OCC Season 21 Division 7A

The division lineup looks like this:
Everblue - Happy Hardcore - Underworld 
Aguelo - Sons of Nuffle - Nurgle 
magfa - Voluptuous Vixen - Amazon 
Zephire79 - Dellirium - Elf 
mrs0x - The Hardwoods - Wood Elf
Blackcat75 - Mutation Z - Chaos
 TheGreatEye - IronForge Vikings - Dwarf - 
Evander Clintonious - Glam's Dancers - Wood Elf

Sir Mewash - sweaty slippers - Undead

juniooor7 - Plague of fear - Necromantic

Not a bad start for me. What I didn't want early on was high armour teams heavy on block and tackle, and so only the dwarf team is really nasty. Here is my roster.

And so, without further ado - on to the report of the first game!

Happy Hardcore (underworld, me) vs Dellirium (elf, Zephire)

Zephire is one of the founders of the OCC, who devotes a huge amount of time, energy and money to the league, and I was determined to meet him with the appropriate amount of respect. And also to kill all his dudes.

He won the toss and elected to receive, and straight away I rolled a blitz! A good start. I couldn't make much of it though as my setup had been defensive and most of my players were deep. I blitzed with a blitzer against a catcher but didn't break armour. In return he picked the ball up with his thrower and dropped deep. We exchanged punches along the line, and he made it clear he expected to win the bash war despite my dodge on my goblins and his lacking an apo.

As it was I was able to get in an early casualty, smashing the ankle of one of his catchers with my blitzer Rave. I tried to throw a goblin to menace his thrower but was only able to fumble the goblin, breaking his back in the process. After 4 turns the elves were ready to strike, and passed the ball to a catcher who stalled near my end zone. I was able to badly hurt a lineman with Gabber the troll and run some players close to the ball carrier, and Zephire elected to score on turn 5.

I was feeling fairly confident at this stage, being a player up, and the next drive started well with me smashing the ankle of yet another catcher - this time the one who had just scored! I ran players through his line and made a tight cage in the centre. Everything started to go wrong from here though, and goblins began to leave the field - I lost four over the course of the game.

The elves flooded my cage, ignoring the receivers downfield. With the sidestep elf blitzers marking my goblins it was very tough to get clear of the cage, and I was forced to try to pass out of trouble, over a lineman. The lineman was covered by a goblin and needed a 6 to intercept, but the 6 duly appeared and my drive was halted by an interception! From here Zephire engineered a tricky escape from the scrum in centre field and was able to score on turn 8.

Despite a riot giving me two turns to score myself, and having 10 vs 8 by this time, I could not score and went in 2 down at the break.

In the second half the kick was very short and I had a bit of a brain melt and assumed it would be a touchback. I then had a further blond moment and decided to try to farm a pass on Techno, my other blitzer. This was fairly stupid and I rolled snake-eyes on the pass, which served me right. There was another massive fight around the ball and this time Dancemania the skaven thrower emerged with the ball, and again I needed to pass clear of the elves to two unmarked receivers. Again the same damn elf lineman was able to intercept however and in a heartbeat I was three down on turn 11.

Gah.

Determined to recover some pride, I played a rushing drive, and finally the elves started to break again, with three more departing to the injury box for a total of six casualties - four for Rave (blitzer), one for Techno (blitzer) and one for Gabber (troll). I was able to run in a consolation touchdown on turn 15.

It wasn't over yet however, and despite me rolling 8 block dice against his catcher Zephire was able to score a 2 turn touchdown to score a fourth: 4-1 the final score and a heavy defeat for Hardcore in their opening game.

Still, it was brilliant fun and despite playing like a half wit I really enjoyed the removal power of the underworld. Both blitzers levelled - one taking MB and the other claw - and I got SPP on 3 other skaven. A good day.

Looking back

And so we come to the end of the road for The Grey Haven Guard.

The final tally is: W30 D9 L15

They rank 6th in the all-time list of high elf teams in the OCC, just behind Viajero. The seasonal breakdown is

Season 15 – 6A – W4 D4 L1 – 4th
Season 16 – 4D – W7 D1 L1 – 2nd
Season 17 – 3A – W5 D1 L3 – 4th
Season 18 – 2D – W6 D1 L2 – 2nd
Season 19 – 1 – W3 D1 L5 – 7th
Season 20 – 2C – W5 D1 L3 – 3rd

After a slow start I began to get the hang of them, and aside from that catastrophic Tier 1 run I think my results were pretty good. I do find it hard to get past my Tier 1 record though – I picked high elves which are a fairly joyless team simply because they had the best stats and I wanted to win the OCC. I didn’t particularly like the playstyle or the look and feel of the race, but I wanted to be successful. And so I think my time as a high elf coach has been a failure. I’ve learned a lot, and I’m a much better player than I was 18 months (or so) ago, but I picked the team to win the league and fell a long way short.

I had some great moments – the 4-0 win against Antonlunau, for example in season 18, or both my wins against Luiggi (who is a first rate coach), but I keep thinking back to that 2-1 defeat to Muffin – the eventual OCC champion that season and I gave him a really hard game – only a 2+ catch away from a win and it turned into a loss.

The worst thing about playing high elves was that winning became everything. Since I was playing such a soulless team it was imperative to win (otherwise why play high elves in the first place?). That made me very depressed when, as I saw it, I got unlucky and lost – I really hated those games because playing in such a conservative way means that you don’t make many rolls but the ones you do make are absolutely crucial – if you fail those then you tend to struggle badly.

I’ve started to rediscover the joy in BB with my human team in the UKBBL – I don’t win anything like as much, but playing with such an underpowered team (at least compared to the high elves) is much more satisfying to me – a draw is a great result against some nightmare high TV bash side, and it’s even better if I can foul the crap out of one of their stars. I hope that the same will be true of my underworld team in due course.

Now it comes to say goodbye to the high elves, I find I will miss them a bit – particularly the unsung heroes or the players I’ve lost on the way. I don’t feel much love for Gil-Galad, for example, the stat-freak monster, I feel some affection for Alawe, Kevatononel and Tananmyr, who were with the team from the start. Alawe in particular was injured more times than any other player I have ever seen on any time – 12, over his career.

Alawe – High Elf Lineman – 6 3 4 8 – Block, Dodge, Guard 
Kevatononel – High Elf Lineman – 6 3 4 8 – Block, Dodge, Sidestep 

Two rock solid linemen. Alawe is good in a scrum and Kevatononel can protect the edges of my defensive line to make it hard for an opposing coach to switch sides quickly, plus side step is a good passive bash skill.

Tananmyr – High Elf Blitzer – 7 3 4 8 – Block, Dodge, Guard, Sidestep, Fend 

This guy has been the rock around which my team is based since the start. Blodgestep plus fend (“flodgestep”?) is a wonderful combination to have on your “edge” players – you put most of your team in the centre of the pitch, with only two flodgesteppers in the wide zones, and it suddenly becomes very hard for a bash team to score – they need to run round you to do so and blitzing your edge players is incredibly frustrating because even if they knock the guy down you can usually force them to dodge to get past.

More than 50 games played as an elf, including 27 in the meat grinder of high tier OCC, is pretty good going for an elf, and Tananmyr in particular never missed a game.

I was sad to see the back of Vanval, useless pixel-hugger that I am, albeit I have described him elsewhere. My other big regret is that Cheradenine Xakalwe died before he could really achieve anything. My blodge AG5 blitzer was killed by a wizard towards the end of season 15 (apo failed). This was my only AG5 player and I was just learning how to use him for the best when he was killed. I never rolled another +AG and so my team lost much of its unpredictability.

So those guys will be much missed. What I’ll do over the next couple of weeks is put down my thoughts on how to play high elves, and how to build the players.

Silence!

Hey

Sorry for the radio silence - I have fallen out of love with the high elves in a rather major way and I'm finding blogging to be somewhat difficult right now.

I have won one, drawn one and lost one in my last three games, with the defeat being pretty fucking terrible, and the draw seeing me lose yet another ST4 catcher - Anduril this time.

Two games left, and I will be rerolling to underworld for next season. The team is called Happy Hardcore, and the new season starts in early Jan and I will restart the blog there.

See you in 2014.

EB

Match Report: OCC Division 2D Game 4

The Grey Haven Guard (high elf, me) v Waaagh Dodgers (orc, Klauser)

I was expecting this to hurt, and it did.

Klauser is relatively unknown at the OCC since this is his first team, but he is a tier 1 coach over in the UKBBL with chaos dwarves and has a shockingly high win percentage. I was expecting a tough game. What's worse is that his team included two MB-tackle-piling on players, one with juggernaut to cancel out my wrestle. The blitzers were excellent all round. What was even worse than that is that after my mauling from Elfic last week I was down to just 10 fit players.

Surprisingly Klauser put £150k into the pot to buy a wizard, which gave me enough inducements for a apo.

I won the toss and elected to receive. I was hoping for a draw here, and my plan was essentially to play for 8 turns and hope to be winning by then, which would enable me to run away in the second half and get a draw, as Klauser would surely be too scared of my offence to score his TD before turn 16.

I knocked over his LOS of lineorcs without breaking armour and kept a relatively compact line in the centre. Klauser responded by aggressively marking up my players, spacing his black orcs out across the pitch. His centre was wide open though and I punched through with Vanval, knocking out a lineorc and running three players through the centre.

Klauser's juggernaut blitzer rushed back to break the leg of Anduril (ST 4 wrodge catcher), but could not quite close the pocket down. I felt sufficiently threatened to knock a gap for Gil-Galad, and Ecthelion passed him the ball to sprint clear for a turn 3 score. 1-0 to the Guard.

So now the period of time which would decide the game. I had 10 players to Klauser's 11, reduced to 9 v 11 when a wrestle lino was KO'd on the LOS. Klauser caged up tightly around an AG4 blitzer in the centre, and pushed his hard hitting players down both flanks. Since Klauser had again left the centre weak I moved Glorfindel into contact with the cage, since neither player on that side had tackle, and also got a wrestle lino into contact with the ball carrier by knocking down a cage corner. Klauser responded by cutting right and screening off the ball carrier, but badly miscalculated and I was able to make 1 2+ dodge and 2 GFIs to get a 2D block on the ball carrier by simply running Vanval (ST4 blodge, MB, tackle catcher) around the edge of his line.

It all started to go wrong here though as the ball scattered to another blitzer who caught it outright. Klauser attempted to recover but half of his players were stranded on the wrong side of the pitch. He inexplicably left Vanval alone, leaving Vanval to make a 3+ dodge with a reroll in order to get another 2D hit on the ball carrier. This failed though and Vanval was stunned.

It was looking pretty grim at this stage, but again I was allowed a chance on turn 8 to get the ball to safety, with Gil-Galad needing a 4+ dodge with a reroll to get a 2D hit in, but again this failed. 1-1 at half time.

So I set up with my players on the left, determined to let him score and try the 1 turner to equalise, but it all fell apart. Another positional mistake from Klauser right at the start of the half left me with a chance for a 2D hit on his ball carrier with Vanval, who needed only a 3+ dodge to dance through the orc line. There was no one near the ball carrier at this stage, and success would have allowed me to potentially run clear for a score. The dodge this time succeeded, but I rolled skull push, rerolled to double skulls. Vanval was then killed on the injury roll! The apo came on and offered to save his life at the expense of a niggle, but with a heavy heart I let my team's best player die.

Bayete Vanval. Heart of the team for 50 games. You will not be forgotten.

All hope of a draw had basically gone now, and Klauser closed the game out. I was trying to run my pieces away but he was quite merciless, piling on every turn and even using the wizard to try to get an injury on Gil-Galad (who was nowhere near the ball) on turn 15. Fortunately there was no more permanent damage and he scored on turn 16. I had only 5 players for the one turner so couldn't make it work, although farmed 1 SPP on Gil-Galad to take him to 76 SPPs as a consolation.

2-1 to the orcs.

So, farewell then Nesandton Vanval. My first ever superstar player on any team. My highest SPP player on any team with 124.
 

You joined the team after three games, rolling a double and taking mighty blow as your first skill. I fondly remember your first ever casualty caused, when you and two mates ganged up on the goblin player from an orc team and you killed him. Even with that sole double roll, you were the best player on the team even before rolling +1ST at 76SPPs.

At the time of your death you were the perfect combination of speed, strength and hitting power. A terrible loss.

But, we move on.

Gil-Galad rolled a double 3 for his superstar skill up, and after thinking hard about MB I took tackle. MB without tackle is weak and I have a lack of tackle on the team. With his speed and strength he's the perfect sweeper and deep sacker, and tackle will enable him to do that. I was advised to take guard by a couple of fellow coaches but I do not like AV7 guard at all and I think it's just a waste of his pace to keep him next to horrible MB players who would want to splatter him.

I am now in a position where my best sacker and best hitter are not the same person, which may be for the good of the team. My best hitter is now Legolas with his frenzy. Frenzy increases the chance of a depitching on an AV8 block player from 6% to 9%, with is significant enough to be worthwhile to blitz with wherever possible. Even against dodge players Legolas will be the best option. I will also need to concentrate on finding crowdsurfing opportunities.

My best sacker is Legolas, and if he survives to 51SPPs then I will have a ST4 wrackler, to make the ideal sweeper.




I have also bought a new catcher - Arwen - in the hope that giving her a girl's name will make people leave her alone until she has some skills.

Former OCC champion Fastshark and his chaos are next. With the death of Vanval a lot of my love for the team has gone. I started a new Norse team last night and am determined to reroll unless I get promoted this season.

The Masters Series

If I can take a moment to promote "The Masters Series", a set of videos showcasing some of the better players from around the major private leagues being compiled by Viajero of BBTactics.

In this second video you can even hear my wise words as I fumble about as co-commentator trying desperately to find something interesting to say before I get hauled away to do the dishes.

Match Report: OCC Division 2D Game 3

The Grey Haven Guard (high elf, me) v Nocturnals (dark elf, Tx)

I came into the game giving away 600k of inducements for the second time this season, against a dark elf team which had had its best player (ST5 blodge witch) killed by a 1 dice block from a player without tackle on MD1. Gosh. Suffice to say however not all was lost - still two exceptional players on the team in a POMB tackle witch and a +1MV +1ST blodge blitzer who had grabbed his ST boost after the previous game. There was also some guard and a ST4 lineman. So overall in terms of first team ability we were not all that badly matched - much of my TV advantage was in my deeper bench - but still my chances on paper were very good.

But then Nuffle intervened. Let me throw down a couple of numbers here. I took 8 (eight) casualties in the game. From a total of 40 blocks. So my opponent caused a casualty every 5 blocks. It was an absolute slaughter and far beyond anything I've experienced before - even against high TV chaos and orc teams, or even TheMuffinThief's killer necro werewolf in my four games against him in recent seasons.

Most of those casualties went to the killer witch.

On that basis there wasn't much I could do.

I won the toss and chose to kick, the plan being to force him to use the wizard to score and then to grind in 2-1. But, yeah, 6 cas and 2 KOs in the first half says no. I did what I could, and even knocked the ball loose at one stage, with 5 players on the field. Legolas ran forward and fractured the skull of his new ST4 blitzer on a 1D block (apo failed!), and Gil-Galad scooped up the ball. He failed a GFI trying to get some distance from that fucking witch elf ("TFWE") and stunned himself in the process. 1-0 to the Nocturnals on turn 8. I didn't have the manpower to get a 1 turner going and farmed a pass on Felastur, my new rookie lineman.

In the second half my KOs came back and I think I had 8 vs 10, and I kept the ball deep with Ecthelion and relatively compact in the centre, hoping for an overcommitment from Tx. This duly happened as the dark elves flooded forward, but unfortunately for me my players started to drop like flies again, and the wizard zapped Ecthelion, causing another casualty. The ball was picked up by a dark elf blitzer but Glorfindel knocked him over on a 1D block, and Cirdan continued his recent good form by dashing back, picking up the ball and hurling a long pass out to Tananmyr who scampered off towards the dark elf line.

He wasn't able to get completely safe, however, and was hauled down. TFWE ran back to pick up the ball and, with stars in her eyes, decided to try a long pass of her own but fumbled it (ha!). Tananmyr leaped to his feet and dodged into the end zone, leaving Felastur to complete a memorable match for him by picking the ball up at the feet of TFWE, dodging away and making a touchdown pass. 1-1 on turn 13.

I'd paid the price however and was down to five players to stop 11 dark elves for four remaining turns and, predictably, it was not enough. I got close - a 1D block on the ball carrier from my wrestle lineman knocked it loose, but I was hoping for a bounce off the pitch that never happened. Both my blitzers were thereabouts and being annoying, but I couldn't quite stop the cage. On turn 16 the dark elves sealed their win with TFWE performing a spectacular double surf (never seen that before - 2 of my players surfed from 1 blitz, brilliant play from Tx) and needing a 2+ from a hand off reroll, which duly appeared. 2-1 to the Nocturnals.

The one silver lining here was the lack of permanent damage. I took 4 MNG and 4 BH with an unused apo. I'll be missing Cirdan, Anduril (frenzy catcher), Elladan (DP lino) and Kevatononel (blodgestep lino) for my next game. All of those four have now had two MNG injuries or worse in the three games this season. It's been fairly brutal.

My next game is against Klauser - a really good bash coach with a very lean TV orc team. I will broadly match him on ST but he has a guard and armour advantage. He also has 5 tackle in the team and a vicious killer blitzer. I will only have 10 players and HE will have inducements! One of those games where at present I don't see how I can win - it will be very tough.

Match Report: OCC Division 2D Game 2

Mobile Blood Donations (vampires, JimmyC) v The Grey Haven Guard (high elf, me)

Remember those games last season where everything went wrong and I got completely nuffled. Well this game was like that.

Just the exact opposite.

With three linemen MNG I bought a new rookie lineman to get to 12 players, giving me enough inducements for a wizard. Jimmy's vamps are very well developed, with two AG5 vamps, one mighty blow tackle bruiser and a crop of sidesteppers and stand firm people.

I won the toss and, mindful of the wizard, elected to kick. The aim was to use the wizard to steal a TD and go in level or ahead at the break.

I got a perfect defence on the kickoff, which was good and saved me some pain from his MB vamp. He managed to KO a lineman with one of his LOS thralls, but, as was to become a theme in the first half, immediately afterwards one of his vampires bit a thrall slightly too hard, badly hurting him. 


So 10 vs 10 after the first turn with the ball in a tight cage in the centre of the pitch and I responded by pushing a few players around, making a solid enough defence in the centre and badly hurting one of his thralls with a block from Thingol (rookie lineman). Jimmy then ran a vamp around the right side of my line, and Vanval replied by charging over and punching him and I marked up the cage with my blodgestep-tackle blitzer Glorfindel.


Feeling the pressure, Jimmy pushed another vamp forward through my lines and shifted the cage to my right. Seeing an opportunity I called down the thunder on the ball carrier - zapping him. The ball bounced between a vamp and a thrall, and Vanval again opened the way, hitting the vamp and knocking him over. Gil-Galad sprinted his MV9 way around the edge of what was left of the vamp line, picked up the ball in a TZ, and flipped a quick pass to Glorfindel who dashed for the line. 


With no vamps able to get back, Jimmy repositioned to force the score and prevent stalling, but in doing so one of the vamps got peckish again which resulted in an injury to the AG5 thrall. Glorfindel took no chances and jogged home on turn 4 to make it 1-0 to the Guard. 


Another perfect defence on the kickoff blunted the vamps ability on the line once again, and again some ill-timed bloodthirsts (this time only resulting in stuns) meant there were gaps in the line. To make matters worse Jimmy rolled a 1 for the pickup, opting not to reroll. I think Jimmy had not expected how fast my players could move and I responded with a champagne play of top draw elvish bs.

First Vanval dashed forward again, pushing a vamp back to make a small gap. Cirdan (MV7 blodge accurage NoS thrower) hurtled forward, vaulting a despairing tackle, made 2 GFIs and picked up the ball from the feet of the vamp, then wound back his arm and, ignoring nearby markers passed the ball 25 yards backward into the waiting hands of Legolas in a pocket in the elvish half!

As if to punish Cirdan for his insolence, the enraged vampire tore into Cirdan in retaliation, killing him! Fortunately the elvish apothecary was on hand to patch up the brave elven thrower.

Legolas dropped back away from the vamps, who sent two vampires deep into my half to chase him down and players to either side. He also pushed his blodge, stand firm, DT blitzer into contact with my front line. I rolled 6 dice at this guy and could not get a pow, and so he stalled my advance on his own as I was forced to retreat into a tight cage. 

Jimmy gazed his way into the cage and managed to get a 1D hit on Legolas with his tackle vamp, but couldn't get a knockdown. He pushed him next to the DT vamp too, but again the (tackle-less) vamp only got a push. Vanval was having none of that, and dealt with the situation by killing the DT vamp (he was niggled, so Jimmy elected not to use the apo, regen then failed). Legolas was able to blitz free of the scrum and darted into the vamp half, supported by some rookie linemen. The vamps scrambled back and knocked the ball loose but the bouncing ball was caught by Thingol who made 2 dodges and 2 GFIs to score on turn 8. 2-0 to the Guard at half time. 

Receiving in the second half I knew the game would be over if I scored quickly and I was handed another slice of luck as one of the five remaining vamps was hit by a rock from the crowd and KO'd. I ran some players through the gap into the vamp half and tossed the ball back to Ecthelion. Jimmy was able to neutralise 3 of my receivers with gazes and a blitz, but Vanval was left standing and unmarked, so Ecthelion ran forward and passed the ball to Tananmyr, who handed it off to Vanval, who continued his good form with a TD. 3-0 to the Guard on turn 9. 

At this point in the game, mindful of the fact that the win was assured but that I had already used my apothecary, I offered Jimmy 3-1, with a few leisurely end turns and the opportunity for him to farm some passes by the end zone. He was having none of it though, and determinedly killed Earendil Brightwing (rookie lineman) on the LOS. Again he caged up on halfway and ran receivers round my line. I ignored them though and concentrated on pressuring the cage. Jimmy gazed his way clear and scored on turn 10. 3-1 to the Guard. 

I again received and dropped the ball deep to Ecthelion. I didn't run receivers forward but held a firm line. Jimmy sat back initially and we traded blitzes, Vanval capping an excellent game with another casualty - this time an MNG vamp. After a couple of turns though I realised I was out of rerolls - I'd been farming passes in the backfield and had forgotten to keep track. A stupid mistake but all of a sudden I had to play cautiously. I then needed to cage up as Jimmy had finally begun to put some pressure on Ecthelion. and I didn't cage securely enough and the vamps were able to gaze in and sack the ball carrier. 

Again I got lucky though and the ball scattered to Legolas. With no vamps able to stop him Legolas burst clear of the scrum and I scored on turn 16. 4-1 to the Guard at full time!