Percy's Evaluation and Realistic View System

[DaigaroOgami]

Yes ladies and gentlemen, making it's debut this season seen as Percy has the time and the mushroom trade is quite this time of year, is Percy's Evaluation and Realistic View System.

Or P.E.R.V.s for short.

Using P.E.R.V.s, Percy aims to take an in depth (or at least shallow) look at each franchise in the Rolling Thunder Season 6 Blood Bowl League, inspired by his favourite tactical mind from the tele, Robbie Savage.

Also, weather permitting, he may get a special guest on to add their 'tuppence too.

[DaigaroOgami]

First up, Lets get a look at this year's rosters:



















Well well well, it seems P.E.R.V.s CAN access everything... Percy has successfully charmed his way into each team's locker room for a quick glimpse, now he's off to write up notes and begin his writes up.

Percy WILL Perv deeper.

[Gandalf]

The team images refresh when you someone looks at the team in Blood Bowl, whilst having BBM running. So if you boot it up and look at all the teams, you should see these images refreshed (with the possible exception of the 13th Doomwheel as they are yet to play).

[DaigaroOgami]

Percy says 'Ta 'dalf', and 'Ta IDFree'

It only worked after Percy viewed the teams himself, but he couldn't view the SqueakyWheel as they haven't signed up to the league yet.

Percy will have some more PERV results soon. Watch this space. Or this Troll. Or whatever.

[notjarvis]

Hurrah for having by far the smallest TV!

I'm going to sack one of the Black Orcs too!

[Gandalf]

Hurrah for having by far the smallest TV!

I'm going to sack one of the Black Orcs too!

850k isn't much less than 880k...

[DaigaroOgami]

Still less though...

[Raveen]

By 3/5 of a babe!

[DaigaroOgami]

3 coaches!
3 Cheerleaders!
3 WHOLE fans!!

The options are endless.

[id3nt1ty]

So Gandlaf, what did you roll for No Smoking? And are you going to buy another Warrior?

I'm looking forward to smashing all your rotters.

[Raveen]

You can't buy Fan Factor after the initial setup for the team btw, you have to earn it

[Gandalf]

So Gandlaf, what did you roll for No Smoking? And are you going to buy another Warrior?

I'm looking forward to smashing all your rotters.

Well, id4nt2ty, since it's not an Ogre team, I got what I get 90% of the time, a normal skill.

Yes I am getting my 4th Warrior, just deciding on the name.

Don't diss my rotters, they are awesome! They get 2d blocks on most players with only one assist, rather than 4. How AMAZING is that?!

[lawastooshort]

Putting it here where I'll put it next time, as it were.

Not so much a prediction, but a tactical preview that comes from having to eat breakfast at my desk – maybe I should stick this in Percy’s ERVS? Ewww.


Humans – Khorne

Teams
It’s going to be close but the Khorne might just get a wizard (not sure how up to date Percy’s ERVS is). That’s what I’d pick, anyway, although I could almost understand the temptation of the more conservative choice of babe/apothecary (especially given the Khorne’s fragility so far). But anyone who wanted to win would take a wizard.

The Humans have by far the skill advantage, and also a considerable speed advantage, so they have to outplay the Khorne rather than outbash, although they probably can outbash them. The big demon is nice, but the humans have a ST5 blodger: crikey. I think Gandalf’s shown that if the demon blitzes every turn of the game then he should remove around 4 players. Frenzy and ST4 will be a factor but will be balanced against Block and Guard.

Game – Humans
Even without any real killing skills, I think if I was humans I’d want to receive. I could then take 8 turns scoring, and every Khorne player removed would just make it that much more difficult for Khorne to score next half, and more likely that the humans could then defend or force them to score quick enough to get the winner. Of course, they’d have to watch out for a potential lightning bolt, but a bit of care should cover for that. Humans could score fast, but then they’d be handing the initiative to the Khorne and asking for a ca.6 turn grind with the big demon smashing up a player every other turn.

However, if I was human and had to kick first, that would still be okay – as long as the Khorne could be kept out (less likely) or made to score in 7 turns (fairly likely). The humans have 2 MV8 and 3MV7 players – they can score in 2 turns if they don’t feck it up. They also have the bench (if casualties are kept down) to foul in order to encourage a quicker score.

But what if it was 1-0 Khorne at the start of the second half with Khorne to kick? I think it depends on the player count. If humans were winning this, I’d totally go for the quick score and try to get a defensive touchdown for the winner. If things were going badly, I’d understand the temptation to play for the draw.

Game – Khornes
Is this contradicting myself? No. Anyway – if I was Khorne, I’d want to receive first. That way they can control more where the game and more importantly the blocks go. I’d want to protect the ball well whilst grinding up the pitch for 8 turns, and I’d want to get a blitz with the big guy every turn, whilst taking care not to leave him exposed. He’s got Break Tackle, so as long as he isn’t allowed to get isolated he should be able to do what he wants. This is a risky strategy though – if anything less than 8 turns is used to score, I’d consider myself to have failed, and would expect to lose the game. It also depends on casualties. Khorne can’t afford to take more than a couple; Humans have a bench and can even afford to foul to strengthen their advantage.

What if Khorne kick first? Well, at least we’d be guaranteed one viewing of the big demon kicking the ball, which is good for everyone’s morale. I think then there are two choices – either play to stop the humans scoring completely (tricky, given their speed) or pressure them into scoring by turn 5. It’s difficult with the speed and skills available, but Khorne should be able to score back in 4 turns.

If it was 1-0 to the humans at the start of the second half with humans to kick then the most sensible option for Khorne would probably be to play for the draw.


CDwarves – Lizards
I don't think I'll have time for this.

Vampires – Orcs
Call it a cop out if you will but I’m not doing this one. Vampires just aren’t like a normal team in terms of how I see the game with them in any case.

Skaven – Amazon

Teams
Well, this one’s all about the Tackle, innit. There isn’t any! It’s going to be frustrating for the Skaven to get the Amazon to go down at all – especially if the ball gets to the ST4 catcher (who someone should probably murder before she also gets Block). The Amazon also have more players – if any rats go down the women can afford to do a bit of fouling to extend this advantage. The blitzers are beginning to get some skills – the Guard will be handy and I’d expect the MB blitzer to do a lot of blitzing against the soft AV7 rats.

On the other hand, it doesn’t look like the Amazon have any Tackle to tackle the 4 gutter runners, and they certainly don’t have the speed to deal with them. To keep up with the more mobile rats they might be tempted into more dodges than AG3 with Dodge probably should dodge. Although the Skaven don’t have as many players, if I was them and either of those statboosted catchers goes down I’d definitely risk a linerat to gangfoul them as heavily as I could.

I’m not sure how up to date the PERVS is on this one – you’d expect it to be right up to date concerning a team of scantily dressed women – but there will some inducements going to the Skaven. Wizard should be the first pick, and then I’d be thinking about either babes and apothecary or some mercenary linerats, possible including one with Kick, which could be useful given the differences in speed between the teams.

First Half – Skaven
Skaven want to kick first so they can use their full numbers for defending – as long as they don’t lose all their Gutter Runners doing so they have a good chance of scoring back. The trick will be balancing how much to commit the gutter runners to defending by hassling the ball carrier. If, for example, there’s a chance of getting multiple gutter runners between the ball and the line of scrimmage before the ball is adequately protected, this is a risk totally worth committing all 4 for. But if not, they just need to be patient, protect the best players, and be ready to pounce on mistakes.

There’ll be a point where the Skaven will have to decide – do they commit hard to stop the Amazon scoring at all, or do they do all they can to try to make the Amazon score and leave enough (2 turns) in the half to equalise?

But what if Skaven receive first? It’s tricky, but I would want to score in 5 turns to make it possible but risky for the Amazon to score back – hopefully the Amazon will push too hard and make a mistake, and the Skaven will have a gutter runner in range to go 2-0 up at half time.

First Half – Amazon
There’s a bit too much talking going on at lunchtime for me to concentrate properly on this now, and someone is complaining about the fridge again.

Anyway, I think as Amazons I would want to receive first – taking as long as possible to cage down the pitch, using one Guard blitzer to protect the cage and the other to support the MB blitzer doing as much violence to vulnerable targets as possible. But if I kicked first, I’d be happy with that too – trusting in my team’s skills to get the rats to score quickly enough to have a chance to equalise before half time.

Second Half
If the Amazons received first and are 1-0 up, then the Skaven have to score quickish and then pressurise the Amazons into giving up a defensive touchdown. But this will depend on how many players are left, really.

If the Amazons received first and it’s 1-1, then the Skaven can win by taking 6-7 turns to score – but again, if they can hold out or not depends on how many players are left.

If the Skaven received first and are 1-0 up, then if the Amazons score quickly, the Skaven would be favourites to win if they have gutter runners left – so playing for a draw seems sensible if boring.

If the Skaven received first and it’s 1-1, then Amazons have to take as long as possible to score and they win, unless the rats can work the 1 turn touch down.

If any team is up 2-0 at half time then they just need to not feck it all up to keep the win, of course.

Since the wizard can stop a scoring chance and even lead to a defensive touchdown from it (particularly if, say, you have fast AG4 players about), it can obviously have quite an effect and really change the natural flow (dice/coaching) of the match. It could also do nothing...

[Red Lion Three]

Not sure where to put this; this thread seemed best as it has the team lists.

The Amazon start to the season has been less than stellar. Pre-season was positive (3 games, DWD) but the regular season has so far been LLDL and they are now clear last. I have been thinking about how to make things go better and would appreciate some input

The team looks like this (copying the image from further up the thread):

Amazon Squad Surgery.png (480.28 KiB) Viewed 3401 times

(This image gives a TV of 1260, but this is only because one player is due to miss the next game through injury. The squad is overall actually TV 1330.)

Putting poor luck and poor tactics to one side (there's been both...), squad-wise I'm thinking there are two problems:

1) the team is badly specialised. There are several players who can deal with bashy players (i.e. the blodge-guard / blodge-MB blitzers , the +ST catcher and the blodge linewomen), but no-one who can deal with anyone with dodge. Against the rats it was frustrating; marking the Gutter runners didn't work at all. Similarly yesterday a Vampire was able to get to the ball carrier in the first half by dodging at will through a seemingly arbitrary number of tackle zones.

2) the team seems over-valued (joint 4th for value, last in the league). I though that having lots of subs would be useful, but a lot of the time there are just 100/150 points without many skills standing on the side doing nothing. This means effectively giving inducements to the lower-TV teams or not getting many for the higher-TV teams. Yesterday was a case in point - I used inducements to get a mercenary with Tackle (who was useful) but this meant there were three players on the side.

Conclusion:

What I'm thinking is that it would probably be a good idea to sack a lot of the linewomen. Event the blodgers could potentially go - block seemed like a safe first skill to give them, but in practice it is just adding more bash and TV to a team already full of bash but lacking tacklers. What do you reckon?

[lawastooshort]

I’ll do the numbers question first as I think it is easier. I think 13 players is a good number, certainly not too much for an AV7 team that can get mangled quite quickly if there is any Tackle/MB about. I have 15 on my underworld team, for example. Having a bench means you have a better chance of kicking off with 11 players in the second half, means you can foul if an important enemy goes down, etc. etc. The Amazon linewomen are cheap, too.

I certainly don’t think you should sack the Blodgers! It’s only 20TV more and makes them better all round. It doesn’t just add more bash, it adds less chance of going down when blocked or blocking, and therefore more reliable control of the pitch (more tackle zones).


Re: specialisation. I think the team is heading the right way and nothing to worry about. Yes, not having Tackle is frustrating, but you don’t need too much of it. I only have one Tackle on my team, for example, and could still hit you when I needed to. A sensible thing would probably be something like having two blitzers with Tackle and MB to go with the two who have Guard (ultimately it’s probably worth them all getting Guard).

The thing that is not optimal at the moment is the ST boosted catcher. You were blocking a lot with her, and she doesn’t have Block yet. 2d blocks without block are pretty risky! You need to think about the role of both catchers, I think.


Also, as general linewomen skills I think you should think about Wrestle – you have a lot of Block on the blitzers already, and Wrestle offers another tool. But I don’t think I’d sack any Block linewomen to make room for it.