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OG Necromancer
Jan 20, 2014

GNU Order posted:

Oh and I may as well ask after the 0TTD chainpush derail, is there anybody still interested in the idea of tutorial-style videos discussing the game a bit more in-depth?

The kind of stuff SDS and I aren't going to get into in the videos. This first match we covered a lot more of the basic stuff but there's still a lot left unsaid. Mostly number stuff.

I would very much appreciate you doing more tutorial videos! This seems like something I could really get into if I knew more about the strategy and tactics involved.

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Fat Samurai
Feb 16, 2011

To go quickly is foolish. To go slowly is prudent. Not to go; that is wisdom.

uPen posted:

I'm your man. I'm going to record every time you run out of RR during a drive where a cheerleader would have gotten you an extra one.

The vote was to blow ALL the money in Cheerleaders, not just a single one. :colbert:

Veloxyll
May 3, 2011

Fuck you say?!

Fat Samurai posted:

The vote was to blow ALL the money in Cheerleaders, not just a single one. :colbert:

Any time he loses the event then.

GNU Order
Feb 28, 2011

That's a paddlin'

Blood Bowl 101

Dropping some insane knowledge bombs in this post

Let's Discuss Necromantic (And Skills/Skill Access)


Here is the blurb on Necromantic ripped straight from the Blood Bowl rulebook. I should note that the current ruleset is LRB6 (Living Rulebook 6, also called the Competition Rules Pack). However Games Workshop appears to not give a poo poo about us and have taken down the LRB6 rules, so I had to find a copy of LRB5. In our case it won't effect anything. A better resource for the intrepid Bloodbowlster who wishes to learn would be from FUMBBL, a free, 2D, Sprite-based version of the game. Actually playing FUMBBL requires you to be more knowledgeable because it was built with experienced players in mind and doesn't do as much visuallly or mechanically to help you along. Anyway, their help page is located here and information about all the races is located here.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Necromantic. So, let's go down the line and talk about what's going on with the above screenshot.
Qty - Indicates how many of each position type you can have on the team. As you can see, we are already maxed out on Wights and Flesh Golems with two of each, and saving up for (presumably) our second Werewolf. You can only have 16 players on a Blood Bowl team (matches are 11 v 11 if you'll remember) so, while it's possible to run a 16 mans zombie hoard team, your chances of winning would be astronomically low.

Title - Fairly self explanatory, at this point. It's worth noting that sometimes titles refer to the same player type across multiple races. For example, a Necromantic Zombie is exactly the same as an Undead Zombie. However, a Human Blitzer is not the same as a High Elf Blitzer.

Human Blitzer

High Elf Blitzer

While they may be conceptually the same and fill the same role on your team (blitzing, punching) they have very different lines, even down to the Qty.

Cost - Indicates how much a player costs to buy, in gold. If you'll remember, after the first match we won 70k in gold. After every match you roll dice and get a random amount of gold. The cost of a player is based on all four stats, and any skills he might have (also what skill access he has which we'll get to at the end). High strength (ST > 3) players are typically the most expensive on the team, and linemen (in our case zombies fill the role of linemen) are the cheapest.

MA - How many squares they can move per turn. You've seen this in action. 6 MA is typically considered the "average". Not too fast, not too slow. For reference the Blood Bowl pitch is 28 squares from End Zone to End Zone. With a GFI every turn, the average Blood Bowl player can cover that in 4 turns. Our Flesh Golems and Zombies are molasses compared to that, while the Werewolf is white lightning. The maximum MA you can have on a player is 10.

ST - Player strength. Compare with your opponent to see how many dice blocks you throw. ST (and AG, agility) are much less variable than MA (or AV, armor value). Almost every unit in the game is ST 3. That's your average. Any player with ST 2 is often either on a joke team (Goblins, Halflings, Ogre Snotlings) or sacrifices that point of ST for amazing ability, such as the MA 9 (!), AG 4 Gutter Runner, the hands-down best scoring unit in the game. Any player with ST 4 is often slower, beefier, less agile and has a high AV (armor value). Our Flesh Golems, for example. Any player with ST 5 is what we would call "Big Guys". There are two things which designate Big Guys. ST5 (or higher) and Negatraits. Negatraits are skills, only bad. They're given out to a player naturally, they can't be chosen on a levelup. Let's refer to the Treeman, a unit both Halfling and Wood Elfs teams have access to.



That's a lot of skills to take in but let's focus on the important parts. First off, he's movement 2. Jesus. Our zombies are world class sprinters compared to that. Strength 6. JESUS! That's really strong. In fact, he's (currently) the only natural ST 6 player in Blood Bowl. Agility 1, that's no big deal. We saw that with Khemri. The only reason he's AG 1 is that you can't be AG 0. And lastly, AV 10. That's the highest you can get, and he starts out with it naturally. However, all this insane ability comes at a cost, for the Treeman it's two starting skills in particular. The Loner skill means that he doesn't play well with a team. If you try to use a Team Reroll to reroll a failed action (dubskulls, for example), you need to roll another d6 dice first. Failing that means you can't use the reroll and your turn ends. You can use a Team Reroll on a Loner roll and it won't trigger another Loner roll, also it won't charge you two rerolls if you reroll the Loner check. The other skill is Take Root. The Treeman has a chance to get rooted in place during a match. Every time you want to move with him, you have to roll a d6. Rolling a 1 means that he's rooted in place, and the Treeman can no longer move. I mean at 2 MA per turn he wasn't going anywhere to start, but if the match moves away from him he's stuck in place until either team scores, or halftime. This can be devastating and render him totally useless for the whole match if you're unlucky. But, this is the price of high ST buffness.

AG - Agility. Affects agile movement such as dodging, picking up the ball, passing, and catching. Most teams fall into either the base AG 3 or base AG 4 categories. AG 3 is considered the average, but elf teams are all base AG 4, meaning all their players are AG 4. Higher AG modifies the dice in your favor on agile moves. However, remember that, because of Critical Successes on a 6 and Critical Failures on a 1, any player can do anything if the dice allow it. And sometimes the play you had in mind was just destined to never happen. This random nature of the game is why the mantra of the experienced player is to roll as few dice as possible, and do as many "safe moves" (i.e. standing players up, moving players around) before they attempt to roll dice.

AV - Armor Value. Determines how well a player can take a punch. AV 7 is the average. AV is much more variable than ST or AG, but not as variable as MA. AV ranges between 6-10. AV and armor breaks are a mechanic which are much less tactically important than other stats, because of the randomness and high variability of what happens when you knock down an opponent. Knocking down an opponent requires you to roll 2d6 and try to beat their Armor Value. Failing to do so is the simple knockdown, which allows you to stand your player right back up when it's your turn. Beating the Armor roll moves you into the Injury Roll, which is another set of 2d6. Rolling low results in a Stun, where the player has to sit prone for a turn before he can be stood up. Rolling higher results in a KO. If you watched the first video you will be very familiar with these. Your player's bell gets rung and they have to be dragged to the KO box, where they have a chance to wake up on the next kickoff. Rolling a 10 or better on the injury roll 2d6 causes a casualty. Doing so grants the player who did it 2 SPP towards their next level, and means you have to roll even more dice to determine what type of Casualty. I'll touch on those in the video if (or rather when) they happen.

Now, if you'll remember, I cited a full statline as being the "average" player. Does such a player even exist in the game? You bet! 6/3/3/7 shows up all over the place. In fact, the Amazon team is built entirely out of 6/3/3/7 units.



So, what makes some of them more expensive? Well, that would be our next categories, and the reason I even did this whole update

(Skills and) Skill Access!
I will only mention skills because they are relevant to the conversation. Your starting skills affect how much your player costs, and as you level up you get to pick more skills, which make your player even more expensive (and more effective in a match). However, we're not going to be covering skills here. Why?



Because there are so many of them and they can affect the game in so many different ways that we'll need to go over most of them. In fact, that's a post for another day. For now, let's focus on the basic skills that the first match has familiarized you with, and skill access.

You can see that each player has "Normal" and "Double". When you level up, you roll some dice (surprised?). If you roll a normal roll, you can choose a skill from any of the categories that player has Normal access to. For example, a Wight who rolls 3/2 can pick any skill from the General or Strength categories. Rolling a double (1/1, 2/2, 3/3 etc) means you can take any skill from the Normal or Double categories. In practice, the way the game is designed, rolling a double gives you full access to the General, Agility, Passing and Strength categories. Some units have access to the Mutation category, on either a Double or a Normal. But these are the grosser, more mutated teams rather than our simply rotting, undead team. If you roll a 10 (4/6, 5/5 (which can also let you pick a double skill), or 6/4) you can choose to, rather than pick a skill, give your player a permanent +MA or +AV. Rolling an 11 (6/5 or 5/6) lets you choose to take a normal skill or a permanent +AG. 6/6 lets you pick between any skill, normal or double, or a +ST.

As you can see there are 6 skill categories. The "Extraordinary" skills are skills which cannot be picked on a levelup, and they're assigned to players at the start. So, all of the Negatraits are in this category (You can see Loner, Take Root, and Decay there). Let's go through the skill categories briefly.

General - This category contains the basic, utility skills which can often be the most useful, or some of the more specific, technical skills. You'll notice that both Block and Frenzy are in this category. Also in this category are Tackle and Wrestle, skills which negate Dodge and Block respectively. Again, skill metagaming is something for a whole other update, but it's important to note because most teams have access to these skills, and most of the essential skills for any unit are located here. In general, Big Guys do not have normal access to these General skills, but almost every other unit does. You can imagine the frustration of having an ST 5 guy who cannot get block trying to punch a little guy with Dodge and Block.

Agility - This is the home of the agile. Agility skills typically aid with ballhandling and movement around the pitch. There are also skills which help a bit with agile defense. As the name implies, this is typically only available to more agile players on a normal levelup.

Passing - These are skills which help with passing the ball good, or avoiding passing the ball bad (depending on how you want to look at it). Necromantic don't have any players with Normal access to Passing skills, as they don't rely much on the pass game. Pretty much the only unit with natural Passing access are Throwers on various teams, elven or otherwise.

Strength - Skills that help you punch, maim, kill and be generally buff. Stand Firm is a Strength skill, and you know how much I love Stand Firm. Big Guys and general rough-and-tumble punchin dudes get access to these skills.

Mutation - Mutation skills are so much fun. They can do a bunch of crazy stuff. Claw is a mutation skill. So, notice that the Werewolf doesn't have Mutation access, even on doubles, yet gets to start with Claw. Pretty cool. These skills also modify your character in the game, so giving a player Two Heads will literally graft a second head onto his in-game model.


Phew, that was a lot of information. And it was only the first in a series. A lot of this stuff is fairly easy to pick up on as more matches get played, though. So we'll probably do a match or two before I crank out a huge effortpost like this again.

If there's any game concept you want to know about, be sure to ask. Myself or one of the other jerks around here will be more than willing to answer.

I've also neglected to mention that said jerks (myself included) typically hang out in an IRC channel, #tgbloodbowl on SynIRC. If you want to play matches against goons, this is the place to go and ask. We also have IRC bots which contain a bunch of game knowledge. We're pretty forgiving to newbies (because we like fresh blood) so feel free to pop in and ask for a match or some pointers.

USEFUL RESOURCES
FUMMBL Main Help Page - http://fumbbl.com/help:
FUMBBL Race Strategy Page - http://fumbbl.com/help:LRB6RaceStrategy
Blood Bowl IRC Channel - #tgbloodbowl at SynIRC

GNU Order fucked around with this message at 15:15 on May 11, 2014

Mightypeon
Oct 10, 2013

Putin apologist- assume all uncited claims are from Russia Today or directly from FSB.

key phrases: Poor plucky little Russia, Spheres of influence, The West is Worse, they was asking for it.

Rorahusky posted:

Haha, wow. That Skink must be an absolute magnet for blitzes though. Kinda surprised he isn't half crippled from all the hate he must get. That's practically 1-Turn Touchdown Gutterrunner level of bullshit there.

This is not a great Skink.

https://fumbbl.com/p/player?player_id=7192383

This is a great skink!

Btw, it got niggled when a Rookie Linerat blocked her, and forgot about her being S4 and having Block/dodge.

Double Pow
Niggle


Nuffle giveth and Nuffle taketh away.

goatface
Dec 5, 2007

I had a video of that when I was about 6.

I remember it being shit.


Grimey Drawer
Elf trees and halfling trees are not the same. Only the elf ones have loner, presumably because the 'fling one gets a friend.

StoryTime
Feb 26, 2010

Now listen to me children and I'll tell you of the legend of the Ninja
Name the new dog Лайка, or Laika.

StoryTime fucked around with this message at 22:48 on May 11, 2014

PotatoManJack
Nov 9, 2009
How did I miss this until now?

So glad that a new BB LP is going, and double happy that it's Necromantic - only THE BEST TEAM EVER.

There's a bit of debate around which is the best piece / positional / player (whatever you want to call the units) in the game. Some of the standouts that people generally refer to are (amongst others):

Wood Elf Wardancer (a.k.a. Warfucker)
Pro Elf Catcher (a.k.a. bullshit rear end in a top hat)
Skaven Gutter Runner (a.k.a never drop the ball ever or you lose)
Chaos Warrior

But for my money, the best piece in the game is the Werewolf. There are only a few pieces that get 8 movement. Amongst them, none get armour of 8 (meaning they can take a punch decently) except for the Werewolf. But better yet, the WW also starts with claw meaning he is scary as gently caress when he punches people. If you can roll one set of doubles on a WW when you level up and get Mighty Blow you basically have a lightning fast murder machine that can score touchdowns.

So, with all that said Save for a Wolf Named Team Jacob

OG Necromancer
Jan 20, 2014

StoryTime posted:

Name the new dog

Change my vote to Introducing the "newd dog"............. peaches :sbahj:

Veloxyll
May 3, 2011

Fuck you say?!

PotatoManJack posted:


Skaven Gutter Runner (a.k.a never drop the ball ever or you lose)


Fuckin rats, man.

Agent355
Jul 26, 2011


:allears: Skaven.

Me and yapo have a bonus game planned for some point where we finally do LP rats vs LP norse and see who comes out the victor ( I will have more points and all my players will be dead).

Dunno when thats going to roll around though.

Blackmage Yapo
Mar 27, 2008

Odin You Sad I Have
All The SPP

Agent355 posted:

:allears: Skaven.

Me and yapo have a bonus game planned for some point where we finally do LP rats vs LP norse and see who comes out the victor ( I will have more points and all my players will be dead).

Dunno when thats going to roll around though.

Imagine a flolem punching linerats forever.

Also I have an incredible record against rats.

NZ Chrysis
Aug 14, 2008
You forgot to point out the major disadvantage for a MA 2 Treeman. It costs 3 MA to stand up, so if (admittedly a fairly big if) the Treeman falls down he's dependent on a d6 roll (4+?) to even stand up.

goatface
Dec 5, 2007

I had a video of that when I was about 6.

I remember it being shit.


Grimey Drawer
Which is why +MA treemen are so valuable (they just get up), and the fling treeman without loner is much better (you can actually reroll that poo poo if you really need to).

V. Illych L.
Apr 11, 2008

ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

Halfling sides are ridiculously weak, though. The treemen are the only good thing about them.

Steelpudding
Apr 21, 2010

I've got Balls of Steel!
You can compare the halfling and wood elf trees, but wood elves don't even need the tree. It's just a big liability because it's slow and occasionally takes root and is a loner. So basically it's the worst player of the team.

goatface
Dec 5, 2007

I had a video of that when I was about 6.

I remember it being shit.


Grimey Drawer
Yeah, I don't think I could ever recommend the tree for "serious" welf play. They're the exact opposite of the rest of the team.

GNU Order
Feb 28, 2011

That's a paddlin'

NZ Chrysis posted:

You forgot to point out the major disadvantage for a MA 2 Treeman. It costs 3 MA to stand up, so if (admittedly a fairly big if) the Treeman falls down he's dependent on a d6 roll (4+?) to even stand up.

Yeah, for sure.

There was a bit left unsaid about Big Guys in that writeup but I'm sure we'll cover them in more depth. That fact still serves the point I was making about Big Guys, that their high Strength comes at a big cost to playing ability.

For explanation, it costs 3 movement to stand your player up. So, if my MA 8 Werewolf gets knocked down, my next turn I can only move him 5 squares away from the square he's laying down in. If you don't have the 3 MA to spend to stand up, you have to make a 4+ Stand Up roll, failing the roll doesn't cause a turnover but leaves your tree prone. Knocking down such a high Strength unit is obscenely hard and often counterproductive to scoring, but he can just as easily knock himself down on a bad block. So giving your tree +MA allows you to avoid that 4+ Stand Up roll which makes the tree a bit more manageable but still leaves him with a lot of the flaws that come with the Big Guy lyfe.


New match video should be up some time today.

uPen
Jan 25, 2010

Zu Rodina!

goatface posted:

Which is why +MA treemen are so valuable (they just get up), and the fling treeman without loner is much better (you can actually reroll that poo poo if you really need to).

Since big guys don't have block they're easier to knock down than their strength would make you think. If you throw a -2DB at a tree you've got a 44% chance to knock it down if you've got a RR, 25% without. If you've got a 40k zombie standing next to a 110k tree you might as well throw a 25% punch at it, if a tree falls down it's basically out of the game for the rest of the drive while nobody really gives a poo poo if a zombie eats a mighty blow attacker down.

PotatoManJack
Nov 9, 2009
It's also what makes Mummies and Tomb Guardians much better Big Guys. Usually in the game, Strength of 5 comes with the drawback of one of the negatraits + loner (take root, really stupid, bonehead, wild animal). Mummies are Strength 5 but have no real negatrait (unless you consider the Mummy's movement of 3 a negatrait) which makes them great players. Tomb Guardians do get decay as a negatrait however, making them a little bit more fragile in the long term, but generally it's not that big a deal and is a fine trade off for a 4 movement strength 5 player.

Feinne
Oct 9, 2007

When you fall, get right back up again.
Your real negatrait is how lovely most of the team is at touching the ball.

GNU Order
Feb 28, 2011

That's a paddlin'

e- whoa this video got broke huh

GNU Order fucked around with this message at 13:50 on May 15, 2014

Sindai
Jan 24, 2007
i want to achieve immortality through not dying
At the 7 minute mark the audio cuts out and I just hear pulsing static. Is it just me?

Obliterati
Nov 13, 2012

Pain is inevitable.
Suffering is optional.
Thunderdome is forever.
Nope, I get it too.

Veloxyll
May 3, 2011

Fuck you say?!

Sounds like Gnu is bad at editing!

GNU Order
Feb 28, 2011

That's a paddlin'

Nah it was some weird problem with the audio encode, let's try again

:siren:Match 2:siren:
Fairly Elected (GNU Order, Necromantic) vs Send Help Now (Box wine, Pro Elf)

GNU Order fucked around with this message at 14:41 on May 15, 2014

Poil
Mar 17, 2007

Video and audio works great now, almost as great as that elf play. :allears:

Veloxyll
May 3, 2011

Fuck you say?!

Poil posted:

Video and audio works great now, almost as great as that elf play. :allears:

I suspect that, before the end of the half, there's going to be an :xcom: moment.

Edit: 4 square surfing is always the correct option.
5 square surfing even moreso.

SDS, you're wrong. Surfing the Ball Carrier is always AMAZING and you should do it any time you can.

Oh, it wasn't an :elves: moment, after all.
Well, it was, then it wasn't.

Veloxyll fucked around with this message at 16:54 on May 15, 2014

Steelpudding
Apr 21, 2010

I've got Balls of Steel!
Ahh! Pro elves! My second favorite elves.

Veloxyll posted:

SDS, you're wrong. Surfing the Ball Carrier is always AMAZING and you should do it any time you can.

Listen to this man! I can't really think of any situation where that's not the case, but if you can do it, you have to!

Feinne
Oct 9, 2007

When you fall, get right back up again.
Also there are totally elves that have armor value, they're called Dark Elves and they are the best because they have players who can leap around and dodge through tackle zones to frenzy crowd surf a dude and can stab fools. :colbert:

Veloxyll
May 3, 2011

Fuck you say?!

Feinne posted:

Also there are totally elves that have armor value, they're called Dark Elves and they are the best because they have players who can leap around and dodge through tackle zones to frenzy crowd surf a dude and can stab fools. :colbert:

All armour is 7 to a wolf.

Senerio
Oct 19, 2009

Roëmænce is ælive!
AV7: Steel. AV8: Paper. It's the truth. That's why Wolves are the worst at killing.

Blackmage Yapo
Mar 27, 2008

Odin You Sad I Have
All The SPP

Steelpudding posted:

Ahh! Pro elves! My second favorite elves.


Listen to this man! I can't really think of any situation where that's not the case, but if you can do it, you have to!

Big hand gunner is a pretty good reason to never surf the ball carrier.

jBrereton
May 30, 2013
Grimey Drawer
Weird to make the OTTD attempt with a Blitzer (a Catcher is one less square required, and that makes way more difference than Side Step imo), but OK, I guess. Good half!

Feinne posted:

Also there are totally elves that have armor value, they're called Dark Elves and they are the best because they have players who can leap around and dodge through tackle zones to frenzy crowd surf a dude and can stab fools. :colbert:
Also High Elves (but they are dull as dishwater).

senrath
Nov 4, 2009

Look Professor, a destruct switch!


I hope "I bet I can surf that guy." becomes the LP's mantra.

Steelpudding
Apr 21, 2010

I've got Balls of Steel!

senrath posted:

I hope "I bet I can surf that guy." becomes the LP's mantra.

Fat chance, he already missed so many surfs in the first match..

Cutscene Powers
Jun 7, 2010
Enjoying this LP a lot, first one on SA that has got me interested enough in the game to pick it up (with a fancy-pants Wood Elf team).

GNU Order
Feb 28, 2011

That's a paddlin'

senrath posted:

I hope "I bet I can surf that guy." becomes the LP's mantra.

If you want some surf-heavy Blood Bowl perhaps I can direct you to the Norse Democracy LP

Oh also here's the second half

:siren:Match 2, Second Half:siren:
Fairly Elected (GNU Order, Necromantic) vs Send Help Now (Box wine, Pro Elf)




Final Thoughts: Ick. Sure it was a fun match to do commentary on but I was not feeling it while I was playing. I sorta let the elfs have their way with me and get me spread out, which is disastrous for such a slow team. On paper it looks like I should have done better but hell, almost all of those casualties happened after the match was decided. Rookie elf teams are also pretty good from the start thanks to their AG4 and high movement. I may have been at a disadvantage walking into the match, that's no excuse. So, let's just move on and look forward. After all, we have our first level up to vote on, and it's gonna be a good one.

Blood Bowl Beginner's Strategy Addendum: One thing I never (at least I don't think I ever) mentioned in the videos that the astute Blood Bowl student may notice is that Pro Elf blitzers are the only AV8 unit on Pro Elfs, and yet I never punch them with the Werewolf to take advantage of Claw, trying to knock out the only unit for which Claw is applicable. And sure, getting those Blitzers out would probably change the tide of the match, however I am unjustifiably terrified of Block+Side Step and how it affects Frenzy blocks. Side Step not only takes control of where an opponent goes when you punch them out of your hands, it opens up their placement possibilities. So, if my Werewolf (without block) has a 2db lined up on a Pro Elf Blitzer, unless I can knock him down on the first punch, he can probably Sidestep into a place where I don't have a player to assist the followup punch. So, I punch him straight into a 1db. Him having block is especially bad because that means I am equally as likely to knock him down as I am to go down myself. Sure, it's possible to move players in such a way where that second Frenzy block is a 2db as well, but at that point you're dedicating a lot of players to punching this stupid shifty rear end in a top hat. The important takeaway here is to be careful when you throw punches, and always try to think about the consequences. Look at your own skills, and your opponent's skills as well. Plan for the worst and, if you absolutely need to, roll the dice and pray for the best.

Anyway, time to vote!

What skill (or stat increase) do we give MacGruff?

e- From now on I'll be putting a deadline on voting, this vote ends Sunday the 18th at Noon CST (aka America Time aka God's Own Timezone)

GNU Order fucked around with this message at 02:53 on May 17, 2014

Seven Deadly Sins
Apr 5, 2009

I stole something that would make me fabulously wealthy...

But I eated it.
So, after quite the barn-burner at the end there, we've got our first level up! Our (currently lone) werewolf, MacGruff, has gotten especially lucky, and rolled a 6-4 on his level up. Rolling a 10 makes additional options available: +MA and +AV, as well as the normal skill bonuses. As a result, we've got a couple options, though there's really only one of them that we should consider:

+MA: Anyone who plays Necromantic will tell you that a +MA wolf is one of the most awesome things you can possibly roll. MA is a stat that is exponentially more awesome the more if it you have (and exponentially shittier the less you have as well, going from 6ma to 5ma from an injury is super awful), and 9 MA is actually getting into one-turn-touchdown territory. Having 9 MA means that nothing short of a Gutter Runner can even keep up with it. This makes MacGruff straight loving awesome, and on top of that, makes it easier to score with him, thus securing even more levels on him and letting him get his "normal" levels faster. Additionally, +MA can only be received in 1/12 of levels, meaning that if you pass up +MA, you're not likely to get it again any time soon. Double additionally, getting one +MA means you can get a second one, and a 10 MA player is absolute bullshit. To cap it off, MacGruff got an MVP, meaning he's only 5 SPP away from his next level, and 9 MA means he can easily get 2 TDs in the next game with a little luck, allowing us to immediately get other important skills and start fostering a super-player.

However, there's nothing stopping us from picking up a normal skill instead. Generally, for a Werewolf, there are two standard first skills:

Block: This really should be the first level for any non-lineman player, and most linemen as well. It's an all-in-one defensive and offensive skill that not only makes your offensive blocking more reliable, but also makes your players harder to knock down by the opponent. The number of players with block is a team-defining aspect, and is why an entire team of AV7 AG3 players is even viable, let alone ridiculously metal. Barring luck, like early doubles or stats, most players should pick up Block first.

Dodge: An almost purely defensive skill, Dodge makes our Werewolf much harder to knock over early on when opposing teams don't have much Block and even less Tackle. It also makes the Werewolf harder to mark, and can save us rerolls in a pinch. However, Dodge is rarely a good first choice on a blockless AG3 player, as even with a reroll, dodging is still not reliable enough to make it a consistent play, and it doesn't contribute especially well to scoring (like +MA does) or murderclawing (like Block does).

p.s.: elf ded, all rejoice

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uPen
Jan 25, 2010

Zu Rodina!
+AV, since we're necromantic we don't have an apothecary so we should invest in keeping our ultra-expensive, super-powerful wolves on the pitch.

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