The 8 turn Grind - what to do with AV7-8

[Carnis]

mattgslater wrote:
If your opponent gets ... locks the ball away in a midfield cage so that he can grind it out and score on turn 8, you're probably going to lose.

We've been withnessing this in our local league a LOT. Feels a bit reductive, that a starting orc/dwarf team with just 1 mb/po will default a win of both rounds by just running the clock 8 turns on his first round (0-0 is enough, although 1-0 is common too), then scoring 2-3 goals on the defence 11vs4 or something.

We have 2 leagues running in my hometown, one by 12 university students & one by just my friends who've mostly graduated. The other has now been infested with my friends as well. The 12 univ. kids-league is "traditional lrb4-type players" in an lrb 5 league, a lot of guard, guard & mighty blow + a mix of elves with exotic skills (no blodge/sidestep here!).

Our league has a lot of low tier teams, elves and my slann + 1 guy going mb/po crazy with orcs. The MB/po crazy guy is playing orcs in the other league, dwarves in the other. In our league he has won 6/8 games, drawn 2 (both draws against rookie teams with star+wizard). In the other league he has won 5 games, lost 1 (rookie dwarf vs rookie orc, no mb/po or inducements then).

We have an elf heavy league with a lot of rookie coaches. I've compared between the grind teams of LRB4 & LRB5 by playing LRB4 in FUMBBL and the difference is just HUGE.

His playstyle is not creative or even brilliant, its just dull. 10 men on the line, 1 thrower/runner behind to grab the ball. Mark all players & cage the ball, then start spamming blocks. Ensure the win with heavy mb/po rate (2-3 players). All he's doing is rolling block dice, creative.

Spamming MB/PO triples the killrate, so you have maybe 2-3 turns to try to grab the ball & run with it, failing that you just run anyway. This is horrible in a rookie league, as I feel barring a miracle the mb/po is always the default winner. In addition it kills the fun & excitement, as all you do is run away or get splatted, so it isn't that much fun for the newer players, who never had a chance of grabbing the ball from that cage. Finally, in teams with limited number of key positionals, like skaven/slann the MB/PO combo kills, as if you go to down 1-2 of those gutters/catchers either round you are heavily outgunned in play-options in the other.

The argument is, using piling on puts you out of position, and thus compensates for the insane CAS/KO rate. This argument is only viable if said mb/PO player does not have one of the following:

a) have jump up (rocks on with mb/po)
b) have a definitive player # advantage (easy with mb/po again)
c) have the ball secured

or if he does have some/all of this, then having this as the opponent helps (in theory):

d) superheavy in dirty player & can foul it when he goes down (Undead, Nurgle etc)
e) high AV, makes PO over armor unreliable (Orc, Nurgle, Dwarf, CD)
f) heavy on mb/claw/dp and you can outgrind him. (Nurgle, Chaos?, CD)
g) superheavy on blodge/sidestep/fend - can't hit you cant splat! you (Dark elf/Pro Elf)

**

Now the problem imo is, that in LRB4 you have plenty of time to fight over the ball & often you pay for it in players, then making your own offence a lot harder (not exactly hard still with AG4, but harder) with say 7 or 8 players to 11. In LRB5 it seems you are down to 2-3 players less on the 2nd round, and you have a lot less time to grab the ball on defence, as he'll be running down the field as you go down to 5 players or less very quickly while tieing up his line with your linemen.

I know the elves were/are overpowered, but in a lower - skill tier league, the bashers are just murder now.

[Rab]

Playing against that tactic can be a little dull, and can be tricky to overcome, particularly if the block/armour/injury dice run in his favour.

Something that, when I was a new player and thought the cage was the best/only tactic, always used to stop me winning was the 'step-away' defence. Basically you keep your players one square away from the cage. This way he only gets one hit per turn and only gets to move eight to ten squares (by the time you've got into position) into your half. If he wants to ever score a TD then he'll have to break from his cage and run for the line. You will almost certainly have a man-overlap so can bundle the runner; have men down field and you can threaten for the single turn reply score. Elves and Slann will rule at this tactic.

Another thing that will be nice as your low AV turns develop is Stand Firm and Sidestep. Keeping in the way (assuming still on-pitch) will halt that cage.

Failing that, get Wrestle and take out the corner player then foul him off the pitch. Leap + Strip ball is always funny for retrieving the ball from the centre of an inpenetrable cage

Good luck!

[DoubleSkulls]

If he's only got one player deep then get the kick skill and knock it into a corner. Any decent fast team ought to be able to swarm the backfield to put that isolated ball carrier under pressure and turnover to score. Then he's in a different position.

Also there are skills to protect against MB/PO. Wrestle & Dodge would be annoying. Fend stops it dead. Against a team who was doing well and using it a lot I'd be investing in one dirty player (and/or sneaky git).

Finally elves can just play the 1 step back defence. If he only gets 1 hit per turn then MB/PO helps - but its hard to establish a big numbers advantage. If you are playing another bash team then try loading up on Guard too - then he'll struggle to get 2 dice blocks and if he can't block you then he can't hurt you.

If you are an underdog then I'd load up on the things he'll hate - wizards, fouling stars ('saws) & bribes, or just numbers to soak up the damage (including babes & apoths).

There isn't one best strategy in this game - almost every team has weaknesses you can exploit if you chose the right counter-strategy.

You can always fight fire with fire too - Claw/MB/PO trumps MB/PO

[bjorn9486]

Could you restart the league? You said that you had a bunch of rookie coaches, could now that they know how to play and what they are going to face, make better decisions in their team and skill choice.

Also, talk to the offending coaches. Tell them that the other coaches are not having fun due to his play style. We actually did this with one of my players; He was playing Woodelves and had a crazy win to loss ratio. So when we started over with the LBR5+ rules, he wanted to be Dwarf. I told him there was no way he was going to be another one of the (statistically) best teams. So he chose Vampires and is now having a blast.

The bottom line is someone should not be having fun at the expense of many other people's fun. If it keeps happening, you may have people leaving your league.

[mattgslater]

See, I think any coach should be allowed one season of whup-@$$, and if others don't like it, well, a great deal of this game is about learning to control what you can and endure what you can't. Rookie coaches often have to take their lumps, and in that lump-taking, you can find out if they have the gut for Blood Bowl or not.

We have a rule down here where each season a coach is expected to switch teams. We have a bashy division and an agile division, and our coaches rotate divisions for two seasons before we re-set (so you play two seasons with very different teams but the same rough schedule of opponents).

But if you're trying to figure out how to beat a well-run cage team early on, Side Step, baby! Fend sort of works too. Work hard to skill your schmucks. Kick is Job One, but after that, just amassing tons of positioning skills makes things much easier.

Also look for any holes in his strategy. Are his Orcs forgetting to take Tackle? Load up on Dodge instead, perhaps. Or is it his Dwarfs you're worried about? In that case, Wrestle might be a stronger option on a few players.

[stashman]

If you choose to play with AV7/8 teams, then whats your strategy?

You have to be ready for all teams, bash or not.

Wrestle and Fend are skills that makes the bash teams going to loose movement. Have some dirty players and payback with that.

[Cramy]

A lot of good suggestions in this thread.

Kick skill and kick short and get to the ball or the ball carrier before he can cage-up.

Wrestle and Strip Ball and Leap to get the ball lose. Frenzy and Tackle can also help here.

Unless facing lots of Tackle, Dodge is king for Elves. Not only will it prevent you from being knocked-down, it allows you to dodge away from your opponents every turn. I slow down the cage is a similar way that ianwilliams suggested. Have dodgers (ideally Blodge and SideStep) guys one square from the cage, three squares appart. Lineup our other players behind them. You will get hit by one blitz per turn. Just dodge back one square every turn. You don't need to be able to dodge too much with such a setup. And if this is your plan, kick deep and harass the players getting the ball. If it takes 2-4 turns to build a proper cage and start to move forward, he will not make it to the EZ unless he breaks-out of the cage. Then the Wrestle/StripBall/Leap/Frenzy/Tackle guys attack the ball carrier.

In the end, Elves can score fairly easily. Build your team to be able to force the caging bashy team to do stuff that they are not meant to do.

As to asking the player to change his style, not sure that this works very well. Suggesting that he plays a less powerful team once in a while is much better. And unless he is a power gamer, he will find games more fun as well. Part of the fun of playing these games is that you are not expected to win, so no pressure. And you can still play as hard as you can.

Hope this helps.

[Carnis]

I know the strats, but I guess I should have rephrased it. I'm anxious about the fact, that the easiest way to win is such a game destroying strategy & involves no risk or "skill" or whatnot. Just a dull cage (enough that you don't LOSE the ball, no need to score on offence) & blitz the weakest till the oppo is dead.

We have a living league, any1 can field up a new crew whenever they want and play whoever they want. It'd be fairly easy to beat this guy with a 1400-1500k rating Blodge/SS elf team - I may even do that, or the nurgle team & over-escalate with mb/po/claw + DP..

What I was anxious about is, the fact that the window of opportunity for risk taking/fighting for the ball on defence gets dwarfed due to mb/po taking so many turns off the clock, by reducing you down to 5-8 players very quickly (44-58% AV8-AV9 / KD).

Often it also trivializes round2, if your players aren't skilled enough to take a beating 8 turns in a row.

[mattgslater]

Get Kick and kick deep. Score in 2-3 turns. Try to either put a zone on the ball or keep him from protecting the ball-carrier deep in the backfield, or at least make him throw into the cage prematurely (Orcs can totally do this, but it's risky, especially if a 2+ Accurate QP isn't available). Don't let the cage form, and if it does, sell out to break it up right away: no tiptoeing around. Try to end up out of TZs and avoid chain-blocks. Take positioning skills to help with that, and leaven those with Block and/or Dodge (or Guard) to keep your guys on their feet. Maybe get a Wrestler to harry one of his killers. Build a single highly surgical killer of your own, to keep him from stalling. If you want better advice than that, you need to start talking about specific situations.

[DoubleSkulls]

I'd differ from Matt's advice. When playing against a much bashier team with a fast team I'll normally

1) Kick deep & try to swarm the ball carrier. If the ball does come loose you'll probably score
2) If he manages to cage up anyway pull back - do the 1 square step back until turn 6/7.
3) Turn 6/7 attack the cage. Put a lot of pressure on him, try to get next to the ball carrier and/or sack. He doesn't have time to recover and you might manage to pop the ball loose and score.

If he does score, so you are 1-0 down at the half and receiving then you have to expect your best option is going to be a 2-1 win. So score relatively slowly - ~4 turns. You need him to play hurry up offense because not only does that mean you need to defend for a shorter time, but also that he needs to take more risks trying to score. So giving you more opportunities to turn him over.

With regards to discussing play style with him I actually think that can be counter productive. If you, as a league, want less blood then house rule. e.g. restrict teams to one piling on player, or make a successful PO (i.e. av breaks or opponent off the pitch) stun the PO player.

That said, I suspect the problem is that he's probably the best coach in the league (or one of them) and has just hit on the successful grind strategy. Maybe persuading him to try something different - elves, stunties - might work and then you'll come back complaining about how elves are too good

[besters]

Matt and Ian both give good advice, it depends upon the style of play you want to use, the risks you want to take and the players you have available.

[Smeborg]

Based on what I see myself, I believe the problem lies in the inexperience of the opponents, rather than this guy's tactics (which are weak IMHO).

Fast and/or agile sides ought to be able to put huge pressure on the ball, and turn it over frequently.

The offense can only attack 4 players with blocks on the first turn. Even if all 4 are stunned or worse, that leaves 7 (including all the faster ones) to attack the ball.

The AG4 sides should find it easy to attack the ball and run away with it. If the ball is caged, an AG4 player with Dodge/Wrestle has a good chance of getting it. AG3 sides can mark the corners of the cage and attack the ball on the following turn.

Put simply: inexperienced players have not yet learned how to attack the ball on defense - they tend to get drawn into the blocking game instead (which of course means they will lose against this kind of coach). They also don't realise that the more pressure they put on the ball, the fewer opportunities their opponent will have for blocking.

All the other advice given on this thread is sound.

[mattgslater]

The difference between Ian's perspective and mine can actually be instructive. I suspect that Ian's style is best for one with more relative confidence in his preservation skills against the grind, and my style is best for a coach who has more comparative trust in the power of pressure.

I'd second Ian's point that this guy has probably just got superior blocking skills to your league as a whole. You can't fault someone for knowing how to lay the smackdown. The answer for that is to get better.

Note also where Ian and I converge: Kick deep and put as much pressure on the ball as you can muster. Best case scenario, the cage never forms, or the ball never sees the cage, and the single best defensive acquisition against killer Orcs or Dwarfs is the Kick skill.

[grampyseer]

I agree with matt. You can't ALWAYS pressure the carrier to the point where the cage doesn't happen, but if you're successful 25% of the time; you've destroyed the reliability of that tactic.


It's like sex panther: 60% of the time....It works every time

[purdindas]

If they insist on stalling then do the same back to them. Dictate how many turns they have left to score in. Put them under a bit of pressure. Thats the way to beat slow/bashy teams.

You cant really win the the fights but you can out-smart them