Talk Fantasy Football

I have my new CD team almost complete, and before I need to use it, I would like to ask you veterans some advice on "how to do the cage" with them.
(In fact I have tryed some dwarfs in the past (and orcs too) but cages never seem to work all that with me, so I'm probably doing them bad...)

Any help would be apreciated!

Cheers
Axt

PS:I have done some searching on the forum but from all the posts I got, everyone seems to be quite experienced doing them, so I didnt get that help.

Depends on where you are in the game... I like to give a hobgoblin the ball, cage with the dwarves and do the Dwarf Crawl up the pitch, using the Centaurs to swat potential blitzing threats.

But giving a hobbo the ball, caging with Centaurs in front, and trying to hand off to a Centaur (50% odds, 75% with reroll) for a faster score is a viable strategy.

For me I found cages ran too slowly and sometimes failed so I tried this idea.
pick a sideline and run not on the edge but near by it. I then make sure I have Around 4 players guarding the ball carrier. making sure there is a tackle zone all the way around him. The rest of my team instead of joining the cage hold down any of the other teams players and create tackle zones near them. its suprising what little resistance there is to fight the cage and despite it not beingt as strong as most other players it moves a lot quicker and its easier to recover if things go wrong..

But thats just what ive found through my games, im sure many people wont agree with this tactic and would prefer just to create a more stable cage.

pick up the ball with bull! charge down field with dwarves all around you

gken1 wrote:pick up the ball with bull! charge down field with dwarves all around you

Sounds like a plan!! I like bulls they score quick and are hard to fell. Thats what they are good for!

MattShepherd wrote:(...) I like to give a hobgoblin the ball, cage with the dwarves and do the Dwarf Crawl up the pitch, using the Centaurs to swat potential blitzing threats. (...)

Still on cage subject:
Assuming my team has 5 C.Dwarves (+2Bulls, +4Hobbos), how should the cage be done?
One CD on each corner (3x3 squares cage with hobbo in the midle)?
Following MattShepherd's post, the Bulls should be close to the cage to keep threats away, or even do a quicker TD.
How about the Hobbos?
Do I keep them back to hold any eventual disaster or move them along with the cage to give extra support?

About the "moving" of the cage, I suppose I should move the CD as much as they can with their shot legs as the Hobbo can easily keep up...

gken1 wrote:pick up the ball with bull! charge down field with dwarves all around you

I would do almost the same. Just a question, what is this "ball" I hear so much about?

Check out this website, it's got great general information on running both a strength and agility team. It will give you some ideas about how to set up your initial formation so building the cage in the first turn or two is easier. Incidentally, there's also a defense page.

http://www.midgardbb.com/Tactics/offence.html
http://www.midgardbb.com/Tactics/defence.html

Axtklinge wrote:
Still on cage subject:
Assuming my team has 5 C.Dwarves (+2Bulls, +4Hobbos), how should the cage be done?
One CD on each corner (3x3 squares cage with hobbo in the midle)?

That's what I'd do under MOST circumstances. I tend to develop hobgoblins as ball fetchers/carriers, kickers and Dirty Players. They're fragile and no good for fightin', but are the only AG3 players on the team.

Axtklinge wrote: Following MattShepherd's post, the Bulls should be close to the cage to keep threats away, or even do a quicker TD.
How about the Hobbos?
Do I keep them back to hold any eventual disaster or move them along with the cage to give extra support?

That really depends on who you're playing against. Against fast, light teams like Elves and Skaven, they want stay away (because they're weak and fragile) and "swoop in" and try to take you out with surprise attacks. Heavy hitters like Chaos and Orc want to get in there toe-to-toe and bash away. So I'd keep the Bulls "loose" if I were playing a very mobile team, and "tight" against a heavy team. Mobile if you need to get around the field, tight if you need the extra muscle.

Spare hobgoblins? Use them to "mark" opposing players.

My golden #1 rule of Blood Bowl (I am, however, a pretty crap coach) is Make The Other Guy Roll Dice And Eventually Stuff Will Go Wrong For Him.

Use those hobgoblins to get in the face of other players that might be problems later on, or use them to give support to blockers. DON'T try to dodge with them or do anything fancy -- they'll just die. But they're basically disposable, so use them as chaff. Interference. Hobgoblins are the players you throw under the enemy's feet in the hopes that they'll trip over the hobbos' mangled corpses.

"Pick up the ball with the bull and chaaarge" is also a winning strategy, but one that leaves you with ridiculously well-developed bulls and a bunch of other unskilled players, and then the bulls inevitably get fouled to death or killed on 2-die-against blocks from Halflings or crazy crap like that.

Or so I've noticed, anyway.

MattShepherd wrote:
That really depends on who you're playing against. Against fast, light teams like Elves and Skaven, they want stay away (because they're weak and fragile) and "swoop in" and try to take you out with surprise attacks. Heavy hitters like Chaos and Orc want to get in there toe-to-toe and bash away. So I'd keep the Bulls "loose" if I were playing a very mobile team, and "tight" against a heavy team. Mobile if you need to get around the field, tight if you need the extra muscle.

Im playing in a league and it realy is full of heavy hitters..
In fact as far as I remeber, in about 12 or 14 teams, there is only one elf team (DE), two humans and one skaven. All the rest is heavy stuff, so I guess my bulls are gona be much needed to support all the fighting!

MattShepherd wrote:
Spare hobgoblins? Use them to "mark" opposing players.
(...)
Use those hobgoblins to get in the face of other players that might be problems later on, or use them to give support to blockers. DON'T try to dodge with them or do anything fancy -- they'll just die. But they're basically disposable, so use them as chaff. Interference. Hobgoblins are the players you throw under the enemy's feet in the hopes that they'll trip over the hobbos' mangled corpses.

LOL
I gess I know what you mean...with that AV7 they wont last much!
I'll try to use 'em to keep oppo's catchers on their backs, or at least difficulting their jobs...

@SolomonKane: Thanks for those articles! I havent had the time to read/digest the tactics yet so I dont have any opinions/questions about them, but I'll read them soon.

Cheers
Axt

The problem most people come accross when they start to cage is to cage up too densly.

probably the most effective cage looks like this and you should aim to make one
You can see that to put a blitz on the Ball carrier you would need to make a dodge into a tripple TZ which most teams cant do (and those that can generally arent strong enought to make even a 1D block since you will have two assists and they will usually have guard) so they will try and hit your corner players instead. This is fine. If you are caging up you are usually tough enough to take it and give it back with interest meanwhile you have 6 other players free to threaten running plays and take out valuable opponants, force dodges etc... If your oppoant surrounds your cage just stay where you are and throw lots of blocks if he's too cowardly to try and pin you down then you can move the whole cage forward.

Probably the most effective and commonly used tactic in the game.

Unless I'm mistaken with the date, I'll get the chance to try that out tomorrow night with the begining of the league...

Or with a bit of luck, I might have an extra week to try that out a couple of times, before it hurts!


Axt

I'm now a three game veteran with Chaos Dwarves, so with that wealth of experience I'm bound to know what I'm doing

Anyhow I tend to cage using two dwarves and two Hobgobs, and attack down a flank. Ideally with a Bull Centaur carrying the ball. The two dwarves I try to keep on the corners most at threat from a corner breaking blitz. These are normally the front/middle corner and the back/middle (rather than the flanks near the sidezones). The hobgoblins hold the edge closest to the side. The idea is that the Hobgoblins are available if you need an emergency handoff to move the ball out of danger, or to score in the right circumstances. But the dwarves guard against the most likely threat. If anyone chooses to attack up the near side, you can always push them in crowd!

The rest of the team screens the cage in the centre of the pitch, spread out to force dodges to get near the cage, or for your opponent to take a long route to get back in front. I try to keep dwarves near the front of this pack, with hob goblins holding back. The dwarves need to be forward so that if you need to swing across the pitch the stumpy legged ones can keep up. Essentially when switching from the flank, you leave behind the two original CDs and cage up behind different ones. The rest of the cage can be formed with hob goblins who can move into position more easily. The other reason for keeping goblins back is that should the worst happen and you loose the ball, your quicker players are in a natural full back position. They can drop back to defend against threats, or chase down a loner making a break for it.

What to do with the other Bull is a question I've not quite worked out - I've tried using it as a blitzer to punch holes and keep the forward momentum, or as an independent threat. Quick and strong, that needs to marked in case the ball gets passed! Neither of these options seem to work well just yet - I keep rolling both down when blitzing, and you don't really want to rely on a BC to catch (at least not more than once in a drive).

Having said all that I'm still learning with CDs - the main point of posting was to suggest keeping a hobgoblin or two on the corners of a cage in case you need the Agility available to handoff under threat.

Al the Trowel wrote:
Having said all that I'm still learning with CDs - the main point of posting was to suggest keeping a hobgoblin or two on the corners of a cage in case you need the Agility available to handoff under threat.

Thats a tip I'll have in mind!
Those AG2 Bulls might be an headache to pick up the ball with, specialy if the "cage" is already moving down the oppos field (with all the possible TZ trying to slow or break the cage), so I guess those Ag3 Hob have just granted their "backup plan" status...


Cheers
Axt