Strength Broken path of team development....make enemies and influence people

BoBliness

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This will lose you friends. Just a warning.

For those who dont know it already (there cant be that many)
The simply brutal power of mighty blow, piling on and claw put together is stupid.

I recognise that everyone feels they know this, but its another of those 'I knew that, but you know....its just one of those things' issues.

Until someone runs the stats at you.

If you knock someone down using that combo. No matter their armour value, you have a 27% chance of causing a casualty. Just under one in three.

If you are happy with a KO, well be happy, you've got a 31.6% chance of that too. No, thats not cumulative. thats discreet.

Meaning there is only a 41.6% chance that player will be on the pitch at the end of your block.


So, if you have four players with this combo and you can make sure three of them a turn get to hit (which I'll talk about in a sec), over the course of four turns you will land 12 hits. assuming you only bring the opponent to ground on 8 of them (which depends on your opposition but is about right if you're willing to use a reroll here and there on important ones. The numbers get better if you target non-block and non-dodge players,worse if you dont)

Then you will put (roughly) 5 players off the pitch in four turns. Meaning by the end of a half you will have put, just using four players, 10 players off the pitch.

Obviously it changes as you reduce opposition players it becomes harder to hit three of them a turn, but it also becomes easier to set up the hits.


Once again its stats on a page, but think about it carefully.

Is there any way to beat a team that, EVERY time it hits you, has a 60% chance of putting your player off the pitch?


I honestly think claw is massively overpowered in current rules.
If it was set to 8AV rather than 7, the odds go down dramatically, but as it currently stands....


Oh, and as an aside. I know doubles on chaos warriors and beastmen go to dodge quite often. Consider jump up.

Seriously.

Two front line chaos warriors with block, jump up, mighty blow, claw, piling on and its good night to their front line.

That seems like a lot of skills, but the curve is exponential. You get claw and mighty blow together and your SPP earnings start to increase, throw in piling on and use that player as your key blitzer and its pretty much over.

Even on my human team with a blitzer running mighty blow/piling on (obviously no claw), he averages two injuries a game against AV7 teams. plus KOs. I can usually get 12 opponents on the ground a game with him and thats 4 KOs and 3 injuries (Yes, seriously, it really is, thats AVERAGE, PER GAME) from one player of mine.

Jump up makes it even easier, you dont have to waste blitz (though they arent really wasted) half the time, its a 2+ to get up with agi three and on a chaos warrior, thats a 2+ for a free unevens block with a 60% chance you'll kick the other guy off the pitch. sigh.

To add insult to injury, your guy spends all his time lying down in opposing team turns, which means their only retaliation is fouling....which has been horribly nerfed, so unless they've got bribes, they'll end up sending even more of their players off the pitch.


I'm hopeful LRB 6 makes claw less nasty, or somehow alters the piling on / mighty blow combo.

Right now its pretty nasty if you decide to exploit it.


I can try to put up the table showing the stats, not sure if it will work.
 

BoBliness

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Event Percentage
Break armour 7 first roll (no MB)
Injure first roll (with MB) 11.6%
KO first roll (With MB) 12.7%
Stun first roll (With MB) 41.7%
Stun, then Injure second roll (with MB) 4.8%
Stun, then KO second roll (with MB) 5.3%
Stun then stun 7.2%

Roll 7 first roll (MB used) 16.7%
Injure first roll (No MB) 2.8%
KO first roll (No MB) 4.2%
Stun first roll 58.3%
Stun then injure 1.6%
Stun then KO 2.4%
Stun then stun 5.7%

Fail to break 7 first roll 41.7%

Fail to break and then Break armour 7 second roll (no MB) 17.4%
Injure first roll (with MB) 4.8%
KO first roll (With MB) 5.3%
Stun first roll (With MB) 7.2%

Fail to break and then Roll 7 second roll (MB used) 6.7%
Injure first roll (No MB) 1.2%
KO first roll (No MB) 1.7%
Stun first roll 4.1%

Fail to break both times 17.4%

Percentage chance of casualty 26.8%
Percentage chance of KO 31.6%
Percentage chance of Stunned 41.6%
Totals: 100%
 
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Coach

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Of course the flip side is you have to get the knock down and be able to use Piling On. Wrestle, Dodge, Fend put a spanner in the works of this, as well as not leaving your players next to these killer builds.

Also getting a fouler to go in and give them a kick after they do use Piling On will help.

Bashing teams can get lots of Guard to make it harder for the killers to get easy blocks in.

As for Claw being broken, compared to +2 to armour roll surely it is worse than it was (ok it didn't stack with Mighty Blow). Rendering it useless against AV7 or less players, much like having Tackle vs teams with no Dodge.

It is a nasty combo indeed but you can take skills against it as well as positional play. Also having your team Piling On will weaken your defences while they are on the floor.
 

BoBliness

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I agree to all of your points.

In fact I'd say that on paper it should be mitigatable.

But in play....it doesnt seem to be.

Try it.
Very few teams are running around without at least a couple of players that dont have dodge. those couple of players (often your bigger players) are toast.

Yes, early in the game, when both teams have full teams on the pitch, its far less effective, but it snowballs far too rapidly.

If you have two players with this build that are strength four, and then two that are beastmen, you WILL get to hit with it at least twice a turn. Which means one opponent off the pitch every turn.

After three-four turns, all the guard in the world doesnt help you, the player numbers advantage kicks in too hard.

By turn eight (if the chaos team is stalling, which they will) you have 2-3 players on the pitch. If you're reasonably lucky.

I'm not kidding, I didnt think it would work as nastily as it does, but play above 2000 rating with a decent selection of skills on both sides and watch what happens.

I'm not sure which is better out of +2 and the current, but I would honestly say that it needs to be reducing to AV8.

That will make it still useless against AV7 teams, but still very handy to have on one or two players to allow you to take out treemen, blockers etc.

Right now its simply too powerful imo.

I can only encourage you to try it with some friends, both make up some 'one off' teams of 2000-2200 rating.

You make a chaos team with a smattering of block, guard and tackle accross your other players, and four players with this combo. Watch their team die. Jump up is the key to really break it completely, but even without it you can reliably put 6-8 players off in a half.

Orcs dont like having more than about 4 players off, even their 2200 builds rarely have more than 14 players and you dont want to be outnumbered as orcs lol.

The stupid thing is it works just as well on the squishy teams, you've wasted a skill on claw...but thats compensated for by the 'free' injuries you'll get from your other players (who would normally pull up a casualty or two in a game against elves anyway, so your 'uber-casualty' guys are in addition)

I cant explain it well enough in text, and honestly you wont believe it until you've tried it thoroughly.

Short of your entire team with wrestle and dodge, I'm not sure there's any way around it. So really only elves have a way around it, and they suffer from the fact that normal mighty blow players will decimate their team.
 

Coach

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Most bashing teams, or any team with a player who has ST access will probably build a MB+PO player. With probably Block before Claw (though most start with Block anyway).

These guys will be targeting your MB+PO+Claw guys (who don't have Block) and their team mates will have Guard.

Other teams without ST access can load up on Dodge+Fend easily.

I'm not saying you are wrong, but I'm yet to experience a Chaos team built like this as of yet.
 

BoBliness

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The difference is, your guy with MB and PO, will take my guy out on about a 14% chance of a cas against my armour 9.
you have a 17% chance of a KO

Versus my 27% (double) and 32% respectively.

Yes, you've got guard etc, but at the end of the day, guard doesnt stop people hitting you. It just makes it mildly harder.

If you've got four guys to hit with, you can usually (not always) arrange to hit with at least three of them no matter what, and thats two players off the pitch a turn.

Meanwhile, you can hit me lots and lots....but even with MB and PO (Which you'll only have on a couple of guys if you've got that much guard around) the odds say you are screwed.

That said, I agree that orcs can run a very similar build, in fact all the bashy teams can, which gets to the heart of my problem/complaint.

With mighty blow and piling on available (and stackable), AV7 is simply too squishy.

I'm suggesting that at very high team values the mechanics start to break down. I'd never noticed it much before because I'd rarely played more than a few games above 2200, but its seems apparent up there.
 

Coach

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If you've got four guys to hit with, you can usually (not always) arrange to hit with at least three of them no matter what, and thats two players off the pitch a turn.

This is based on the assumption that you are knocking them over on every block though right? Against AV7 teams this won't be the case cause they will usually have Dodge or Fend, perhaps even both if you have 4 guys at 3 skills (again still no block).

Time will tell if this really is broken.
 

BoBliness

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Fend is the answer to it I guess, I'm still not seeing that many people with it, but I guess its the best bet.

That forces them to have juggernaught which is another skill, so fairly unlikely.

Last night, played a game of about 1600 team rating, my skaven versus some dudes orcs.

He had one blitzer rigged up with block, tackle, mighty blow, piling on, jump up (four skills)

Rest of his team was basically block/guard etc.

That one player, during the game, caused six casualties and three KOs.

I won the game 3-1 due partly to him not actually playing that well, and partly due to luck (a blitz result at the right time)

But all game I tried to avoid, mitigate, block or foul that blitzer.

It was nigh on impossible, I only got to foul him twice before I had too many off hte field to risk getting more fouled off.

He was slightly lucky, he hit me 14 times and used about three rerolls overall to bring down my player a total of about 12 out of 14 (hitting players without block to start with) but he was using more than doubles a fair bit (pin me in place with four players that have guard, blitz with the killer) so it wasnt an unreasonable result.

9 'off the pitch' out of 12 knock downs is only one above average, and he just got a bit luckier than he should have on the casualty/KO ratio.

But still, one player generating 6 casualties seems broken to me.

And you can EASILY do it at 1400-1500 rating, which means that they physically cant have protection skills on the majority of their players.

My real concern is MB plus PO. I just think its too strong regardless. Make it a choice, you can either use MB or PO.

The utility of claw, and the reason I think its broken is just that it works so well with those two that you end up with stupid odds.

Just so you know, for 1500 team rating I can fit two chaos warriors in with MB/PO/Claw/Block. and still have room for a similar build on one beastman and get claw on the mino while i'm at it.

That is a nightmare for any 1500 team to deal with imo.



I agree that for one-off games and resurrection tourneys its no big deal, but for long leagues its quite literally killer :)


(PS - Its also great fun to use against coaches online that play bashy teams, its fun to put them on the recieving end for a change :)
 

Coach

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But you still won!

Guess it is really the open league format that it is the biggest problem. In fixed or semi fixed/open leagues there is some merit in not destroying every team you play, as they have to play your other rivals in future games.

It is also unlikely you have 2 players with 4 skills on a 1500 team as well given natural progression, unless you really just go all out to give those players SPP. Chances are though your win rate will be pretty poor.

Open leagues where people are just picking games though it is a problem, but so is all dodge teams avoiding teams with tackle etc. Open formats like this can't be taken seriously because of these issues. The Cyanide open league and the main fumbbl ranked division are both cursed in this way.
 

MadBanker

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It is a very strong combo indeed...
In my Norse team, I have a Snow Troll with Claw/MB/PO/Juggernaut who has made 12 cas in 4 games! I use him as a hunter/killer (he usually goes after the big preys with ST4 and AV9)
 
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BoBliness

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But you still won!

Guess it is really the open league format that it is the biggest problem. In fixed or semi fixed/open leagues there is some merit in not destroying every team you play, as they have to play your other rivals in future games.

It is also unlikely you have 2 players with 4 skills on a 1500 team as well given natural progression, unless you really just go all out to give those players SPP. Chances are though your win rate will be pretty poor.

See the open league also solves the unlikely you have 2 players with 4 skills on a 1500 team issue.

Coaches play their teams up, get the two or three guys they want with four skills, and a BUCKET load of cash in the bank.

Fire the whole team bar the three good guys....hire new players .... voila! Instant 1400 rated team with three or four absolute monsters!


I agree, all of these problems are most evident in open format.

However I still stand by the fact that claw in its current incarnation, and available on non-doubles, is too powerful in conjunction with PO/MB.

I'd like to see PO and MB be exclusive, you can have one or the other.
 

VoidSeer

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The main problems with open leagues was stated above.
Coaches focus on team development and not on winning.

This is the main reason why we only play TR110 tournament with fixed skill progression.
 

BoBliness

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I see the reasons for fixed skill progression, but its an odd one for me.

I'm not sure that its actually fair on each of the teams.

Some teams seem to benefit far more from one extra skill than others, though thats just my opinion.

I dont have any alternate suggestions lol, in a tournament the idea of allowing 'team development' in any other way seems silly on paper, too many ways it could go wrong!

Not to mention the large disparity in SPP generation between the different teams.

So I'm comfortable with fixed progression as the only reasonable method anyone can come up with, but .... I dunno.

I just feel like its a lot easier to get value out of one extra skill for elves than it is for say dwarves.

A dancer with tackle or strip ball, versus a runner with block maybe? or one player with guard??

This is probably a discussion for a different thread though :)
 

sunnyside

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Open leagues where people are just picking games though it is a problem, but so is all dodge teams avoiding teams with tackle etc. Open formats like this can't be taken seriously because of these issues. The Cyanide open league and the main fumbbl ranked division are both cursed in this way.

In many leagues (at least mbbl) avoiding a team you're afraid of can be fine for team development purposes, and is probably advisable for a newbie coach or team, but turning down challenges will kill your league points/Win% or whatever is used to determine who gets to play for the trophies. So when you're ready to play for real you have to start taking all comers.

This has been a good thread, it has made me take another look at Fend on my Norse in order to get the PO immunity, which I hadn't been factoring in. Maybe as a second skill on my runners instead of side step.

As for beating the combo at 2 mil I'm thinking some flavor of elves with teamwide blodge(except for some wrestle) and Fend. Generally try to hold you to the one blitz per turn.

Underlying all this is that I think in a long league format the teams that are neither amongst the best bashers nor the most agile suffer. Which unfortunitly includes my Norse.

I've only get two ideas of how to beat them with Norse.

The first option is if, in this example, you can take any upgrades you want so long as you stay under 2mil. Having +2 strength, block and dodge or somesuch on the Troll and Ulfs would be a great start to dominating the ST4 warriors. But while that would be awesome fun to actually roll in a league, it isn't so realistic.

More doable would be to load up on unskilled or fendy linemen, and than keep the TV a little low so I can take some inducements (pair of bloodweiser babes and maybe a wandering APO, maybe a wizard, not sure).

The linemen get in the warriors(and big guy's) faces and stay there until they die except when the troll or an Ulf or somesuch gets the chance to put a warrior down or into the crowd (such as by blitzing, or standing where the warrior follows up to).

The rest of the team tries to outclass the comparatively neglected beastmen corp.

I envision a Norse win on the scoreboard could be the outcome more often than not. However the game will probalby end with all too many Norse in the casualty pile, and since I'd be saving the APO(s) for positionals and the linemen would be taking the brunt of the punishment, I wouldn't be surprised to find a lineman dead, another that will need to be retired, a third that will miss the next game, and a positional that will also miss the next game.

Actually, that's something I might have to contemplate agaisnt even more run of the mill MB+PO running teams. The focusing on the rest of the team bit. For example if they want to have the warriors cage a ball handling beastmen, than fine. It's 11 Norse vs 5 low skill beastmen and maybe a single big guy for 8 turns. If they sick the warriors on me, than there is all too high a chance I'll steal the ball, and if they score they aren't 2-1 grinding.
 
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voyagersuk

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Surely along these lines a Chaos Dwarf team would be more dangerous. After all they start with Block & Tackle....
 

voyagersuk

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I decided to give chaos a go on the pc game and went with 3 warriors and 8 beasts with 3 rerolls and the balance in the treasury saving for number 4 warrior. Game one against another chaos team allbeit starting with 4 warriors. I got lucky on the first block in that I si'd one of the warriors and them used numbers to drive for a 3 nil win ! Only skill went to a beast who took extra arms
 

Raveen

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I've been playing Chaos in the PC game for a bit now too, although I went for 4 warriors and 2 RRs (and my how that sucks). What I've noticed compared to humans is how easy it is to spread the SPPs around. Pretty much any player on the pitch can easily score a TD except the mino (but he's got claw so can earn his keep in his own way). That's a major advantage over the more positional teams, although I guess it goes away as you start to specialise your players.
 
Chaos is a great team in an open format. They can really struggle in a fixed format league, but once you do get an MB/Claw guy, it gets real nice.

The trick to winning with Chaos is engineering the right matchup players, then engineering the right matchups. This type of player is a major element to that. Develop a couple of these guys early in your progression (right after the Extra Arms guy), as you can then stop scoring with them and let them do their thing until you get into improvement range. Of course, the Minotaur gets two steps on this, with MB and Frenzy, and Claw for an obvious first improvement.

I think you should keep it to 2 guys with Claw and 1 with PO, until you've gotten to a high level of development. Mighty Blow is a good first skill, but the others are more hit-and-miss.
 

Raveen

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To be honest I've concentrated on getting block on just about everyone as a first skill, mostly because the opening games were so frustrating. Oh and my AG 4 warrior is an interesting playmaker...
 

voyagersuk

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Yeah a semi vamp would be cool. i have never developed a team along those lines before and wanted to try it. I have usually built to prevent this tactic from winning
 
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