Nufflenomics: Strip Ball

Strip ball is a skill that makes me play much much worse if I remember my opponent has it. It scares the beejebus out of me, but should it? How effective is it? As I’m taking Norse to a tournament this weekend, I thought I’d look into it.

What does it do?

Strip ball allows an attacking player to make an opponent carrying the ball drop it when they hit them with a blitz and push them back, as long as that player does not have the sure hands skill.

Effectively, when you hit a player carrying the ball, if you get a push result (or a defender stumbles result and the player has dodge) then the ball gets knocked loose when it wouldn’t previously have done so.

The effect

This means that hitting the ball carrier with a strip ball player should be more likely to result than hitting with any other player. How more likely is it, though?  It’s quite easy to calculate, although there are a number of different scenarios in terms of the relative skills for the players and the number of dice rolled. The below tables show these, along with a brief explanation of what the scenario is and the percentage chance of knocking the ball loose.

In all of these scenarios, the ball carrier does not have Sure Hands.

Scenario 1

The opponent has no defensive skills that you don’t have a counter for, and a both down is fine for you.

In this scenario, you have either block or wrestle – or are happy to accept a both down and turnover – and your opponent doesn’t have block or dodge, or if they do then you have the appropriate skill to counter that - e.g. wrestle or tackle.  Three results are good without strip ball, five results are good with it.

Dice rolled	Without Strip Ball	With Strip Ball	Increase
1	50%	83%	33%
2	75%	97%	22%
3	88%	100%*	12%
2 uphill	25%	69%	44%
3 uphill	13%	59%	46%

 * Not actually 100% but rounded to it. 

Scenario 2

The defender has one defensive skill that you haven’t cancelled.

In this situation, two results are good without strip ball, but four results are good with it. So it could be that the defender has block (and you don’t have wrestle), or they defender has dodge, the attacker doesn’t have block and you wouldn’t be happy with a both down and a turnover.

Dice rolled	Without Strip Ball	With Strip Ball	Increase
1	33%	67%	33%
2	56%	89%	33%
3	70%	96%	26%
2 uphill	11%	44%	33%
3 uphill	4%	30%	26%

 

Scenario 3

The defender has 2 defensive skills that you haven’t countered.

The defender has both block and dodge, and you don’t have any way to cancel these. Or if they have dodge but no block, you wouldn’t be happy with a both down result. In this scenario, only one result is good without Strip Ball but four results are good with it.

Dice rolled	Without Strip Ball	With Strip Ball	Increase
1	17%	67%	50%
2	31%	89%	58%
3	42%	96%	54%
2 uphill	3%	44%	42%
3 uphill	0%	30%	29%

 

Scenario 4

The defender has one defensive skill you haven’t countered.

This Is similar to scenario 2 but it is very specifically that the defender has dodge and you don’t have tackle, and you either have block or would be happy with a both down result. In this situation two results are good without Strip Ball but five are good with it.

Dice rolled	Without Strip Ball	With Strip Ball	Increase
1	33%	83%	50%
2	56%	97%	42%
3	70%	100%	29%
2 uphill	11%	69%	58%
3 uphill	4%	58%	54%

 

What can we learn from these numbers?

There are a few things that we can be aware of. First, the use of Strip Ball is most effective against blodgers (scenario 3) where you increase your chance by at least 50% when you’re not making an uphill block.  If you’re prepared to throw a re-roll at it, a 1 die block will knock the ball lose 89% of the time against a Blodger if you have Strip Ball.

What is worth noting is that a three die uphill block will knock the ball loose at least 30% of the time. That is, you will avoid skulls and both downs on all three dice. If you are prepared to throw a re-roll at it, you will knock the ball loose 51% of your time.

With 2 die uphill blocks, you’ve got a 44% chance of knocking the ball loose and 69% if you’re happy to use a re-roll. This makes it significantly likely that you will be able to pop the ball.

This shows what an incredibly powerful skill this can be. However, it will only be effective if you are able to engineer a shot on the ball carrier. There are likely to be certain teams that are more able to do so than others.

You also need to remember that it is a skill that you will only use when your opponent has the ball, so you’d imagine that for most teams around half the time, it won’t even come in to play. It might encourage you to score quickly and therefore get on defence so that you can attempt to utilise the skill again.  This is unlike other skills that will also knock the ball loose such as wrestle or tackle, which can be effective both on offence and defence.

Who can make good use of Strip Ball?

There are a few teams for whom strip ball works really well.

Vampires – combining this with juggernaut on a blitzer and using hypnotic gaze to make a path to the ball carrier is one of the safest ways of using strip ball to great a turnover.

Slann and Wood elves – both of these can use high agility players to either dodge or jump into a cage to get the block on the ball carrier, and potentially use the same tricks to escape with the ball. Wood elves have the advantage dodging into a cage as their wardancers (and catchers but wardancers are the ones for the skill) come with dodge. Slann have the advantage jumping in, due to the number of players who can do so, and also the Pogo Stick trait which allows unmodified jumping. They probably have the advantage over wood elves because of this as they’re able to jump a player with Guard in before jumping in a player with Strip Ball.

Other elves and skaven can also make good use of it, although not quite so much. Skaven would likely be dodging a gutter running into a cage for an uphill block, and other elves don’t start with all of the tricks of wardancers.

Stunty teams can make good use of Strip Ball, although it will be a secondary skill for them. With the unmodified dodging, it is easy for one player to dodge into a cage for an uphill block, and then another player to dodge in to attempt to retrieve the ball. The downside for them is that a player with Strip Ball might be more easily removed by an opponent than other teams who can benefit.

Amazons can potentially benefit well from Strip Ball. Whilst they are less likely to successfully dodge into a cage with blitzer than an elf is, they are likely to have their blockers around to use Defensive to cancel Guard on any retaliatory strikes, and they may even be able to get their guard in the right place. However I think I would prefer Wrestle as a choice on the blitzers as it synergises with Jump Up.

Other teams that could potentially use strip ball to combo with their innate skills are Khorne (to combo with the juggernaut on the khorngors) and Imperial Nobility (to combo with the wrestle on the bodyguards. Neither of these are effective as the other options, however having fallen foul of a cage diving wrestle bodyguard previously, I know that it can work.

And what have I learned about using it for Norse? At the moment, not a lot. The Valkyries start with it and can likely engineer 1 die blocks (even on stronger players due to Dauntless) with effective assistance from their friends cancelling other assists. However, they don’t have the agility of Slann, Vampires or Wood Elves and so it will be a case of ensuring that I strike at the right moment.

Conclusion

Strip Ball is an excellent skill that vastly improves turnover opportunities, however it is a skill that will be redundant a lot of the time. The one turn it is important, though, it is Very Important. Game winningly so.

There will be times when it’s the wrong choice - I can’t see orcs making good use of it, for example – so it is important to factor it in to your overall game plan when making the decision to add the skill to one of your players.