S#4 - Game Day #7

[Strazos]

No, what I think he means is that the apoth prompt comes BEFORE the regen roll. Meaning you can waste an apoth on something that would otherwise be regenned.

The Apoth isn't the issue - I'm just confused as to why I never saw a regen roll, even in the game's uploaded log.

Game shows the Troll as BH, which is rerolled as -1 STR (you take the BH).

[Llyse]

Apoth is used so regen never triggers so no roll.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

By that reckoning the only risky thing I did was run my GR up the side in the second half.

Yes, that is pretty much the only risky thing you did. That and depending on your Rat Ogre for a lot of plays, which mostly worked out (the turn overs he caused were usually superfluous blocks or blitzes.) But the thing is: that's almost the only thing you did that wasn't simply determined by the kick-offs. There were only two normal drives in the game: in one of them, I went upfield and stalled, moving the ball cross-field when you overcommitted (and blitzed my ball carrier down with no support.) In the other drive, you made a bizarre, super-risky decision to send your ball carrier down the line with only a rat ogre for support and your entire other team on the far side of the pitch (and behind the LoS; they were in more or less the only position on the field where they could not have reasonably gotten to the dropped ball.)

Those were the only two drives where we made decisions which were not entirely governed by 'oh shit there's a Blitz everyone rumble at the ball.' In one case you were saved by an unlikely bounce out of bounds followed by an incredibly unlikely double-crowd crossfield-throw-in, and eventually scored. In the other case I scored under a basically normal set of circumstances, with no outrageous luck in any direction.

Haven't watched the rep yet (I will), but generally speaking deploying shallow against Skaven is something you don't do.

On offense? When you're playing Necromantics? There was no horseshit play. The Skaven did nothing outrageous the entire game; I play Skaven all the time, I am not shocked by players moving quickly or making lots of dodges. This is not about me getting frustrated at something Lamaros 'pulled off', all the rolls in question were kick-offs, crowd tosses, and bounces. And my own terrible rolls. It's not about the rats being overwhelmingly awesome -- there were good plays, and there were bad ones, as usual -- it's about everything else. It's about failing a simple hand-off with a reroll, and two out of three kick-offs giving a Blitz to my opponent, and the crowd throwing the ball the entire width of the pitch when it was unlikely to even go out of bounds in the first place.


 

[Strazos]

Apoth is used so regen never triggers so no roll.

How does that explain the Troll being allowed back in the game? The only Apoth choices were BH and -STR.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

How does that explain the Troll being allowed back in the game? The only Apoth choices were BH and -STR.

Because as someone mentioned, if you use the Apothecary and choose a Badly Hurt result, the player recovers enough to continue playing the game on the next drive -- similar to if they had been pushed out of bounds and gotten a stun result, for example.

Which is why sometimes you'll see coaches using the apothecary on key players even when the first result is Badly Hurt -- they're not expecting a better roll, since Badly Hurt is the best possible result, they're just passing up the opportunity to deal with a more serious injury in favour of keeping that player in the game.

[Strazos]

Erm, since when is BH not out of the game? 

If this is "working as intended"...well, at least it's not a bug then.

[Ruvaldt]

From the competition rulebook, page 17:

"...immediately after the player suffers the casualty, you can use the Apothecary to make your opponent roll again on the Casualty table and then you choose which of the two results apply. If the player is only badly hurt after this roll (even if it was the original Casualty roll) the Apothecary has managed to patch him up and pump him full of painkillers so that the player may be moved into the Reserves box."

It is absolutely working as intended.

[Falconeer]

I know. Our version of the Chaos Cup.

I intend to win it.

Also, if I retire Snoosnoo and just leave them fallow, no other leagues, can I bring them back in two or three seasons if I want?

Yes.
They need to go in hibernation mode, meaning NO GAME of any kind outside of the f13 Main League.

[Megrim]

Haven't watched the rep yet (I will), but generally speaking deploying shallow against Skaven is something you don't do.

On offense? When you're playing Necromantics? There was no horseshit play. The Skaven did nothing outrageous the entire game; I play Skaven all the time, I am not shocked by players moving quickly or making lots of dodges. This is not about me getting frustrated at something Lamaros 'pulled off', all the rolls in question were kick-offs, crowd tosses, and bounces. And my own terrible rolls. It's not about the rats being overwhelmingly awesome -- there were good plays, and there were bad ones, as usual -- it's about everything else. It's about failing a simple hand-off with a reroll, and two out of three kick-offs giving a Blitz to my opponent, and the crowd throwing the ball the entire width of the pitch when it was unlikely to even go out of bounds in the first place.

Don't hate the player, hate the game. I'm just trying to give you feedback. In a friendly and jovial fashion.

I'm three turns into the replay now, and I have already seen a ton of mistakes (from both players). For starters, Lamearos has a ma10 rat, and you set-up with no-one on the wide-zones.

You have plenty of guard, yet you put five on the LOS.

Once he blitzes, you still spend two turns with five (!!!) of your players, including both FGs in the middle marking down three generic linerats.

You Blitz with a Block Ghoul, instead of the Frenzy/Tackle Wolf, to try and get the ball back.

You use a Wight to pickup, instead of the ag4 Ghoul.

The next five turns were "ok-ish", in that you sent a the ball carrier by his lonesome into the Skaven half, then kinda-sorta-almost held onto the ball (helped by Lamearos' insistence on burning Loner rr on the big rat) to stall out the 1-1. Actually, you got supremely lucky in some respects, because had Lamearos not gotten a Push/Push on a Dauntless blitz, and the used the Guard Stormvermin a bit later to Dauntless blitz again (instead of burning a rr on the ogre) you may very well have been facing a 2-0 deficit.

As far as the second half is concerned, you over committed on the blitz to sack the runner putting both wolves on that side of the pitch. The throw-in, obviously, is random but it would ahve helped to have 'some' players on both sides of the pitch in the event that the ball landed someplace where the Gutter Runners  could have gotten to it (hint: anywhere in your half of the pitch bar the bottom left corner).

After he zerged your cage, you tied to hand-off to the wolf, instead of what I think would have both been better options; blitzing the RO down and walking out with the ag4 Ghoul, or just trying a straight 3+ dodge with the built-in rr. It was admittedly a very poor situation to be in, but to be honest you did not do a good job of keeping the big rat busy with a zombie chew-toy. He should NEVER have been able to just park him onto the ball carrier like he did.

The last kick-off: I don't know man. You overload on the LOS again, leave the wide zones open again, and he gets a blitz, again. Ok, the blitz is unlikely, but the rest of it? Come on now.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

I honestly do not understand why you think the presence of a MA10 gutter runner makes any difference to how I set up when receiving the ball; it's not like he was standing him on the LoS, raring to go. My positioning on the first kick off was definitely terrible, though; for some reason I forgot that I had subs and so I was trying to figure out where my ball-handling ghoul was -- by the time I found him (on the sidelines) I ran out of time, and so as mentioned I left a gap on one side. I did have players in both wide zones, though, it's not like I set up in a column -- and helpfully the kick went to the side where I had left a gap. But yes, the set-up was pretty poor -- which would have been no problem at all with any other kick-off result. Also I thought I had a flesh golem on the right side, but I could be wrong, you're the one watching the replay.

As for the hand-off, you may be right about hitting the Rat Ogre. I tended to forget the fact that I had a str 5 player -- but I am pretty sure that would have been a 1d blitz, which really doesn't seem like better odds than the hand-off. Having the ball in the hands of a Strength 5 player with Block vs. a Ghoul with Wrestle also seemed like a good idea, since there was no obvious place to go even if I had cleared out the immediate rats. I was hardly expecting to waltz upfield afterwards, I just certainly wasn't expecting to drop the ball, then have my ghoul BH and werewolf KOed out of the game, allowing him to easily pickup and then stall for several turns.

Actually wait a second... I had to blitz the werewolf free in the first place, so he could take the hand-off and run -- so who was I going to be blitzing the Rat Ogre with, if not my only str 5 player? I am scratching my head here, because dodging the Ghoul out is definitely a worse idea with the Rat Ogre standing right there. There is no "straight 3+ dodge" with prehensile tail involved, and the dodge would have had to be in to a tackle zone as well. Also he didn't zerg my cage -- I didn't have a cage, because I had just gotten the ball back from him off the Blitz-and-catch.

As for overloading the LOS... on offense... I guess we just have a fundamental disagreement here. I am sure I could have tweaked the formation better, but generally you beat Skaven by hurting them when you have the opportunity. And I had successfully used the same formation on my previous drive, too -- though I guess he did dodge that single GR through for the sack, in the end, but that was because of how I played the turn, not how I set up my players. Again, with any result on the kickoff at all besides a Blitz, you have an entire turn to reposition your players, so it's pretty trivial to make up for a slightly off LoS -- backfield and wide positioning is more important. 2 free ghouls and a free werewolf (and the Wights in the wide zones) are generally enough to cover the backfield if something goes awry. I am really curious how you think I should have set up, since in order to avoid a blitzable gap I would have needed to commit four more players from somewhere -- are you saying I should have set the whole line up deeper and then just peeled off ball handlers? They would have had to be so deep as to make forward blitzes difficult, I basically would have been in a defensive formation while receiving.

You're right that I could have played better -- and if I had set up expecting a Blitz, I probably would have had more success in the end. But only because there was a Blitz nearly every time. The entire dynamic of the game was the result of those blitzes. Obviously we will never know how the game would have gone without the Blitzes, and without that toss-in. Obviously, I feel like I would have won, or I wouldn't be so bitter about it. I find the pretense that somehow everything was even, and Lamaros had bad luck too, etc. to be kind of ridiculous, though. When Nuffle handed me the game against Comstar, I said so, even if he also made some mistakes and I also had the occasional bad roll.

[lamaros]

I think we both played pretty poorly at points and ok at others. I do think that without the blitzes it would have been a closer game, but I don't think I scored just because of lucky blitzes and bounces. I also don't think "I waltzed upfield knocking over his side without a worry in the world" is an accurate representation of your score either. You left your ghoul in a position where he could get hit, and he did. With better thinking on my behalf he would have been hit with more of my guys around (at least two of the grs could have set up a loose line between him and the rest of your team, at the least) and you might have been in a tough spot. And I can pretty confidently say that if I had my brain switched on your wolf run in to my half would have backfired on you badly. I made some notes on my mistakes watching the game, and there is a HEAP I didn't do that could have hurt you in these two turns. I made some noted watching it and I missed the following:

3rd turn: Should have used MB stormvermin to hit the guy in front of him with an assist from a linerat moving from the right and not hit with the linerat on the left . Shouldn't have moved the SS/B GR early so I had him to move up and support before or after the dauntless roll. Should have moved the RO to engage someone. Should have moved leech to a better position after the dauntless blitz.

4th turn: Should have moved leech back down and blocked the run of the wight south instead of sitting him deep. Should have moved RO more in the middle than the side and marked the run of the wight. Should have hit guard ghoul with MB blitzer and moved freed linerat down field to similar support. Should have stood up benjamin. Should have stood up MV GR and moved him back down to defend.

As it was you still took some dice to get away with it in spots, as Megrim said.

I readily accept I played poorly and had some events and rolls go my way, moreso that you did, but there was more to the game than just that. To suggest that you would have won without the blitzes, when you only scraped in with the one score that you did get, and when I got the ball back off you a number of times after the blitzes, is just arrogance and poor sportsmanship.

[Ingmar]

I've said this before, but blaming Nuffle will never help you learn what you need to learn from a given game.

The correct lesson to take away from a game where your opponent gets multiple blitzes is not "argh, what are the chances!" It is that you should always consider the possibility of a blitz when you're setting up your formation. (If you then choose to say "I'm going to count on no blitz" then at least you're walking into the situation with eyes open.)

Getting fixated on the dice (I still struggle to stop myself from doing it even after years of competitive play in another minis game) always distracts you from other possible improvements in my experience.

I'm not trying to single you out, ICE, it is something I keep seeing from people of all skill levels in these threads.

[Ulysees]

I've been doing a ton of reading up since I started playing the game against human opponents and the one piece of advise that keeps being re-iterated in the things I am reading is assume the worst outcome and play accordingly, since taking that advice I have lost 3 games in a row since I am setting myself up to cover for bad dice rolls and finding that as a result I have become a lot less aggressive giving the opposing teams either easy stalls on the cage or not really putting pressure on them, my last game against Strazos was probably the first match where I was in no way going to get anything from the game though because the rolls did royally screw me over with most of my second half turns ending after the first action due to fails then re-roll fails.

The point I guess I am trying to make is that it's all well and good to set yourself up for the worst case scenario but I do think that can lead to you playing far too defensively and it's something I need to sort out to try and keep my team progressing since I have not scored in 3 games now and because I have gone too defensive minded trying to allow for things to go wrong I am not hitting enough with my unskilled Saurus's so their development has stalled too. Sometimes you will get screwed because at the end of the day it's a game that is decided by dice rolls, annoying when it happens consistantly but it should balance out over time.

[lamaros]

Moving on from the game itself and more generally, I have to admit that adjusting my play for the different types of teams is something I don't do well enough, and something that people don't seem to do very well against me. Skaven have pretty big strengths and weaknesses, and it can be tricky to make sure you're playing a game that focuses on the right elements for your matchup.

I seem to have it ok against lizards, and slower teams like orcs and dwarves and the like, but I struggle with the matchups against elves and humans. Against Necromantic my plan is also poor, being "hit the fast ones and play like you do against slow teams". This doesn't really work because I don't have enough hitting power and they have a few too many fast guys. What would be a better plan?

[Megrim]

I honestly do not understand why you think the presence of a MA10 gutter runner makes any difference to how I set up when receiving the ball; it's not like he was standing him on the LoS, raring to go. My positioning on the first kick off was definitely terrible, though; for some reason I forgot that I had subs and so I was trying to figure out where my ball-handling ghoul was -- by the time I found him (on the sidelines) I ran out of time, and so as mentioned I left a gap on one side. I did have players in both wide zones, though, it's not like I set up in a column -- and helpfully the kick went to the side where I had left a gap. But yes, the set-up was pretty poor -- which would have been no problem at all with any other kick-off result. Also I thought I had a flesh golem on the right side, but I could be wrong, you're the one watching the replay.

As for the hand-off, you may be right about hitting the Rat Ogre. I tended to forget the fact that I had a str 5 player -- but I am pretty sure that would have been a 1d blitz, which really doesn't seem like better odds than the hand-off. Having the ball in the hands of a Strength 5 player with Block vs. a Ghoul with Wrestle also seemed like a good idea, since there was no obvious place to go even if I had cleared out the immediate rats. I was hardly expecting to waltz upfield afterwards, I just certainly wasn't expecting to drop the ball, then have my ghoul BH and werewolf KOed out of the game, allowing him to easily pickup and then stall for several turns.

Actually wait a second... I had to blitz the werewolf free in the first place, so he could take the hand-off and run -- so who was I going to be blitzing the Rat Ogre with, if not my only str 5 player? I am scratching my head here, because dodging the Ghoul out is definitely a worse idea with the Rat Ogre standing right there. There is no "straight 3+ dodge" with prehensile tail involved, and the dodge would have had to be in to a tackle zone as well. Also he didn't zerg my cage -- I didn't have a cage, because I had just gotten the ball back from him off the Blitz-and-catch.

As for overloading the LOS... on offense... I guess we just have a fundamental disagreement here. I am sure I could have tweaked the formation better, but generally you beat Skaven by hurting them when you have the opportunity. And I had successfully used the same formation on my previous drive, too -- though I guess he did dodge that single GR through for the sack, in the end, but that was because of how I played the turn, not how I set up my players. Again, with any result on the kickoff at all besides a Blitz, you have an entire turn to reposition your players, so it's pretty trivial to make up for a slightly off LoS -- backfield and wide positioning is more important. 2 free ghouls and a free werewolf (and the Wights in the wide zones) are generally enough to cover the backfield if something goes awry. I am really curious how you think I should have set up, since in order to avoid a blitzable gap I would have needed to commit four more players from somewhere -- are you saying I should have set the whole line up deeper and then just peeled off ball handlers? They would have had to be so deep as to make forward blitzes difficult, I basically would have been in a defensive formation while receiving.

You're right that I could have played better -- and if I had set up expecting a Blitz, I probably would have had more success in the end. But only because there was a Blitz nearly every time. The entire dynamic of the game was the result of those blitzes. Obviously we will never know how the game would have gone without the Blitzes, and without that toss-in. Obviously, I feel like I would have won, or I wouldn't be so bitter about it. I find the pretense that somehow everything was even, and Lamaros had bad luck too, etc. to be kind of ridiculous, though. When Nuffle handed me the game against Comstar, I said so, even if he also made some mistakes and I also had the occasional bad roll.

Our league is developing a rather bad tendency to attribute an awful lot to luck, and not enough to user error. I'll try to address your points by collating my response into an compiled answer, instead of Sir Brucing everything. This will also help, because what I'm trying to get across is not the faults or merits of individual actions, but the overall result as a consequence of sequentially sub-optimal decision making.

ma10 in and of itself is not important. ma10, however, coupled with three other ma9s that effectively ignore tzs is. Typically, when it comes to beating flair teams, be they elf or rat, the best way to do it is to make them roll a lot of dice. If you give him free reign to move about the pitch and re-position as he pleases you are leaving yourself open to all kinds of abuse. The blitz on kick-off was a bad result sure. But it could have been a pitch invasion, or pouring rain, or a thrown rock that killed your ag4 Ghoul. There are plenty of things that could have gone wrong. The point however, is that without good coverage of the pitch you left yourself weak in the event something went wrong. Coming back around then, to the ma10; if he coffin corners it - you are lucky, actually, that he did not have Kick - if he coffin corners it into the back left or the back right you leave yourself two pieces to try and fetch the ball/protect the pickup. One of which, he can blitz down with a Dauntless rat, for free, and still proceed to probably put three if not four tzs onto the ball.

Why? Because there are five players on the los, one of which has st5, one of which is st4 and at least one of which has Guard. You aren't going to hit those three linerats any harder. A single Guard piece will do. What this then means is that he has to use either an Ogre to open up a single running lane, which can backfire and give you another round of free hits, or he has to commit multiple reliable players on battering what would have been st4/st5/SF/Blodge wings. Now obviously, a blitz on kick-off is a bitch to face. I agree. But, whether or not he ran through on the blitz or on his turn after your round of blocks - if you had maintained field coverage, he would not have been able to apply as much pressure as he did. This extends to both blitz events in both halves.

As for overloading the LOS... on offense... I guess we just have a fundamental disagreement here. I am sure I could have tweaked the formation better, but generally you beat Skaven by hurting them when you have the opportunity. And I had successfully used the same formation on my previous drive, too -- though I guess he did dodge that single GR through for the sack, in the end, but that was because of how I played the turn, not how I set up my players. Again, with any result on the kickoff at all besides a Blitz, you have an entire turn to reposition your players, so it's pretty trivial to make up for a slightly off LoS -- backfield and wide positioning is more important. 2 free ghouls and a free werewolf (and the Wights in the wide zones) are generally enough to cover the backfield if something goes awry. I am really curious how you think I should have set up, since in order to avoid a blitzable gap I would have needed to commit four more players from somewhere -- are you saying I should have set the whole line up deeper and then just peeled off ball handlers? They would have had to be so deep as to make forward blitzes difficult, I basically would have been in a defensive formation while receiving.

This part is highly relevant. As I said initially: you beat them by making them take risks, roll lots of dice. You beat them by not letting them have the ball. Your team has no Mighty Blow, some Tackle. He had more MB than you. AND he can re-position for assists far more easily. You do however have a fair amount of Guard - what this means is that you can capitalise on maintaining solid formation. Let your players support one another and force him into suboptimal decisions. So yes, you should have set the line deeper. A SF Golem in either wide-zone means that he has to roll 3 dodges just to get a single runner through, or commit the RO to a blitz. A single Guard Zombie is enough to dominate the LOS, while freeing up two players to cover inner center:

http://www.play-creator.com/viewplay.asp?viewplay=9586

What about something like that? This allows you to either fold inwards in the event of a rushdown (as it happened with the blitz), or to secure the ball and then smash into whichever wing he decided to break into. You can also shift either the Wolves or the Wights diagonally forward of the Fleshies if you are afraid of an FG getting surfed.

Finally, before I head off to the shops; on the handling of the RO/cage thing...

As I said the first time around, I sympathize with you because it was a pretty bad situation to be in no matter which way you look at it. However, what I think I had meant was this - the st5 Were was marked by a Wrodge runner. You could have blocked backwards on the diagonal and pushed away from the ag4 Ghoul. Then it does become a 3+ dodge out of Prehensile Tail. Not great, but there is a Dodge re-roll. Further up, you had a Guard Wight on the left, marking a single rat. This guy could have been either dodged away to pull up a Guard assist on the ball-carrier after he got free and ran up-field, or straight blitzed if you did not with to risk the dodge. Had you have used the st5 Were to blitz away his marker, and successfully dodged the others (one with a built in rr), you now have a sideline cage with a st5 piece, a st3 Guard piece and a Blodge ball carrier. Alternatively, and I admit I didn't look at the prospect too closely, iirc you could have engineered a one die, possibly a two-die uphill block on the RO to try and clear the ball. Not great odds once again, but you would have had Block and a re-roll, whereas he didn't.

Hopefully, this will help somewhat, and not in a "haha l2p nub" kind of way.

[lamaros]

That setup is good Megrim, though I would try to get through by blitzing the WW with the RO, or a guard assisted stormvermin on a WW. I would also be able to get in behind the side with non dodging players. Something like this could be possible, depending on what GFIs the skaven player risks.



To stop that I would suggest moving the ghouls more like this against Skaven,

http://www.play-creator.com/viewplay.asp?viewplay=9587

thus forcing a TZ on any attempts to open a hole. It looks more open but the space is now in the middle of the pitch, where skaven don't want to be, rather than on the side. This forces dodges on a side setup, which makes it very risky, or just confined to GRs.

[Modern Angel]

Because as someone mentioned, if you use the Apothecary and choose a Badly Hurt result, the player recovers enough to continue playing the game on the next drive -- similar to if they had been pushed out of bounds and gotten a stun result, for example.

Which is why sometimes you'll see coaches using the apothecary on key players even when the first result is Badly Hurt -- they're not expecting a better roll, since Badly Hurt is the best possible result, they're just passing up the opportunity to deal with a more serious injury in favour of keeping that player in the game.

I actually never knew any of this. I sort of suspected it but I didn't have it firmly in my head. This is good to know.

[Strazos]

Never knew that either, though it sort of makes sense since you can likewise Apoth KOs down to stuns and such.

Still sucks - I got a little excited when I thought I might have knocked that troll out of the game, Early.

[Comstar]

My MUST WIN match vs Gruntle is in a few hours from now. I'm going to be half asleep, but I've got into the finals twice on the last match, so here's hoping history repeats itself. However, I won't have any bloodwiser babes to help my girls stand back up, a flaw that lead to my previous defeats in a row.

I need to win and win big to have a chance to get to the playoffs. My team is at full strength, but my 2nd thrower is back to being skilless, so no kicking back to the far quarter. And he has 300+ inducments, and a Cow with Block. Only 3 Chaos Warriors I'm surprised to see though.

[Ingmar]

My MUST WIN match vs Gruntle is in a few hours from now. I'm going to be half asleep, but I've got into the finals twice on the last match, so here's hoping history repeats itself. However, I won't have any bloodwiser babes to help my girls stand back up, a flaw that lead to my previous defeats in a row.

I need to win and win big to have a chance to get to the playoffs. My team is at full strength, but my 2nd thrower is back to being skilless, so no kicking back to the far quarter. And he has 300+ inducments, and a Cow with Block. Only 3 Chaos Warriors I'm surprised to see though.

That's because the one with block and guard died last match, iirc.

[AndyDavo]

I think i  need to watch Icecreams game! all this talk is interesting. From what i know of Icecream he doesnt make basic mistakes, as both his recent record and my head to head with him show.

I wonder also if anyone watches other games in this manner, more specifically mine - i wish to know if anyone thinks i  make errors; Icecream says he made what he sees as tactical errors and u see as mistakes - wonder if people see the same in my games?

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Our league is developing a rather bad tendency to attribute an awful lot to luck, and not enough to user error.

Well, I agree with this completely, but in this case I really think the game was beyond the pale -- and that happens too. I hardly played perfectly, and I appreciate the comments -- kick-off formations are certainly one of my worst/least-thought-out elements of play.

But I wish you'd stop saying I have only 3 players who can react in case something besides a Blitz goes wrong -- 5 players on the LoS, as you keep repeating, means 6 players who can move freely to cover, screen, etc. Yes, some of them were golems or zombies, but they screen just fine as you pointed out in your suggested golem-wide setup. Not to mention that focused blocking can easily free up that LoS werewolf in most cases. There is just nothing comparable to the other team getting an entire free turn, and that is a thankfully rare occurence in most games.

And if he had kick believe me I would have set up much differently (and given the Blitzes, probably to my advantage.)

As for making the other team roll... I believe it was 27/30 dodges for Lamaros' team. 10/11 catches. 2/2 passes, 4/4 pickups. I made him roll dice -- in the case of both Blitzes I managed to knock the ball free, and even on the cross-field toss I managed to get over there and get the ball on the ground. I don't think he scored once without having his ball carrier sacked, and in several cases it was twice. While this idea that one shouldn't 'let him have the ball' while playing against Skaven is good general advice, it just feels absurd in my case. I didn't let him have the ball, the Blitzes gave him the ball. The Blitz is the fundamental cause, regardless of whether or not my positioning could have been better.

Similarly, making him roll didn't help because he didn't fail many rolls. He rolled less than 10% 1s, and less than 15% 2s. So maybe watching the replay it feels like I didn't make him roll enough, or that his Skaven "ignore tackle zones" (which is wrong, since none of them have agi 5; a tackle zone increases the odds of a failed dodge dramatically.) And yes sure I could have done more on that score but that's different than saying I didn't do enough. My sense of aggrievetude is because I felt like I did enough -- in some cases far more than enough -- and it rarely actually worked out. That's just my feeling, obviously, and it doesn't mean I couldn't have done more.

But Lamaros is right that at this point I am being a poor sport. That said, dude, your initial response full of eye-rolling parenthetical remarks about how OH LOOK I HAD BAD LUCK TOO was not exactly a winner in that little game either.

[HaemishM]

Peace Dogs 2 - The Dandies 1

Gotta run but just wanted to post an update. Thanks to BB's interface, this was only 2-1 and not 3-1 but thanks to Bann's landlord, it was an easy 2-1 instead of a possible tough win or draw. He missed a turn being AFK without telling me. I offered a reset but he let it go on and almost drew level thanks to fucking Cyanide's shitass interface that caused me to perform and fail an unnecessary dodge when I should have scored on that turn.

[Llyse]

I think the rivalry between you two has gotten a bit out of hand but it's great that you two are good coaches adding some excitement to the game.

I'm sure if one of you two doesn't falter in the playoffs you'll get your rematch and I'll be looking forward to it! 


In the meantime no pressure on your first playoff match

[Paelos]

Well I got a point this season. That's something. Bring on Ezrast.

[lamaros]

But Lamaros is right that at this point I am being a poor sport. That said, dude, your initial response full of eye-rolling parenthetical remarks about how OH LOOK I HAD BAD LUCK TOO was not exactly a winner in that little game either.

I'm also a big whinge about dice at time (see my wizard whinging from last season), so I don't begrudge you feeling annoyed. I just felt that you weren't giving me any credit at all, which made me grumpy.

Anyway, I don't actually want to have a serious business rivalry thing going on here, this is all meant to be in good fun! Lets just hope we meet in the final (unless falc doesn't do a proper playoffs again and has us meet in the semis... like last year) and you get the blitzes.

I'm sure if one of you two doesn't falter in the playoffs you'll get your rematch and I'll be looking forward to it!  

In the meantime no pressure on your first playoff match

You must be talking to just Ice here, my rematch is against you after the injustice of the semi last year!  

Back on Skaven for a moment and this talk of "don't give them the ball". I hate having the ball. Nearly every game I have played ball possession stats have been ~20-30% for me, with the ball being ~70-80% in the other players half. What is more accurate against my playing style is 'don't leave the ball loose ever, don't leave the ball carrier unprotected ever'. I play (and I think Skaven generally) much more of a counter-attacking style. High and Pro Elves are more "hold, hold, hold, score!", and others are "creep, creep, creep, creep, score", but skaven feel best when it is "attempt to get ball, attempt to get ball, attempt to get ball, get ball! run! run! score!"

But then I am doing it wrong, because I suck badly at recieving.

Also, falc still hasn't validated matches!

[Bann]

Peace Dogs 2 - The Dandies 1

 ...thanks to fucking Cyanide's shitass interface that caused me to perform and fail an unnecessary dodge when I should have scored on that turn.

/agree with this x1000. Im not sure how much of it is interface and how much is running bbowl on a shitass netbook, but I had a ton of problems today. Just prior to the failed dodge, no amount of slamming on the cancel wrestle button would change it from a green check to the red x, which should have resulted in a turnover. Randomly could not select players off the pitch while positioning for my opening reception so I left out my kicker instead of a lineman who ended up getting badly hurt for the game. Grr. Haemish played his elves well. I thought I had everything sealed up for a score only to see one elf make like 4 or 5 dodge/GFI rolls to put my ball carrier in a tacklezone, then another do the same thing on a blitz to knock the ball loose. As usual for me while playing elves, I forget just exactly how good they are taking a ball in a tackle zone and turning it into being on my endzone in the blink of an eye. I think I leveled a catcher and a blitzer, no lasting injuries. Looking forward to the failoffs.

[Gruntle]

Nifty Helmets have presumably secured their place in the LOSER BOWL as they lost to Comstar's amazons, 2-1.

Comstar played well, and the first half was exciting and evenly matched 1-to-1 goal-wise. I however played poorly in the second half, like someone new to 2 min turns I managed to move everyone up (and set up a cage) but the guy with the ball when the clock ran out which allowed Comstar to stop that drive, knock the ball into a muddle and eventually recover the ball with some clever scrum surfing. A few turns later he scored, and rather than going for the tie at the end (in a somewhat unlikely but flat ag3 pass w/ a reroll possible 2 turn drive) I left all my players out of scoring range.

[Comstar]

I need someone good at mathamatics, stat.

Amazons 2 over Chaos 1. Aviva has to win, and win big, to be able to get the 4th spot in the playoffs. I think if he wins by 3 TD's? Someone please work it out!

I ended up with 3 badly injured, 2 players with guard missing the next game, and 3 KO's through the match. Gruntle had his star player Minatour badly hurt, and another linegoat badly hurt, and gained skills on 2 players.

I started with the kick off and punched a hole up the right flank. A simple two turn touchdown was foiled once again (3rd game in a row) when the catcher fialed to catch an accurate pass in the end zone. However, Gruntle, losing track of time (a feature of this match, he ran out of time on 5 different turns) forgot to try for the ball and allowed a simple pick up for a 1-0 score at turn 3.

The Chaos counterplay was pretty strong. I held up the 4 Chaos Warriors, 2 Minatours and a +ST Goat for a few turns, but eventually too many girls were off the pitch, and a desperate dodge to try and get a 1 dice block on the chaos warrior failed, allowing an easy touch down turn 8. At some point his Star Player Minatour got badly hurt, I'm not sure doing what.

Second half started and I was felling pretty low. A draw would mean I was out of the playoffs. Both teams had 11 players on the field.  Gruntle left his ball carrier isolated in the back middle of the pitch, and despite some hurried back tracking, the Amazons were able to knock the ball free and have it surrounded by 3 tacklezones. Chaos cleared some girls away, and ended the turn with 3 Chaos players around it. The ball was knocked free again and ended up with 4 Chaos players around it. Again the ball bounced around, and with only now 2 chaos players around it, I was able to free it up, grab the ball and get a cage in the middle of the pitch.

With the Chaos players now off balance, the Amazons drove up the right flank again, and were able to hold off the Chaos players so they only had 1 Goat with a tacklezone on the ball carrier. She dodged away on the 3rd last turn for a 2-1 lead.

Chaos only had 2 turns to get a TD, but by this time there were 5 injured and 1 KO'ed Amazon off the pitch, and they could have punched someone down for a last gasp last turn pass. Fortunately for me, Gruntle didn't seem to have noticed till all his players with the ability to do so had already punched the girl invitingly standing before them on a perfect defence. My Amazons Wrestler, for the first time ever, got a both down result on the ball carrier, and the Chaos team were doomed.


I was helped by his normal Cow failing 6 Wild Animal rolls through the game, and on about 5-6 times, Gruntle ran out of time before making the play needed to get the ball. The mistake on not trying for a long pass on the last turn was the game decider. Nuffle wasn't NEARLY as much of a bitch this game as my previous 3, and blodge helped quite a lot vs a team with not much block and tackle.

My chance of making the playoffs, hinges on Aviais's game.

[ezrast]

Yep, assuming BBManager's stats are correct, Avaia would have to win by 3+ TDs to take your spot. Not sure what happens if it's exactly three since I can't remember what we decided on for tiebreakers. You have more TDs for (unless he scores 5+) but he won your head-to-head, so...

In Cthulhu, Falc is through if he beats Ingmar (by points), or if he ties Ingmar and I don't beat Paelos (by TD difference vs Haemish). Haemish is through if Falc loses to Ingmar and I don't beat Paelos (by points). I'm through if I beat Paelos and Falc does not beat Ingmar (by TD difference against Haemish and possibly Falc, somehow I'm only at -1 despite my record).

I do think having 50% of teams go to playoffs seems like a bit much, especially if they're seeded, since the prospect of, say, me vs Ice Cream Emperor or AndyDavo isn't likely to make for a nailbiting game. Plus, in terms of getting games and SPP under your belt, it's now better to be at the top of the failoffs than the bottom of the playoffs (post-season is single-elimination, right?). Not really complaining, but it is a bit of a quirk.

[Ingmar]

This is the part where I make you all sweat by saying I'm more concerned about staying intact for the playoffs and leveling my other runner than I am about winning, right? 

[Strazos]

I do think having 50% of teams go to playoffs seems like a bit much, especially if they're seeded, since the prospect of, say, me vs Ice Cream Emperor or AndyDavo isn't likely to make for a nailbiting game. Plus, in terms of getting games and SPP under your belt, it's now better to be at the top of the failoffs than the bottom of the playoffs (post-season is single-elimination, right?). Not really complaining, but it is a bit of a quirk.

This is probably "Working As Intended," as those teams could probably use the extra points.

Also, I hope the 16 teams are fully seeded for each tourney, with division winners getting spots 1-4.

[ezrast]

This is the part where I make you all sweat by saying I'm more concerned about staying intact for the playoffs and leveling my other runner than I am about winning, right? 

Come now, do you really think you'll be able to resist putting all that sweet, Amazon-hard-countering Tackle to use? You know you can't resist the carnage.

Give in and destroy him.

Or tie him.

[Paelos]

Ezrast. I'm available to play our game at any point this weekend.

[Megrim]

Acherontic Welkin 1 - 2 Alive Not Dead

Trying to take the ball off of a st4 Werewolf is, ahem, fun. Going to have to work on my game against hybrid teams.