Necromantic Werewolves Overview:
Like most of the players on this team the roles for each of them is pretty much defined as they all tend to do one thing better than any of their team mates. For a Werewolf on a Necromantic team this tends to be doing the blitzing. They have high movement so can get to targets, average enough strength so can usually get two block dice on the hits, average agility with access to agility skills which makes getting to their target possible as well. Werewolves also come with Frenzy so they can two shots at getting their target down, or sometimes even better off the sides of the pitch into the crowd!
They like any other player do have downsides though, they don’t start with Block which you probably want to get them asap as Frenzy can often force you into doing a one die block. Not having it also means you are open to attackers who do have it, the same goes with lacking the protection of Dodge. They have also lost the Catch skill which made moving the ball around quickly easily possible with an older Necromantic team. This has been traded instead for Regeneration which is a handy improvement as you could always opt to take Catch as a skill choice instead, but you now get increases life out of them.
They are expensive players though which can limit your choices in a starting team and also costly to replace if they die or you opt to retire them after an injury. Their last great benefit though is that they come with Claws which is great at penetrating armour. Unfortunately building on this ability through the selection of strength skills isn’t easily done as they don’t have normal access to them. There are a lot of skills that they would find handy from the strength abilities, though you may have to give those to your Wights instead and share some of the blitzing duties.
Thankfully after you gain a few skills on them, even if you don’t get any doubles they can still become very potent and annoying players. At this point they will be able to mark opponents easier and get in more blocks instead which may free up the Wights if they are better built to blitz a certain target.
Blitzing Necromantic Werewolf:
- Normal: Block, Dodge, Side Step / Tackle, Leap / Jump Up / Pro / Dauntless / Sure Feet
- Doubles: Guard / Mighty Blow, Piling On / Juggernaut
- Stat Increase: +ST +AG
First up I would take Block, normally I would say it doesn’t matter too much if you take Dodge first though if you are blitzing a lot with them, due to Frenzy I think Block is the more sensible choice here. Follow that up with Dodge, helping with protection and letting you get them to who you want to hit. After that if facing lots of Dodge opponents look to take Tackle (unless you have a lot on other players), otherwise I would go for Side Step. It will let you mark up players and leave opponents in their tackle zone for you to hit. High armoured teams aren’t going to like having this done to them! Side Step will also protect you from a lot of crowd push situations after you used Frenzy to do that to an opposing player.
You could give some consideration to Leap, though while not great with AG3 it can really open more crowd pushing options causing the opposing team to worry about the sidelines a lot more. You could aldo probably take Jump Up next, there can be a case against it as you still have five squares of movement after standing up. Sometimes though the extra blocks you can get from it make it great. There are plenty of other options though but they are all much the same and I would look at the whole team overall to make a decision, if you are stuck for advice then create a thread on the forum and post your whole team.
As I’ve mentioned already there are a lot of choices for doubles. The team benefits a lot from taking Guard though I would perhaps leave that for everyone else to take as you have so many great alternatives. Mighty Blow is going to help in getting players off the pitch and if you get a numerical advantage that can negate needing more Guard. It will combine well with Claw as well to making breaking armour against anyone fairly easy! After that you can go for Piling On to ramp up the killing potential of the player, it will also combine well with Jump Up if you already have that. If you don’t want to go down that route as it will mean leaving them open for fouls more often, then taking Juggernaut on one can also be useful. It can let you get that second Frenzy hit when you blitz those times you would otherwise have to stop, either from both down or the target having Fend. The ability to cancel out Wrestle is also well worth having on someone, though Wights can get this without a double.
For stat increases, I can’t see anyone passing up a strength one and will make an already good player into an even better one. Makes getting assists less of a problem and also Frenzy less dangerous to yourself. The opposing players are also going to have a harder time hitting them as well. Agility increases can also be fantastic, with their high movement they can not only blitz pretty much where they like but they also now become a much bigger scoring threat! I wouldn’t bother with taking movement as they are fast enough and there so many helpful skills they could select instead. I would always pass it up for the first couple of skills as well as you need to get those protection abilities as soon as you can. The same applies to an armour increase, sure you only have average armour anyway and will get picked on and fouled a lot, but Regeneration should keep them living a bit longer and the extra armour point won’t come into play as often as an extra skill usually will.
Necromantic Werewolf Summary:
Werewolves are probably the main reason you would play a Necromantic team over the Undead. Fast and deadly and can easily become your star players regardless of what you roll for their skill increases. Their high movement can also open up a surprising one turn touchdown option for you as well if you utilise pushbacks well. Having another one with Frenzy makes this easier and they have normal access to get Side Step which increases your chances further still. You can add Catch back in to help with this if you so wanted, Pro is a make do alternative though has a few other uses as well.
With them being such a big part of your team learn to strike with them well, using their high movement to run back to cover behind some team mates after hitting. This is another reason why Dodge comes in so useful as Frenzy can force you to follow up next to an opponent who can hit back. Frustrate the other coach enough using hit and run tactics with them and they may start to take their eye off the ball and look to get your Werewolves instead!
These are my new favourite players. I really find it hard to not take Mighty Blow on a double no matter who I’m playing though.
What about giving Wrestle to a Werewolf instead of Block ? I agree that Block is better to hurt the opposition, but only Werewolves and perhaps Ghouls are suitable to take the skill early, since other players are either too slow or start with Block. I admit that I am a bit wary to put such a valuable player on the ground.
It is certainly an option, like Norse I think Necromantic teams are a tricky one with regards to who to give Wrestle to. However Frenzy can often make up for the lack of Wrestle and or Tackle. It is not so effective vs Block and Dodge players, though as you can justify giving them Tackle easy enough, it is just the lack of Wrestle that you compensate for. After using Wrestle you can’t then use the rest of their movement to get back up, with Regeneration now this isn’t as big of an issue as it used to be.
So you certainly could look to give one of the Werewolves Wrestle instead of Block. If you did then Jump Up becomes more desirable as well and perhaps you would look into them being specialised in getting the ball loose and consider Strip Ball as well.
I got to say that every time a wolf goes on the floor he has a massive fouling target placed on his head. Especially either of RedDevil’s ST4 ones! So I would never look to take Wrestle. Plus block and claw/claws have far more synergy (I can’t believe I just used that word, and not ironically either). I earmarked one of the ghouls for the Wrestle + Strip Ball safety roll on my team.
Equally I don’t think I would every look at guard on a Wolf either. Leave that to the Wights, Golems and Zombies lucky enough to roll doubles. First double would have to be Mighty Blow, just cause it gives every one you knock down the same chance of staying on the pitch as a goblin (thick skull excluded I suppose). If you’re lucky enough to get two double rolls I would look to experiment with Juggernaut as Piling On while undoubtedly deadly can distract you too much from blitzing intelligently and get you far too many kicks in the head than is healthy!
Regardless I don’t think you can go far wrong building them Block, Dodge, Side Step, and letting your doubles and stat rolls determine if they are a killer or a scorer.
Good summary, only thing you missed is that Stand Firm is a better 3rd choice than a lot of the ones you listed because of how it combos with Frenzy. For the same reasons Side Step is a good choice, really – it helps with the counter-surf and with getting to Frenzy block instead of having to Frenzy blitz.
Well you need three double rolls to even get to that decision which isn’t entirely all that likely and they can get Side Step on a normal roll which in my opinion is a better skill than Stand Firm now anyway. Of course not everyone will agree with that but there is some overlap in their abilities so taking Side Step means you can use the double to get a skill that you can’t replicate from their normal skill access.
Sorry, I forgot it was a Strength choice – your skill list sounds better now. I’d still take it as a second doubles over anything but MB, however, unless I already had SideStep (which would be my 4th normal choice after Blodge & Tackle).
If you are fortunate enough to ever roll a double on a werewolf, Mighty Blow I believe is the only choice you should ever consider. If a second double is rolled, Piling On should always be the second double skill you take. Mighty Blow, Claw, Piling On is so nasty. I know people will advocate away from Piling On as it puts a very expensive Werewolf prone, but you can always choose not to use it if you believe that someone will dirty you. Juggernaut is nice, but it really is only useful if your opponent was silly enough the leave a standing player within 2 squares of the sideline. Stand firm is a waste, if you roll 3 doubles, I’d take Grab as my third double. Allowing me to frenzy a player to where ever I want even pushing him into more of my team, or setting him up for a sideline. I think Tackle is a waste, Strip Ball is much better as well as Dauntless. Also if you do get Piling On, you must take
Jump Up. Sidestep is great, however I think it’s also an extra safety net for a beginner player, as to then be crowd surfed by him standing on the sideline, most experienced coaches will make it so it is extremely difficult for this werewolf to be sidelined.
Ideal Werewolf (1 double): Block, Dodge, Mighty Blow, Strip Ball, Sidestep/Dauntless
Ideal Werewolf ( 2 doubles): Block, Dodge, Mighty Blow, Piling On, Jump Up
Thank you for the comment Exavia, though one think I should point out is that you can’t take Grab on a player who has Frenzy, or Frenzy on a player who has Grab.
Also Juggernaut isn’t just for crowd pushes, people seem to underestimate the usefulness of it negating Wrestle, Stand Firm and Fend. Mighty Blow and Piling On are probably the most commonly taken doubles for a Werewolf though.
in my opinion wrestle on a frenzy player is a waste, you will regret it many times over I put it on my first ever necro team and i have never made the mistake again, unless you allready have your blitzer and are building a second dedicated ball sacker, but the agility is too low to break box without leap and 3agi leap is super unreliable, and expensive on rerolls.
My preference of order of skills would be Block, dodge, sidestep.
If you get a double mighty blow is imperative (forget gaurd)
and allways allways take ST or AGI (move only after you have at least blodge)
How about, after the obligatory Block, Dodge and Sidestep, taking Shadowing, and then Tackle/Diving Tackle?
With MA 8 and Shadowing, you have a more than 50% chance on anything except Gutter Runners (41,6% vs MA 9, 58,3% vs MA 8, 72,2% vs MA 7, etc.) to follow up and force another dodge, which will go wrong (for the opponent) sooner or later, even more so if you have Tackle and/or Diving Tackle.
Besides, I like the image of a Big Bad Wolf tiptoeing after an unsuspecting Little Red Riding Elf! 😉
This is one of the few players I actually consider getting dauntless, especially if you already have mighty blow. I did this and was able to eliminate a LOT of ST4 killers like Black Orcs, Chaos Warriors, etc. The game becomes a LOT easier without those players on the pitch! If you plan for frenzy it can be highly effective.
Coach i was wondering if it was possible to make a killer werewolf, since they have claws it seems not giving them a build around killing players seems kinda of a waste
You need Str skill access to build a killer, and Werewolves need doubles to get Str skills.
For non-doubles Wolves i quite like Shadowing on 4th or 5th skill. It combines well with MA8/Blodge/SS. If he goes for Tackle as the other skill then he will be a nightmare marker for Catchers to get away from.