S#4 - Game Day #6

[Sky]

It doesn't sound like you played shit, more punished for 2 mistakes. Bad luck old boy.

Thanks, but it was a pretty bad game for me. As they have been all season. I forgot about that stupid pass, thought I could pull out a 4+ for the quick score. But I had enough time I should've just turtled up. Dumb.

The thing that bugged me most about the game was the sheer amount of wrestle Celer was able to use. I had a lineman with wrestle, he was the second level two guy on my entire team, played a season and a half with wrestle and it didn't get utilized EVER. Was it bugged or something? He was always in the thick of it, I'm sure he faced many both downs against blockers. In any event, that lineman was the one killed by the HHB and though I'd rather have lost one of the two permanently injured orcs, good riddance to the shittiest wrestler in history. He could not snap into it.

[Celer]

Yeah, Wrestle for elves, and  even more when I get to opt-out of a wrestle to cause a turnover.  It seemed effective because I have it on at least 3 elves, I put it on them LoS, and you have a lot of Block that you're probably used to taking advantage of.  Plus, when I was doing the hitting, I was specifically targeting Block guys with my Wrestlers and trying to take them down.

I don't see it being as effective to take on an orc, other than perhaps one you're grooming as a ball stripper.

[proudft]

Beetles tie Spleen Flay 1-1.   I had many inducement dollars and waffled between halfling chef & wizard and Ramtut & 1 bloodweiser babe. Considering my continual inability to remember to use the wizard, I went with Ramtut, and he turned out to be incredibly useful and awesome, huzzah!

Game started innocently enough.   Many many knockdowns on the elves but not very many injuries in the first half.  Dark elves scored early so the 2-1 grind plan was engaged and we trudged back to score at the very end of the half.

Second half the KOs and injuries started to pile up.  Ball was well protected in the fearsome mummy cage and elves started to hit the dirt from failed dodges and/or mummy slaps.  The cage started to whittle down as the Khemri approached the endzone and as Replacement Thro-Ra #1 was 2 steps from victory a dark elf blitzer blew around and nailed him.

There was one final chance to score, but it involved a tomb guardian dodging, and that, of course didn't work.  So a tie.

Injury report (not as many as it seemed during the game, since there were actually some KOs this time):

Khemri:
Level 3 Blitz-Ra (+1 AG, Strip Ball): smashed knee
A random Tomb Guardian got hurt in the second half but regenerated just fine.

Dark Elves:
Level 3 Witch Elf (Block, Dauntless): smashed knee
Two badly hurts on random elves.

Match is uploaded to the thinger.

[IainC]

Proudft and I just played our game and it turned into a real nailbiter with desperate defences at both ends of the pitch.

I was receiving in the first half and put a Witch Elf down field to try and draw some of the Undead away from the fearsome front line. There was no way that I was going to win out in a war of attrition vs S5 guys so I decided to try stringing them out and play the ball around the pitch as much as possible. After a couple of turns I really needed to stop the Undead from kicking the crap out of my team so I threw the ball to the Witch Elf who had blitzed her way clear of her marker. This had the intended effect and all the Tomb Guardians in range immediately turned around and made a bee line for her. The star player also made a super long range blitz to just make contact (I miscalculated, I thought he'd need an extra square of movement for the blitz but apparently he was fine) He knocked the Witch Elf down but didn't manage to break her armour and the ball scattered to an unmarked square. My plan had been to run around for a few turns and draw out the timer a little but, with my reduced mobility from being down and enough high Str Undead players in reach of me and the ball, I played it safe, stood her up, dodged away, picked up the ball and ran in a turn 3 TD.

Kicking back to the Khemrians, and they fumbled the ball for a bit then managed to get things rolling with the expected cage. I had some bad breaks at critical moments - failed dodges, skulls on the reroll and so forth and eventually they got the ball across my line on the last turn of the half to even the score.

The second half was very similar to the second drive of the first half only with more casualties. The Khemrians rolled forwards in an almost unstoppable juggernaut and I again managed to fluff some crucial dodge rolls or blocks. Eventually on turn 15 the ball carrier was within a square of the endzone with a depleted cage around him. I got some players in position and managed to blitz him down and knock the ball free. The Undead had two guys who could reach the ball which was marked and in my endzone - an AG1 Tomb Guardian and an AG2 skeleton, both of whom were marked but an ill-advised dodge into multiple Elven tacklezones ended their last turn prematurely. My only deep player wasn't quite deep enough to make it to the endzone even if I got the ball down to her so I consoled myself with a short pass to grab a cheap SPP but the catch was fumbled and the game was over 1-1.

I can still make the playoffs if I beat Reborne in the last game of the regular season - that will put me on 10 points but I need some help from two other results I need Sjofn to lose vs Ruvadlt and andy to beat Ramas.

Assuming that Andy beats Ramas (likely) and Ruvaldt beats Sjofn (possible) then the table looks like this going into day 7:

AndyDavo - 18
Ruvaldt - 13
Proudft - 9
Me - 7
Ramas - 7
Sjofn - 6

In day 7, Sjofn will pick up another 3 points from SirT leaving her on 9 while Proudft and Ramas play each other. Assuming that I beat Reborne, I'll be on 10 points and the top four will be:

Andy - 21
Ruvadlt - 13 (he plays Andy in day 7 and the result makes no difference to the standings at all)
Winner of the Ramas/Proudft match
Me - 10
-------------------------
Sjofn - 9
Loser of the Ramas/Proudft match

[Sjofn]

I am queen of ties, though. Just putting that out there. 

Seriously, though, I doubt very much I'll win out, which is what I pretty much need to do if I want in. My boys in pink are delicate, and Ruvault thirsts for blood, so unless he has shitty injury rolls like you miraculously did when we played each other, I predict I will have another instance of having four or five dudes on the field while he has ... a lot more. This usually means my defense isn't that great. ;) If SirT doesn't knock over the game board in turn three because of some bad luck but actually stays engaged, that's a perfectly decent chance of a tie or loss, too. I'm REALLY GOOD at getting ties. 

[IainC]

I am queen of ties, though. Just putting that out there. 

Seriously, though, I doubt very much I'll win out, which is what I pretty much need to do if I want in. My boys in pink are delicate, and Ruvault thirsts for blood, so unless he has shitty injury rolls like you miraculously did when we played each other, I predict I will have another instance of having four or five dudes on the field while he has ... a lot more. This usually means my defense isn't that great. ;) If SirT doesn't knock over the game board in turn three because of some bad luck but actually stays engaged, that's a perfectly decent chance of a tie or loss, too. I'm REALLY GOOD at getting ties. 

If you tie with Ruvaldt then you'll be at ten points with me (assuming that I beat Reborne and you beat SirT). In that case you'd need to beat SirT by three more touchdowns than I beat Reborne with to win the tiebreaker.

If you beat Ramas then the only thing that will save me is a draw in the Ramas/Proudft match and a win by 3 or more TDs against Reborne to beat a tiebreak with Proudft.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

It might be nice to have a second admin for the league. I say this because I am impatient about my & Comstar's game being approved, but while that is kind of trivial it would be a lot less so if a game needed to be cleared/reset because of a crash or something.

P.S. Approve my game, please. 

[Sjofn]

Ex-Presidents: 1
The Mutiny: 0

Almost yanked a tie out of my ass, but the dice decided after I made three lovely dodges to get the fuck away from most of Ruvault's team, that I had had QUITE ENOUGH random luck for now, so I promptly failed a dodge towards the end of the game. The ball bounced around sadly a bit, ruvault's guy picked it up but then decided to GFI for some reason (perhaps he will share why, I assume to get away from a blitz or something?) and failed. So my last ditch effort of a berserker to werewolf pass (yeah, that was going to EVER happen) wound up with the berserker throwing the ball directly behind him.

Ruvault can describe his TD, because I am sure I will not do it justice.

Have one miss next game injury on my part, one of my werewolves will be going up a level for punching ... SOMEone in the face hard enough to hurt them, and as is tradition, the loaner guy covering for THIS game's hurt guy got MVP. <3

[Ruvaldt]

Presidents 1 - 0 Mutiny

A fun game with far fewer casualties/deaths than I was expecting.  I elected to receive and promptly badly injured two of Sjofn's linemen in the first round.  I then trundled up the pitch keeping a good, strong cage.  I was within a round of scoring and in a pretty good position when I had a bad string of blocks and gave up nearly two entire rounds.  Sjofn seized upon my weakness, knocked down Franklin Pierce, my premier ball carrier, and picked up the ball.  I was unable to knock him down, and this would be a recurring theme throughout the game, and it looked like Sjofn was going to keep me from scoring when she failed a dodge on her sixth turn.  Seeing that I only had two turns left, and I wouldn't have time to grab the ball and turn around to run it in I decided to pick it up with Pierce (sure hands) and lob it at Nixon (AGI5 beastman) as it was my absolute last opportunity and my only reroll was already spent.  The pass was a success and Nixon was able to trot in for the unexpected touchdown.

In the second half Sjofn did a good job of keeping up a cage, but never really got out of her end of the field.  With four turns or so left, and surrounded, with nowhere else to go, one of her runners made three dodges, two of which I think were into tackle zones, and promptly rolled two critical successes and a final normal success to run clear to the other side of the field and leave me way out of position.  It really looked like she could pull off a TD, but I made her dodge over and over again and eventually the dice had their say as she turned the ball over.  I picked up the ball and did a GFI, which was risky and I shouldn't have done it, but I counted the spaces and saw that the only way for me to score again was by using a GFI, and the beastman carrying the ball would level if I scored one with him.  I also saw that even if I failed the GFI she would have a hard time picking it up because no ball handler was around, and she'd have to make several GFIs herself, not to mention a pretty crazy pass afterwards to make it viable...so I went for it, and failed.  I have a tendency to screw up a good thing as Proudft and Falconeer have both seen in games against me, and Sjofn nearly made me pay for it like they did in previous seasons.  The game ended on a fumbled pass and a bad block.

It was a fun game that was pretty even luckwise.  Sure, I had some crappy blocks and Sjofn had some crazy dodges/1d blocks, but I also got lucky on my pass.  I'm done playing with one reroll.  The fact that I've made it to 4-1-1 with only one is pretty amazing and hopefully I'll be able to purchase another between now and my match with Andydavo.  I'm disappointed about Pierce and Fillmore not levelling; they're both at 50SPPs and are a single measly SPP away from level 5.  Sjofn had a streak of spectacular 1d blocks that knocked me to the ground in unexpected ways; I really want to check out the replay to see the breakdown of those numbers.  I look forward to many games with Sjofn in the future.

Edit: According to BBManager, of the 122 block dice that I threw 38% were successes compared to Sjofn's 64%!   

[Sjofn]

And I still lost! 

[Ice Cream Emperor]

I'm disappointed about Pierce and Fillmore not levelling; they're both at 50SPPs and are a single measly SPP away from level 5.  

How the fuck do you have two players at 50SPP after less than a season?

Graaarrrrfeederleagueabuseangersme. It will anger me more when I have to play AndyDavo in the playoffs though, I am sure.

[Sjofn]

Feeder league feels sort of cheaty, yeah. I could make a team for realz there, I guess.

Feeder league'd dwarves? 

[Ruvaldt]

Well, Millard Fillmore has Claw and Mighty Blow so he racks up SPPs pretty quickly if he doesn't get knocked out.  Hell, he got 9SPPs just today against Sjofn (two casualties and MVP).  Franklin Pierce has inflicted 5 casualties this season and also is my leading scorer so he has gained a ton over the past few games.  He has STR4 and Sure Hands.  The rest of my team is actually way behind in development.  My Chaos Warriors, for instance, haven't leveled at all this season, and I still have several beastmen without block/wrestle.

I brought in a pretty good team from the Feeder League, but I had to cut a lot as well to get in under 1250TV.  A level 2 big guy with block and nearly all of my rerolls, for instance.  My game against Sjofn was the first in which I didn't have a lower TV than my opponent.  Even Rebourne's Wrestlers out TV'd me.    I didn't even have an apothecary at the beginning of this season.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

My entire team has like 130 SPP total. I am just bitter, that's all. Apparently my division is low on punching bags.

[Sjofn]

To be fair, the combination of my losers plus snotlings probably makes for pretty good farming in our division. :P

[Ruvaldt]

I only got one casualty against the snotlings.   

[Sky]

My entire team has like 130 SPP total. I am just bitter, that's all. Apparently my division is low on punching bags.

I'm probably about the same after two seasons. Just too many skilled teams to be able to bash very effectively. I do acknowledge I'm a crappy coach, but that's only part of the scenario. I don't really see a good way around the situation, even the feeder league will always benefit the vets who know how to minmax the TV best.

[Strazos]

I just hope people are not outright cheating with the feeder league with fixed games, like playing opponents who don't actually fight back.

That would be...unfortunate. 

[Ruvaldt]

I've never seen it or been propositioned to do it.  In fact, if you'd like, Strazos, I could upload each and every replay of mine to BBManager if it would make you feel better.  Really.  Even without replays though you can also see the score of every game every team has played on the team's page through the game itself.  If the game was played purely to gain SPPs the score and casualties would be inflated and lopsided.

Actually, not many teams currently in the league came from the Feeder League anyway.  Most of my games there, and the games of others, are purely for enjoyment because I genuinely like playing with f13 members.  Believe it or not, I have better things to do than sit around hour after hour playing rigged games so that I can build the bestest BB team ever at 1250TV to beat internet strangers.  And even if someone did do that they'd have to come into the regular season and actually win with it, which wouldn't be guaranteed.

[Ingmar]

I am partly to blame, my experiment with shitty Khemri was partially conducted against the Ex-Presidents. 

[Ice Cream Emperor]

I just hope people are not outright cheating with the feeder league with fixed games, like playing opponents who don't actually fight back.

That seems incredibly unlikely. The advantage of the feeder league is mostly just that when the team suffers a setback you can just play through it -- get more money, replace players, etc. So if you have enough time and enough people willing to play against you, you can groom the team fairly effectively. IMO, such a team has a pretty serious advantage over a random 1500 TV team once you factor in inducements, etc.

That said, forcing people to start in the league with brand new teams is by far the worse option. I think it's a good thing that coaches are taking advantage of this to try new teams, as opposed to sticking with an experienced team because they feel like they have to do so in order to compete.

If I was genuinely concerned I would probably just be better off making a dwarf or norse team in the feeder league and targetting valuable players -- but that feels even cheesier than bringing in the perfect 1250 TV team.

[Strazos]

To be clear, I think the Feeder league is a good idea for the reasons you mention, and only opened my mouth due to Sjofn's comment.

[carnifex27]

Cripplers 3-1 over the Memes.  Helm managed to ko one of my Saurus in the first few rounds, and he refused to wake up.  Fortunately putting block on so many of my saurus made a huge difference.  Having more str and more skills on my team was a large enough advantage that I won despite the fact that Helm made very few mistakes, other than underestimating my skinks speed once or twice.  Hopefully Gruntle will both beat avaia and cause his team several serious injuries, allowing me to squeek into the playoffs.

[Sjofn]

Not sure what I said to provoke a "I HOPE NO ONE IS ABUSING THE FEEDER LEAGUE" type thing, but OK!

[drogg]

ironwood is taunting me by being online on steam but not responding to a wide variety of pleadings, cajoling, and veiled threats 

[Sjofn]

BOLT VANDERHUGE now has block! That leaves my other werewolf, Trunk Slamchest, as the only remaining block-less loser on my team! 

[Sir T]

A stunning success! I only lost by 2-0. I also played like an elf by passing the ball around. And 1 dice blocks.

[Reborne]

Ok, this game was silly in a completely different way 

Wrestlers 2 - 0 Harbringers

The game was a lot closer than the score suggests.
The first half ended 0 - 0 as foul appearance made my Ogres not want to hit the icky manthings and tentacles (peacefully) violated my snotlings.
The kick off crowd invasion that stunned half my team and one of Sir T's rotters contributed too.

The second half we both decided screw it, we may as well be silly.
Bone heads and Really Stupids appearing left right and center.
Nuffle causing us to knock more of out own players down than the opponents and then the passing game began...

Before I get to my awesome I should say that watching Sit T pull off so many 1 die blocks and knocking down my Ogres was both annoying and hilarious 

The only reason I got 2 touch downs was because all my luck on a couple of turns when into a couple of snotlings.
One ran in, re-roll to pick up the ball, dodge out, double GFI to hand off to a waiting snotling far enough out that he was safe(ish) with the ball.
Every other thing I tried that turn ended in bone head or worse...

The second time I knocked the ball loose while it was surrounded by Ogres and had a snotling run up, pick up the ball and thought at the very least we'll laugh when a rotter gets this interception.
Perfect launch, no interception, perfect catch. HOLY SHIT! 

Once again I've had a great time playing with you guys and I believe that Sir T had fun too
Thank you for staying up late to play 

Game uploaded

[Ruvaldt]

That sounds like a fun game.  I may have to download the replay and give it a watch.

[Der Helm]

OMG! OMG! OMG!

I leveled up my Chaos warrior in his first game ever.

[Bann]

Did anyone hear anything about Paelos being away? I see he hasn't been to f13 since 6/21. Also, does he have a different name in the steam group? I don't see a Paelos anywhere there.

[Falconeer]

My entire team has like 130 SPP total. I am just bitter, that's all. Apparently my division is low on punching bags.

My entire team is 174 SPP total, after almost 3 seasons. Specifically after 19 games. 'nuff said.

[ezrast]

Alive not Dead 2-1 over 7 Deadly. Took three tries before we finished a game as we were both having modem issues and dropping connections simultaneously, which is apparently impossible to recover from.

Instead of going the typical wizard/babes route with my inducements I took a krox and Sibli, as after looking at our rosters I figured there was no way I'd be able to slow down his wave of blocky guardy tackly necromantics with only 6 sauruses. It meant I got punished less than usual for letting most of my ST4+ guys get tied up, but I still let Llyse maintain the upper hand in terms of mobility and I couldn't do much to stop him working the ball up the field for a score in the first half.

Second half I made a 2-turn touchdown thanks to Verrine catching a high kick and handing off to Pruflas, who ran up the sideline with my hired Krox and a Saurus. Alive not Dead turned over on a block before they finished tearing open the half-cage, and Pruflas was left free to score. For the next drive, I did a better job of maintaining a screen and the game very nearly ended in a draw, but one bad mistake (forgetting that his ball carrier had sidestep) and a couple double-skulls meant that his carrier was able to run to the endzone nearly unopposed on turn 16.

Alive not Dead is missing a ghoul next game, no further damage to either side. No level-ups for me either, though.

[Sky]

Sidestep=hax

[AndyDavo]

Yo eldaec - when do u want to play this? Can you manage tomorrow at all? i'd be off work and it would really  suit. Or later this evening?