MrCushtie
Joined: Aug 10, 2018
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Oct 14, 2019 - 19:59 |
 
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Inspired by ramchop's long running thread about his adventures in SWL I've decided I have too much spare time, and so I'm going to write about my adventures with Ogres in the Box.
I can't quite remember why I thought Big Boys Without Any Toys would be a good idea - they rank alongside "let's build a team that's only goblins with Claw to show people there's no TV that's safe from the kill stack!" as one of my more lamentable experiments. I just remember realising with joy that I could max out on Ogres if I didn't buy any rerolls, so I put them together in May, and either lost interest or realised I should focus on my Box Trophy teams first instead of haring off on a ridiculous adventure.
October 1st came around, and I regretted not playing Skaven in the trophy last year, and I thought it might be fun to run three Stunty teams and clean up on points at the start of the trophy, so I dusted off those pristine Ogres, and put them out there into the cold, unforgiving world to see what would happen.
So: first match was against Hath91's V.Kings BBT3, a nice fresh set of Norse. For rookie Ogres, this was probably about the best I could hope for: all that AV7 means my Ogres could pretend they had Claw, and unlike Amazons, every 2d hit on a Norse Lineman had a 5/9 chance of putting somebody down without a turnover. That's better than 50-50, which is great when you're the clown who decided to start with zero rerolls and a mob of boneheaded idiots.
Meanwhile, Ogres are a generous opponent for Norse, because with those weak little snotlings offering up 3d hits practically for free, and AV5 with titchy meaning they're fragile little things, you can almost guarantee lots of casualties on both sides.
Things turned out almost as I expected: I lost 3-0, the ogres not managing to get hold of the ball or do anything with it. But four casualties vs 1 helped move the SPP-meter towards my favour, and I was beginning to see the joy of fouling with worthless snotlings. It really doesn't matter what's on the floor - a goblin? a halfling? a zombie with one leg? Every time you foul, the TV you'll lose if you get sent off seems to pale in comparison with what you remove from your opponent.
So on a day when I lost three matches and drew one, I was feeling pretty good with the Big Boys' first outing... Kudos to Hathi for taking it all in good spirit, especially as my little lads avoiding serious injury whereas I was doling out MNGs and fractured skulls. |
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MrCushtie
Joined: Aug 10, 2018
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Oct 14, 2019 - 20:08 |
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Next up: fresh Underworld!
Again, a good match for the Boys, if they could remember what they were meant to be doing. All that AV7 promised lots more casualties, and although it was a shame the goblins had dodge, this would be a time for me to enjoy squashing Skaven linemen for a change rather than watching it through my fingers.
And again, the Boys did very little. OK, Beefy and Dopey both had the ball for short periods of time, but we couldn't get close to scoring. So we just smashed and smashed and smashed; four casualties this time (plus another through fouling), and that meant two dead, an MNG and a Skaven lineman with a busted hip. Again, my delicate snotlings were unscathed, and despite my best intentions, I couldn't resist putting more Guard onto the Ogres.
What I feel bad about is that in so doing, I've smashed eadg down to a very low TV, and I know from my previous crippled goblin team how hard it is to even get activations, let alone rebuild yourself after that. I encourage you all to activate some bust-up halflings and give him a hand. Smallman's underworld need some help too... |
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MrCushtie
Joined: Aug 10, 2018
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Oct 14, 2019 - 20:15 |
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Game 3: Norse again
I began to wonder if this was some inside joke, Christer being Scandinavian and somehow building the entire Box Scheduler to maximise the number of times my Boys met Vikings. I'm still scared of anyone who has Block and rerolls vs my delicate, defenceless Ogres; I suppose I like hitting Norse more than Amazons, but I don't like getting hit by Norse. If you can't take it, don't hand it out, I suppose...
But another fun match. It's nice (so far) how people don't take offence you fouling like a madman when you have reroll-less Ogres. Life is hard enough already, right? I knocked out his kicker early on, which was very lucky - Tre'Davious White spent the rest of the match sitting in the dugout watching porno, which meant I didn't have to worry about the ball landing in inconvenient spaces so much.
Things were starting to get reliable: the Ogres meted out 4 more casualties, and things got serious again: a dented Yeti out for a game and a dead lineman. Once again, the Boys are good at mashing up a low-TV team so even when they don't win, you lose: looking for match ups with a 900TV team can be a struggle. (Although as soon as the Yeti comes back from his convalescence, the team shoot back up into the 1000TV bracket - again, somebody needs to send in the halflings. I'd deploy mine, but they're out of range right now, and I'm having too much fun with the Ogres to stop...) |
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mrt1212
Joined: Feb 26, 2013
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Oct 14, 2019 - 20:20 |
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A true lunatic after my own heart! |
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MrCushtie
Joined: Aug 10, 2018
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Oct 14, 2019 - 21:19 |
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And then, what's this? More Norse. Or worse than that, the same Norse I played with my first match. Would this be another 3-0 defeat?
There's two skills I find super annoying: Guard, and Sidestep. Since I usually build my teams either to counteract skills that annoy me, or select skills based on how much trouble they make for me, these Ogres are either the best thing since sliced bread or an instrument designed to make me confront my own hypocrisy. But with sacrificial snotlings making Ulfwereners run into the grasp of waiting Ogres, and the ability to very easily put a 3d block on somebody, the threshing machine was almost perfect. When Ogres go wrong, they go pretty wrong (but not as bad as your Goblin Looney chainsawing himself, or your Fanatic stumbling and dropping a massive ball on his own head). When they go right, you win the kick off and then have the pitch almost clear a turn from the end of the half:
I'd learned from earlier attempts that you just can't rely on Ogres to pick up the ball. Far better when you've fluked your way to a score is to then gather around the ball and stand completely still because trying to do something and then boneheading is much worse than being an ST5 obstruction. So the second half was really some negative play from the Boys - even though most of Hath91's knocked out Norse came back for the second half, the dice were against him, leaving me to pick skulls from the attempts of Dauntless runners and pound them into the ground. I even fouled with an Ogre at one point but the ref was too scared of McTeethy to blow his whistle.
An undeserved, cruel and vicious win. At least the V.Kings are still above 1000TV, the level below which I start to think "am I a bad person for doing this?"
4 games in, we still haven't rolled a double for a skill yet. I've started adding in Stand Firm, because that's kind of annoying as well, although a galloping army of Break Tackle Ogres will give further headaches.
As a larger point around the meta, I worry about what this lack of rerolls is doing. 6 lots of Mighty Blow, no matter how stupid it is, and four Guard Ogres means I can pump out 3d blocks like they're going out of fashion, and with the TV still being pretty low on the Boys, I'm likely to encounter more teams that could get broken badly. Maybe I shouldn't worry about this: I had to winch my Box Goblins back from 900ish TV to the point where they could get games again. And it's hubristic to make these claims, when we know that guarantees the next thing that will happen is I run into some Claw Mighty Blow that leaves all my Boys in the hospital for a week. But I like an elegant, running and passing game, so it's perhaps unsurprising that I should have a few qualms when I build a team that feels like it rewards bullying the opponent into the ground.
Or who knows? Leader on the first double, and ride the crazy train of the Boys all the way to hell? |
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garyt1
Joined: Mar 12, 2011
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Oct 14, 2019 - 22:30 |
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Hopefully you get a couple of doubles for Blocks soon. And buy a reroll after the next match.
Go Ogres! |
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“A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.” |
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MrCushtie
Joined: Aug 10, 2018
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Oct 19, 2019 - 09:25 |
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Match 5: underworld, Why not!
Why not indeed? It's been a blessing that I get lots of squishy, AV7 players to hit, and a lack of any claw so far to make my big lads nervous. I headed to the field, feeling good about the future...
I almost feel like I threw this one away. In the first half, I stopped him scoring, but I was too focussed on negative, ball denial play and when I got to receive in the second half, my poor dumb ogres were too stupid to figure out what to do about the ball. Or perhaps they were all weeping because Sleazy got killed.
Worse, my cunning tactic of taking both downs against goblins backfired, when Beefy badly hurt himself and didn't even stun the goblin he was blocking. So then we were down to 5 ogres, and oh! the calumny! They fouled one of my ogres so they could get away and score! Those nasty, vicious Underworld types!
Still, I can't complain. We had a big win today (60,000 gold means we can finally afford our first reroll, and a cheerleader, and a replacement Sleazy). Now, of course, I'm in a quandary: after 5 games without any rerolls, how will having a reroll affect my play style?
And, bored of Guard, I've given an Ogre Break Tackle instead. On consultation with others, it's unclear what's more annoying, but a mob of Break Tackle, Guard Ogres are going to be a real nuisance. Next one gets Juggernaut and then he pretends to be a blitzer until we get a Block Ogre. It can't be long now, surely? |
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tussock
Joined: May 29, 2011
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Oct 19, 2019 - 09:55 |
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My first box OGAR team went 37 OGAR skills without a double.
They did have a couple +AG, and it turns out a +AG BT Jugger Grab guy was fantastic anyway.
Well, not really, but he did become the greatest passing OGAR ever, and one of my first legends.
When I finally did get a block guy, well, let's just say they're worth keeping. Still better than the legend.  |
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MrCushtie
Joined: Aug 10, 2018
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Oct 19, 2019 - 10:35 |
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Match 6: Dwarf Smorc
All that extra training in the form of a reroll didn't suddenly transform the team into a well-polished precision unit. It left me confused about whether I should have rerolled a Bonehead or saved the reroll for later. Maybe if I have 4 rerolls the team will be hell on wheels, but good luck saving up for that...
This was the standard 2-1 dwarf grind, except I didn't score at all (preferring to try a Snotling 1d blitz on T16 when I could have got a touchdown, but where would the honour in that be?
I had 60k of inducements so I took Bomber Dribblesnot. And it rained (-1 to catches but not to throws, so that was perfect weather for my little grenadier). But as it was, he killed an ogre with a badly lobbed bomb (hooray for the apothecary!) and made a mess of everyone else for the first half.
By the second half we were down to 7 dwarfs; they still scored again, but by then there were just 5 of them. So if we'd had three halves I could have killed all his players and forced a concession. As it was, the Boys did do some damage:
two Dwarf blockers badly hurt (one from a foul, one from a block)
broken ribs, a smashed collarbone and a gouged eye (from a bomb and two more blocks)
and one more dead from another hit by an Ogre.
In return we blew up one snotling, had another get his skull fractured, and a badly hurt Ogre and another snotling nobody cares about.
This was only the second game in Box that I've had dwarfs try fouling me. I guess having snotlings constantly running over to put the boot in can do that to people. Three ogres skilled up today, so we made Beefy our de facto blitzer by giving him Juggernaut as his first skill, Break Tackle for another Guard blitzer, and finally +AG, which is going to come in a lot of use, I hope... |
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MrCushtie
Joined: Aug 10, 2018
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Oct 21, 2019 - 07:42 |
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Match 7: Lustria Tempest
And as I feared, it came to pass: Amazons vs Ogres.
This was always going to be enraging, because whereas you can hit Norse and have a good chance of knocking them down, even 3 dicing a 'zon feels somehow more unreliable when you keep rolling defender stumbles or both downs, and something tells you not to take the both down because you won't get up from it. Plus there was a bit too much Guard on that team, and we had our first serious injury: a dead ogre, no less. I guess Wheefy said something rude to Evi Kickin-thegroin and she kicked him so hard he thought he'd died, until the apothecary told him not to be so silly, it was just she'd kicked his nuts so hard his neck had broken. So he retired hurt after two turns.
Oh, and we lost a snotling for a game as well.
I didn't learn very much from this, apart from that Ogres with a reroll still aren't reliable, I hate Amazons and any other agility team, and I really, really want to get Block on some of these Ogres. And then Pro. My goodness, Progres would be a sight to behold, not being utter dumbasses continuously and exerting some pitch control. But not tonight.
Still, the casualty count continues to rise. If only injured snotlings didn't count, we'd be (mostly) quite resilient. |
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MrCushtie
Joined: Aug 10, 2018
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Oct 21, 2019 - 07:48 |
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Match 8: Toy Story Two
Or "A New Low".
I don't often play against Vampires, and this looked ominous. A ST5 Vamp, and hypnotism just feels like a cruel joke on a team that have an inability to keep their heads in the game anyway. And it was a blizzard all game, which at least meant my tears froze on my cheeks as my poor dumb Boys were taken apart.
When you hit thralls all damn game, and never break any of them, it's really quite frustrating. I guess that is the game of Blood Bowl in a nutshell, but when your opponent is the only one to badly hurt a thrall, by sucking its blood out while it's lying on the ground, again, you question your lifestyle choices. At least we made use of our AG3 ogre and got a pass in, otherwise this would have been a game with the lowest possible SPP. Should the Boys have even turned up for this one?
But, after a thrashing this morning for my poor Skaven from a Wood Elf team that was literally twice as good as them, and this loss, my streak couldn't continue. Could it...? |
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MrCushtie
Joined: Aug 10, 2018
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Oct 21, 2019 - 07:53 |
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Match 9: Sad Boyz
Ah, elves. Horrid, AG5 elves with Nerves of Steel.
Things started ... ok when we lost the coin toss but gained a blitz, while the ball went deep into enemy territory. But again, AV7 has become a mirage - for the whole game I thumped and fouled and didn't do anything until the closing stages, when I rejoiced at niggling a blitzer and fouled somebody out for their next game. Hardly the stuff of legends.
It could have been worse: appalling dice on his side for the first few turns meant he couldn't pick the ball up, and the closing play of the game was a failed pass from two yards away that happily denied him a fifth touchdown. But it couldn't have been much worse. With key Ogres boneheading on blitzes just when I needed them, I could congratulate my opponent from a turn out, because there was just no damn way to stop those elves scoring once they had the ball.
I'm looking forward to a few games time, when the Ogres can activate against teams a bit bigger than them, and that will give us the cash for a chainsaw. Of course, then we'll play nothing but AV9 teams and bemoan our inability to hurt them again. Some people are never happy. |
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MrCushtie
Joined: Aug 10, 2018
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Oct 22, 2019 - 08:46 |
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Match 10: TGIFridays
The Boys' tenth match, against Khemri. I figured I would get spanked, so when I lost the coin toss and had to kick, I made a line of 6 ogres deep in my pitch and three snotlings on the line, and waited to get my head kicked in.
With some reliable ogres today (an early bonehead that I rerolled for a blitz, without regrets) I waited for him to get close after dealing with the little green chaff (unsporting to bring a mighty blow tackler to a snotling, surely?) and then started thumping. If I'd had a couple more Guard ogres, well, if I had ham, we could have had ham and eggs if I had any eggs. As it was, the combined threat of mass Guard and Break Tackle had him score in 6 turns, and then a riot put the clock back to give me some chance of scoring.
I declined to risk that, and instead contented myself with smashing skeletons and trying to pass the ball. Ball passing failed, and although I made a good fist of hitting skeletons (5 casualties by the end of the match) every single one of them regenerated. At least I knocked out a Tomb Guardian early on and he didn't wake up for most of the rest of the match.
Second half, I could have tried to push forwards harder, but I was losing snotlings and didn't trust the team to not bonehead. (A shame snotlings don't regenerate, that's two more dead, two more journeysnotlings to welcome to the team). So instead I had a very weak cage which allowed his tomb guardian to sack Whoofy on a 1d block, and eventually nick the ball away to score a second TD. So even going for a scoreless second half didn't work. I should have been more aggressive.
Still, this wasn't the debacle that the previous match had been. And if I hadn't lost 20k through expensive mistakes, I'd be only 10k away from another reroll. Thump thump thumpety thump, onwards and ever upwards. |
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Kondor
Joined: Apr 04, 2008
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Oct 22, 2019 - 14:12 |
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My favorite Ogre team once had a hail mary pass snotling and a catch/diving catch snotling. He threw an endzone to endzone pass against me one game and then almost pulled it off again.
Yes. I am looking at you Mr. Ben Awesome. |
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