OCC - ApocaBlitz Now!

danton

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So I finally played the match last night. We had a bit of trouble connecting initially, but then my opponent switched to another computer and it worked first time. He took Eldril and a babe for the inducements, which didn't seem like the best choice to me. In addition he claimed that the game didn't let him use Eldril's gaze during the first half, which is a bug I've never heard of before. In the second half he rolled a 1 both times he tried to gaze with him, so he was basically useless! :)

He won the toss and chose to kick first putting his DP lino on the LOS for some reason and Medea was only too glad to send him straight to the injured box with a red cross over his head! :D I then gathered the deep kick with a lino on 15 spp and passed to the runner Vitriol for an early level-up. He moved quite a few players into contact and I shifted the attack over to the left after blocking away most of the pressure. His MB catcher managed to stun Hecate on the blitz, but his defending was a bit loose and I was able to open a gap through the middle and rush enough players diagonally through the gap to create a cage for Vitriol in scoring range.

He blitzed Death with his killer catcher and Badly Hurt him (damn MB catcher was a pain in the arse most of the game and I couldn't even stun him despite knocking him over with MB blitzes two or three times)! He left the way open for the score though, deciding to not risk his players, except for his rookie thrower who killed himself trying to dodge and who was not deemed worthy of the Apo! I took as many blocks as I could in my turn, KOing his +Ag catcher and almost killing his rookie blitzer with a blitz from Hecate. He was Apo'd to MNG, although my opponent claimed it was a miss-click and he was going to let him die! Vitriol just sauntered in for the opening score - 1-0!

The next kick-off was 11 v 10. The kick flew off the field (really am missing having a kicker) and was given to his thrower who stayed deep. He did a couple of blocks on the LOS and then took :bothdown: when blocking my Wrodge lino with his lino without Block or Wrestle! He clearly thought it was his lino that had Wrestle and the early turn-over meant that I could pressure him straight away. Pestilence blitzed Eldril in his half and was soon supported by Spite, while the rest of the team formed a screen in my own half.

He managed to get his NoS catcher past the screen after blitzing War with the MB one, but then made a big mistake by putting his thrower next to his left sideline, thinking he would be safe there from a blitz. He clearly hadn't seen that Ruin was fast enough to get there with a GFI and agile enough to dodge through a TZ too! Before that I took all the available blocks, knocking over a lot of players and Medea Badly Hurt a level 2 catcher. I then marked his receiving threats before Pestilence made 2 GFIs to mark the thrower on the sideline. Ruin then blitzed him into the crowd, having to re-roll the GFI in the process. The ball was free near his endzone and he was able to pick it up with his Star lino. Pestilence knocked him over on the blitz though after using a re-roll and then Ruin used his +Ma to get hold of the ball and score with a GFI - 2-0!

My opponent had two turns to score one back, but only managed to get his +Ag catcher in scoring range, due to SS blocking his way on the sideline blitz. Medea took the catcher down and stunned him, so that was the end of that! A double one on a token spp throw added insult to injury! Somewhere in the proceedings Malice got Badly Hurt by his MB catcher, so I was down to 10 players for the second half.

The following drive he got a couple of catchers into scoring range, but then failed the pass to his thrower in the backfield! That let me get two side-steppers next to the ball and apply pressure in his half again. He failed to remove the TZs on the blitz, but did manage to pick the ball up with his Sure Hands thrower in 2 TZs. Thanks to DT though he didn't dare try to dodge out, but attempted a pass instead, which was fumbled thanks to the modifiers. I pushed more and more players forward and eventually gathered the ball with Ruin, who passed the ball to Vitriol in scoring range. He managed to dodge through a TZ and KO Vitriol down with a one die blitz from a lino, but the dump-off to Ruin was good and the next turn an easy dodge made it 3-0!

His following drive he tried to get more receivers forward again, but a failed one die block somewhere gave me the initiative again, I think (memory gets a bit hazy by this stage). I sent a couple of players to pressure his thrower in the backfield, while marking and containing his receivers. He threw the ball forward to his +Ag receiver, despite him being marked and unable to score and it was not hard to knock away his support players in order to take his receiver down with Hecate. Next turn Ruin got hold of the ball and threw it to Medea who was unmarked and in scoring range in his half - 4-0 on turn 15! Last turn I got a blitz and just ignored it, as most of my players where out of range. After a couple of blocks the game ended, as I didn't even bother to take my last turn.

So a surprisingly easy win on MD1. The weak inducements chosen by my opponent, combined with quite a few mistakes made by him, made the game a lot easier than it should have been. He also had a habit of putting a lot of his players in contact with mine, which was not a good idea in general and I thought he got off quite lightly with the 4 CAS he took in the first half, as my armour rolls were not great in general. My rolls were generally quite good, although I thought I played reasonably conservatively on the whole, only taking risks at the end of turns and when it was worth doing so.

Ruin picked up 8 spp (2 throws and 2 TDs), Medea accumulated 7 (2 CAS and 1 TD) and Vitriol got 4 (1 TD and 1 pass), but the only player to level was my -Ma lino who got 6 spp (1 pass + MVP). I'm leaning towards Dodge on him, even though I badly need a Kicker. He makes for good LOS fodder, which is something that my team is a bit short of at the moment! :)
 

Gallows Bait

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Nice start to the season and a good haul of spp to set you up for some more skills quicker. Definitely soujnds like you were able to punish some mistakes. To be honest that surprises me at tier 2, but maybe it was an off day for your opponant.
 

danton

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Yeah, I would say it was probably an off day for him, although he did make a lot of mistakes! It can happen I suppose if your mind is not fully focused on the game.

My lino went and rolled a double... :rolleyes:

More likely than not I will ignore it. The only double I would take is Guard and an Ma 5 piece with Wrestle is not an ideal candidate for that really. I still think I will take Dodge in order to have 10 Blodge / Wrodge players on the team and in order to make the LOS fodder a bit more resilient.

It's a pity I don't really have room for a kicker at the moment on the team, as that would be great against the bashy teams that I have to face this season... :(
 

Barristan

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You have more experience than me with the Delves but if I can way in I think I'd take kick on him all the same. It really is great against slow teams and contributed to win me more games than I can remember.

Of course, having Wrodge/Blodge on everyone is a must (my own kicker recently collected a niggle for not having Block himself).
 

danton

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I agree with you that Kick is important and this team has lost at least 3 kickers over the seasons, so it's a skill that I normally prioritize.

The problem with this team is that currently there are only three players that I can comfortably stick on the LOS: Wrodge lino, rookie lino and this lino with Wrestle and -Ma. The only other two linos that I have are: Block, Dodge & +Str and Wrestle, Dodge & +Ag (47 spp).

If I give this lino Kick now then it means I have to put a valuable player on the LOS right away. I also don't like having a kicker with -Ma, as a kicker ideally needs to be quite mobile in the backfield, mainly to act as an assist for witch elf blitzes.

I am considering buying another lino in order to get to 13 players, given that I have to face very bashy teams in the next two matches, but I would still prefer to have some LOS back-up, as rookie linos often get taken out quite quickly against teams that are heavy with MB+Claw! :rolleyes:
 

Mico Selva

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Yes, getting reliable LOS fodder is harder and harder as Your TV goes up.

Maybe You should consider giving Kick to one of Your positionals that usually stay in the backfield anyway? With 4 Blitzers, 2 Witches and a Runner You only have 4 Linemen left for LoS duty and the ones with stat ups are out of the question, as well as being unsuitable for taking Kick (already used up one level up for the stat, so they need basic skills more).

As Runners are very skill-hungry too, maybe You could give Kick to a Witch or a Blitzer?

Also, good to see ApocaBlitz back and in shape. Keep it up. :D
 

makinde

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Tough choice - stat increases on Linemen really pose interesting problems for Dark Elves, given how the base on which the improvement is being done is so awesome to begin with.

For a double, I think I would still take Guard. You can never have too many guard pieces, and although Block-Guard is superior to Wrestle-Guard, the latter is still great and wrestle keeps him in the thick of the action making assists.
 

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His opponent was Kamonohashi, who beat my Necro team back in season 9, although in that season he came 5th in our division (6c). He also took a season off (season 10 i think), so im surprised he rose so quickly to div 2. I suspect he must have risen 2 divisions at some stage in between.

He's a nice guy and i keep in touch with him occasionally (kamonohashi means "platypus" in Japanese).

Anyway congrats on the win Danton. You have a really incredible team at the moment and i cant help but think you are likely to get another shot at div 1 next season.
 

danton

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Yeah, I don't think Kamonohashi would have made it to Tier 2 if he regularly made the sort of mistakes he made in our game. He also beat jrpeart's team twice in previous seasons, so it's likely that he just had an off day against me.

Also like Narly says, my team is in incredible shape at the moment (thanks for cursing them Narly and I fully expect to lose half of the squad in my next two matches now!! :rolleyes:) and making those kinds of mistakes against a team like mine, while my dice rolls remain reasonable, is a recipe for disaster! :p

It looks like I will play my next match tonight and I fully expect that to be much tougher, as it's against a well developed Nurgle team that defeated Anglakhel's dark elves 1-0 in MD 1. I watched the replay and this team is clearly a very difficult opponent that is well built to deal with elves. The coach also plays patiently and seems to know how to get the most out of his team's strengths, while minimizing their weaknesses. I do feel that Anglakhel may have been too aggressive at the start of the match against him, but he would have faced a tough match whatever he had done. Currently the Nurgle team looks like this:

Beast of Nurgle - Guard
Nurgle Warrior - Block, Guard, MB & Stand Firm
Nurgle Warrior - Block, Guard, MB & Diving Tackle
Nurgle Warrior - Block, Guard, MB & +Str
Nurgle Warrior - Block, Guard & MB
Pestigor - Block, MB, Claw, Tackle & PO
Pestigor - Block, Extra Arms, Sure Hands & +MA
Pestigor - Block, Extra Arms, Tackle & Diving Tackle
Pestigor - rookie
Rotter - Dirty Player
Rotter - rookie
Rotter - rookie
Rotter - rookie

3 re-rolls, 9 FF, 1 cheerleader & 1 assistant coach for a TV of 2030.

A very solid team, than can make it a real nightmare for elves to play against. He has four very good warriors that can support each other well and dish out the pain very reliably. The beast and the two DT players also mean that he can trap my players in order to beat them up some more. In addition he has a very solid killer and a DP rotter for removing my players from the pitch and he even has two pestigors that can handle the ball well too. The key will be taking out his developed Pestigors I think, as that will remove a lot of his advantages. I'll take any MB hits that I can get on them and hope that Regen fails!

So my TV will be either 2330, or 2400 depending on whether I buy a 13th player. As it stands my opponent can already afford to hire Lord Borak, or he could take a wizard, babe and bribe instead. If I take the extra player it will basically give him either an extra babe, or two bribes instead of a bribe and babe if he goes that route instead. To be honest I'm very tempted to buy another lino, as I think it's worth having another body available given the amount of inducements I am already giving away. It will also make it easier to foul his killer pestigor when it uses Piling On. Thoughts?
 

Anglakhel

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My first play was very aggressive, but it also very nearly worked.

My option was to let him form a ST4 Guard cage and grind me down with his Killer and Dirty Player, or take an early shot at his Ball Carrier when I could get a 2d Blitz and tie up his best ball handlers. I choose to take the risk and the ball bounced right into the hands of a Nurgle Warrior who caught the ball.

I certainly suffered with immediate removals of my best Agility players, but if he was careful it would have been very difficult for me to manufacture a better shot at the ball. He just got an improbable bounce and catch.

It was a frustrating match though. He's a good Coach with a tough team. My big plays just never fell the right way. I had a great chance to set up the score in the 2nd half and Nuffle shut it down.

If you get fairly consistent and average dice during the game, you should be in good shape. My dice really failed me when making some crucial, but not necessarily difficult plays.
 

danton

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Yeah, I saw that you had some unfortunate blitzes and blocks that ended in :bothdown: and didn't let you progress as intended. Your opening play was very aggressive and it could have definitely turned out a lot better than it did. I just prefer to play more of a waiting game with screens and surgical strikes on important players where possible against a team like this, only going all-in near the end of the drive if I have to. We have different styles and I don't think that one is necessarily better than the other. High risk = potential high reward, but it can also mean the opposite! :)

If I come away with a 1-1 draw from this game, without too much damage to my team I would count that as a good result!
 

Anglakhel

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You're in a better position to play a waiting game with him. You have a solid bench and better all around skill distribution. You can definitely afford to play a more smother defense and look for an unfortunate turnover or mistake that leaves an opening.

I was playing with no bench and limited MB. No Bribe or bench to utilize my DP. I had to take an early risk or risk having to take a bigger risk later with less chance of success. A ball on the ground at midfield would have been a vastly different game. Despite that failure it was still a close match that was very nearly a Draw.
 

Purgatory

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Nice write-up, Danton, and congrats on the solid victory!

That Nurgle squad looks like a hard nut to crack, however. Best of luck against them.
 

Narly Bird

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Personally i would go for a reserve Lino. Whilst he doesn't have that much tackle, he will still knock you down 1/3 and he has a lot of MB. Also, as you say, he can tie up your guys with his Beast/DT guys, so can get extra hits in. It also doesn't make much difference inducements wise.

If i was him, i would go for a wizard, bribe and babe.
 

danton

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I gave the lino Dodge and it was definitely worth it, as he was great at tying up Nurgle warriors until he was finally knocked out near the end of the game. I also bought the extra lino and it did help to prevent me getting outnumbered all game. That took my TV to 2400 and my opponent took Wiz, Bribe, Igor and Babe.

In the end I won the game 3-0, but it came at a significant cost. My opponent used the fireball quite early to hit a clump of three of my players, knocking one out and giving Ruin a Niggle to go with his Av 7. The Apo could only offer another Niggle. Then on turn 15 Pestilence got blitzed and killed by his killer Pestigor. He didn't even need to pile on for the kill either. RIP. At least it drops my TV down to the 2100 range assuming I can afford a rookie blitzer, which is not a given thanks to the winnings bug still being around! :rolleyes:

I will write a longer report some time tomorrow, as the game finished a little while ago and I'm off to bed. I'll also have to give Pestilence a proper sending off too. :(
 

Mico Selva

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Damn, losing Pestilence this early in the season could really hurt Your team long-term.

On the other hand, You will have some time to skill up a new Blitzer before advancing to Tier #1 again. ;)

Looking forward to the match report and the write-up on the deceased hero.
 

Purgatory

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Congrats on the win. Sorry about the loss.

In times like this, I think it'd be fair if you are able to afford a new Blitzer, and his first skill roll is 6+6. :)
 

danton

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Yeah, losing Pestilence is a blow, but it's part of the game - no one lives forever!

In times like this, I think it'd be fair if you are able to afford a new Blitzer, and his first skill roll is 6+6. :)

Unfortunately the winnings bug is still in the game and I lost another 20K, dropping my Treasury to 90K... :rolleyes:
 
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