How to play against a "castle" formation ?

[Haar]

Pinning the back of the cage down is a really good idea (I've never thought about that explicitly, but in retrospect, it has worked for me too).

If you are in front of the cage and your mark hits you, he can follow up for free and move one square forward. If he blitzes, same. If you are in back, your mark cannot follow, and the blitz move loses a square of MA. Of course, if you are in back, they can dodge away more easily, so there is no one right thing to do.

When possible, blitz a corner (preferably the rear corner) and get your guy to have a TZ on the ballcarrier. Then they'll sweat. Put your Guards nearby so they'll have to take a 1 (or half) die block or doge.

But remember, if it gets too hairy, they'll just hand it off to another corner, so be ready for that.

It really helps if you look at the whole field and think of the relationships between your players (rather than the locations of specific players). It's kind of like chess that way. It makes it easier to see where your opponent is most likely to shift. You cannot keep them pinned down completely (unless you outnumber them by a lot), so try to leave the opening pointing in a good direction (toward the sidelines is what I like).

[DoubleSkulls]

If you pin the front players and they block and follow up a square (or not) then the back players can still move forward to take over the front positions - that means the cage still moves forward 2/3 squares.

If you pin the back players then the square either can't move or he has to bring in more players to keep the cage moving forward.

So you can try to leave TZ's covering all the access routes into the cage so that he can't bring in reinforcements (or pin them all too if you have a numerical advantage).

Be warned that this can quickly turn into Dwarfbowl, which favours, erm Dwarves, and other power teams.

Ian

[longfang]

Dave, it sounds like your only thinking about how to stop the cage. If you try that your team's gonna get munched. You have to break it up, force your opponant to try something else. Of corse a few lucky die rolls help.

[Marcus]

Best anti cage tactic with Skaven is not to let them form it in the first place. Sounds glib but it should be the focus of your defensive strategy. Play fast and aggressive and kick deep. Run players in between the front line and the backfield and don't let them tighten up.

Marcus

[Ddraig Coch]

Dave, it sounds like your only thinking about how to stop the cage. If you try that your team's gonna get munched. You have to break it up, force your opponant to try something else. Of corse a few lucky die rolls help.

Thanks longfang, that is an important distinction between the two and your right, my Wood Elves wouldn't last long in that scenario. What I usually try to do against the cage is pretty much whats been said. Blitz one of the corners of the cage and try and get tacklezones on the ball carrier. But I do find it difficult to stop 'cages' from good coaches, from average coaches it is pretty easy because they'll do something in the wrong order.

Best anti cage tactic with Skaven is not to let them form it in the first place. Sounds glib but it should be the focus of your defensive strategy. Play fast and aggressive and kick deep. Run players in between the front line and the backfield and don't let them tighten up.

That doesn't sound glib Marcus. The very first skill I picked up for one of my Line Elves was kick so I could do just what you are suggesting. Again, against good coaches they setup very deep against me, because they know exactly how fast Wood Elves are.

Dave

[Deathwing]

Longfang in sensible posts shocker!!!!

[Longshot]

[manusate]

I do usually play da cage against low AV-high AG teams. I take 8 turns to score and try to grind opponents during the drive.
Playing it carefully and thoroughly makes oponents nervous and willing to try desperate or weird plays to knock the ball loose. They just knock themselves. But there is a couple things they can do.

1) "Leaping corpse" tactic. Try to leap inside and knock the ballhandler. If the cage is well set, and there are Guard players around (say Black Orcs), this usually leads to a dead Wardancer. Can work if there are no Guards around and you have a Wardancer or superblitzer avaliable.

2) "Step by step" tactic. Make them advance in slow-mo. One square, one blitz per turn. Maybe you get the guy nervous and he makes some mistake. If he keeps calm and plays thoroughly, he will score anyway. Can work if opponent is not used to play da cage.

3) "Freeway surprise" tactic. Get away and let the cage move forward freely. Forget about the ball and the damm cage and try to "gangbang" an outside player. Let him score whenever he wants to, but don´t let him hit you at all. Instead punish the lonely wandering players outside the box. If the guy gets angry and tries to retaliate, he can open the cage for you. He can also get bored and score fast. Works sometimes.

4) "Anchor" tactic. Try to make the cage´s rear players fall when dodging. You can advance the cage with blocks on the frontline, but its not possible if you are blocking backwards. So if you want to move up the cage, then you have to dodge away. Eventually, they will fall, opening a spot and giving you a clear blitz lane to the ballcarrier. This is the best option (usually combined with the step-by-step tactic). This is the only tactic that makes me nervous when my orcs are playing da cage.

The most exposed player in the cage is obviously in the corner, but that doesn´t mean you can sistematically open cages just blocking the weakest corner player. You have to knock the corner player and the ball carrier on the same turn, and this is kinda difficult. Plus, this doesn´t work against big and flexible cages (made of full team) like I tend to use.

Hope this is of any help for you,

Manu

[neverdodge]

those advices are great manu !!!!

[Mestari]

Lots of good things here.

When I try to aggressively break a cage (as I nowadays do with my dwarves), one aim is to create a situation where either I or my opponent move players in a fashion that results in one of my players standing next to a player in the cage.
With guard specially, a two dice block can be arranged against that critter, and at least a one die block can be thrown at the ball-carrier.

In theory it might seem hard, but if you position your players right, the advancement of the cage becomes conditional: to advance he has to take risks and make mistakes that I'll exploit.

With my previous team, high elves, I simply kept myself one square away and attacked the rears. Usually they got frustrated, made a mistake and I scored.

[Joshua Dyal]

I'd like to see some advice on making a cage that actually can advance. Mine, almost without fail, get stuck. Rather than a true cage, then, I make a little "pocket" to protect the ball-carrier, advance a few steps per turn while I set up a goblin or two and a blitzer backfield as recievers. Then my orc thrower makes a pass, the goblins dodge away from whatever backfield guys are down there, and then run it in to score.

Maybe I just play against people who really know how to handle the cage. I think, though, that I'm doing something wrong...

[Haar]

my dark elf team just lost 0-1 to a dwarf team which had a cage offense. The key to their scoring (in the last turn of the match no less) was attrition. Eventually, he knocked out a bunch of my players, and had enough of an advantage that he squirted out a runner into the endzone. The specifics aren't super important, the key was that he got enough of my players pinned down behind the play with a set of ST4 blitzers that he could move his cage a few squares per turn.