Discuss Fantasy football-style board games - GW's Blood Bowl, Impact!'s Elfball, Privateer Press' Grind, Heresy's Deathball, etc. THIS IS NOT AN NFL FANTASY FOOTBALL SITE!
The problem I've been facing is that elves are very, very good in defense against orcs. By utilizing a double line of elves one turn away from the cage, dodging away from tackle zones and picking out single orcs, they can slow down my offensive to a crawl. I loose badly whenever I see myself in such a position. I simply don't have the speed to break free with enough players, and the few who does gets swamped before being able to make a proper defensive position and receive the ball from the cage.
Right now my orc team is young, and so play against pretty undeveloped teams, but I hate to think about the situation when the elves load up on blodge/wrackle and sidestep. What the heck is the answer? Lots of tackle? Goblins with diving tackle next to guard players? Frenzy? Grab?
I think I'm approaching this problem from a wrong mindset, guys. I'd be happy to get some advice about both skill selection and tactics to score.
Reason:''
[size=34][color=green]I still think humanoid ducks would make a cool team...[/color][/size]
Inexperienced league: You can use our guys' strats!
Form the cage, don't worry about getting forward.
Mark a player each turn with your 4 BOBs, he will fail a dodge one day, or turnover before he gets to dodge.
Get a MB/PO blitzer, and smack the target with highest chance of KD/armor breakage (-AV people, nigglers or people without block dodge).
When you are 2-3 players ahead in numbers mark all his players & start blocking.
Get 2 guard blitzers on the cage (1 each corner), & block surehands on your thrower (to counter leap).
Don't worry about getting forward, just blitz with MB/PO every turn. If the dice play it right you are up against 4-5 less players than your team by turn 5, when you can start taking major advances as he can't cover the field from your one blitz even. If you don't get to score it's ok too, you'll do it on defence when you're playing 11vs3.
If he has ST2 players, mark them with blitzers.
2nd Half, he's already outnumbered: Go mark all his players, then get his ball & score repeatedly.
Doubles: Blitzers: if po/mb then jump up, if tackle then diving tackle or dodge..
Play with 12 players max, then you are almost guaranteed a wizard against high-rating elves. Don't waste your wizard unless you can reasonable get the ball by using it. The psychological advantage of having 2 blitzes per turn is much bigger before than after the fireball/lightning.
Goblins: Fire them, rather play with 4BOB, 4Blitzer, 1 Troll, 2 thrower lineup, there you have 12 players and none of em useless.
Edit: That's 11, you *may* want 1 lineman with either Wrestle/Tackle or DP for extra meaniness. Especially important in semifinals/finals where you cant get stars / mercs.
With inexperienced teams the thing that will work for you is using BOBs to mark players without Block or Dodge. If you get a BOB standing next to S3 players he either needs to bring 2 more in to get a 2 dice block or make a dodge or a 1 or 2 dice against block. Keep making him do that all game and he'll burn rerolls and eventually start turning over. If he turns over when you've got a few players marked then you should have a chance to put the hurt on him.
Make your blocks count. If you are restricted to 1 block per turn then hit with the combination most likely to lose him a player. That generally means hitting his unskilled players - but once you start getting up numbers then it will be easier to hunt the skilled guys. Also use chain blocks - if you get a push on the blitz try to ensure you can push into another player. Ideally the one able to hurt most.
Keep it tight. Don't allow easy shots at the ball carrier or to isolate the ball from the bulk of your team.
Keep the cage relatively central. A central cage means he has to defend both sides, and not just one - meaning its harder for him to form a solid wall. Obvioulsy if you load up on stand firm, grab & frenzy then the sidelines might be a good place to be for the surfing. However Orcs don't start with those so unless you really are a much more tactically astute player you are better going up the middle. With that in mind the cage should wiggle - rolling from side to side of the centre. That helps keep him off balance and may allow you to roll up one side if he makes a mistake or you get some luck.
Its often good advice to deliberately build your team to take on the coaches you are most concerned about. Against elves if they are loading up on dodge then tackle, and diving tackle on doubles are great. Frenzy is also good. I'd be aiming with your problem to get one blitzer frenzy and the rest tackle. Wrestle/Tackle line orcs are also good. Get block on your throwers.
A mix of guard & block on the BOBs will also be useful. Guard on S4 players means you can give assists to the blitzers and really tie down his team easily.
If you've got lots of sidestep then grab is a good investment. As is juggernaut if they load up on wrestle.
Carnis wrote:Don't worry about getting forward, just blitz with MB/PO every turn. If the dice play it right you are up against 4-5 less players than your team by turn 5, when you can start taking major advances as he can't cover the field from your one blitz even. If you don't get to score it's ok too, you'll do it on defence when you're playing 11vs3.
Carnis, I think you're a bit too gloomy. It sounds like the killer team in your own league has had a run of lucky games. A MB/PO blitzer does not equal a cas or a ko every turn. If the elves can stop a bashy team from scoring, then they've got a very high chanec of at least gettting a draw.
Ullis wrote:
Carnis, I think you're a bit too gloomy. It sounds like the killer team in your own league has had a run of lucky games. A MB/PO blitzer does not equal a cas or a ko every turn. If the elves can stop a bashy team from scoring, then they've got a very high chanec of at least gettting a draw.
Maybe so, I'm skeptic by nature. So pessimism comes not far behind.
I have a very small pool of data (# of coaches = 13, low skill leagues, the majority of games against a core of 2-5 players though), but I'm convinced it's not a streak of good luck. He did 12 games with dwarves, now 9 games with orcs & 6 games with another team of dwarves. 2 Losses (woodie + orc), 4-6 draws, rest wins. Last game he won with a 5+ longpass when his ballhandler was surrounded + 2x3+ pickups with no rerolls, so he does compensate bad positioning with dice sometimes, but it's not commonplace.
A lot of teams have no skill linemen on the pitch, that's what the MB/PO targets best (in Ian's post as well). 75% chance of knockdown, 44-58% chance of knockout or worse (AV7-8 ). AV9 linemen or an elf team with or blodge sidestep will be pretty much immune to that though, but skaven, vampire (linemen!), slann (0 block, dodge in the roster), non-dodge spamming elves are actually pretty easy to blitz into oblivion.
Finally, you don't need to get the entire team out of the pitch on your offence. It's enough you make it not worthwhile to raise the players up on the field, ie guard the corpses with mb/po or multiple players.
Blodge reduces that 75% to 33%, which indeed kills it, least with AV8. AV9 drops the ko chance to 31%, again making crowding or other more "advanced" strats more worthwhile.
Sorry about the length, but I have a lot to say. I read it, gasped and edited, and it's still long. I've played Orcs for a long time, and I've found something offbeat that really seems to work. There are lots of ways to play Orcs, though (Ian and I have completely different perspectives on BOBs, for instance), and no one way is right.
I have found that takeaway scores are actually easier than scoring on offense with Orcs. Really, if you want great offense with Orcs against Elves, the key is in a) protecting the ball, and b) doing early damage.
Until you're dominant, kick first whenever you win the coin toss. Once everybody's afraid of you and you're loaded with nasty blocking skills, you can receive first against teams with a thin bench.
As others have said, persistence in blocking and man-marking is critical. Some coaches take awhile to get good at blocking, but if you can make sure you maximize your 2d blocks.
Learning how to get the line out of the way will enable you to choose the location of the cage: generally speaking you want it to be as far forward as you can safely protect it and deliver the ball, to reduce the pressure to go forward every turn.
With Orcs' high AV, Block players are most effective against non-Block players and vice-versa. Put your BOBs on Blitzers and your Blitzers on linemen. Dwarfs might block a rookie BOB straight up, at least at end of turn, but an Elf Blitzer costs more, is less able to cope with the consequences of failure, and has a dodge option which is generally better, so elf coaches are often hesitant to throw 1/2d blocks. Moreover, if the elf runs up an assist, they've burned two actions, maybe to waste one action of yours standing up (Gork bless AV9).
When man-marking, make sure to put your man square up on the opponent, not diagonal, unless you know exactly which way the opponent must go, or you'd have to GFI to square up.
A good way to protect the ball, though certainly not the only way, is to build an offensive Thrower. Get him Accurate first: he'll skill at pretty much the rate of 1 point per offensive drive. KOR and Block are the obvious follow-up skills. This way, you know you can get the ball either into the cage or out of range on turn 1, and if you draw back, Accurate gives you either a better chuck into the cage or the ability to move around pressure without knocking your odds to throw accurately below 8/9. Sometimes the cage doesn't form how you thought it would, despite the best-laid plans, so this option makes a big difference.
Two Throwers solves a lot of the Orc offensive problems, but I'm the only person I know who does it and everybody else thinks I'm crazy even after I kick their butt with it (for some reason everyone's paranoid about AV8). Get Block first on the one who doesn't get Accurate (Fend, Kick and Leader make good follow-ups). You can have one Thrower chuck to the other, and then you can deliver the ball to any of several avenues from the front of the cage, which is also good Strip Ball insurance. Having two SH guys in your backfield also spares you from needing to invest in Kick-off Return immediately, and when you do, it lets you bench one Thrower on D and still have one to play safety. This spares you having to take SH on a Blitzer. It does mean you need 13 guys, but one can be a Goblin.
The extra +1 MA that Blitzers get is huge, on offense and on defense. 4 Blitzers is absolutely critical. Often you'll either give up a quick score (can't be helped, sometimes) or get pressured into scoring, and you'll only have 3-5 turns to score. Then you need a little more pressure. If you're lucky, you can even score in two. Heck, I've had Orc teams where I liked their hurry-up offense, and I'd try to score in the first four turns figuring if I could do it on O, I could probably do it again on D.
Are you only interested in dealing with elves? If so, ignore Guard, except on your Troll (get a Troll!), for whom it should be the first skill, and one Blitzer. Flanked by BOBs with Block, a Troll with Guard on defense is an elf team's worst nightmare: the D-line is unhittable. Otherwise, the poor man's Guard is knocking the assist off with ST4.
Take a mix of MB, Tackle, Grab and Stand Firm on your Blitzers, plus one guy with Frenzy and one with Guard (a more versatile assist than "the guy standing next to me"). You don't need a ton of Mighty Blow, but 3 or so players with MB (including the Troll) make a big difference.
If you're not exclusively concerned with elves, but if elves are your primary concern, get a Guard Blitzer early and make Guard an option on BOBs. Don't invest much in Grab, but do get one Grab player early on (playing with Grab will make you a better blocker). It combines well with Stand Firm and Guard, and surprisingly well with Mighty Blow.
Reason:''
What is Nuffle's view? Through a window, two-by-three. He peers through snake eyes.
What is Nuffle's lawn? Inches, squares, and tackle zones: Reddened blades of grass.
What is Nuffle's tree? Risk its trunk, space the branches. Touchdowns are its fruit.
have got to say this advice has been really helpful to me - not, i think, because it is new knowledge, but because i haven't played orcs in almost a year - they are my favorite team and i just took them to pearlies and got massacred! as i said, i like orcs, and actually tend to do well with them - reading this has helped me realise the mistakes i made and will hopefully let me start doing better again!
What the heck is the answer? Lots of tackle? Goblins with diving tackle next to guard players? Frenzy? Grab?
