I completed only my second ever Blackbox trophy run today. I did quite well in season VI, but a mixture of incompetence and a lack of time (mainly the former) has prevented me from finishing the full 60 games since then.

For season XI, I decided to take orcs and amazons as my strong picks. Chaos renegades were fairly low down the points list, but I've done well with them in the past. My final pick was high elves. I have no idea how to play elves, so this was very much a wildcard. My experiences in the past usually involve a dead blitzer/ catcher in game one and four loners by game three. I often felt like the (rather rare) wins were down to nonsense.

Orcs 10/5/0 - these went well. I drew a few too many games, but I do find the orc offensive drive to be fairly turgid. Like many others on here, I don't run a thrower or a troll, so quick touchdowns are unlikely. The defence was much easier - only three touchdowns conceded was the highlight.

Amazons 10/2/3 - I was a bit disappointed with my performance with the amazons. After my first eight games I was on 4/1/3. Some of it was down to luck/match ups, but also some poor decision making (I hadn't quite figured out Hit and Run - a brilliant trait which I had underestimated). Things went better once I'd improved my play a little and developed the blockers (blodge, guard and defensive is nasty!).

Chaos Renegades 9/2/4 - With my previous renegades run in season VI (11/4/0), I had taken the three big guys, and found spp quite easy to come by. I quickly developed the rogre into a bit of a monster (block/pro), so thought I'd try the same tactic this time.
Unfortunately, I didn't have the same success with the big guys and so I ended up retiring the rogre after 11 games. I was happier with the make up of the team after he'd gone. I'd developed a couple of useful linemen for blitzing, and I appreciated the reliability. I think I'd take them again, but with just the troll and ogre.

High Elves 8/4/3 - I still don't understand them. The first game went pretty well and I experienced a fleeting moment of hubris. I was an elf coach! I was finally good with elves! Then my blitzer died in game 2 (quad skull and double death - thanks apo). After the inevitable loss, I chose a couple of random skills and almost retired them. In the end, I almost fully completed the other three teams before (apprehensively) activating them in gamefinder. The final record was considerably better than I had expected, but I did find them to be hard work. Many other teams at a similar TV are just so much more developed, and the net result was that I felt outclassed (as well as outplayed) in a lot of games. On the plus side, occasionally I did some elf nonsense! I would really like to improve my play, so I think I'll try to take at least one elf team in season XII.