Talk Fantasy Football

glowworm wrote:Ill throw that invite to the Bristol crew (or as they are known "Welsh swimmers") as well......

I'm sure we could find some brave souls to brave the trip east, could you just confirm the vaccinations required when leaving civilisation and slumming it is Swindon and surrounds.

I sense I've lost my thread to hoodlums, gang politics and turf wars...

Welcome to Blood Bowl.

Still, you're lucky as it's a southern turf war so it's very polite - the northern circuit is much more coarse.

Jip wrote:I sense I've lost my thread to hoodlums, gang politics and turf wars...

Its all gas and hot air, we'd need but to raise our voices on mass and they would all be blown away

frogboy wrote:Hardly ever see human teams at tournaments.

I agree that Human teams aren't that common in tournaments, BUT...
...there was a Human team at the 4 Diamonds Cup (Harrisburg, PA, USA) three or four years ago that came in dead last. The coach had just started learning Blood Bowl about a month before. He brought his Human team back the following year and WON THE TOURNAMENT.

So, while uncommon, Human teams are certainly viable.

(Apologies for digressing from this thread's previous sidetrack.)

Human teams, I think, depend on a tournament's rule set. I think they're great if the tournament has 1000k or 1100k to spend - at that price, Humans can get basically all the positionals they need, a bench, at least 3 rerolls, an apothecary, while many other teams are deciding between players and rerolls, apothecary or position players, and so on. Any extra money above that level benefits expensive teams more.
Humans also benefit from extra skills for Tier 2 teams. With strength access on four Blitzers, Catchers one skill away from Blodge, and an Ogre who benefits from Guard, or Block with a doubles skill, Humans can actually build a pretty scary lineup when they get more skills than many of their opponents.

Last year's World Cup rules, or this year's Eurobowl / EurOpen rules, are examples of rule sets which I think favor Humans.

About Kick: I think the real benefit is that it lets your defense react better to game situations. Having a kicker significantly decreases the chances of your opponent pulling off a one-turn score, especially a TTM based attempt. Just kick deep and they probably won't have the movement to make it work. Kicking deep can cost your opponent's offense a turn of movement, and make slow teams struggle with those 3- and 4-turn attempts. Alternatively, kicking close to the line of scrimmage can work like an onside kick in Football - a high-risk but potentially high-reward gambit, very useful when you need to score from defense. And in general, just having the Kick skill forces your opponent to set up more conservatively and symnetrically on offense.

About Safe Throw: Sure it's good, and the fumble-saving aspect is a nice bonus. Every team occasionally needs to move the ball quickly, being able to pass safely helps a lot with that and it's worth while on some teams to build a dedicated passer. The issue is that, when building a player like that, there are so many skills which help - Accurate/Strong Arm, Sure Hands, even Dodge are quite useful. Most of the time, when a skilled passer throws the ball, it'll be on a 2+ roll anyway, so it's either accurate or fumbled on a natural one anyway. So in cases like that, Safe Throw only helps against interceptions - and Rule no 1 of passing is to clear the passing lanes. And to only pass when you need to pass - even a team like Wood Elves can often move the ball with just a few handoffs per game. Passing over an opposing player is a desperation kind of move. Doing that more than once every few games is a sign that you're playing recklessly.

Took advantage of Gert Bowl's skill set and ran a team with as many skills as I could fit in.

Logistically, this turned out to be a rookie error (ten different loom bands to remember, anyone?!), but it meant I could get an idea of a few attributes that I wouldn't have gone near, otherwise.

Shadowing (useful a couple of times, shadowed Griff out of a drive).

Accurate (on a thrower, duh).

Wrestle (didn't get much use).

Tackle (love it! Definitely working on a shadowing/tackle blitzer).

Diving Catch (gonna put this on catchers from now on, just for the +1 to catches).

Dirty Player (fouled three times. Got sent off three times!).

Side Step (speaks for itself. Though used it to place him prone, more than pushed, unfortunately).

Frenzy (this is my favourite. Not optimal for fun, but has to be the most fun Blood Bowl skill?!).

Thick Skull (I was just looking for cheap skills by this point. The guy didn't get knocked down once all tournament, obviously!).

Dauntless (took two of these instead of an ogre. Figured a ST3 vs. ST4 [most common positional strength I was likely to face above a ST3] needed a 2+, which is what I'd be looking for to pass a Bonehead roll anyway. Dropped a couple of trolls with it, didn't backfire too much when I failed).

Hi jip, since you are asking and since i got some time, here are my pearls for the swines

Fist off, i wrote somewhere that for many things the basic block guard dodge are simply very very good and in huge numbers exponentially better. I hold this to be true.

Having said that, most other skills fill niece places, and when encountered can certainly leave coaches swearing loudly, and isn’t that what we all want… evil grin

on kick. Kick CAN allow you to determine the speed of play. Kick deep to allow yourself to swamp his backline before he can set up a cage. Kick near the LOS to force a ball to be within reach. to a side where you are stronger to counterattack, because that’s how you set up, and he has positioned his players on the other side to make use of that “flaw” but risks losing the ball now. Kick prevents one turn touchdowns against thrown teammates(by kicking deep) And indeed to be able to pick up the ball, players will need to spent more man trying to secure the spread of the ball then are available causing mayhem on the los and punching through. In short, or long, its about the defender trying to dictate terms to the attacker, and that can be disrupting.
Is it an epic skill, eh no. But in tournaments is chosen for its disruptive quality and the prevention of one turn touchdowns, esp when there are not that many skills to dish out. With fewer skills available, funnily enough one less block does not matter as much as you might think, esp is the other side has not much more block then you do.

Diving catch is indeed the accurate of catching. It is an agility skill so most players can’t get it, and the one’s that do don’t have block or strength enough. The basis being that you don’t want to do dicerolls that always go wrong 1-6 or worse, you don’t want to change hands on the ball that often if you can avoid it. Also the one that needs to receive this skill is vulnerable, so leaving it in a position to score, will mean its marked or hunted down fast. Basically it’s not a bad skill, but others are more important like block on catchers. This is why you won’t see it often, as again you try NOT to lose the ball by making unnecessary handoffs and passes ANDits a specialty offencive play where it is hard to get the one skill player in the right position to take advantage of it where block can work both offensively and defensively. EDIT: diving catch does not work on handoffs.

Dauntless and Frenzy is not good synergy skillcombo . Frenzy and juggernaut has good synergy for a specialist role of crowdsurfer. However dauntless needs to be rolled for every block. Dauntless only effects players how are stronger than your Blitzer, where an extra guard player is always effective in extending a helping hand.

Safethrow: see diving catch, do not risk the ball unnecessary. So a handoff is much less risky than a pass, but if you can score without, do so. Ofcourse it sounds great, but normally you position the players to where the ball is likely to end up and a catch might fail or the ball be inaccurate. So there is little left for protection of the thrower. Hence holding on to the ball, might just not be the greatest thing in the world at that point. Especially since normally you do this near the end of your turn and thus you cannot very well react to the new circumstance.

Sidestep is a good skill for a variety of reasons, sidesteppers cannot be easily crowdsurfed(note sidestep does not work if there is no free spot) And yet the skill is better on a skaven or woodelf catcher for the one turn touchdown. Humans need 3 pushes over the line of scrimmage, and sidestep can help there. Sidestep can also help on corners of cages where suddenly ther is a player next to the ballcarrier or still in the way so It needs to dodge out instead of walk in. Do i recommend it as a must have, no! again block can help you better but for variety’s sake it can be included.

Diving Tackle vs. Shadowing.
Both are skills that reply on people wanting to dodge rather than blitz you.. if I could get a second player free to blitz(if needed), I would simply push you away and your skill is no longer working.
Now sidestep and diving tackle make a nice combo if it were not for the st2 part. Shadowing (and sidestep) means nothing if he is st3 and you are st2. Both skills are examples of annoyance skills that force the other player to make unnecessary skills rolls and you hope it goes wrong.
However, these choices leave your players more vulnerable to blocking players, so in the end you might simply have less players left and thus lose the game.
So what I am trying to convey here is that each choice has its time and place, a great coach will make sure that they come into play in a sensible way and then they WILL make the difference against a boring all block team, but taken individually, there are weaknesses that you need to be aware of that will make correctly positioning that much harder.

I am not sure if this is in any way helpful, but it was fun writing it down. Good luck

Got kick on a FUMBBL player, totally get it now!

Trying to find ways to improve the reliability of my catchers and I'm looking at Diving Catch.

If I read it right, throwing an accurate pass to my catcher's square doesn't make use of diving catch and, with no tackle zone, weather etc. modifiers, I'm catching on a 3+ (AG3).

However, if I throw an accurate pass to any square adjacent to him (again, presuming there's no modifiers other than the +1 to catch an accurate pass), he's catching on a 2+.

Am I right here?

Even better! "The player may add 1 to any any catch roll from an accurate pass targeted to his square".

So he catches accurate passes on a 2+. The chance to catch balls landing next to him is a bonus on top of that

So it's 2+ and I have a reroll. Chill out. I've got this!

Cheers, thought I might have got that part wrong.

diving catch does not give you a reroll though, so a normal catch might be 3+, an accurate pass on DT would be 2+.
But an inaccurate pass would still be 4+.

I meant due to the catchers having the Catch skill. I'm assuming can still use that alongside Diving Catch.

Jip wrote: I'm assuming can still use that alongside Diving Catch.

You assume correctly.