Mastering Ogres Part 3: Skills and development

Today is skills and development.

As this is a tournament focused series, I'm gonna focus on the specific comp pack as linked before in the first part.

As a reminder, we get 10 skills, 2 can be secondary and 1 player can have 2 skills allocated. If a star player is taken you get 3 less skills.

Ogres: Primary Skills

ARM BAR (ACTIVE) — The ability to mighty-blow people who fail to dodge away is useful, but in a tournament setting, it is likely to be low odds of occurring. I won't be putting this on an ogre, but might consider it as a 2nd or 3rd skill in league.

BRAWLER (ACTIVE) — Block's little brother. I might consider taking this on an ogre as it increases the likelihood of succeeding on a straight block by a small amount: 21.3% fail vs 25.92% without, once you factor in Bone Head. Might be worth looking at, but I'm not expecting people to stay based with my ogres, so the ability to use this may be limited.

BREAK TACKLE (ACTIVE) — Ogres dodging on a 1+ once per turn. Amazing! Very strong, maybe worth taking as a one-of somewhere on the team. A quick run of the post-Bone-Head maths means you dodge away approx 70% of the time. But this is less useful on ogres because of Bone Head.

BULLSEYE (ACTIVE) — Accurate TTM rolls don't scatter. This would be amazing paired with Strong Arm, or if the Punter was allowed to take it. Maybe again for a dedicated launchpad, but in this specific format I'm not sure I want to stack Strong Arm/Bullseye on an ogre.

GRAB (ACTIVE) — A very useful skill, denying sidestep and changing the pushback rules on a successful block. Again, on an ogre this could be amazing as a second or third skill, but as I'm expecting most opposition teams to stay away from my big guys, free blocks are going to be rare, and skills with a higher uptime are probably going to be better.

GUARD (ACTIVE) — Making it easier to make 3D blocks and reducing the opportunities for other teams to get 1 and 2 dice blocks against the big guys. Love it, will probably take at least one or two. At the very least it results in one ogre that doesn't need to test to activate to be useful. Only works while not distracted.

JUGGERNAUT (ACTIVE) — More reliable blitzes are great. Forcing this ogre to functionally have no skills unless he is declared the blitz for the turn and remembers he's playing Blood Bowl… less good. However, as a skill, I can see a use for it, especially vs teams with Fend or Wrestle; amazing on Minotaurs or similar players in teams where the big guy is the dedicated blitzer. For ogres, it slides down the priority a little.

MIGHTY BLOW (ACTIVE) — The ogres already have this. Cannot duplicate.

MULTIPLE BLOCK (ACTIVE) — This could be funny. But it massively increases the chance I fall over vs everything likely to base an ogre. Hard pass. Maybe, maybe only if I end up with a ST6 ogre in league, he might consider this.

STAND FIRM (ACTIVE) — Very cool control skill. Stops opponents from blocking the big guys away. Much better on things like a Krox, a mutated big guy with Tentacles/Tail, or similar. People are more likely to dodge away than risk blocking an ogre away.

STRONG ARM (ACTIVE) — A flat +1 on Throw Teammate. I wish a Runt Punter could take this skill! Will likely consider at least one regular ogre picking this up as my primary Runt Tosser should the Punter get tied up.

THICK SKULL (PASSIVE) — The ogres already have this. Cannot duplicate.

Ogres: Secondary Skills

BLOCK (ACTIVE) — Any ogre getting a free secondary skill is getting Block. It has no skill that turns it off, and it works in defence or offence.

I do need to check the wording on Bone Head and Block, as it's an Active skill, so you may be unable to use it when DISTRACTED.

There are others available, but with only 2 secondary skills available and no elite tax the fat bois are getting some Block on.

Gnoblars

If I take 6 ogres and duplicate a skill on one, then I will have 3 skills to distribute to a gnoblar, as I expect these players to die rapidly. I'll cherry-pick the main five skills I'd grab for a gnoblar from the Agility and Devious lists.

DIRTY PLAYER — For those times when you have knocked a key player down and failed to break armour, walk a Gnoblar up and put the boot in. More removal = "more good" in a team with this much strength and Mighty Blow baked in. I may be only speed 5, but if you have no players, I can just walk the ball in! Increases the chance of the player being sent off, as you're gonna try to foul more, but I have more gnoblars than I know what to do with anyway!

DIVING TACKLE — Gnoblars are already annoying. This skill means that even if you do manage to block/blitz one, dodge and sidestep means that he may still be in position to apply the crippling modifier to a key dodge.

QUICK FOUL — Gnoblars don't want to be anywhere near the victims of their fouls. This may be useful to slink away after trying to kick a downed player's teeth in!

SURE FEET — Increases the success rate on a single Rush/GFI to 97.2%, and 92.59% to succeed on two. Very useful for getting gnoblars places they shouldn't be, or pushing for a TD.

2nd DIRTY PLAYER or LONE FOULER — Just abuse the deep bench and take a second fouling threat.

Passing (Runt Punter only)

LEADER — Likely an auto-include. 1 extra reroll. I think I need them. Keep the Runt Punter safe and watch as the whole team gets marginally better.

So, that's my rundown on skills. I know I focused mostly on the ogres… but they're such a large part of the mass of the team, they kinda have their own gravity!

See you soon for the next part!