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Grod



Joined: Sep 30, 2003

Post   Posted: Jul 12, 2020 - 07:04 Reply with quote Back to top

So I played my first game my first game with Old World Alliance.

Interesting team! The Ogre and Dwarves make a great base for the defense, while the humans are great at swarming to the ball and/or grabbing it out of the scrum and running to a safe part of the pitch.

My thoughts:

  • Stick to 2-dice blocking and no GFIing and the loner on the Dwarves is largely mitigated.
  • Much better than the Dwarves at retrieving the ball or putting pressure on when the ball goes to ground.
  • More solid than humans at putting up a defensive wall - the Ogre plus 4 Dwarves do quite nicely in the middle.
  • Don't need many rerolls (I only took 2) because they have lots of skills on the starting team (plus they aren't great at using rerolls anyway).
  • Playing with lots of loners is an interesting challenge
  • Halfling didn't do much, but it's fun to foul with a 30K piece.
  • I didn't have a Dwarf runner, but I may rethink that. Having a second player with surehands for grabbing the ball might be handy plus the Dwarf runner doesn't have animosity so he can hand it off to humans without a roll.
  • Definitely put them in the top half of the teams in strength

Anyone else got some thoughts (positive or negative) from your first game with them?

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kenparks42



Joined: Mar 18, 2020

Post   Posted: Jul 12, 2020 - 07:27 Reply with quote Back to top

From my couple games with them I am feeling they struggle in the first few games until some skills are added, namely Guard on most of the Dwarfs.

Flings I see being on a rotating basis, either they get a doubles skill or they are fired and rehired. I plan to use this to develop them into Dirty Play/Sneaky Gits. If one of them gains Ag+ they will probably transition to OTTD vessel.

I didn't see the the Catcher being worthwhile originally, but they are very useful for that break away score as they are so far off from the rest of the team's speed.

The Dwarf Blockers I think of as the hidden jewel here. Solid road block potential plus extra S access for the team is where they shine.

Troll Slayer is a great sweeper, just as on the Dwarf team. Same goes for the Human Blitzer.
Kondor



Joined: Apr 04, 2008

Post   Posted: Jul 12, 2020 - 08:47 Reply with quote Back to top

Grod wrote:

[*] Stick to 2-dice blocking and no GFIing and the loner on the Dwarves is largely mitigated.


Until you roll double skulls on any block with them.

You have to get guard on them and almost treat them as your secondary blockers. That means your humans will be your hitters.

So many weaknesses on the team.

From a fluff perspective I am annoyed that the Dwarfs are not the ones with Animosity. I am also bugged that humans have animosity towards the ogre and the halfling. (Unless I am missreading that) It just does not make sense to me.

I am also annoyed that the halfling is a loner. With as many negatives as the team has a fairly reliable TTM would not be a game breaker in my opinion.
Grod



Joined: Sep 30, 2003

Post   Posted: Jul 12, 2020 - 09:00 Reply with quote Back to top

Kondor wrote:
Grod wrote:

[*] Stick to 2-dice blocking and no GFIing and the loner on the Dwarves is largely mitigated.

You have to get guard on them and almost treat them as your secondary blockers. That means your humans will be your hitters.


I think you have to embrace some randomness Wink

I found myself using the Human Blitzer for Blitzing (yay safe), but otherwise I was quite happy to use Dwarfs for blocking. My rationale - with only 2 rerolls, most turns even if I rolled Dbl Skull, I would prefer to save my rerolls, so blocking with a loner isn't too bad. It helped I didn't roll a dbl skull, and lets face it, it's a once a match type occurence on average.

I did find myself securing the ball early on in my drives rather than doing "safe" blocks on the line first.

I agree on the Dwarf Blockers (maybe on the Dwarf Blitzer and Troll Slayer) you probably want Guard before Pro - getting 2 dice blocks easily is more important than 50-50 rerolling.

I need to play more games with them, but I am leaning to them being MUCH better than many people think.

_________________
I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.

Oscar Wilde
ugrosh



Joined: Oct 24, 2009

Post   Posted: Jul 12, 2020 - 09:23 Reply with quote Back to top

I played one game and found it refreshing. I don know what about all the fuss about them. Would be my TT team When the pandemy recede and all actitivity could be restored.
Grasshugger17



Joined: Jun 29, 2020

Post   Posted: Jul 12, 2020 - 10:27 Reply with quote Back to top

Grod wrote:
Kondor wrote:
Grod wrote:

[*] Stick to 2-dice blocking and no GFIing and the loner on the Dwarves is largely mitigated.

You have to get guard on them and almost treat them as your secondary blockers. That means your humans will be your hitters.


I think you have to embrace some randomness Wink



There are two sorts of people in this world. Those that can embrace the randomness. And those that can't. Never the twain shall meet.
Tripleskull



Joined: Oct 12, 2003

Post   Posted: Jul 12, 2020 - 10:42 Reply with quote Back to top

@Grod, nice explanations that shows clearly why the team is absolutely playable and could easily still be a top tier team. This also highlights how horribly broken the team would have been without loner. The team forces a shift in playing style and that is actually quite nice.

Maybe the fluff is bad, but as I personally only really care about game play, I’ll leave that for other to worry about.
mister__joshua



Joined: Jun 20, 2007

Post   Posted: Jul 12, 2020 - 11:07
FUMBBL Staff
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I don’t think 1 match vs Underworld ‘clearly’ shows anything.

IMO: Without Loner the team would have been very strong (probably top tier or just below) at low to mid TV and would lose pace at high TV.
With Loner, playable at low to mid TV and bottom tier at high TV.

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Grod



Joined: Sep 30, 2003

Post   Posted: Jul 12, 2020 - 12:53 Reply with quote Back to top

Game 2 and the shine came off a bit. I made a brand new Box team and got drawn against a good coach with a 1100K Chaos team. I really struggled to get momentum without many 2 dice blocks. Once I tried to reroll my 1 dice block on the ball without thinking (and lost a reroll with loner fail) and had a few other shots on the ball that I chose not to reroll.

I lost from a combination of poor dice, lack of concentration, inexperience and just being outplayed. It's a deadly combination.

My observations now are

  • The Ogre is easily the least reliable player on the team! He failed bonehead more often than he made it, and would struggle to pow a snottling. Damn you Ogre.
  • They really need some Guard. With 1 dice blocks being so risky (and the Ogre just useless), it can be a struggle to get momentum against high strength.
  • Probably need to plan turns better around preparing for failure (similar to Chaos Pact).
  • It's not a team to play on auto-mode (like, say, Dwarves). Playing fast lead me to make some poor mistakes.
  • They don't feel very Tier 1 after that. Tier 2 at best.
  • Perhaps one positive - they are able to take some punches.

_________________
I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.

Oscar Wilde
Midas_Touch



Joined: Dec 08, 2018

Post   Posted: Jul 12, 2020 - 13:14 Reply with quote Back to top

i deleted team after 1 game , we all know double skulls appear and i had 5 in my 1st game id rather play all dwarves or all humans lol
Tripleskull



Joined: Oct 12, 2003

Post   Posted: Jul 12, 2020 - 14:35 Reply with quote Back to top

mister__joshua wrote:
I don’t think 1 match vs Underworld ‘clearly’ shows anything.

IMO: Without Loner the team would have been very strong (probably top tier or just below) at low to mid TV and would lose pace at high TV.
With Loner, playable at low to mid TV and bottom tier at high TV.


I wasn’t talking about the game. I didn’t see it. I was talking about the reasoning and strategy.

And of cause the team needs guard to function well - for example against chaos... And a blunder against a good coach Will loose you games - that is not really a surprise.
Alien_the_Alien



Joined: Apr 22, 2020

Post   Posted: Jul 12, 2020 - 16:18 Reply with quote Back to top

Midas_Touch wrote:
i deleted team after 1 game , we all know double skulls appear and i had 5 in my 1st game id rather play all dwarves or all humans lol


With 5 double skulls in a game it doesn't really matter what you're playing, though. At best you would spend all your rerolls on them, and that's if they are equally distributed between the two halfs.
Mingoose



Joined: Jul 28, 2016

Post   Posted: Jul 12, 2020 - 18:45 Reply with quote Back to top

mister__joshua wrote:

IMO: Without Loner the team would have been very strong (probably top tier or just below) at low to mid TV and would lose pace at high TV.


I don't know how this team is "top tier" even without loner. You are basically running a human team where you trade 3 blitzers for 4 dwarfs, and make one thrower cost an extra 10k. Then make your RR cost 20k more. I don't see that as an upgrade. If anything I would rather have the blitzers over the dwarfs, because the human team relies on the MA so much, and this team goes from one of the fastest teams to one of the slowest.

All in all this team is WORSE than humans and nobody ever said Humans were a top tier team.
Eczemabeard



Joined: Aug 25, 2018

Post   Posted: Jul 16, 2020 - 11:48 Reply with quote Back to top

Mingoose wrote:

I don't know how this team is "top tier" even without loner. You are basically running a human team where you trade 3 blitzers for 4 dwarfs, and make one thrower cost an extra 10k. Then make your RR cost 20k more. I don't see that as an upgrade.


I'm neither agreeing, nor disagreeing with you. A metric ton of starting skills is a +, as is a very decent spread of skill access (most ST), but indeed, you lose speed and gold. The Guard/Mblow spam habit will compensate well for that.
MattDakka



Joined: Oct 09, 2007

Post   Posted: Jul 16, 2020 - 12:34 Reply with quote Back to top

Whoever thinks OWA is strong should play it in Black Box to prove it's a good team.
Theorycrafting is nice but will not be useful.
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