunno, I personally would have prrrrobably taken that injury and saved the apothecary for a death since there were several turns left, but what can I say, mummies don't believe in apothecaries anyway).

Anyhoo, he got pretty demoralized after that, and a skeleton managed to grab the ball at some point and make a second touchdown, and that was about that.

Replay is uploaded.

[NiX]

7 - 0, Hippies.

There was 1 injury, and 1 knock out I think.  Uh, I got some lucky rolls in the beginning, and he got some very unlucky rolls, and it just sort of went downhill for him.  Later in the 2nd half, he was pretty much just trying to kill my important players, like Naeltor....

I'll write up something later, but thats pretty much it.  My Wood Elves just kept running through his defenses over and over again....

Eh, good rolls wouldn't have changed a thing. The fact that you had 7-8 MA with most your players and the ability to walk past anyone you wanted won the game. I didn't realize until I got bored and started clicking that most of your team outleveled mine. The large amount of petty cash means shit all to a starter team like mine against any experienced team, which is why I spend my time trying to injure/kill opposing players. I'm not as butthurt as Sky, but I'm definitely not seeing the league appeal right now. I much prefered my casual match with Strazos. I lost pretty bad to him, but still had fun.

[lamaros]

It's a tough learning curve when you're down TV on an experienced played. Obviously at this point you'll only overcomethat if your team gets some experience or the league is reset. Tele is a very hard matchup though. His team can score at will against nearly anyone, let alone a new team.

[Teleku]

Eh, good rolls wouldn't have changed a thing. The fact that you had 7-8 MA with most your players and the ability to walk past anyone you wanted won the game. I didn't realize until I got bored and started clicking that most of your team outleveled mine. The large amount of petty cash means shit all to a starter team like mine against any experienced team, which is why I spend my time trying to injure/kill opposing players. I'm not as butthurt as Sky, but I'm definitely not seeing the league appeal right now. I much prefered my casual match with Strazos. I lost pretty bad to him, but still had fun.

Well, to be fair, I think the leveling didn't make a difference either.  I think the only skill I gained from leveling that I actually used against you much at all was the kick on my lineman (which is rather important to wood elves).  Strip ball and all that were never used, and my QB with Accurate only threw twice in the entire game, on fairly easy throws.  As you mentioned, I just basically dodged through all your tackle zones, which is a feature of wood elves from the start (as is the 7-8 MA, haven't gotten a MA skill up on anybody yet).  So I think a lot of it did come down to unfavorable rolls for you (as well as not quite knowing how to fight against a fast team vs. a bashy team).  I've tried similar risky things in other games, and I fell on my ass every damn time.  I mean hell, on the opening drive, my War Dancer triple dodged around the side, and hit your ghoul with the one thing that could take him down (1/6 chance) and then the ball bounced off your mummy and landed on the other side of your line of men, allowing me access.  Even I was like, "now that's bullshit right there."

Though the Treeman did save me I think.  I only just purchased him right before the match, and he provided a nice wall in the center against your mummies.  There would have been a lot more injured wood elves otherwise.....

Anyways, sorry again, hope it didn't kill enjoyment of the league too badly.  Its just one of those games you have to play for a bit of time before you can really get the hang of things.  And you were getting fucked pretty hard by the dice.

Two tips:
1.)  While its tempting to bash elves, do all your non strategic blocks (in other words, going down the line and using your mummies to smash linemen) last.  Do other important movements first, and always do those blocks last.  Rolling double skulls isn't that uncommon, and if you get a TO early, it fucks you against a fast team like wood elves.
2.)  The only thing you should do even later than your blocks against line men:  Fouling.  Never do that early (as you saw).  Also, never foul with an important player.  Use one of your throw away zombies.  Also, its probably not worth it to try fouling the Treeman, since he has very high armor.  Squish a squishy elf. 

[Cadaverine]

I watched part of the replay, and of the turns I watched, it seemed that Nix was not putting his players in to base to base contact with Teleku's players.  In my mind this would seem like the wrong thing to do, as it allows the wood elves free reign to run about the pitch, where as being toe to toe would force them to either block the stronger, bashier team, or force more dodge rolls in the hopes that someone fails one eventually, and also potentially burning up his 1 reroll. 

Am I incorrect in this assumption?

[IainC]

No, that's pretty much it. If you're playing a team that relies on mobility to win then you have to make them roll a dice every time they want to move. You'll take a few more blocks on the chin but if the opposition isn't particularly bashy then that can also be an invitation for a turnover.

[lamaros]

I watched part of the replay, and of the turns I watched, it seemed that Nix was not putting his players in to base to base contact with Teleku's players.  In my mind this would seem like the wrong thing to do, as it allows the wood elves free reign to run about the pitch, where as being toe to toe would force them to either block the stronger, bashier team, or force more dodge rolls in the hopes that someone fails one eventually, and also potentially burning up his 1 reroll.  

Am I incorrect in this assumption?

Generally speaking yes, though it can depend a lot. Never mark someone deep with one guy if the other unit has dodge as they only need one tz-less dodge to get free, better to mark with two, or mark loose, which forces them to go around, blitz, or make a number of dodges in the tz. If you do mark them then do so in a way that they have to go back to dodge out TZ free. Generally you want to play a line with strength players marking their team which they have to hit through or dodge back from, with a loose field behind to stop a single blizt opening up your backfield in an unstoppable way.

Low mobility teams will get caught out if they don't leave a player or two deep to take care of such things.

Tackle and diving tackle are great ways to mess up dodge reliant teams.

[Falconeer]

I am sincerely sorry for those who are not having fun anymore. Usually, knowing you AND your team are making a progress is enough to keep the ball rolling, no matter the results, and that's why we retained all the 14 players from Season #2 including those who came last in their divisions. Blood Bowl is a game where you lose a lot even when you are the better player or you have the better team, so if that is upsetting then I am fairly sure it won't ever get better for you. Sucks.

[avaia]

Necco coach is still rather groggy from a weekend trek to Chicago to see his other team emerge victorious.  Hopefully he will recover in time for this week's must win against Falc's 'zons.

[IainC]

To the guys not having fun at the moment. Bloodbowl can be one of the most frustrating games you will play. In season 2, I came in dead last scoring only one point in the whole competition. Sometimes that was because I made some rookie mistakes, sometimes it was because my opponent just outplayed me and sometimes it was because BB figured my balls could use some blunt force trauma. Despite that, I'm having fun in the new league.

My advice is to play a bit of single player to test out different team configurations and get used to evaluating the danger levels of various actions and also make a whole bunch of teams to play online against other f13ers outside the league. It is harsh to get curbstomped twice in a row by teams that you don't feel you had a chance against but it gets better.

Watch AndyDavo's next game - he's going in with half a team, he'll have a bunch of guys with no skills, no upgrades, no spares and a good percentage of his bench will be loners. I still think he will do better than many veteran teams with fully fit line-ups. This game is 33% luck, 33% team, 33% player and 1% chaos.

[NiX]

2.)  The only thing you should do even later than your blocks against line men:  Fouling.  Never do that early (as you saw).  Also, never foul with an important player.  Use one of your throw away zombies.  Also, its probably not worth it to try fouling the Treeman, since he has very high armor.  Squish a squishy elf. 

I fouled with the intent of him being ejected. At that point I had given up any hope of coming back and wanted to make sure I didn't lose another Wight.

I watched part of the replay, and of the turns I watched, it seemed that Nix was not putting his players in to base to base contact with Teleku's players.  In my mind this would seem like the wrong thing to do, as it allows the wood elves free reign to run about the pitch, where as being toe to toe would force them to either block the stronger, bashier team, or force more dodge rolls in the hopes that someone fails one eventually, and also potentially burning up his 1 reroll. 

Am I incorrect in this assumption?

I'm not sure which turns you watched then. The one thing you're missing is once he successfully rolls the dodge, which he did about 95% of the time, they have free range of your back end. Someone said to leave a guy or two back to make up for that, but that seems like a tactic best left for another style of team, especially given that in the game I played it would have meant Tele had the option to pile on the 4-5 guys who made it past my line and cause injuries. I'd rather just attempt to hurt his stragglers then suffer another loss on my already struggling line.

You can throw as much advice at me all you want, but it won't matter. I'll never watch a replay, read the rules or a guide. I simply boot up the game, see how the first few turns go and decide how I'll play from there.

[Sky]

I agree with Nix about playing to not get killed. At one point I was basically trying to keep my guys away from those goddamned tomb guardians, the middle of the field was just locked up and I couldn't make any blocks...reminding me of my game with Comstar. Of course, that's when I started failing dodge rolls left and right, I really just stopped having fun and wanted the game to be over halfway through, the tomb guardians just completely shut down anything I could do. Three (or was it four) big guys without loner or really stupid? Right.

And to Iain's comment about luck/team/skill, I agree. It's just that apparently I am so far behind in the skill category I'm just relying on dice rolls. My strategy sucks, I have no idea how to do good formations, how to react to formations, how to set up defensively down the field in reaction to offensive setups. My gameplay sucks, I didn't know you could blitz someone right next to you so that you could then move after blocking - I saw someone mention hitting B here yesterday and wondered what that meant, then proudft kept doing that to me. Comstar probably did, too, but I was even more of a raw newb.

It just feels like I'm so far behind the curve and while on one level the team being behind doesn't bug me -too- much, facing someone dominant like Comstar when almost his entire team has blodge just isn't fun. As my first game, I made the best of it and just tried to goof off, and the dice were mostly friendly. But then facing proudft and seeing Iain and other vets on the calendar, it just looks like a season of getting battered with one shining moment of smashing Haem, which wasn't fun because I mostly beat him on his newbness, and I know how it feels to be on the receiving end of that.

Maybe it's like Nix said, I just want to play to have fun. We have folks here who are studying strategies and laying out probability tables for events. It sucks being a dick-punching-bag for those people.

edit - and the stupid mistakes were just so beyond the norm for me, too. When I fumbled the pass, I figured I had time to clean up that spill, then looked at the screen and noticed the timer on my side of the scoreboard. And then misclicking the injury because that was deep in the 'I don't give a shit' part of the game, that was the turning point to me actively disliking the experience. I didn't check to see how much funds I had left, I guess I have a new punching bag blitzer, maybe I'll get lucky and he'll die soon.

[IainC]

Hit me up on Steam sometime Sky if you want to just play some random spot games and I can try and explain some of the basics to you. A lotof it is just knowing what your team can get away with and what you have to risk. A lot of the time your best defence against big guys for example is to simply ignore them. They are bad at picking up the ball, worse at throwing and generally aren't too mobile. It's easy to get your whole team sucked into a fight around one trying to knock him over and that's their biggest strength. If they need to burn the blitz every time they throw a block then they become a lot less worrisome.

[Falconeer]

If you are very frustrated with a certain game, I think there's no point in just making it worse, and it can be acceptable to just concede at around halftime. You say that to your opponent through chat, you go in the menu and hit "abandon game". That way he gets lots of money and two MVPs while you get no MVP at all. It's a harsh punishment for the conceding coach (usually even when you lose you get your 5 SPPs), but if that is what will save you the frustration of a wasted 45 minutes, then for dog's sake go for it.

[NiX]

If you are very frustrated with a certain game, I think there's no point in just making it worse, and it can be acceptable to just concede at around halftime. You say that to your opponent through chat, you go in the menu and hit "abandon game". That way he gets lots of money and two MVPs while you get no MVP at all. It's a harsh punishment for the conceding coach (usually even when you lose you get your 5 SPPs), but if that is what will save you the frustration of a wasted 45 minutes, then for dog's sake go for it.

Not sure about Sky, but I'll endure the rest of the game on the off chance I can kill or seriously maim one of the opposing teams players. In the interim I'll just curb my frustration by alt tabbing out, ignoring any moves they made and continuing to try and ruin faces that happen to be within range of my feet.

I'll probably sign up for Season 4 too, but with an even more bashy team.

[Sir T]

To be honest the first couple of games I spent mostly reading stuff on my laptop. It not really fun to have your teeth repeatedly smashed in when there is literally nothing you can do, and to all those who were talking about how wonderful and strategic the experience would be all I can say is i told you so.

That said, the last game against Strazoz I was involved in the game all the way through and I enjoyed it I have to say. But there was never ever a feeling that I could actually win this.

[NiX]

That said, the last game against Strazoz I was involved in the game all the way through and I enjoyed it I have to say. But there was never ever a feeling that I could actually win this.

Were you talking to him over voice? Maybe that's the key. Could also be that he plays very modestly, so it distracts me from the fact that I'm being demolished and possibly even kept the slightest bit of hope that I could do something, so I didn't totally remove myself from the game.

[Teleku]

On another note, did I upload the replay through BBManager correctly for that match?  I normally just passed them directly to Falc, so not sure..

[Sir T]

That said, the last game against Strazoz I was involved in the game all the way through and I enjoyed it I have to say. But there was never ever a feeling that I could actually win this.

Were you talking to him over voice? Maybe that's the key. Could also be that he plays very modestly, so it distracts me from the fact that I'm being demolished and possibly even kept the slightest bit of hope that I could do something, so I didn't totally remove myself from the game.

No, we were chatting through in game chat.

[Ingmar]

Honestly for new teams, playing to kick the shit out of your opponent for SPPs and not really worrying so much about winning is not the worst idea ever, if you keep your team for s4.

It is possible for the new teams to be competitive against the old, but it does take some pretty sharp play and obviously some teams are more suited to playing with a TV mismatch than others, just as some are easier to understand strategically for new players (Nurgle for example is not the first team I would recommend to someone new to the game, doubly so with a TV deficit.)

The main thing is though that you can't really expect to jump into a 32 team league with a lot of experienced players and not get your ass kicked for a while before you kind of grok the way the game works - and even then you'll get your ass kicked sometimes.

I know people are venting and not actually asking for advice, but I'm a knowitall loudmouth so I'm going to put this here anyway. These are the kind of mental 'rules' I used when I was playing a different competitive minis game in terms of looking at my own play and improving:

1) Never blame the dice. You'll never learn anything or improve if you chalk up a loss to the dice being against you. There's almost always something else you could have done differently to minimize the impact of bad luck events.
2) Watch what sorts of moves are successful for your opponent and incorporate them into your game. Getting beat by a really good player is the best way to learn in a lot of ways.
3) Criticize your play in your wins as much as in your losses. While you usually can learn more from a loss than a win (see #2), easy wins can create bad habits, watch out for those.

[Modern Angel]

If it makes anyone feel better I have an 0-3 Human team with five deaths in those games and a TV of 600ish.

[proudft]

Watch AndyDavo's next game - he's going in with half a team, he'll have a bunch of guys with no skills, no upgrades, no spares and a good percentage of his bench will be loners. I still think he will do better than many veteran teams with fully fit line-ups. This game is 33% luck, 33% team, 33% player and 1% chaos.

I don't even know who AndyDavo is playing, but he is by far the best person I've played, like, ever.  So yeah, he has a good chance of winning regardless of what crap he has to pull together and I'd second the replay watch recommendation.

[Sky]

I know people are venting and not actually asking for advice,

I am venting but I don't mind advice. 

[NiX]

3) Criticize your play in your wins as much as in your losses. While you usually can learn more from a loss than a win (see #2), easy wins can create bad habits, watch out for those.

So, by giving Tele an easy win, I've hurt him in the long run...

I WIN, BITCHES!

[Teleku]

Yep, games like that make me way to confident in my ability to dodge to get me through things.  Then a play a game against Llyse, where I make a quarter of the dodges I tried in your game, and not only do they all fail, but the elves get there throats ripped out on the way down.

We'll see how I do next against the tackle heavy Dwarfs.  Its not going to be pretty.  

[Ingmar]

We'll see. It is so much easier for a little placement mistake to screw you against wood elves, and 2 minute turns means not a lot of time for me to mull over exactly where everyone should be standing...