BB Mag #6

[Thetian]

Ogres are not stratagists. The players designing the plays and calling the shots would be the goblins. Now they have to convince/trick the ogres into doing the 'smart' thing on the pitch. This suggests that the team doesn't coordinate well. Therefore 90k re-rolls. Now Big Guy seems to be a skill every ogre should have (duh, he's big). But the only affect it would have is to make them not use re-rolls. That is the only effect of Big Guy, isn't it? So, the question becomes Big Guy or not.

No General skill access BTW. Just doesn't seem right. The 'good' ogre players (the standard Big Guy version) don't get it. Why should the sub-standard ogre player have easy access to Leader, Pro and Block?

[Milo]

Addendum:
All ogres should have Thick Skull.

Right, I forgot that point.

Related note:
Every group effort to create rules or teams should have a BBRC godfather to back it up

Well, it does always help to have an inside voice. That said, there's another reason it helps. The BBRC isn't truly a democracy, because Jervis has veto power. He doesn't use it often, but I think I know his tastes well enough to know that he'd likely use it on a ST4 Ogre team. That's one of the reasons why I'm so keen to find a compromise that doesn't rely on that. That's the kind of thing that a non-BBRC member wouldn't necessarily key in on.

Milo

[darthnoir]

That's a good point, darthnoir. Of course, it could be argued that the current rules don't ever allow for a Bonehead player and a Really Stupid player to appear on the same team together, so there's some ammunition to make it "who aren't also really stupid or boneheaded".

Milo

Actually, it is possible for this to happen. If you get the "Duh Where Am I?" result on the handicap table, and your opponent has a Troll, this condition occurs.

Hopefully something for this year's rules review?

[Milo]

Ogres are not stratagists. The players designing the plays and calling the shots would be the goblins. Now they have to convince/trick the ogres into doing the 'smart' thing on the pitch. This suggests that the team doesn't coordinate well. Therefore 90k re-rolls. Now Big Guy seems to be a skill every ogre should have (duh, he's big). But the only affect it would have is to make them not use re-rolls. That is the only effect of Big Guy, isn't it? So, the question becomes Big Guy or not.

I think the question is: Should Ogres be able to use re-rolls? I'm inclined to think they shouldn't, personally. The fluff doesn't support it -- Ogres are dumb, flat-out. The rules don't support it, either, since several people have already pointed out that we might need an exception to the re-roll rules for the Bonehead / Really Stupid roll.

That said, I'm not opposed to 60k re-rolls if all the Ogres have Big Guy. that would mean the goblins would be the only ones who could use the re-rolls. (60k is the Goblin team's re-roll cost.)

Of course, if we don't give them re-roll access on the Ogres, they'll have serious ball-handling problems, and be perhaps more incompetent than we'd like. So, I think they need to have access to stuff like Sure Hands.

No General skill access BTW. Just doesn't seem right. The 'good' ogre players (the standard Big Guy version) don't get it. Why should the sub-standard ogre player have easy access to Leader, Pro and Block?

Let me give you a alternate scenario: if we DON'T give them General Access, they'll be forced to stock up on Strength skills -- stuff like Break Tackle, Piling On, etc. They'd be less competent, but probably more lethal. Not sure if that's the route we want to take with an all ST5 team.

Also note that the standard ally Big Guy DOES get access to Strength skills.

Milo

[Sixpack595]

1. All Ogres should have the stats and racial characteristics of big guy ogres.
I could see lowered Ag for Lineman to represent their typical Ogre hamfistedness, or the positionals losing Bonehead to show that they are standouts... thats just me. I think there are too many differences of opinion to get away with altering the rookie ogre stats.

2. Positionals should fit the fluff. Linemen...same as rookies. Blitzers add block. Runners? Sure Hands(-1Av?).
I'd give linemen Str; Blitzers and Runners get Str and General.

3. Gobbos should be limited to 2or 4.
You can bash 2 or 3 Gobbos in a few turns if they are not protected, taking Ogres off the line, and hurting less people. With 8, bash all you want, we'll buy more.

[Thetian]

That said, I'm not opposed to 60k re-rolls if all the Ogres have Big Guy. that would mean the goblins would be the only ones who could use the re-rolls. (60k is the Goblin team's re-roll cost.)

Of course, if we don't give them re-roll access on the Ogres, they'll have serious ball-handling problems, and be perhaps more incompetent than we'd like. So, I think they need to have access to stuff like Sure Hands.

Lack of ball-handling for ogres? The flavor of an ogre team IS the damage causing potential. It would amuse me to find someone who wants to play an ogre team that expects to score a lot. Does the fluff suggest that ogres (ogre teams) are good at scoring touchdowns? I don't think so. The fluff suggest ogres play a brutal game of 'smashmouth' bloodbowl. If you are worried about having a fun, well-rounded team, that can win games, remember the 'joke' teams. Halflings and Goblin teams abound. Coaches flock to them for the challenge despite knowing that they have a reduced chance of winning a game.

One dimensional ogre teams don't bother me any more than one-dimentional scoring-machine wood elf teams. Wood elves, you argue, can play a hard hitting game. But only with the help of a few doubles rolls to grab some strength skills. The ogre teams can still grab general skills with doubles and help out with the ball-handling problems. Let's not make it too easy for an ogre team to be an over-all, well-balanced team.

Let me give you a alternate scenario: if we DON'T give them General Access, they'll be forced to stock up on Strength skills -- stuff like Break Tackle, Piling On, etc. They'd be less competent, but probably more lethal. Not sure if that's the route we want to take with an all ST5 team.

Less compentent (at ball handling) does not mean less fun. Sometimes lethal does mean more fun. Every league has an orc or undead coach (or 2 or 3) that doesn't play to win but to kill and maim. We all hate playing them, but we do. Add one to the win column and move on and heal up. That coach has fun. Heck, I've been that coach before.

Where we need to worry about an ogre team is how to NOT make them too lethal. Really Stupid has a good chance of helping that. Playtesting will tell. What we don't want is another 4 mummy killer team that dishes out punishment all 16 turns.


Sorry, didn't mean to turn this into a rant.

-Mike

[Darkson]

What we're still undecided on is:

Should Blockers have Mighty Blow?
Should the Ogres have Big Guy?
Should Blockers have Throw Teammate?

1) Nope, MB is a mark of co-ordination, using their ST effectively.

2) Yes. Otherwise why wouldn't the major teams have taken them away. Make the RR 60k and let the Gobbos use them.

3) No. Again comes down to co-ordination.

[Zombie]

As for the Halfling Coaching article, well the lesser said the better. One failed dodge at the beginning of a turn and the defensive tactics are completely shot. offensive rests around throwing as many upfield as possible, with one of them being the ball carrier surrounded by his dodging stunty teamates. Coupled with a Star Player Treeman and a master chef and FF 3. Clearly this guy hasn't played anything since third edition.

as i said the less said the better

The only thing I can believe is that the writer has only ever played in a 3rd edition league and tried to take that knowledge directly to LRB. See in 3rd edition his article makes sense. Freebooting Stars and Chefs would keep your TR very low which would mean lots of handicap rolls which would mean lots of Random Event cards which would mean lots of money. This is the ONLY way his article makes any sense is if he's never played Haflings in an LRB setting.

You won't see this very often, but Zombie if you read this would you not agree that telling a Halfing coach to freeboot the Chef the first game and start with a FF of 3 or 4 is just stupid ... I could be wrong but this is the type of advice that would make me automatically discredit the speaker.

Let's ignore the offense and defenses strategies that sound like crap also and just focus on this for a second.

Halfling teams have cheap players, so you can do a lot with them on a starting roster. FF is vital in long term leagues and especially to Flings for several reasons ... 1) A lot of their FF rolls will be done with -1 modifiers ... 2) The team gets a lot of benefit from the ability to freeboot the Chef or Deeproot or something I'm betting the author didn't mention at all ... the team can freeboot 15k cannon fodder for a game if the team gets really nailed one game to fill in holes until SI can recover and Dead players permanently replaced. .... 3) Flings break pretty easily ... you need cash to replace them ... and 4) There is ZERO reason to give away advantages on the Kick Off table when your only roster player is 30k for pete's sake.

The sad thing is that given a chance to write the article, I could see me actually writing Zombie and Gregg Giersch (both experienced and successful Halfling coaches) and see if we could set aside our differences to see if we agreed on basic tactics with the team and could co-write a really bang up article for BB Mag ... I'd rather have a great article than sole glory. However maybe an article with Zombie and my name on it would be one of the signs of the end times, so maybe it was for the better. Althought ... seeing the suggestions given in BB Mag #6 ... I'm really hoping no one actually listens that has dreams of playing Halflings.

Galak

Talking conspiracy theories, maybe they realized that halflings are too good under the current rules (much better than in the fluff at any rate), so they decided to publish the worst advice to make sure that halfling coaches who follow them will fail miserably, thus making the team fit the fluff better.

[Zombie]

And I'm waiting to see the first TBB person that believes the Ogre team is balanced and will work ... any takers to be the first to defend the team.

Actually I'm looking forward to Zombie's thoughts on the team ... :lol: If the MBBL2 Snotling team leans towards broken in his eyes ... I have no idea what he's going to think of this ... :lol:

Oh and if a rookie Ogre team beat a rookie Norse team 3-0 ... they should have taken the roster back to the drawing board for another look over IMO.

Galak

In my opinion, it's the most broken team since the deamon teams of 4th ed.

[Darkson]

Let me give you a alternate scenario: if we DON'T give them General Access, they'll be forced to stock up on Strength skills -- stuff like Break Tackle, Piling On, etc. They'd be less competent, but probably more lethal. Not sure if that's the route we want to take with an all ST5 team.

Any coach who has Orge Blockers with 3-4 skills is either very lucky or very good, as the only SPP's i can see these guys getting is CAS, and it will take them a long time to get their 2nd, let alone 3rd+, skill.

[Zombie]

See ... I'm not sure if Zombie would want to do that as I doubt he's running to join the NAF ... I might do it just to have a reasonable rebuttal to this nonsense somewhere on the web. I don't know Zombie's motivators, but I'm assuming that a BB Mag article might have been something he'd be interested having his name on ... this is guesswork on my part completely that he'd have a single ounce of interest in such a thing in the first place.

Galak

You know me too well! You certainly won't see me joining the NAF anytime soon. I don't care about fame and all, so BB mag is not a motivator either. Plus i haven't played halflings all that much either (only for 8 games). I don't consider myself an experienced halfling coach by any stretch of imagination. And there's the fact that i hate writing. I'll leave that article up to the two of you.

[McDeth]

Of course, if we don't give them re-roll access on the Ogres, they'll have serious ball-handling problems, and be perhaps more incompetent than we'd like. So, I think they need to have access to stuff like Sure Hands.
Milo

Then replace two of the Blitzers with 2 Runners and give them Sure hands as a starting skill, Stats 5 5 2 9 Thick, Skull, Bonehead, Big Guy, Sure hands TTM, but still strength skill access only.

[Darkson]

On the subject of the Match Report, does anyone recognize/know much about the 2 coaches?

They were Tom Merrigan and Keith Krelle. I recognise Tom's name from some Necromunda articles in the Journal (I think he's from Oz, not that that's got anything to do with it), but I don't know of his BB pedigree.

[darthnoir]

Any coach who has Orge Blockers with 3-4 skills is either very lucky or very good, as the only SPP's i can see these guys getting is CAS, and it will take them a long time to get their 2nd, let alone 3rd+, skill.

As an Orc coach, I have to agree on this point. It has been my experience that until a Black Orc gains the Block skill, it takes forever for them to acquire SPPs. However, once they do gain Block, look out!

Personally, I think limiting Ogre Blockers to strength skills gives them a rather unique character. Just like limiting stunty players to agility skills gives them a unique flavor. Besides, it gives Ogre Blockers something to look forward to when they roll doubles.

[Thetian]

Talking conspiracy theories, maybe they realized that halflings are too good under the current rules (much better than in the fluff at any rate), so they decided to publish the worst advice to make sure that halfling coaches who follow them will fail miserably, thus making the team fit the fluff better.

LOL As a 'fling coach, I'll be sure to change the tinfoil in my pith helmet more often to keep out the GW mind-control signals. I wouldn't want to change the strategies I use to lose games.