Re: Wild Animal - Worse than Bone Head and Really Stupid?
Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2018 5:16 pm
I chimed in earlier, and I still stand by what I said. That said, my opinion has evolved as my experience at very high TV, and particularly with big-daddy Orcs (right now they're 2810k), has affected my understanding, not so much of skill relationships themselves, but of relative value of those skills.
In my league, the NBFL on FUMBBL (the premier Americas-themed league there), there are several Chaos, Chaos Dwarf, and Chaos Renegade teams: it's a very high TV league and all three races peak out highly, so usually there are about two or three of each within our 32-coach (NFL-themed) league. My Orcs see them all the time, and in some cases they have so much Claw that I have to remind myself, "they're at least as scared of me as I am of them."
But the truth is, they're way more scared of me, and for good reason. Chorfs and Chaos Renegades are really driven by ST3 players; even with serious Guard and tons of ClawMB, all that ST3 is not really as dangerous as it looks on paper. They are tough, so they don't go out a lot, but they spend a lot of time standing up. If they don't also have Stand Firm, or if I care enough to blitz with Juggernaut, they usually find themselves standing up in an unpleasant or ineffective location. Pact/Renegades, and to a lesser extent Chaos Chosen, have an easier time building Claw, and their Claws can be more mobile, but they're highly dependent on ST3/AV8 to maintain their formations, and that's a recipe for disaster if forced to stick in vs an AV9 team that's firmly committed to an excess of Mighty Blow.
However, those teams have something that scares me anyway. Minotaurs. Yah, Block and Claw and all that, sure. But... ST6/Juggernaut/Frenzy is the thing that drives me nuts. It means my usual Stand Firm driven sideline games are, well, maybe not totally lost, but much less viable. So any time I see a Juggernaut Minotaur, setting a trap for that player that doesn't really risk my better resources becomes a high-priority consideration. But savvy coaches, even given an optimal Jug Mino, won't commit him unless either they start to lose, or I make a mistake. So, "draw out the Mino" becomes a cat-and-mouse game, as my opponent looks for any excuse to attack with a guy who isn't running on Wild Animal and Loner, as he waits for that one key moment. Even then, Horns is usually huge in the equation, and MA5 is really unfriendly to a centrally oriented sideline-blitz strategy, so a Mino has to pick a side and cover it, while a Rat Ogre really fills a different role, with Prehensile Tail in lieu of horns. Similarly, the Snow Troll is best thought of as a removal piece, because an over-reliance on space games (or at least ones driven by contact) will get Norse teams in trouble.
To be sure, the Juggernauts that really piss me off are the mobile ones. Like Roxana. There's a team in my league (in the other conference, thankfully) with a Witch Elf who has Block, Juggernaut, +ST, +2 AG. If you don't get Side Step, what do you do about that? I mean, it's maddening!
In my league, the NBFL on FUMBBL (the premier Americas-themed league there), there are several Chaos, Chaos Dwarf, and Chaos Renegade teams: it's a very high TV league and all three races peak out highly, so usually there are about two or three of each within our 32-coach (NFL-themed) league. My Orcs see them all the time, and in some cases they have so much Claw that I have to remind myself, "they're at least as scared of me as I am of them."
But the truth is, they're way more scared of me, and for good reason. Chorfs and Chaos Renegades are really driven by ST3 players; even with serious Guard and tons of ClawMB, all that ST3 is not really as dangerous as it looks on paper. They are tough, so they don't go out a lot, but they spend a lot of time standing up. If they don't also have Stand Firm, or if I care enough to blitz with Juggernaut, they usually find themselves standing up in an unpleasant or ineffective location. Pact/Renegades, and to a lesser extent Chaos Chosen, have an easier time building Claw, and their Claws can be more mobile, but they're highly dependent on ST3/AV8 to maintain their formations, and that's a recipe for disaster if forced to stick in vs an AV9 team that's firmly committed to an excess of Mighty Blow.
However, those teams have something that scares me anyway. Minotaurs. Yah, Block and Claw and all that, sure. But... ST6/Juggernaut/Frenzy is the thing that drives me nuts. It means my usual Stand Firm driven sideline games are, well, maybe not totally lost, but much less viable. So any time I see a Juggernaut Minotaur, setting a trap for that player that doesn't really risk my better resources becomes a high-priority consideration. But savvy coaches, even given an optimal Jug Mino, won't commit him unless either they start to lose, or I make a mistake. So, "draw out the Mino" becomes a cat-and-mouse game, as my opponent looks for any excuse to attack with a guy who isn't running on Wild Animal and Loner, as he waits for that one key moment. Even then, Horns is usually huge in the equation, and MA5 is really unfriendly to a centrally oriented sideline-blitz strategy, so a Mino has to pick a side and cover it, while a Rat Ogre really fills a different role, with Prehensile Tail in lieu of horns. Similarly, the Snow Troll is best thought of as a removal piece, because an over-reliance on space games (or at least ones driven by contact) will get Norse teams in trouble.
To be sure, the Juggernauts that really piss me off are the mobile ones. Like Roxana. There's a team in my league (in the other conference, thankfully) with a Witch Elf who has Block, Juggernaut, +ST, +2 AG. If you don't get Side Step, what do you do about that? I mean, it's maddening!