[Cyanide] First forays online...

[Gallows Bait]

Well, after a couple of weeks of single player campaigning with a human team I decided to venture into more of a "proper" game and start online.

The single player campaign is fun and is teaching me a lot, and allowing me to explore a team, but I'm finding the AI constant caging, even by agile teams, and the ability to abandon and retry a match does take some of the challenge out of it. (After all, if I only save the games I win / avoid casualties, its significantly easier to skill up my team and win those trophies).

So this morning I decided to venture into the online world and recreated my human team back at the TV1000 starting line - using one of the prefered team set ups here:

1 x Ogre
4 x Blitzer
1 x Thrower
6 x Lineman
3 x Reroll

So off I trotted to the multiplayer area and after some confusion over the interface, I ended up hitting the matchmaker button and it ended up autoloading me into a game against a similarly new Wood Elf team.

So far so good, it seemed. Now it surprised me a little when they opted to kick off, I assumed a more agile team would want the chance to maximise the turns they had a full team on the pitch and not leave the scrimmage line to get beaten, but Humans aren't the most bashy team either, so I suppose it works.

Receiving the ball gave me a free square move out of the kick off and I used it to push the right hand side of the line forward. The first turn led to similar movement, with my scrimmage line pushing back the wood elves and my thrower moving up from the rear to fetch the ball and ready to tuck in behind the right wing and make a push into the Wood Elf half.

Unfortunately for me, I'd forgotten how fickle the dice are, and my thrower promptly failed to pick up the ball totally. The Wood Elves responded with a general scuffle on the right hand side and a Wardancer dodging through the fray to chase down the solitary thrower and the ball sat in the dirt.

I have to admit at this point I didn't fancy my chances at all. But I held it together, a lineman joining the thrower managed to down the Wardancer and take the ball forward and my rough and ready cage and my remaining scrimmage line began to push forward.

Over the next few turns I managed to keep my luck for the most part and keep the ball heading up the right side towards the line. Things got a little messy, my thrower ended up knocked out, but overall I held out and got the ball across the end for a touch down around 5 turns in. Happy days indeed.

The game resumed and this time the dice were a little more scrappy, a lot of knockdowns on both sides, but I was managing to keep the agile woodelves back or knocking down the few that got through with a tag team blitz from two rear guard linemen.

Eventually though a couple of the fragile Wood Elves went down with badly hurt rolls. It was on the second of these things sort of froze up and I was informed the match had been abandoned, and my team were promptly awarded a default win.

Now, I can understand I suppose, having a bit of a hissy fit when your brand new team gets all beat up, but two injuries and being only down by one touchdown with around 10 turns left to play didn't seem that terrible odds to me, not bad enough to log off in disgust.

Has anyone else come across this kind of thing in open play?

[Netsmurf]

This happens alot. Had a match with humans against dwarfs, he disconnected in turn 3, being one TD down and two players out with injury. Surpose it happens most if opponent never played table top, there you learn that anything can happen and that the dice will change at sometime.

[Thanatos]

While it may have been a Rage Quit, it may well have been a genuine connection problem.

Happened to me alot at the start, until I finally got a reliable internet connection.

[coachman]

If you smash a new team in mm there is a good chance they will quit. Why take a damaged team forward when you can reroll another one like nothing happened?

Just be aware that you get double winnings as well as double MVP. In mm you are matched by TV, if you spend it all you will find yourself under skilled for the teams it will throw at you.

Congrats on our first MM win.

[Gallows Bait]

Thanks, yeah I did wonder if I would face a skilled but low value team after I started reading here. My second match against what I thought was an equally new Human team did not go so well, smashing me 3 to 0, but I took some satisfaction in the injuries I caused and it showed me the power of setting up a blitz play along the sides and taught me to use tackle zones more and blocking / bodies in the way less.

I also learned that a human team with 4 catchers shows the weaknesses in my defence line like water through a sieve.

I did notice as we played that some of the players had several skills built, which didn't fit with the 1020-1040 value, so I think it was a short-handed team but its hard to be sure the cause I guess.

[maxcarrion]

I’ve played 20 MM games now (11-5-4 WLD) with my Dark Elves and have discovered that there are a large number of “poor sportsmen” but also a surprising number who obviously play fair. I’ve had at least 3 teams disconnect immediately after using their apocathery obviously for fear of a serious injury or death that they couldn’t heal, this apparently happens a lot especially higher up where all the players have multiple skills. I’ve had 2 teams disconnect when I’m handing them a real beating (One of these I was 1-0 up on turn 6 and stalling next to their endzone while I beat his remaining 6 players off the pitch but the vast majority was KO’d or sideline push stunned with only 2 BH). I’ve also seen people who line up their last 5 wood elves when they’re 1-0 down and pull out a draw and while I’ve never intentionally DCed from a match I’ve lost net connection on one.

As you admitted yourself the temptation to use the computerized environment to unfairly benefit your team (only saving matches you win, loading to avoid injuries) is ever present, and while it is defiantly less effective in multiplayer and also more frowned upon there are always people who will try to take this advantage.

Finally, I also have played with skilled players against rookie teams, in my third match I lost two players to deaths and one more to a MNG (and yes I had an apoc and used him too to save a 4th player ) so my forth match I was back to 11 players with 2 loners and only half a dozen skills still on the field (both my deaths were on dodge linemen), my team rating dropped below 1100

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Gallows Bait

So far so good, it seemed. Now it surprised me a little when they opted to kick off, I assumed a more agile team would want the chance to maximise the turns they had a full team on the pitch and not leave the scrimmage line to get beaten, but Humans aren't the most bashy team either, so I suppose it works.

You haven't read Kicking or Receiving | Blood Bowl Tactics yet then!

[Gallows Bait]

Originally Posted by Coach

You haven't read Kicking or Receiving | Blood Bowl Tactics yet then!

I had, I suppose I just assumed it would be more worthwhile for a different team than Wood Elves. I guess I thought that with a fragile line and with a team that can dodge through for quick pass touchdowns that they would be more inclined to discount the idea of controlling the turn count for scoring.

In hindsight I think that they would gain as much as anyone in limiting how long the opponant had to score, though they'd gain little out of the KO control. Seems riskier with a weaker team, but if you control the blocking and tacklezones then they would survive longer.

That's not something I'm good at yet though, I still end up piling players into base contact for blocking, rather than relying on the tacklezones to do the same job pinning them down.

[Coach]

If anything the weaker more agile teams benefit from it more.