Horns & Hooves *Season 2* Day One

[lamaros]

Yeah this is not the league for +AV.

[Ruvaldt]

Four days to go and three matches left!

[Ingmar]

Will try to track Avaia down soon now that Star Wars Woo weekend is over.

[Teleku]

Haven't heard from Falc yet.  Didn't see him on when I checked on steam this weekend (but I wasn't really looking that often).  Hopefully we can hash it out soon.

[Llyse]

Lining Gruntle up for tonight or tomorrow afternoon

[Falconeer]

Sorry Teleku, I was around on Sunday but not on Saturday and when I was you weren't. Unfortunate.

Can we try again wednesday? Or Saturday again?

[Teleku]

I'm only available week days after 5:30 PM PST (GMT-8 ?).  So, if your available after that point, I'll be down the play.  Just message me, got nothing going on currently.

Saturday morning my time might work as well.  Though I should mention, I'm leaving for Boston Saturday evening, and will be gone from Nov 20th thru the 28th.  So, will probably not be able to play any BB in that time (heads up for the feeder league).  If things get tight though, I might be able to load on a friends PC.

[Gruntle]

Los Stupicabras met Llyse's Breaking Wind in a 1-0 victory.

Unfortunately pressed for time, this was perhaps uglier bloodbowl than last season's co-champion normally plays -- he chose to kick off and basically ground my drive to a halt in the first half, though he drove my team back and managed to grab the ball in my side of the field, he wasn't able to make the break and score before half-time. On the other hand, armor breaks went my way and with some additional lucky turn 8 KOs and the accumulated two injuries (which his two apothecaries did not manage to remove) my deeper bench meant that the second half the Breaking Wind fielded only six players against my full 11. Even Llyse's excellent play could not overcome those odds, and after parking the ball on the 1-yard line the Stupicabras finally put the first and only score on the 16th turn.


(It looks like someone needs to verify the games now)

[Ruvaldt]

Verified!

[Llyse]

Gruntle's already given a great match report but just wanted to say Gruntle is a legend since I slept in and ended up being 2 hours late for the game.

He also deserved that win alone for having 2 Goats with Foul appearance and 1 with Disturbing appearance. 

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Yeah this is not the league for +AV.

I'm kind of surprised to read about all these people taking claw, given that everyone is AV8. Not that it's useless, but I don't know that it would be a priority for me.

[Gruntle]

Gruntle's already given a great match report but just wanted to say Gruntle is a legend since I slept in and ended up being 2 hours late for the game.

He also deserved that win alone for having 2 Goats with Foul appearance and 1 with Disturbing appearance.  

Of course Foul Appearance doesn't seem to have worked at all in that match (and there's actually 3 goats with Foul Appearance -- you KO'd one in the first half which was why he didn't make an impression later).

But everyone has Llyse to thank for my leveling Scabb (didn't notice he was at 3 spp til Llyse pointed out he should be the one to score for me) -- now I have my 2nd +ST goat!

[Llyse]

Of course Foul Appearance doesn't seem to have worked at all in that match (and there's actually 3 goats with Foul Appearance -- you KO'd one in the first half which was why he didn't make an impression later).

But everyone has Llyse to thank for my leveling Scabb (didn't notice he was at 3 spp til Llyse pointed out he should be the one to score for me) -- now I have my 2nd +ST goat!

FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU 

[lamaros]

Yeah this is not the league for +AV.

I'm kind of surprised to read about all these people taking claw, given that everyone is AV8. Not that it's useless, but I don't know that it would be a priority for me.

You have to take alternate mutations and you already have horns, so what else do you take on the basher with MB? Most of the other mutations are for different types of players.

I'm only going for two Claw players, but considering my MB/Claw player is the only level 4 in the league atm and and gets more than one injury and one KO a game at the moment it's quite the advantage. 9 injuries so far, next player has 4.

EDIT: Also, two +STR goats is BS!

[Falconeer]

I am really sorry for delaying my game with Teleku so much. I will do all I can to play it this saturday, if he's up for that.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

I'm only going for two Claw players, but considering my MB/Claw player is the only level 4 in the league atm and and gets more than one injury and one KO a game at the moment it's quite the advantage. 9 injuries so far, next player has 4.

Without sounding too dorky/huffy about this, you do realize there is fairly straightforward math you could do to discover what the actual increase in rate-of-casualties-caused is, for claw v. non-claw? And that even without doing any of said math it is pretty obvious that the increase is not over 200%, so perhaps your anecdotal evidence is not really the most super-relevant?

But yes, as you point out, might as well get it on one or two guys, for variety's sake. It's just not nearly as obvious a choice as it would be on a regular Chaos team, where you want to strike fear into the hearts of orcs & dwarves (& other chaos warriors) everywhere.

[Ingmar]

It's the best mutation available for blitzer/killer types, so given the leveling rules everyone should pretty much have at least 2 guys with it eventually. Effectively it is +1 on injury rolls, that's still a better buy than anything else for those types of players.

[Ruvaldt]

I am really sorry for delaying my game with Teleku so much. I will do all I can to play it this saturday, if he's up for that.

All games should be played by the 18th, but I will extend the deadline by one day if it looks like this is will happen.  Avaia/Ingmar also needs to happen.

Matches that aren't played will be counted as losses for both teams unless someone concedes or showed no interest in playing their match.  I don't want to give 1 point for a tie if the game didn't occur because there are teams out there that did play, and lost, but got 0 points.  It just wouldn't be fair to them.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Effectively it is +1 on injury rolls, that's still a better buy than anything else for those types of players.

It's not +1 on injury rolls, it's +1 on armour break rolls. Which matters only when you roll an 8 (or a 7, if you have MB). It's significantly less awesome than a +1 an injury roll, though it's still of course better than nothing. Basically, Claw increases your odds of getting someone off the pitch by the odds of rolling an 8 multiplied by the odds of causing a KO or casualty. Which works out to like a 7-9% increase. Nothing to sneeze at, for sure, but also not the difference between 4 casualties and 9.

[lamaros]

Remember, you work out increased chance compared to the old chance, not 100% success.

IIRC it's ~10% v ~14% chance of injury. So a 40% increase.
It's ~4.5% v ~14% for unskilled v claw/mb though, which is over 200%.

Only three goats have claw in the whole league. Only three have MB. I'm not sure how recently those guys got those (one hasn't played a game with his claw and of the level three guys I'm not sure what skill came first) Either way I have the only one with both, which is a huge advantage over nearly every other player.

Also remember: It's not a one off thing. Getting MB then claw increases your casualties skill points, which increases your levelling speed, which gives you other skills. These other skills (such as block and PO) then help you get more casualties, increasing you again. (Note: I am not sure if it is better to go block/claw/mb or mb/claw/block in terms of speed, someone would have to make a more complicated model than I am willing to do for that. I suspect it is the former, though. Especially when most other players don't have block)

So I wouldn't under-sell the value of claw. My 9 injuries are emphasised by me using her to blitz and block, but getting MB and claw early has given her a injuries causing advantage of significance.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

It's ~4.5% v ~14% for unskilled v claw/mb though, which is over 200%.

Remember, you work out increased chance compared to the old chance, not 100% success.

I don't know about that -- if it was a 2% increase on a 1% base, is it more productive to understand the flat rate of increase or the percentage rate? 'Three times as often!' sounds great until you realize that it's still only 2% more of the time. I find it easier to think in terms of flat numbers when figuring the overall value of the choice along with a whole bunch of other factors.

But generally, as your numbers suggest, it's the MB doing the heavy lifting, especially when it comes to causing injuries vs. stuns.

[lamaros]

It's ~4.5% v ~14% for unskilled v claw/mb though, which is over 200%.

Remember, you work out increased chance compared to the old chance, not 100% success.

I don't know about that -- if it was a 2% increase on a 1% base, is it more productive to understand the flat rate of increase or the percentage rate? 'Three times as often!' sounds great until you realize that it's still only 2% more of the time. I find it easier to think in terms of flat numbers when figuring the overall value of the choice along with a whole bunch of other factors.

But generally, as your numbers suggest, it's the MB doing the heavy lifting, especially when it comes to causing injuries vs. stuns.

It depends what you're using the numbers for. If you're using them to talk about my player's casualties compared to another you have to use the relative % chance, otherwise it's silly. My mb/claw player will injure someone from a successful block three times more often than an unskilled beast (or one w/o mb/claw or po, at least), so you would expect to see values of 3 casualties to 9. She will injure someone 40% more often than someone who just has MB (only one other player in the league has MB outside my side - IIRC), so you would expect to see values of 5 to 7.

You are right in saying that MB has a more significant impact - it works on injury rolls too - but that doesn't mean claw is negligible.

[lamaros]

Another way of looking at it:

If Linda knocks a player down every other turn she will take a player off the pitch (ko and injure) ~2.5 times a game. The MB player will do it ~1.75 times a game. The unskilled player will do it ~0.93 times. (One with just claw will do it ~1.35 times.)

Therefore the advantage in taking off a player is +0.82 when you get MB, and then another +0.75 when you add claw. Making claw nearly as useful an addition as MB in that context.

[Ingmar]

Effectively it is +1 on injury rolls, that's still a better buy than anything else for those types of players.

It's not +1 on injury rolls, it's +1 on armour break rolls. Which matters only when you roll an 8 (or a 7, if you have MB). It's significantly less awesome than a +1 an injury roll, though it's still of course better than nothing. Basically, Claw increases your odds of getting someone off the pitch by the odds of rolling an 8 multiplied by the odds of causing a KO or casualty. Which works out to like a 7-9% increase. Nothing to sneeze at, for sure, but also not the difference between 4 casualties and 9.

Right, armor roll, I misspoke.

In any case one thing you're failing to account for is the fact that you get a *significant* increase in the number of stuns once claw is in the mix (5 rolls out of 36 turn from downs to stuns+); those stuns in turn make it much easier for you to get 2 die blocks with your other players (in a way that regular downs don't, since the stunned player is out of the mix for an extra turn). Not quite as good as guard, but when you combine it with the fact that you're also just causing more injuries with the claw player itself, it should result in a lot of injuries, and here's the really important part: because of our leveling rules you can take it a full level earlier than you can take guard or mighty blow, assuming you go with block first (and you should).

[Llyse]

Guard for lyfe! 

[Ice Cream Emperor]

You have perhaps convinced me.

But I still feel that the team of 100% foul appearances will triumph in the end!

[Ruvaldt]

Yeah, having one or two killers with mb and claw, given our rules on skills, makes sense.  Any more than that would be redundant though, I think, because you're usually going to be blitzing with those two killers and having more would give diminishing returns considering you can only blitz once per turn.  I do, however, question giving him piling on before block.  Block is such a powerful skill in a league like this and you'll likely never be able to give him jump up because your next skill is a mutation/double.  Unless I get doubles or +MV my beastmen get block, first thing, and then specialize after that.  I can see MB being a good first skill too though, along with sure hands, because it leads to a greater rate of SPP growth.

Foul appearance is still a great choice too.  Once I pick a ball carrier I plan to put it on him, along with my guardsmen.

[Ingmar]

Block is pretty much the first choice because unlike the others it also works defensively.

Mind you, though, on the jump up question, that one is an agility skill so you can grab it whenever you get doubles without worrying about other skills. I still am not a tremendous fan of piling on unless you already *have* jump up though.

[lamaros]

I love piling on, even without jump up. I just never use it unless I get a concussion though, and/or if I can protect the player.

[Ingmar]

I really don't like deliberately putting my guys on the ground unless it will cause a turnover (diving tackle).

In other news, I managed to escape a pummeling by avaia's goats with a 1-1 tie.

[avaia]

Waitsing 1 - Sheep 1

Both sides nearly pulled off elf bullshit at the end for a win, but it was not to be.

[Ingmar]

Not shown in the stats there is Rick James dying on a failed dodge.

[Ruvaldt]

Well, that shows my ignorance regarding jump up, I thought it was a general skill.  I guess it's obvious that I never put it on anyone.  My point is still valid though, especially in these beastman games in which player positioning is so crucial.  I just feel like using piling on and limiting your blitzes/coverage doesn't add much to that player because you probably do want to blitz with him every turn due to his skills and you'll be less able to do that if you have to stand him up all the time and sacrifice valuable movement.

[lamaros]

Well, that shows my ignorance regarding jump up, I thought it was a general skill.  I guess it's obvious that I never put it on anyone.  My point is still valid though, especially in these beastman games in which player positioning is so crucial.  I just feel like using piling on and limiting your blitzes/coverage doesn't add much to that player because you probably do want to blitz with him every turn due to his skills and you'll be less able to do that if you have to stand him up all the time and sacrifice valuable movement.

Piling on is about getting a numbers advantage or taking out a key player. If it means you start the second half with a player advantage I'll do it every time. I'll take it on my goatkillers if there isn't much dodge going around (which there probably wont be).

It is more useful on a side that can bash and has cheap foulers and a bench (goblin, norse, human, skaven, etc), as a player advantage there can quickly snowball and clear the field, but it's still handy.

[Teleku]

I am really sorry for delaying my game with Teleku so much. I will do all I can to play it this saturday, if he's up for that.

Well, I'll be free from Friday evening, and all Saturday.  So hopefully we can play somewhere in there.