Postby Wyld Karde » Sun Feb 10, 2013 10:33 am
Yeah, that final touchdown by NJ was hilarious. For two full turns I was almost pleading with him to just get along and score because sooner or later the dice will betray you. It's always tempting to risk a short, easy pass in this situation; spreading around those SPPs helps to prevent the situation where you have only one or two high level players which become crumping magnets.
Against Chaos in particular though, this is a very risky way to play. Those Beastmen have horns, which means when they blitz they hit with the strength of a chaos warrior (4). So those isolated players zipping alongside the endzone are at a serious risk of a crumping if I have even a single player within sprinting distance, as NJ discovered almost to his sorrow.
If the scores are tied, time is short and you're in a position to score a win, for your own sake, just score it. You can always use that final turn or two for a few crumpings in the hope of getting some casualty SPPs.
On the whole though, NJ played very well indeed. He let his players spread out to force plenty of dodges on my part and reduce blocking opportunities and made the most of the amazon's ability to dodge through tackle zones to outmaneuver me. Amazons all come with block, dodge or both which means when I do get to bash one it's hard to actually knock her down so their low armour isn't a huge penalty much of the time.
The match against Gandalf's rats went more my way. I must admit, I was a bit nervous about taking on the Skaven team as Gandalf had been playing them rather well lately, their position at the head of the league table testament to that fact. Fortunately for me, Adept's bloodthirsty li'l bastards had inflicted some serious damage in the previous match so Gandalf was forced to fill out his ranks with reservists.
To my mind, Gandalf's main mistake was hiring a star player with his bonus cash. I'm not keen on star players as they're expensive, and any SPPs they earn they take with them after the match, SPPs that could've gone to players you're keeping. And if they're not earning SPPs they've wasted your gold. When it comes to inducements, the first place to look IMO is the Halfling Master Chef. Sure, 300k (100 for halfling teams) is a serious chunk of money, but extra rerolls are always good, especially when they come at your opponent's expense.
That said, the star player did mean that Gandalf had two Rat Ogres front and center, which effectively took my minotaur out of the game and seriously impeded my chaos warriors, meaning I was effectively trying to stop the Skaven running game with Beastmen.
My win was as much down to luck as judgement, including being lucky that several Skaven were out with injury ahead of the match. The fast and nimble rats were able to shape the game much of the time, forcing me to keep my beasts sprinting around trying to get tackle zones on the ball handler and various related threats. I scored simply because of my habit of trying to get a player deep into the opposing half in case I manage to set up a pass for them to run in.
In the end, it was a hollow victory for me. I don't blame Gandalf for choosing to resign if he wasn't enjoying the game, but the fact that he resigned meant my team was awarded both MVP spots and I can't help but feel that's SPPs I haven't earned.
Hopefully next time we play we'll both be able to bring our full rosters and can properly have a go at it.
-WK
