5punk

FJ - Try playing on medium. Apparently easy mode has a penchant for trying outrageous tactics that actually come off sometimes, and so can be harder than either of the other two difficulties. Also, some things wil dodge better than others. High agility, the Dodge skill, and being Stunty all contribute. My Skikns have something like a 1:36 chance of failing a dodge.

Roman's summaries of the teams are fairly accurate from my exprience. I've never lost a game in either version, and I've played Lizardmen, Humans, Goblins, and Orcs so far. Which makes me think there's a lot less 'cheating' and pure luck going on than might appear. Here's my take on the teams:

Chaos
Start off reasonably powerful but woefully unskilled. Best bet for starting tactics are to stomp your opponent into the ground and walk the ball in. Horns make Beastmen good on the offensive, but they're not the strongest of players. However, once the money and SPP start rolling in they can become very formidable. Beastmen can start skilling up to become powerful tactical players, extremely tough Chaos Warriors can start filling out the blocking roles, the Big Guys are particularly big, and everyone gets access to mutations. If a Chaos team can survive enough games to stock up their better players and skill up the Beastmen, they can be hugely dangerous as become more able to manipulate the ball and extremely tough and aggressive. Probably the most violent team in the game in fact.

Pros: Violent, becoming extremely tough later
Cons: Lack ball skills, difficult to start off

Skaven
Skaven are a running team with some ball skill. They start off pretty good, but their overall weakness make them prone to losing players, meaning slower progress overall. Still, they're a very good offensive team from the onset, and their skills only make them more dangerous. Like other running teams they excel at slipping through defensive lines en-masse, and their ball handling abilities mean they can exploit their speedy attacks with incredibly rapid ball movement. It often only takes one rat behind the lines to see the ball go from midway into their half to your touchline.

Pros: Very fast, good with the ball
Cons: Delicate

Wood Elves
Wood Elves are the best ball handlers in the game, and they're also fast. Able to slip through defences as well as Skaven or Lizardmen and then get the ball to them. Wood Elves have the potential to score faster than any other team. Very similar to the Skaven, but with a little more focus on the throwing game. Unfortunately they're also delicate like the Skaven, and are more expensive. Wood Elf teams can suffer early in a career from losing more players than they can afford to replace, but once they have a few blocking players and the very tough Treeman star player to soak up some damage they become a constant threat to any team regardless of where the ball is on the pitch.

Pros: Fast, excellent with the ball
Cons: Delicate, expensive

Dwarves
Dwarves are extremely tough, and moderately aggressive. Their very high armour value makes it damn near impossible to thin their numbers, and basic ball skills allow them to get them into a defensive cage fairly easily. Once in position, it can be near impossible to get the ball free and it's often just a matter of time until the touchdown as the mass moves steadily downfield. The later addition of the terrifying Death Lawnmower Roller and Troll Slayers add a real offensive punch, making them a very capable fighting team. This is counteracted somewhat by slow movement, but any level of Dwarf team will usually cause some amount of apprehension in an opponent.

Pros: Tough, violent later, easy to play
Cons: Slow

Humans
Humans are, as with everything else, the baseline team. They excel in versatility, being neither slow nor weak, and being decent ball handlers and reasonably tough. This gives them a versatility that most other teams don't have, allowing them to play a running, passing, or caging game as needed. An advanced Human team can be tailored to the coach's play style, and a couple of decent Star Players can add some decent punch.

Pros: Versatile, decent ball handlers
Cons: Not hugely tough

Orcs
Orc teams are similar to Humans in their versatility. They're not bad ball handlers, and are reasonably strong and tough. While not as physically dangerous as Chaos or Dwarven teams, Orcs are bruisers from the offset and are more than capable of manipulating the ball with throwers and blitzers.

Pros: Quite tough and violent, decent ball handlers
Cons: Unspecialised

Goblins
Goblins are a team like no other. Their players are almost exclusively weak and unskilled, although reasonably fast. However, they're cheap and they're dirty. Where Goblins really come in is the huge array of weird star players they can hire. The money saved in hiring the cheap little greenskins can be used to take players with allsorts of weird and illegal equipment onto the pitch. Sure they only last a match, and they get sent off after a play, but there's always more cheap Gobbos where they came from. If there's enough of them still alive that is. Then, of course, there's the trolls they can field. Two of them.

Pros: Cheap, good star players, two big guys
Cons: Reliant on specialists, hard to play

Lizardmen
Lizardmen provide a mixture of two extremes. Their Saurii are tough and strong, outblocking most opposition players, while their Skinks are fast and agile, able to carry the ball long distances quickly. This can be a formidable combination, with the Saurii smashing the defence to let the Skinks slip through. However, their diversity leaves Lizardmen divided, and often they can be found lacking in numbers of whichever type of player is needed. Caught out of position with the wrong type of player, and Lizardmen can suffer. Additionally, none of the players are very strong at ball handling, with the Skinks being average and the Saurii being extremely poor.

Pros: Fast, good mix of players
Cons: Players can be overspecialised

Oh yes, forgot about the Gobbo shits. Only played against them twice. Both times I was losing in the first half, but half their team got sent off allowing me to walk the ball in. Seem like a very difficult race to play.

From what I've read the best tactic when playing Goblins is to not give a shit about winning and just enjoy playing like a dirty, dirty bastard.

Dog Pants wrote:From what I've read the best tactic when playing Goblins is to not give a shit about winning and just enjoy playing like a dirty, dirty bastard.

Thats how the dorfs work as well!

Anhamgrimmar wrote:
Thats how the dorfs work as well!

Only when you're playing them, you filthy cheating scumbag.

Dog Pants wrote:
Only when you're playing them, you filthy cheating scumbag.

Just taken some of my frustrations out on an unfortunate team of skaven with some dwarves.

2-1 to me, the skavens had 5 players on the pitch at the final whistle.


And the game winning touchdown was a hail mary pass that actually scattered into one of my catchers right next to the opposition endzone. you heard it here first, anhams learnt to pass!

I just lost a game for the first time ever, against the Skaven. 2-1 in extra time, I just couldn't field enough Saurii to stop them cutting through my lines, and my Skinks proved ineffective against their beefed up Stormvermin and Gutter Runners. The ball must have travelled the length of the pitch a dozen times up and down as each team brought down their opponent's runner and counterattacked, but in the end, and despite my KOing or injuring about 8 of their team at one point or another, my inability to pick up the ball combined with an apparent reroll ban in extra time saw the rodents run one in on the very last turn of extra time. What's more, it was the final of the competition, so to add insult to injury I came second overall because of it.

A bit late, but this morning I played the most tense game of my career so far with my human team against Joose's elves. Elves always cause a problem with loose balls, bacause unless your defence is tighter than a duck's arse they'll just run right through your lines and score. Which is exactly what he did twice. Luckily for me I equalised one round before the end of the first half with the flukiest long bomb in the world, throwing from the half way line to a waiting catcher on his touchline, then another bout of astounding luck courtesy of a lost ball on his part and triple pass dash up field on the very last turn. 2-2, but what a ride!

Pants, you are a git, and I am determined to beat you at least once.

New race now available - Dark Elves

Ooh.

I'm looking forward to playing this again once I have time. Apparently it's about £18 on Amazon at the moment, although prices seem to fluctuate wildly.

Played Joose's team of Dark Elves last night with my Lizards. They look to play like a slightly more fighty version of Wood Elves, with very wobbly boobs. A few bits have been added, like more commentator dialogue and a new skill for the Dark Elves to use. They seem to have improved the general game a little too, as I noticed fewer of the niggling little annoying bugs last game.

I won 2-1.

Dog Pants wrote:Played Joose's team of Dark Elves last night with my Lizards. They look to play like a slightly more fighty version of Wood Elves, with very wobbly boobs. A few bits have been added, like more commentator dialogue and a new skill for the Dark Elves to use. They seem to have improved the general game a little too, as I noticed fewer of the niggling little annoying bugs last game.

and the load times seem to have drastically improved for me, too. However, there seems to be a couple of minor bugs with the new stuff. Purely aesthetic though: the dump-off skill makes your bloke spack out whilst you are selecting someone to pass to, and the shadowing skill gives no indication of what was rolled in the log (unless im blind). Nothing major/game breaking though. Also "stab" seems a bit shit.

I won 2-1.

I will beat you! one day!

Shadowing isn't a new skill (and is actually bloody usesful when it works, I give it to my winger Saurii).

Joose wrote:I will beat you! one day!

Not today. Another 2-1 win for the Coldbloods

God damn you!
Its those bloody skinks that do me. Every time I turn around, theres a half dozen skinks looking at me. Next time, im going to spend the first half skink-squashing.

Elves: squishy.



Although they fared better than the Dark Elves - at least all the Elves survived and only conceded two touchdowns.

Played a gmae last night against Joose's new Dwarf team. Despite winning 3-1, I took a right pasting. Playing against Dwarves is always a struggle. They're a bugger to shift, and they hit like a steamroller. In fact, they sometimes field a steamroller. While they conceded their touchdowns because they were unable to catch my slippy Skinks, my progress was slowed a lot by the fact that it takes a lot of pain and effort to get the ball in the first place. By the end of the match the last touchdown was claimed by Joose mainly because I was 5 players down, which apparently made the match for him.

I don't think I've ever enjoyed losing a game so much.

.