Ah, the humble Halfling Hopeful, how he hops around the pitch hoping for a hand-off from one of his homies before being hurled hopefully by the humungous hand of a Treeman.
Alliteration aside, it’s hard to write a good Halfing Hopeful Player Build because, well, they just don’t live long enough for such a guide to actually be of use! Most of the time the Hopefuls end up seriously injured, dead, or just fired because they’re too costly to keep and a Rookie Hopeful is actually better to have for that sweet, sweet inducement money. One of the biggest strengths of the halfling team is to be able to field amount of players without a big TV Value, so Halflings with Skills are often sacked when the reach their second skill, as Deeproot or a Chef are far, far more useful.
There are, however, some things worth noting with the new edition. The biggest one being you can horde SPP until they get enough to spend it on a Random Characteristic. At first level, this is 18spp which, as any experienced Halfling coach will know, is a very big number for the average Hopeful to reach before their imminent demise. What this means is you can just keep saving and saving if you need to keep your TV down for DR/Chef levels of cash, then see if you roll for pretty much anything other than an AV/PA increase.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that one of the old builds, the scorer, has kind of been taken over by the new Catcher, so go check out our builds for them if you’re looking for a scoring Halfling. You can still use them for it (getting AG2+ is what you want) but the Catcher has some skills baked in that make it much better for less TV.
With that said, let’s look at some Hopeful Player Builds!
Randomised Skills:
Let’s start off by talking about randomised advancements, shall we?
Halflings are cheap and hard to get SPP on, so the new option to grab a cheap random Primary is VERY tempting. I find, particularly early on in a league, you’ll have a bunch of Halflings who are stuck on 3SPP as more often than not, you won’t have much choice in which ‘Ling you score with (with the exception of Catchers), so being able to grab one early on is a pretty big bonus for this team.
When it comes to Primaries there’s not much wrong in the Agility section, all things considered, if you get something a bit naff for a Halfling like Leap or Diving Catch, you can easily replace him anyway. Even Defensive or Safe Pair of Hands might find some use for 3SPP, with the rest being fairly useful as well.
I’m less keen on Random Secondaries, however. The great thing about the Random Primaries is they already have Dodge, so the pool of skills is pretty small with most of them being useful. In contrast, the Secondary pool is MUCH larger and there’s a lot of Skills that are pretty much useless on a Halfling, If you even manage to get one to 9ssp and which point, you may as well continue until you can select a skill, or go all the way for a Characteristic.
A Very Hopeful Halfling | Halfling Hopeful Player Build
Primaries: Side Step/Diving Tackle/Sure Feet
Secondaries: Block/Wrestle/
Characteristics: AG/MV
Other than the blank Hopeful, this will probably be where you want to go if you manage to get some SPP on the poor buggers. Side-Step gives you some nice manoeuvrability on a very slow piece and can help you get into positions away from a tackle or to limit the number of tackle zones you have to stunty through. Diving Tackle gives you some anti-elf as well, much needed as fast teams with Dodge will run past you time and time again and this will be far more valuable than tackle on an Str2 ‘ling. If you decide to go for lots of Skills, Sure Feet will make that Nuffle-Awful MV5 somewhat manegable.
For Secondaries, Block, of course, is useful as it’s pretty hard for this team to get it easily. Wrestle is a good one as well and more often than not will come in handy if you need to make a last-minute takedown.
If you can get them a bunch of SPP, then either MV or AG will help you immensely. AG is the big winner here as you’ll be Dodging on a 2+ with a ReRoll no matter where you go or how many TZ’s you gotta run through. MV isn’t half bad either, giving you average movement, something you’ll be surprised about how good it is when you finally get it! ST isn’t a bad one to get, mostly as it reduces the amount of 3 Die Blocks you’re gonna be hit with. AV, still, isn’t really worth it as you’ll have ample players on the bench to replace them with, and AV7 isn’t great anyway.
Backup Scorer | Halfling Hopeful Player Build
Primaries: Catch/Sprint/Sure Feet/SideStep
Secondaries: Block
Characteristics: AG/MV
The Catchers are your main offensive threat (hahahahahahaha) but if you manage to get that sweet sweet AG or MV buff, it’s definitely worth building another ‘Ling capable of scoring. Getting essentially a +1 to land much better if you can get it and makes your TTM’s much more likely to go ahead, as well as making your dodges easier to boot if your opponent has planned for it. An MV buff will also mean a not-great throw gives you more of a chance to either be in range or roll one fewer Rushes. Block as well is a nice one to grab if you can, giving you another layer of protection and SideStep will allow you to redirect your angle of attack if you can’t quite make it to the TD zone in one go, plus if you get hit you can try and manoeuvre yourself towards or next to a Tree.
Having one of these wouldn’t be bad, but your Catchers have the skills they need baked in so you’ll just be having a spare at hand when the Catchers inevitably fall on their face. Not a bad thing to have, but if you’re leaning into an inducement heavy build you’ll need to consider seeing if it’s worth waiting for a MV or AG bonus.
Kicker/Fouler | Halfling Hopeful Player Builds
Secondaries: Kick/Dirty Player
Characteristics: MV/ST
Two builds in one I know, but with the new SPP system I think it’s worthing saving up a few SPP for some cheeky secondaries to grab a Fouler or Kicker.
The Kicker really needs Kick (duh) and nothing else, keep him cheap, keep him simple. As for the Fouler, Dirty Player then Sneaky Git are the obvious choices and then nothing more. Fouls are often part of the Halfling game plan, so combining these with a Bribe means you can get a decent amount of boots into the guts of a downed player before getting sent off which a good chance of breaking armour, it’s not hard to get assists either with some nearby Halflings dodging to take part in the dogpile.
So there you have it, the Halfling Hopeful Player Builds! As mentioned, these dudes are pretty hard to get SPP on, with their general lack of survivability and the new Catcher’s hogging the TD SPP they’d have otherwise gotten. Still, the odd Touchdown and maybe even Casualty could grab them the odd bit of experience, so use it well or just sack em for another cheap rookie. Remember, Deeproot & Chef are more important!!!
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