Mar 9, 2016

The FUMBBL-experiment 2.0

The FUMBBL-experiment 2.0

I wrote about a FUMBBL-experiment a while back and since then I've started a second round for two reasons. One, I like the slann and vampire teams and two, I wanted to see if I could get better results a second time around, using what I've learned from my first attempt.

Slann

My slann team, the Kreuzberg City Croakers have now played seven games and lost none (4-3-0), which I'm very happy with.

The first thing I did with this team was to get a linefrog to 6 SPPs in order to have a wrestler.
I also didn't focus on the catchers (they'll get SPPs eventually) and I've just got three on the team. I find this enough and it makes the team more resilient overall. It also helps to keep the TV low.
I deceided to stay on twelve players for TV-reasons and as an experiment, I gave one linefrog mighty blow on a double. The idea is to give him block followed by tackle and that is cheaper than a blitzer with the same set of skills. Might give blitzers a try, but I'd rather have twelve players than fall back to eleven (for the same TV impact).

I was also very fortunate to roll a doubles on a catcher, which got guard. I'm honestly not too happy about that choice. In a tournament, yes, but in a leauge, it's a great risk to leap in with the catcher, because he'll be out the turn after. In hindsight, I should maybe have gone for pass followed by sure hands.

Another thing that I've done less is leap. I play the team as a human team with the ability to leap, but not as plan A. This has helped me get better results. So much that I've started to understand why the winner of Preußenbowl II, DocMaXX (playing slann) just had three rerolls on his roster.

The slann are moving up the list of my favorite teams and I can't wait for JBones kickstarter to launch, so I can start playing slann in tournaments. I hope that I'll stay as excited once I do.

Vampires

I haven't gotten as far in to the vampire experiment. The Friedrichshain Fangs have now played two games (0-1-1), but I went with block as the first skill on a vampire. It's going to be interesting to see, if it's a better choice than dodge for the first vamp to skill.

I also went with kick on the first thrall to level up. Wrestle is a good choice and I was leaning towards it, but this being an experiment, I wanted to see what impact kick could have. This early, wrestle isn't as needed, but the second thrall to level up will get wrestle (except on a double).

Vamps aren't as high up on my list of teams, but I'd like to field them in a tabletop tournament as well. The next Stockbowl Cup I go to maybe. I'm also going to play some games with them in our open tabletop league, since I've got the team (unpainted).

Mar 4, 2016

Preußenbowl II

Preußenbowl II

The tournament year of 2016 started off with Preußembowl II and since this is the year of the dark elf for me, I was playing dark elves.

My roster was the same one that I took for Stockbowl Cup VI, but in this tournament you didn't get all the skills from game 1. For day one I went with dodge on a blitzer, block on a witch and wrestle on the second witch.

The draw was up on the Thursday before the tournament and I had halflings in the first game. I had mixed feelings about the match up. It's considered an automatic win, but having played halflings, I know that it isn't. This was going to be tough if I had to play without rerolls.

Game 1 vs Halflings (peterd)

Weather Pouring Rain
FAME -1

I won the toss and decided to kick the ball, since it was pouring rain. I was hoping for a weather change before I were to receive the ball.

The half started out great for me, rolling a blitz and being allowed a reroll (the master chef just stole one).

I positioned my bloding blitzer under the ball, but he didn't manage to catch it.
The ball scattered on a screening blitzer, who caught it.

In my opponents first turn, the ball was blitzed free and no one managed to pick it up until later in the half (I think it was around turn 5 or 6)

The ball is blitzed free
The ball bounced in to a fortunate spot for me and I could scoop it up and score in turn 8.


Fortunate bounce for the dark elves
I was feeling good about this game. All I needed to do was to keep the ball until turn 16. Easy, right?

The half started with me not having a single reroll and there was no weather change.
The kick was deep and the ball landed just in front of my endzone.

Of course, my runner didn't manage to pick the ball up and my opponent threw a halfing to get it. He almost scored, but after a failed pick up, the ball scattered out into the crowd and was thrown in to the middle of my half.

I secured the ball, but just wanted to make a two die block before picking it up (to surf a halfling), but rolled both down skull. My Runner was KOed and the halfling stunned. I still think it was the right move, since the risk of failure was the same as picking the ball up, but the reward was one less halfling on the pitch (who could pick the ball up).

Get the ball!

This mean that the trees could now reach the ball and we had a scrum on our hands.
This lasted until turn 16, when a halfling dodeged through, picked the ball and handed it to a friend, who then scored.

Not the worst start to the tournament, but it could have been better.

1-1 (2-2)

Game 2 vs Gobbos (Segga)

Weather nice
FAME +1

I elected to receive the ball and hopefully get a couple of goblis of the field.
My opponent left his chainsaw exposed, so I blitzed him and got him injured on turn 1.

The plan worked and I scored in turn 8. He also had to bring a secret weapon on in his turn 8, which meant one less bribe.

In the second half, I managed to steal the ball twice for TDs in turn 14 and turn 16.

Great kick for the dark elves
3-0 (3-0)

Game 3 vs Dark elf (Ignaz)


Weather Nice
FAME -1

I decided to receive the ball since we both had 11 players, I felt that this game would probably be won by the team that managed to get the upper hand early.

I managed to KO one of his linemen, but I then KOed one of my blitzers on a dodge (with a reroll).
The dodge was very important, since it would have put the blitzer in scoring range on turn 6 and it would have forced my opponent to either go for him or attack the rest of the team with the ball on the other side of the pitch.

A mirror match

I then followed up the KO blitz with an error in turn 7 and changed my mind mid turn. I made the blitz on the wrong side of the field and it cost me the TD, since I had miscounted the squares. I couldn't get into a good position and had to settle with going into halftime 0-0.

I didn't get my KOed blitzer back, but he got his lineman back.
Remember what I said about the team with the upper hand winning the game?
Well, I was right.

As I kick off to him I roll a perfect defense, but I don't really think it through and line up in a very stupid way. I was tilting due to my misstake in the first half.

He gets a lot of blocks in on me and stunns two players. That was it. I couldn't replay and he started KOing and injuring my players. Three players were out in turn 3 and I could do nothing but watch at this point. I tried to put pressure on his ball carrier and manged to do so, with half the number of players, but it wasn't to be.

(My CAS on him came in my turn 16)

0-1 (1-1)

(Second day and I now had dodge on all my blitzers)

Game 4 vs Humans (Jonny_Kanone)

Weather nice
FAME -1

I deceided to kick this game and it was all looking good up to about turn 5.

After turn 1

Before that turn, I was doing the classic dodge back elf defence, but in turn 5 he went all in and engaged my elves with his guard blitzers. I should have dodged out again, but I starting blocking, but the blocks didn't go my way and I was stuck.
He swung around and I could blitz his catcher, which was the only player covering his ball carring thrower.

Before the scrum
I had to make some GFIs to get there and failed the one for the blitz, but rerolled it. Sadly, it was a push back, so the witch had to make a third GFI. A one. Anything but a one...

If I had succeded, I had a blitzer free, who could have marked the ball carrier after a 3+ and a 2+ dodge.

He left an opening for a blitz in my turn 7 as well, which I took. It was a one die with the wrestle witch. A push, which meant that I had to do a -2d block. A skull and a push. If there hadn't been a skull on either dice (nor a both down), I could then have blocked the ball carrier with a lineman.

I started the second half with 8 elves and end it with 5. Double 1s ended my hopes of a draw and he could get the ball and scored in his turn 16.

0-2 (0-5)

Game 5 vs Khemri (Raykieboy)


Weather nice
FAME -1

I kicked the ball to him in the first half and line up in a standard elf defence, letting him move one square each turn. I also marked his ball carrier, so he had to use his blitz there, so he didn't even move forward every turn. In his turn 8, he blitzed the front guy in a column and knocked him down, but he didn't manage the 5+, 5+, 4+ dodge with his throw-ra and lost the ball. I picked it up, passed it and handed it off. After two GFIs, I scored in turn 8.


His turn 8. Blitz on the left column

He put me under pressure mid second half, so I had to score, but wasn't too worried that the Khemri team would score more than once.

Kicking off
We lined up for the kick and he didn't protect the ball and rolled a double skull/skull with a tomb guardian. I ran my team forward and stole the ball in turn 16, for the score.

But we had a riot on the ensuing kick off, which meant that it was Khemri pass time.
His hopes of scoring was ended on a interception though (not that it was likely anyways).

3-0 (4-2)

Conclusion & Thoughts

Am I happy with my result? Not really. It could have been better in game 3 and 4, but I made some errors, which cost me the games.The roster I'm using isn't really optimised for this type of tournament, due to the low amount of rerolls. Mainly on day 1, where I just had 3 dodge. At Stockbowl Cup VI, where I had all my skills from game 1, this wasn't so much of a problem.
Further more, the advantage that tier 2 got on day one made this even more obvious.

I am however happy that it went better than last year, where I ended on 1-1-3, also with dark elves.

It also made me think about the Dungonbow where you get three skills day one and three day two (one double), like the NAFC. The difference then is that it's the same for all teams, so I won't see a block ogre and three guard blitzers plus either a tackle or a mighty blow blitzers on day one. 
I am however considering bringing an assassin to the Dungeonbowl.

Stop laughing and here me out.

The ruleset encourages tier 1 teams and almost all of them have AV7 players.
Let's have a look at the tier 1 teams, which are chaos dwarves, dwarf, wood elves, skaven, norse, lizardmen, orcs, undead and amazons.

Obvious here are wood elves, skaven, norse and amazons. They're almost complete AV7 teams and have access to blodgers.

Then there's some teams that are mixed. Chaos dwarves, lizardmen and undead come to mind. They all share something, their ball carrier will probably have AV7.

So out of the tier 1 teams, there's only two teams, where the stab is really bad (orcs and dwarves), but for both teams, the shadowing isn't half bad. I might be able to force my opponent to blitz the assassin off, rather than move forward.

On the other hand, it's risky. Another AV7 player that's unprotected.

I did play against this roster at the NAFC last year (my only loss) and the assassin was quite good, if he's positioned correctly. Forcing your opponent to roll more dice is always good and having a safe shot at AV7 players isn't bad. It reserves rerolls.

It's also an excuse to get him painted.
I'll think about it some more, but I like the idea. If not only for playing a different roster.

Thanks for reading