Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Black Cup Quarterfinals

My Human team has managed to win 5 straight rounds in a single elimination major tournament on FumBBL and is now into the quarterfinals. I have a game later today, between my team at 1860TV and a Wood Elf team sitting at 2270TV. As such I'm going to have 410k worth of inducements to buy before the game and I need to figure out how best to spend it.

My opponent has 14 people on his team, but none of them seem very scary. One of his wardancers only has tackle (and my team only has 1 copy of dodge) and the other one only has an extra movement and strip ball. My primary ball carrier has sure hands, so that doesn't bother me much either. He has a treeman with guard and grab who doesn't really bother me. I have a +AV lineman who can go play with the tree if I need to time him up. He has a super powerful thrower, but that's 180k worth of team value into a player that doesn't really do a whole lot. The best use for such a player is to hang back and then move the ball the whole length of the field, but if I induce a wizard I can make that move backfire since I have a catcher with 9 movement so I can probably get to the ball. He has a second, worse passer. Two players who are down both a movement and an agility, so they're like humans now. The big thing is that with 14 players my normal plan of squish some dudes and win with numbers is less likely to work.

On the plus side my team has really rounded into something solid. I have 4 players with an extra agility, so I can actually make some elf like plays of my own. A lineman with sure hands and block who carries the ball. My catcher with a move, an agility, wrestle and guard. A raw blitzer, and a skilled blitzer who has guard, mighty blow, and tackle. On top of that I have an ogre with block and a true killing blitzer with mighty blow, piling on, tackle, frenzy, and an extra armour to defend against the incoming fouls. A kicker with block and tackle. And two dirty players, though one is unfortunately missing this game and puts me down to 12 players.

I have that 410k to spend and need to figure out how best to do it. My default way to spend exactly that much money would be a chainsaw and 3 bribes. Especially against a low armour team, the chainsaw will do a ton of damage and the bribes would let me foul a lot. But my team has three guys with tackle, two of which have mighty blow, one of which also has piling on and frenzy. So the chainsaw probably doesn't get to blitz very often and is probably just on foul duty. He does get +3 to the armour roll, but nothing to the damage roll. A dirty player probably does more damage if I get a few assists. I'd also like a wizard, especially with his super thrower and my faux gutter runner. So an option would be wizard, chainsaw, bribe, babe. But is a bribe all that good compared to just another body? The bribe gives me a 5 in 6 chance to keep my guy around when he gets kicked out, but another body gives me the same guy around. So another option would be a wizard and two linemen with dirty player. That bumps me up to a 14 man roster and gives me 3 dirty players. Two of them would have loner, but dirty players don't take actions that can be rerolled anyway. And they could go play with the tree if they had to. I lose the babe this way, but other than the tree no one on the enemy team does real damage. One dirty player I guess, but he's not long for this world. Or I could get a wizard, one dirty player, and 2 babes. And in that case the dirty player could even be a thrower to pick up a second copy of sure hands just in case I lose my sure hands guy before he loses his strip ball guy. And having loner isn't so bad when you come with sure hands and pass!

Maybe what I should have done is recruited two linemen for cash dropping down to 310k in inducements and used that on a wizard and a dirty player but it's too late for that now. And I'm not sure I want the extra linemen going forward anyway.

Another option would be to get a wizard and Mighty Zug. He's basically a second Ogre with block and mighty blow but without bonehead. So that would give me 4 real hitters. If I could expect my opponent to not dodge away from them every turn that would be good. But maybe just forcing him to do so will prompt enough 1 rolls to eat up his rerolls and eventually give me the game. And he does have the two guys with only 3 agility who would be easy targets to mark and bash.

Still not sure what to do. Leaning towards wizard and two dirty players but I may well change my mind between now and 3 when my game is on.

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