Tactics Rookie in his first official match

Donmanue

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Hi all coaches.

Me and my group of mates had played some introduction games and we are about to start our league. My first official match in the league is against a Nurgle Team. I´m a human coach. The other dude is also a rookie but an experienced guy in wargames and had read a lot about developing his team.

At tv1000, what would be you're recomendation? What advices do you guys can throw at me to win against nurgle in my first match?

By the way, the other teams in the league are: Another team of humans, nurgle, dwarves, skavens and chaos.

Thanks a lot. I will hear gladly to every advice, and sorry for my english.
 

Ravers

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Hey @Donmanue

Lots of old but good advice from Coach here https://bbtactics.com/strategy/rosters/tv1000-league/

With Humans Nurgle will be a lot stronger than you, but they have no skills at all so if they do not get great dice will mess up a lot. You on the other hand have potentially all the skills you need. I would take the Ogre, 4 Blitzers (4 blitzers is a must!) 1 Thrower, 3 rerolls, and then I prefer 1 catcher and 4 linemen. An alternative is 5 linemen and 0 catcher, but I like the speed the catcher gives you. Watch out for Disturbing Presence on the Nurgle Warriors and Beast though if you try to pass or hand off.

Difficult to give advice how to play without knowing your teams. Nurgle usually go 1 Beast 4 Warriors 1 Pest 5 rottters 2 RR, but can do something completely different..
 

Donmanue

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Hey @Donmanue

Lots of old but good advice from Coach here https://bbtactics.com/strategy/rosters/tv1000-league/

With Humans Nurgle will be a lot stronger than you, but they have no skills at all so if they do not get great dice will mess up a lot. You on the other hand have potentially all the skills you need. I would take the Ogre, 4 Blitzers (4 blitzers is a must!) 1 Thrower, 3 rerolls, and then I prefer 1 catcher and 4 linemen. An alternative is 5 linemen and 0 catcher, but I like the speed the catcher gives you. Watch out for Disturbing Presence on the Nurgle Warriors and Beast though if you try to pass or hand off.

Difficult to give advice how to play without knowing your teams. Nurgle usually go 1 Beast 4 Warriors 1 Pest 5 rottters 2 RR, but can do something completely different..

First of all, thanks for your wisdom. Second, I know what team is gonna use. 4 warriors, 4 Pestigors and rotters. No Beast.
 

Ilgoth

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With those teams you listed, I would go with what Ravers suggested
(the Ogre, 4 Blitzers (4 blitzers is a must!) 1 Thrower, 3 rerolls, and then I prefer 1 catcher and 4 linemen)

Whatever starting roster humans do, 4 blitzers must be part of it. They are the backbone of the team.

Humans are great for running offense, and playing against nurgle you need to try to run the ball through instead of doing passing or hand-offs. Nurgle Warriors are your challenge due to ST 4, and when you take your ball and it's protectors to your committed space - try to use some lone lineman and mark nurgle warrior(s) 'out of play', so that they cant rush and pile on at the ball. And notice that a pestigor can blitz your ball carrier down alone with 2D hit (due to Horns skill), so leaving ball open from behind (I do this so that I have more bodies at frontline and screening my flanks to control larger space) should be avoided.

Nurgle lacks starting skills, so if they got unlucky early into the half and burn their re-rolls - it gets real rough and fast.
 

Mr. Ghoti

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Sacrificing a lineman to the beast or warriors is a good idea. Make sure to block doen the pestigors when you can, they have horns and are a little more mobile than you think. If you can blitz the beast down and move everyone away from it, it'll struggle with having wild animal. Tentacles is hard to get away from, but forcing your opponent to use his blitz on the beast just to get him back in the action is a good way to gain a turn on the drive.

If the beast puts a tackle zone on a catcher, it's over. Try and dodge away if you can, maybe blitz with a free ogre, but other than that he's trapped.
 

Ravers

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@Donmanue if he takes 4 warriors and 4 pests, that only leaves enough cash for 1 RR. If that is the case I would just mark him up and wait for the turnovers.
Would definitely take a catcher too, just don't let him get 3 dice on it.
 

Donmanue

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Thank you all for your wise advices coaches @Ravers , @Ilgoth and @Mr. Ghoti . I´m gonna do what ravers says and take the roster he suggests. I´ll try to do a running game when he consume his only one re-roll. I will report the result of the game on thursday.

Thank you very much, really.
 

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If he has only 1RR he's going to have hard time so do what others suggested to you. Also since you have Block you might even outbash him since you get more hits in (2D block with Block skill against opponents without block/dodge hit 75% of the time, against slightly over 55% when both down would be turnover or doesn't knock down). Humans have quite neat skill package for starters, so turnovers shouldn't bug you nearly as much as they will do to your opponent.

Ogre is going to provide you some beef and if he does his job well, he's going to be one big reason why your team won't fall apart. Watch out for his Bone Head though, sometimes you might not want to activate him at all to keep his tackle zones going (you get better with this with more experience :D). I'd very much avoid blitzing with this guy since your blitzers should cause removals more likely against blockless AV8 opposition, not to even mention how bad Bone Head, Loner and being without Block can be.

Human catcher can be extremely efficient at marking opponents early on against opponents without block or tackle. Especially ST4 units, you just have to be very careful that he won't get 3D blocked. Even better tactic to use if the catcher starts with AV8 (which they do on BB2) and they gain block/wrestle. Catchers also have Dodge so re-positioning should be easier than it is for the player who the catcher is marking along their good movement (8).

Abuse his low amount of rerolls and skills (Nurgle life is tough) by applying pressure. They're so slow too so they should have a hard time scoring. Heavy marking might lead to some injuries to you though, but with just 1RR, I'd be optimistic and trust that you won't suffer... much at least (AV8 isn't *that* bad :D ). On offence try to play some rock solid running game with caging/screening and score as late as possible to give him as little turns as possible to score back. If that fails, be careful with passing and handing off as Nurgle's disturbing presence might ruin your plans, so try to avoid playing around that happening (difficult).

They are ugly, they look bad and strong, but they're kinda crap at this point and reach their true potential after 40+ games or so. This should be a favored match up for humans. Welcome to the forums, I hope you have a good game and find Blood Bowl to be a great way to spend your time. Looking forward for your match report. :)
 

Mr. Ghoti

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Be conservative with this, especially being fresh teams and low reroll counts, but getting just 1 assist on a bloater means you get a 1 die against them. On a Blitzer with block, a 1 die block against an opponent without block or dodge gives a favorable outcome 5/6 times, making it fairly safe to attempt. This will help with pitch control and whittling them down to the ground so you can move. Don't rely on this as you can easily be screwed over this way, just like elves rolling 1's, and even more so, seeing how the bloaters all have foul appearance.

In my unprofessional opinion, just keep most s4+ players either away from important pieces and/or out of your tackle zones. Focus down the rotters and he'll only have 6 players that can actually put out work. Use a lineman to foul any major player when you can.
 

Donmanue

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Well, we started to play early, so we could even play the 2nd round of the league. And it was Chaos. With the mother....ng minotaur.

I´m happy about my first match with nurgle. Well it was hard as hell but i was able to scratch a 1-1 draw. One point for each team and good sensations. The truth is that my opponent did not fail A SINGLE BLOCK. Lucky as hell in everything, but a few mistakes cost him a score early. I scored in my 2nd turn with a cage in a weak side zone spot, opening the line with my ogre and the blitzers, with a catcher right behind them. And a thrower behind the catcher. The line was broken, every player in the side zone was marked and even a goat who tried to get out of one of my blitzers ended up dead. Long pass to my catcher and a run with a succesful dodge from a rotter and touchdown.

It was very exciting. From this time (My second turn) all was a nightmare for me. A constant beating, never blocking but trying to defend as good as I could. All my players in the ground constantly 'till i had no players to make a decent defense and my opponent scored in the 8th turn. But damn my boys make that rotten bastard sweat bullets to score that in tha very last minute.

I am happy, but damn it was hard. And the only thing I see is the extreme weakness of my team.

The second match against Chaos... I won! 1-0. It's honest to say my opponent had a terrible luck (while in the 1st match every block was a succesfull one, in this match i'd say there was very bad outcomes sometimes. Even causing him turnovers. With 2 dices) and make some stupid things, like commiting a fault with his minotaur to a lineman... Double six and out of the match. And he couldn't even kill the line. Played like before, trying not to block if not strictly necessary and going for the run and pass game. TD in 4th turn. And he nearly scored in the 8th (for one square, with go for it!) but he couldn't. A beating as well, but no so painful.

Again, all that I see is extreme weakness in my team, but hey, first 2 games of the league and the Stir River Trouts is with 4 points out of 6!

As before, all your advices are great (really) and welcome

THANK YOU ALL COACHES!
 

Supa

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Humans are good team to learn the basics, but they're one of the hardest teams to have success with. Where elves have the agility to run away from heavy bash, humans do not and suffer turnovers more easily. They're advertised as the "jack-of-all-trades team", but you'll find out that they're weak-ish bash team that are forced to adapt into worse/more unreliable game plan against heavier bash what their skillset suggests.

They can outbash weaker races, although they can usually fight back easier than against orcs for example.

Do not despair though. Humans are quite rewarding team to play, because they feel like underdogs many times. :) Also their skills are good, many other teams have some catching up to do as your players are getting some even stronger skills on their first level ups that synergize with theirs. They start to fall off more behind when other teams have gained the more useful skills, that's when humans mediocre stats start to pale when combined to many others.

I guess in this fantasy world humans do not dominate. :p sad, as in Blood Bowl lore humans are clearly the best race.
 

TravelScrabble

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Humans are good team to learn the basics, but they're one of the hardest teams to have success with. Where elves have the agility to run away from heavy bash, humans do not and suffer turnovers more easily. They're advertised as the "jack-of-all-trades team", but you'll find out that they're weak-ish bash team that are forced to adapt into worse/more unreliable game plan against heavier bash what their skillset suggests.

They can outbash weaker races, although they can usually fight back easier than against orcs for example.

Do not despair though. Humans are quite rewarding team to play, because they feel like underdogs many times. :) Also their skills are good, many other teams have some catching up to do as your players are getting some even stronger skills on their first level ups that synergize with theirs. They start to fall off more behind when other teams have gained the more useful skills, that's when humans mediocre stats start to pale when combined to many others.

I guess in this fantasy world humans do not dominate. :p sad, as in Blood Bowl lore humans are clearly the best race.
That's just cause humans write the lore, rats true masters of blood bowl!
 
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