Necromantic Suitable for long-term league play?

[Loucyber]

Hi,

I am rather new to Bloodbowl and just starting with league play. I only play online. Until now I´ve mainly played with Chorfs, Lizards, Vamps and some Norse team for starters. So far I´ve found out that I like to be a bit bashy, but do not want to be too dependant on it. So I do not want to play the Chorfs in League play.

I really like to play with my Lizards; but I learned the hard way that the team is almost unplayable on higher TV after you lose more than one experienced Saurus/Kroxi. The trouble is that it is so hard to give them SPP with AG1.

So right now I am tempted to give Necros a try next season. The Ghouls and WW have amazing speed, the WW are great blitzers and without doubt the stars of the team; the Golems are some road blocks, the wights good allrounders and the zombies ... well, they have one more armour than a Thrall on the sunny side.

But I wonder wether they are competitive at higher Levels, say TV 1800+. Is it possible to compete with them in a bashy surrounding with lots of dwarves and Chaos? Or is the team just bound to be crippled too much? Are there succesful Necro teams in some major leagues and coaches worthwhile watching and learning?

 

[TravelScrabble]

Yes, necro are good at high TV and there are lots of coaches worth watching. Akirilus is on BBT quite a bit and won last season of OCC and Muffinthief also won OCC not too long ago.

Regen gives them some resilience lots of positioning skills like sf and ss make them a pain on defense and they have enough speed to be strong on offence. Zombies are great for fouling and marking dangerous opposition players. Their major weakness in league play is that their positionals are some important. Even an MNG on a wolf is painful as they'll be replaced by a zombie... Losing developed flesh golems is super painful, just like lizards.

 

[JimmyFantastic]

Yeah Necros are awesome, right up there with Chorfs for top bash teams in leagues.
These teams won majors on FUMBBL - https://fumbbl.com/p/team?team_id=644035 https://fumbbl.com/p/team?team_id=710601
And these were runners up - https://fumbbl.com/p/team?team_id=670010
All good coaches worth checking out.

 

[Tjorne]

Necro are great on high TV. Until you loose a Golem or a Wolf.

I run Necro in Naggaroth (I know...) around 2000 TV and they do quite well. Admittedly they have an MB PO wolf and nice developed Golems but I guess they could work with a little less, too. MNG positionals are a real problem but in a "real" league you might be able to subsitute them with mercenaries. A death or crucial cripple will weaken them severely but I guess they can recover even from there. Wolves skill quite fast and Golems... well you need the guard they provide but if the rest of the team is good, you can carry a new Golem, I guess.

So, I would say they can be very good at high TV. Not as fragile as Lizards, faster than Chaos, but need a little luck with injuries and regeneration.

 

[Nikolai II]

Admittedly they have an MB PO wolf and nice developed Golems but I guess they could work with a little less, too.

To give a nod to Jimmy.. apparently every Necro team that won OCC had a POMB wolf..

 

[Loucyber]

Thanks for the input ... will give the Necros a try, I guess.

 

[akirilus]

Somewhat belatedly, here are a couple observations from my own experience running Necros in a perpetual league (OCC is the definition of perpetual - you have to play for at least 5 seasons to even have a chance to make it to division 1).

They are competitive at high TV. Combination of speed and resiliency (your players get 4+ to shrug off an injury as if it were a KO) makes them viable against bash sides, while proper development will help you stay in the game against more agile teams.

Early going will be hard, almost as lol-worthy as a rookie chaos team. You won't have all your positionals, you won't have Block (except on wights), and you won't have ball handling skills of any kind - so pray to Nuffle and do the best you can. Don't get discouraged right away - it will get better. Eventually .

Flesh golems don't score. You want them to, but they don't - unless something really degenerate happened. Consequently, they take forever to develop, and they also have to be on the front lines, so... yeah. It's par for the course. I celebrated when one of mine hit level 2 and could FINALLY take Block.

Wolves are your blitzers. Resist the temptation to turn them into ball carriers. Which is not to say that you shouldn't feed them TDs - getting your wolf a couple levels (Block + Dodge or Block + Tackle are excellent choices for their first two skills) is a great idea. But don't make it a habit - wolves are for blitzing. Ghouls are for carrying the ball. Every time a wolf carries, a ghoul has to screen, and ghouls die. They just do. They are the weakest player on your team by FAR - AV 7 / no regen / no apo. So if you are going to screen a player, it's gonna be a ghoul - he is also somewhat inclined towards the job by starting with Dodge; at level 3 he can have Blodge/Sure Hands. And with MA7, that's not bad. I would recommend Sure Hands before Block, but it's personal preference.

You really want MB on one of the wolves. I know it sucks, because you need doubles, but you want MB. Let me rephrase that - you REALLY want MB on a wolf. It won't solve all your problems. It will die if it gets an unlucky break. You can win games without one. But an MB wolf is THE blitzer. PO is nice, though you can live without it quite happily. MB you simply have to take - so any time a wolf rolls doubles, you know which skill to pick. Hint - it's not Guard. While Necro really really benefit from Guard, wolves are NOT the players to take it. They take MB on doubles number one, then PO or Juggernaut on doubles number two. Over the course of my OCC tenure I have seen very few reasons to deviate from that progression. Doubles number three (if you are lucky enough to get that) can pretty much be ignored unless it happens at level 6 or 7. To be a great blitzer, the wolf needs, at a minimum, Block and Tackle. Yes, frenzy helps, but trust me, you will want Tackle. Just take my word for it. Dodge also helps, or if not - Side Step.

Zombies are the cannon fodder and foulers. You have to plan their positioning, because once they are engaged, they are kinda stuck. Corollary - if you don't mind risking injury, you can blow your opponent's mind by doing end of turn zombie dodges to reposition them. As long as the zombie falling over doesn't compromise your situation, of course. Zombie skills are very easy to pick. Doubles are always Guard, because now you are on your way to having a zombie dwarf (and those are handy). First skill is Block or Wrestle (personal choice, I prefer Block), or DP. You want at least one DP zombie, although I wouldn't go overboard on it (2 is probably enough). Second skill is Fend. After that, perhaps Tackle, and if a zombie makes it to level 5 without rolling doubles for Guard, I would consider firing it and getting a rookie, to keep the TV down. A line zombie, imo, does it's job best with precisely two skills - Block and Fend, everything else is extravagant. A fouling zombie is best with just DP, although if it picks up some MVP and hits level 3, giving it Block or Wrestle is not bad.

I could keep ranting, but hopefully that's enough of a preview. Feel free to ask any questions you might have. And good luck!

 

[Kalick]

Aki, what about a kick zombie?

 

[akirilus]

Aki, what about a kick zombie?

An excellent question - in theory it's good to have. In practice, I've not been able to fit one in. Partly that has to do with when zombies leveled up and what I needed at the time. But another consideration is alignment on defense. You have 8 spots which are not on the LoS. If you start both golems, both wight, both wolves and one ghoul, that leaves one spot open. If you start all 8 positionals, then either a golem is going on the LoS (not recommended), or a kick zombie has no place to line up. With the "missing ghoul" formation, my extra zombie is usually the DP. You could make an argument that if the DP zombie ever levels, he should be the one to get Kick. But he is also the one most likely to not be in the game past the first half - so now you are either not lining up your DP on offense (because you don't want him to get sent off), or you are contemplating whether to use him or not. If you line up only 6 positionals, then you are most likely sitting both Ghouls - and imo that sacrifices too much speed to be viable. Speed is also precisely what you need to take advantage of the kick skill. You have to think that there will be attrition as the drive goes on, so if you start with 4 fast players, you can easily be down to two halfway into the drive. Then defending suddenly becomes untenable, and any benefit you've derived from Kick is lost.

So Kick IS viable for Necro, but it almost comes down to a choice - Kick or DP. Or give Kick to an auxiliary ghoul when he reaches level 5 - that's a reasonable option, imo, but I've never had the luxury of having two ghouls who are both at level 5+, and I sure as hell ain't giving Kick to my ball carrier (when I could be giving him skills that help him stay alive, plus I usually don't start the carrier ghoul on defense).

 

[Jav]

I normally choose kick over wrestle on my DP zombie for their 2nd skill. I just find it useful. You may not get it in the 2nd half, but if you kick in the first half with your DP still in the game, a blitz event can win the game for you right there. And he's surprisingly around long enough for the next kickoff on occasion. If he's been sent off then all of dp, kick, and wrestle is not going to be used.

Once I have one DP/kick zombie I am likely to choose dp on my next rookie zombie to level. That way the level 2 dp goes in on offense and the kick/dp goes in on defense. It's not super common for both to last that long, but its nice when they do.

 

[Jav]

With that said, I don't find fouling to be as much of the necro game plan as undead. You have a better ability to remove players with your wolf once you hit mid tv's, and I find positioning to be vital with necro so I don't always get good fouling opportunities.

 

[JimmyFantastic]

I find positioning to be vital with necro so I don't always get good fouling opportunities.

I find this to be true for most teams in CRP. Fouling tends to only happen when one team is in a dominant or desperate position.

 

[akirilus]

Fouling with Necro is really an act of opportunity rather than a gameplan. Unless you have 2 bribes, and in that case you were probably better off taking a wizard and a babe (if you are going for the win). I used to never foul at all, because the math (long term) is against you. Over time I learned that in certain situations fouling IS the exact right thing to do, but it's never a tool for simply establishing numeric superiority. For every game you "foul your way into", you will have two or three that you give away if that's your philosophy. But if the other guy's killer just piled on in front of my DP, and I can get a 3-assist foul - it's happening every bloody time. Even a KO on that killer saves me several turns of blitzes, which could potentially do way more harm than one ejected zombie. Or if that Leap/Wrackle/Dauntless/AGI+/Strip Ball wardancer just fell on her ass - yeah, she is gonna get fouled. Removing her for any significant period of time makes my offense MUCH simpler to run, and she is also a huge 1ttd threat.

Overall, as necro, positioning is king. Don't foul to the detriment of your positioning, but do foul for long-term strategic reasons.

 

[sbr32]

If you are fouling that little wouldn't Kick do you more good than DP?

In general I don't foul much at all (though I got some good shots in at Kalick's Werewolf last night, and missed a better one when I moved before I declared a Foul) and never really found the spots for fouling as Necro, outside of the obvious cases aki mentions above, but do you really need a DP Zombie for those? And as another matter how many good coaches would Pile On right in front of a DP zombie (honest question I haven't played against enough human run killers to know)?

In the other league I run a Necro team I had a DP Zombie but never really found a use for him. The Kick Zombie replaced my Ball Carrier Ghoul on defense, but the DP Zombie usually ended up on the LoS on offense as I didn't want 4 Zombies on offense. He was killed/retired before he ever did anything useful; shortly after that I fired my Kick Zombie for TV purposes as he didn't seem to be making that big of a difference for me. That meant my +MA Sure Hands Block Ball Carrier Ghoul had to play defense and on one of the first plays a DE Assassin gave him a -AG and I had to fire him.

 

[Loucyber]

"The threat is more dangerous than the execution" - that is mainly my approach to fouling. I want to have a DP in my team, if only to make the Clawpomber beast think twice before piling on into my back ranks. That´s what my DP skink is used for ... I gangfoul with him once the opportunity arises as akirilus noted. The Lizards are great for this because they have so much speed that you can assemble a gang easily if need be. But I´ve found out that often enough opponents think twice about piling on against me if my DP is on the pitch. Which probably saves blood for my team regardles of race.

 

[akirilus]

To go back to what sbr32 said, while I don't foul every turn, I want my fouls to count. DP is the single best thing you can do to increase the effectiveness of a foul - when applied to the injury roll, +1 increases the odds of a CAS by 66% and of a KO+ by ~36%. Fouling is also the one place where, if you get the assists right, you can break armor more reliably than with a block. So having a DP is very useful for making fouls more surgical. Assuming armor is broken, DP changes the "default" (read most likely) outcome from Stunned to KO, and that's a big difference.

Kick, on the other hand... Well, it's hard to measure precisely how much impact Kick would have. It might make teams think twice about making odd or overly aggressive alignments on offense, but that primarily applies to elves. And they can recover the ball with relative ease no matter where it lands. I roll Blitz! once in never, so while it's nice to get, it's not something I can count on. I am also not guaranteed to catch the ball, and only have 6 (but most likely 5) players with the speed and agility to try to get under it. The only time it's really on my mind is when a dwarf or nurgle team lines up 7 on the LoS. Have there been times where I thought "I wish I had kick?" Definitely. But would I take Kick instead of DP? Given my experience over the last 5 seasons - absolutely not.

P.S. That's my personal preference. If I saw Kick on a Necro zombie, I wouldn't think it was a bad choice.