Skaven v Chaos advice

[pixelgeek]

I have an upcoming league game against a Chaos team. I have been playing against the team in Botoc and I am mopping the floor up with my Skaven team and I don't really have any real strategies for the Chaos team other than form a cage and beat the heck out of everything.

Anyone have any tips or pointers to tips for dealing with a Chaos team when you are playing Skaven?

TIA

[JaM]

Dont cage, but form a "loose cage". Score as often as possible, put pressure on his ball carrier. Dont, however, forget that the carrier can easily blitz you away with horns.

Ttry to stay away from his bashing game wich most chaos teams are likely to play. Use your speed to go places.

Actually, basic stuff when you play skaven. Since you have the speed but not the armour I'd avoid getting bashed. BUT: linerats are cheap and plentyfull, dont hesitate to stick one or two in there to tie things up.

Hope this helps...

[MrBister]

On offense (hopefully only once per game): place your (alone) ballcarrier out of blitzing reach deep downfield while breaking through his line. Pour in 2 GR's in his backfield and perhaps a blitzer if they look vulnerable. Remember he can only blitz once. He'll have to split his forces to put markers on your recievers and weaken his line. Try to lure him to spread out his forces - it will work in your favour thanks to your speed.

With a run-handoff-run-quickpass-run-score you can take the ball from endzone to endzone. Make sure of your middleman (men) placements. (Not in TZ's, in range from both ballcarrier and reciever/scorer.)

On defense (hopefully many times per game): Try to break through his line to put pressure on his ballhandler before he can form a cage. If already caged: Use the rat ogre to frenzy away a corner of the cage and put a (prehensile tail) TZ on his ballcarrier. Add a few more linerats onto the cage as the situation allows. Make sure you have someone behind his lines to make a pass/handoff too if/when you pop the ball loose.
Dont place your RO on LOS. AV8 isn't that much. When RO isn't breaking cages he's an excellent backfield sweeper (crowdsurfer) vs non-stand firm opponents. (I doubt sidesteppers will be an issue vs chaos...)

Avoid a bashfest when playing vs chaos. But dont be afraid to bash him to pieces when you're man-up in one part of the field. You can overwhelm him on one side one turn, the next turn you can do that on the other side. Your speed is your biggest advantage - (ab)use that as much as you can.

[Carnis]

Don't score "as often as possible" except on defence. On your own offence, taking 4-6 turns off his clock will greatly improve your odds of winning your own half 1-0, rather than risking a 1-1. If you're sure you can grab the ball, then feel free to go for a 5-0 win, but if you can do that then you don' t need advice.

If you score on T2, then fail the defence on T2-8 you'll be looking at a 2-1 grind lose. Stalling to at least turn 5-6 will most likely prevent this from happening, and may still give you a turnover score on the remaining 4 turns (remember, you only need 2 turns to score on defence..).

[Khail]

Agreed - you should have no problem scoring a 2 turn TD on offense, but that doesn't mean you should. You're walking the typical Skaven tightrope - every turn you hang on to the ball is one more turn for him to stomp rats into the dirt - but it's also one less turn he has to score in return.

A Chaos player vs. Skaven is going to go for a 2-1 win as Carnis mentioned. They want to kick to you in the first half, force you to score quick, and then they can take 6 turns to grind rats and score on turn 8 tying it up at the end of the first half. 2nd half they receive, cage up, and grind rats for 8 more turns until they score at the end for a 2-1 win.

Of course things won't always go as planned (or even often), and any slip ups the Skaven player HAS to capitalize on (which Skaven excel at).

[JaM]

Don't score "as often as possible" except on defence. ..).

Of course, I thought that was obvious. Getting a TD in turn 2 means 6 turns of bashing, with a 1-1 in half time. Next half will see you bashed again and at a 1-2 loss at the end of the game... it's the dwarven-way.

Dont bunch up, but spread out. you have more MA than him, use that.

With "as often as possible" I was referring to turns on defence. However, every TD gets you SPPs, and gets your KO's a chance to recover...

[Funksultan]

Dunno if you're talking about a very developed team or not, but try to keep a blitzer free at all times on defense, and (hopefully) lurking around for him to make a mistake and give you the chance to blitz that ball carrier.

All you can hope for is the ball on the ground, cause with a couple rolls, it's insta-score for the rats, and then he's having to work uphill to catch back up.

[Warpstone]

Anyone have any tips or pointers to tips for dealing with a Chaos team when you are playing Skaven?

You're both new teams with only 2 games, so you've got a definitive advantage in terms of raw skill. Score per your usual offence, but the make or break will come down to how many dice you can make him roll when you're defending. Force him to throw enough dice and the eventual double skull or 2 with no reroll provides the opening you need to get TD #2 and thereby steal the game.

[pixelgeek]

Thanks for the advice guys

Had the game today and used some of the tips posted here. Due to a fabulously bad roll I failed to score a TD and fumble the ball right to my opponent who drove it in for a TD. I lost three Linerats to injuries early on and was at a bit of a disadvantage for the rest of the game but I think I did well to keep the score down to 2-1.