Looking for good Nurgle resources/advice

[Smeborg]

Smeborg how do you define the stymie build? And why does it matter about wizards on fumbbl?

Jimmy -the reason I asked about Wizards is because I suspected they did not exist on FUMBBL. That they do not exist on FUMBBL confirms that I and Carnis (and others) are talking very much at cross purposes, because we are playing not only in different environments, but are using fundamentally different rulesets.

If I were asked to nominate a single rule change (from the CRaP) to the advantage of Nurgle, it would be to abolish the Wizard. It is the inducement that Nurgle fear the most, perhaps the only inducement that they fear at all. As one of the slowest and clumsiest caging teams, a Fireball is very effective against Nurgle when they are carrying the ball.

A basic purpose of the stymie Nurgle design is to keep TV as lean and effective as possible, in order to avoid having to face the Wizard. I now understand that Carnis and others who play on FUMBBL have the luxury of building as high a TV as they like, because they do not have to worry about the one inducement which best works against Nurgle - the Wizard. This sufficiently explains our difference in perspective, I think.

Jimmy - the Nurgle stymie build, in brief, is as follows:

14 players, 3 RR
Beast goes: B-Tackle, S-Firm, Guard
4 Warriors go: Block, S-Firm
1 Runner Pestigor goes: S-Hands, K-Ret, X-Arms
3 Blitzer Pestigors go: Wrestle, Fend, Tackle
5 Rotters go: Block, Fend, F-App (Guard on doubles)
The team does not take slayer skills (M-Blow, Claw, P-On, D-Player etc.)
Play is based on the idea that the team works better during the opponent's turn than during its own; the development strategy is simply to re-inforce this to the maximum extent.

Hope that helps.

[Smeborg]

No wizard yet.

Smeborg, if you had to play in an unlimited games format like fumbble would you still think that stymie nurgle is better than the slayer style?

Overhamsteren - I can't answer that question easily because of the difference in rulesets. If I ever play in such an environment (unlikely at the moment), I would like to give it a try. All I can say is that in my experience, stymie Nurgle is quite effective at any TV, and does not care how many skills its players have, as long as you stick to the plan. It is also quite effective at protecting against undue damage from slayer teams, and can be quite frustrating for such teams. Having said that, in an environment where an exaggerated proportion of teams are slayers (because both the ruleset and the social culture favour such teams) then I cannot predict how they would get on. I would, however, venture a guess that stymie Nurgle would at least hold its own.

All the best.

[Jimmy Fantastic]

Really no Guard in your build ??!!!
Sure in your local League Guard may not be as essential as in the ultra competitive world of FUMBBL, but no Guard is just bizarre.
The best "Stymie" Skill is Tentacles. 41.66% chance to stop a st3 guy from dodging away from your NW and you don't take this either?
The Wizard thing is erroneous, Wiz is gonna cripple any Nurgle build just as effectively at any TV, to imply that killy builds will not try to minimise their TV and be more susceptible to Wiz is rather silly.
Certainly Nurgle's teams records will suffer on FUMBBL when Wiz is implemented, but only vs agility teams, as will all the bashy teams. Wiz is clearly OP for Elves.
I really don't see the value of SF on all your NW, might as well just use Necromantics if you want to go this route.
Believe me Block/Guard causes a ton more problems on defense than Block/SF ever could.
People here seem to think that killy builds are crazy one dimensional teams where everyone takes claw and MB but that is simply not the case.
A "Slayer" team as you call it is just like most "Good" basher teams, Guard spam, plenty of Block a bit of tackle a bit of MB/Claw and DP and a ball carrier.

Thanks for replying with your build by the way, it seems very bizarre to me, not like a Nurgle team at all, maybe you should play slann or something with all that wrestle and fend?!

[Carnis]

Please ;D

"no wizard means its a different ruleset"

1) If you guys go for such a low-blow, then I must lowblow as well and point out that Mattgslater has been doing rather underwhelmingly under the said ruleset. His orcs that never lose in TT are <50% in their wins at 5-2-6 http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=team& ... _id=647242 while being free to PICK his opponents (ranked team). If this is because he has been used to using a wizard every game I dont know, but my suspicion is that it's not.

2) Basicly your argument is our point of view is flawed, as we are missing one inducement which invalidates our claim for TT. Sadly, my style nurgle also won the leagues/tournament in TT cycles at my hometown, while facing wizards. And while you say a 20game team has difficulties reaching 51 spps my experience is different in that as well. Going MB first, then PO, and feeding the guy touchdowns and blitzes it is EXPECTED that he reaches 51 spps very quickly (for the anti-elf block,mb,po,tackle).

3) Fumbbl basher coaches have faced the 3+ to hit ag2 wizard for YEARS in lrb4, yet caging plays have won them tournaments.

4) Is it easier for the agi/low-TV opponent to win games with a wizard? Yes. Is it then a meaningful strategy to avoid playing a wizard to play with 7.5 less skills? NO! Is it then a better strategy to face the wizard 11vs11 rather than 11vs5? HELL NO!

5) We are not playing different rules, the point comes accross loud and clear for those of us who play both online and TT. However you guys with only TT experience behind your backs have vocal opinions with very few games to actually back up your claims (over time mattgslater will hopefully play more in fumbbl, and over time his opinions may change to reflect more the opinions of the majority, as far as what is optimal goes). This is driving a LOT of (especially UK based) online+TT-based very skilled coaches out of this forum permanently.

6) Smeborg, do you honestly think, that my nurgle team after 201 games with its "evil elf" legend ballcarrier [BC] (Block, Surehands, MA8, AG4, Foul app pestigor) would be really hurt by a wizard? You can keep the bc out of pickup range, you can keep the BC behind a double-cage, you can quickpass the ball to an NW while keeping your 2+2+ pickuper outside fireball range forcing your opponent to either waste lightning to take a 1/36 chance to win/draw or not use a wizard to stop a 8turn play.

7) You're riding on a strawman really.. "Our argument is #1" "Your is that our argument #1 is invalid because of your argument #2, which has little relevance to said issue". It's obvious that nurgle with bash or stymie build will be both affected by having to play wizards 24/7, is that the intention of the rules designer, that nurgle is always an 150k overdog? No! Elves can reach very high tvs as well with some stats and blodge..

If your serious counter to the claim that high bashing nurgle is more optimal than low Stand firm nurgle goes like this: "always play 150k down and induce the most powerful inducement in the rulebook or the game rules are different". Then I have to quote what RandomOracle from fumbbl said on (another issue), and use it for this one: No ruleset is will ever be broken, as cherrypicking trumps all. Basicly, if your nurgle always plays 150k overdog, you will likely lose a lot more games than intended. This is not a feature of a TT or online environment though, this is cherrypicking, (opponent choosing to play with -150k teams always to get wiz).


***

Another point comes across also that was ignored earlier by you stymie-guys: IF playing stymie nurgle, why not take 4x tents on the NWs? Stonetroll did supremely well with that build, because 5x tents are really disruptive. Surely a stymie team would rely on actually stopping the dodges too, not just the blocks? Or is your stymie team really only fitted to beating orcs? Because without the tents or the mbpotackle to hit them, any elf worth his salt would just walz right over the stand firm nws and run a 8turn touchdown, while kicking deep on the kicking half and securing the ball backfield for 2-1 or better win.. If the kick score doesnt happen he still has 6 turns for leaping ballsteals.. You guys dont have guard, so he can get 1die on ball frequently, which is a 75% steal without strip ball and dont even get me started on stripping leapers and such guard-free, tents free, standfirming nurgle vs any elf.. then add wizard.. oh my god..

[mattgslater]

Mattgslater is doing okay, thanks, despite your efforts to pick and choose my data. I'm 21-6-13 overall, 81-46 TD, 93-68 Cas. You picked the team I learned the medium on. Yes, I'm playing Ranked, but I'll take on all comers and have played some top coaches and a good mix of teams.

Yes, my Orcs have a losing record (barely). Like I said, learning FUMBBL set slow, clumsy Matt back quite a lot with misclicks and timing snafus, and you're talking about the team I used to learn the medium on. I also built for the future with them, opening with MB on the Blitzers instead of more useful skills that would have netted a slower SPP progression. It's about to pay off....

Back on track.

Wizards do change the environment. They don't invalidate cages, but they do reward strategies that aren't rewarded by the other elements of FUMBBL, particularly Blackbox. They aren't a good reason to trim TV, but the idea of facing Wizards all the time may change one's perspective on what skills to take. As you've observed, playing in different editions doesn't change the strategy even if it does lead to a few tactical adjustments. Similarly, FUMBBL LRB6 vs TT LRB6 is about as big a gap as LRB6 vs many pre-LRB5 rulesets. It's not just the Wizard, the Bombardiers, the Wandering Apoth, the Fanatic/Censerbearer, Pass Block... all that's part of it, but it's also perspective and interface. The basic strategies are the same (except for Goblins who lose most of their good stuff), but there are a lot of little things that may alter one's specific selections and tactics in FUMBBL vs. TT.

As far as BCPOMB goes, yeah, in an NFL-length season (16 games + postseason), it's generally something that comes up primarily in the tournament. In FUMBBL Blackbox, you can expect to see it as soon as your team starts to get beefy, because crippled cripplers aren't that rare. Down here, we don't get teams with 100 games under their belt.

For a sample of what I mean, I just went and looked up Chuck vs. Blood Bowl. Not much of a statistical sample, but a classic example of a slayer team run in by a well-regarded coach. 20 games in, they had no PO. Invariably, we see 4- and 5- skill players in our TT league, and it's possible that a BCPOMBer will appear by the end of some season, but 20 games won't get you to that with any reliability.

Another difference between any two leagues, FUMBBL included, is composition. has its own composition, which is decidedly skewed to bash. The point of [R] is to let you pick your composition; if you're like me, you get a sample of whoever wants to play you, which is a little like only not skewed to bash unless your team is skewed that way. But house leagues have their own character. Among other things, certain races will be unrepresented, others over-represented.

[Carnis]

Mattgslater is doing okay, thanks, + long post

So you're still standing with Smeborgs:

we are playing not only in different environments, but are using fundamentally different rulesets.

Yes/No?

Because I find it offensive to invalidate any fumbbler claimed build based on # of games and no wizard. It just isn't that relevant.

[mattgslater]

No. Not <i>fundamentally</i> different rulesets. Definitely very different environments, and identifiably different rulesets. But identifiable ≠ fundamental.

[Carnis]

Jimmy - the Nurgle stymie build, in brief, is as follows:

14 players, 3 RR
Beast goes: B-Tackle, S-Firm, Guard
4 Warriors go: Block, S-Firm
1 Runner Pestigor goes: S-Hands, K-Ret, X-Arms
3 Blitzer Pestigors go: Wrestle, Fend, Tackle
5 Rotters go: Block, Fend, F-App (Guard on doubles)
The team does not take slayer skills (M-Blow, Claw, P-On, D-Player etc.)
Play is based on the idea that the team works better during the opponent's turn than during its own; the development strategy is simply to re-inforce this to the maximum extent.

Hope that helps.

As a slayer counter I will:
a) Kill your SF NWs, your beast, then your ballcarrier while mostly ignoring your Fend'd up rotters/pests with my blitzes.
b) Guardlock+tentacle your pests/fended up rotters/SF'd up NWs.
c) Run in the touchdowns.

On paper, it really is not pretty.

[mattgslater]

Until the claw kicks in it's pretty good.

I find that to run stymie Orcs effectively in TT, I have to either win the cointoss against Claw/MB-happy teams, or get lucky on the first turn (or just the first block if it's not a ST-happy team). If I have enough B/G/SF across the LOS, and the first block yields no result, the drive tends to go my way really fast. However, it would be harder with Nurgle, because the thing that makes it viable with Orcs its the ability to flood the Block, MB and SF at the same time, while still taking a fair amount of Guard, so I hit the AV8 Claw teams as hard as they hit me. I know how to do that with Orcs, but not with Nurgle. Nor do I know how to maintain that in an environment where every other team is flooded with Claw. My Orcs haven't faced a lot of killers on FUMBBL, and the ones they have faced, usually Nuffle has declared a winner early in the match, AV be damned (last match was an exception; he was breaking my AV without Claw, but I won anyway).

I've played Nurgle before, but not enough games to get much experience with Nurgle vs. Claw. I can totally believe that stymie Nurgle would be great for thwarting elves in a light format, but I wouldn't want to take it into Blackbox. Even a league with a few slayer teams and a bunch of other builds, it makes sense. Orcs do great in that format using similar principles.

[Wanchor]

Really no Guard in your build ??!!!
Sure in your local League Guard may not be as essential as in the ultra competitive world of FUMBBL, but no Guard is just bizarre.
The best "Stymie" Skill is Tentacles. 41.66% chance to stop a st3 guy from dodging away from your NW and you don't take this either?
The Wizard thing is erroneous, Wiz is gonna cripple any Nurgle build just as effectively at any TV, to imply that killy builds will not try to minimise their TV and be more susceptible to Wiz is rather silly.
Certainly Nurgle's teams records will suffer on FUMBBL when Wiz is implemented, but only vs agility teams, as will all the bashy teams. Wiz is clearly OP for Elves.
I really don't see the value of SF on all your NW, might as well just use Necromantics if you want to go this route.
Believe me Block/Guard causes a ton more problems on defense than Block/SF ever could.
People here seem to think that killy builds are crazy one dimensional teams where everyone takes claw and MB but that is simply not the case.
A "Slayer" team as you call it is just like most "Good" basher teams, Guard spam, plenty of Block a bit of tackle a bit of MB/Claw and DP and a ball carrier.

Thanks for replying with your build by the way, it seems very bizarre to me, not like a Nurgle team at all, maybe you should play slann or something with all that wrestle and fend?!

Have you read the thread?

[Jimmy Fantastic]

Wanchor, there are 57 pages of uninformed opinions, I didn't care to waste my time reading all of it.
http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=team& ... _id=648175
This is my new team on fumbbl.
As you can see, no TV bloat by going more killy, C-Pomb online and Tackle MB within 16 games.
And a 10/4/2 record in Blackbox, low TV being Nurgle's worst range.
Maybe a slayer build is better than some stand firm that doesn't stymie agility teams at all?!

[Smeborg]

Carnis - I stand by my statement that playing with and without the Wizard creates fundamentally different rulesets (remember, we are talking in the context of Nurgle team development). This is because playing without the Wizard eliminates the need for TV efficiency. Please calm down - we are entitled to our different points of view.

JimmyFantastic - I take Guard on the Beast (3rd skill) and on Rotters on doubles. If I feel I do not have enough Guard on the team, I can take it as 3rd skill on the Warriors, otherwise they can take Tentacles.

Hope that helps.

[mattgslater]

Maybe a slayer build is better than ...

The whole world isn't the Blackbox. There are often a lot of things to consider when looking at a build.

What are you facing? When in Rome, play to the Romans. If you're facing a whole lot of killer teams, then maybe a SF-heavy stymie style isn't for you. If you're up against AV7 all over the place, maybe you don't want to spam Claw. If you don't see Wizards, go ahead and load up on PO and foul at huge advantages. If you don't see any chaotic types, or if you know who will be playing those types and don't fear them, load up on skills aimed at what you do see.

What's your format? If your opponents pick and choose their matches, you need winning strategies that people won't mind playing against. I remember way back in the '90s we went from a scheduled league to an open/perpetual format, and my killy Orcs with 11x Block/MB (and tons of Guard) went from 2 games per week to one game per month, because nobody would play them. If you are playing a scheduled league, then the remainder of your schedule should shape all of your picks.

What are your tendencies? PO is easy to overrate; if you keep your feet and knock a guy down next turn, it's just like using PO. If you're loaded on PO and it fails a few times, then a couple of your guys go down, you're suddenly in real trouble. SF never fails. Mind you, sometimes it doesn't do you any favors in working....

Who are the other coaches? In my TT league, I play with a few decent coaches and a few chumps. The chumps (except one) go for the slayer strategy, because it's very simple; either it works, and you don't care how good the other coach is, or it doesn't work, and, well, they would have lost anyway! We don't think the strategy is unsound, but we tend to see packing on the killer skills at the expense of everything else and at high development levels as "low" and sort of an admission of an inability to play at even numbers or to win at the space game. Obviously, in , there's no such prejudice. It also doesn't really matter early: stymie, slay, whatever, the basic currency of Block, Guard and MB is the same, and largely the toolbox is the same too, give or take a little prioritization (Dirty Player vs. blocking skills, for instance). It's really a question about the balance of positioning skills vs. Tackle and/or Claw, what to do on doubles for GS players, and whether PO is seen as a de-rigeur #3-#4 skill or as a solitary pick for a slayer-type.

[Smeborg]

Maybe a slayer build is better than some stand firm that doesn't stymie agility teams at all?!

Jimmy - the point about S-Firm against Agility teams is that you can position a player with D-Pres/S-Firm next to a potential receiver to put the receiver at -2 for the catch attempt. Since the marking player also has F-App/Block/ST4, he is difficult to bring down or push away reliably. If you add some more D-Pres from well placed Warriors, you can make it difficult for the agility team to move the ball.

The stymie build is designed to work well against all types of team, including both agility and strength. In fact that is a main point of its design.

Hope that helps.

[Carnis]

Maybe a slayer build is better than some stand firm that doesn't stymie agility teams at all?!

Jimmy - the point about S-Firm against Agility teams is that you can position a player with D-Pres/S-Firm next to a potential receiver to put the receiver at -2 for the catch attempt. Since the marking player also has F-App/Block/ST4, he is difficult to bring down or push away reliably. If you add some more D-Pres from well placed Warriors, you can make it difficult for the agility team to move the ball.

The stymie build is designed to work well against all types of team, including both agility and strength. In fact that is a main point of its design.

Hope that helps.

What prevents the dodge though? And how do you keep up with a bunch of MA4 against MA7-9 + AG4? Its impossible in the long run without tents or kills .