Orc Wall

[narg]

I'm playing in a tough league with some serious opposition and I'm trying to come up with a team that could win the league. I have a very good Norse team (lost three games out of 20 - mostly because it avoided the bulldozer teams) but I think that it isn't good enough to win the league - doesn't stand a chance against mass guard / mighty blow (learned that the hard way in the last cup).
I have an orc team that's still quite young now (less than ten games) and I was planning to develop it that way:
2 black orcs: block - guard - mighty blow
2 black orcs: block - stand firm - mighty blow - (diving tackle)
3 blitzers: guard - stand firm - tackle - (diving tackle)
1 blitzer: mighty blow - piling on - frenzy
1 troll: guard - stand firm
1 thrower: +1 MA - dodge - block
2 linemen and 1 goblin: no skills, maybe wrestle for the linemen. goblin there just as a desperate measure to be thrown on turn 8, usually not on the pitch.

Does this work? The aim is to stall with mass Stand Firm and hope that bashy teams can't even approach the touch-down line to win 1-0. Not really sure what to do against ball carriers with ST4 blodge & sure hands in the middle of a cage, just thinking about slowly working my way through the opponent's cage (assuming no or few Stand Firm in opponen'ts team) and surrounding him with stand firm and (hopefully) diving tackle players. The alternative is to get a lineman with wrestle tackle and maybe dauntless but with movement 5 and agility 3 that's crappy.
I currently already have many of the above skills, just no Stand Firm or Diving Tackle.

[mattgslater]

Sure. I like to take Stand Firm even earlier. I really like taking SS with my first doubles blitzer and running a Half-Zig with a Stand Firm Troll at the inverted side line-end. That means I only have three players in strong-points.

So the front five are:
BOB 1: Block, Guard (zig end)
BOB 2: Guard, SF (nose)
BOB 3: Block, SF (strong midfield) Doubles: Side Step.
BOB 4: Grab, Guard (free midfield, probably a rookie)
Troll: SF, Guard (inverted end) Block on doubles.
Except for Block on doubles on the Troll, ignore doubles until improvement #3, except on BOB 3.

Then in the wide zones:
Blitzer x4: on a normal roll, Mighty Blow. On a double, Side Step, and suddenly the path for everybody changes. The first time a Blitzer gets SS, Mighty Blow falls to priority #2 for Blitzers. Doubles become Dodge once you have just one Blitzer with SS, pushing MB further down the line if two players roll doubles first (follow Dodge with Stand Firm, of course). The objective is to get these four skills on different pieces: SS, SF, Frenzy and either Guard or a MA/AG increase. After that, and after MB, options open up for things like Tackle, Grab, Piling On, whatever.

Then, to man the two remaining safe positions:
Thrower x2: One retriever/passer with Accurate, then KOR; the other is a safety/anti-strip carrier with Block, then Leader or Kick. Doubles first makes for a safety with Dodge. Doubles with Accurate makes Strong Arm.
Lineman x1-2: Wrestle, then Tackle, or Dirty Player, then Wrestle. If you take just one, then Wrestle, then DP is fine. Doubles makes Guard.
Goblin x1-2: If just one, Diving Catch, and he won't live long (though while he does, he lets you run an ace formation, so long as you have that Acc/KOR Thrower). If two, then #1 goes Diving Tackle, then SS; he survives okay. The other gets Diving Catch, if he's lucky-ish. If he's really lucky, he gets doubles for Guard and the other guy becomes fire-me-boy.

[narg]

Cheers for your answer!

Lots of comments:
- You don't even get Block as a first or second skill on two black orcs??? Isn't the team more turnover-prone because of that? It's going to be easily 15 - 20 games before they both get their third skill...
- If you take side-step on a doubles it means that you don't take diving tackle. Never used it so far myself but I thought it would be great to put a guy with stand firm and diving tackle next to a ball carrier with ST4 blodge sure hands, that way even if you don't get him down it will be tough for him to move.
- Is side-step that more powerful than stand firm? I don't get that part. Sure stand firm can be countered by juggernaut but side step can be countered by grab; your player costs 10k more (as doubles for orcs) and if he has Guard and was in a good spot you want him to stay where he was. If an elf catcher was surrounded by two guys and gets blitzed then sure I see the advantage of side step as it allows him to get out of there and next turn he just has to do a 2+ dodge instead of getting stuck in the middle; but for an orc with guard remaining in the middle is better isn't it? And defensively isn't stand firm better? Even down your player can still obstruct the way and the blitzer loses one square of movement as he can't follow up. I saw lots of posts where people say that side step is so good and stand firm is so bad in comparison but I really don't get that part; especially on a bashy team I just don't get how it can be such a game-changer.
- Why do you take one grab as first skill with a black orc? Grab is fun but I'd take it as third or even fourth skill. Well here I guess that the answer is that side step is so awesome that you want a player that can counter it, but still before block or guard that's surprising...
- What do you mean by half-zig with three players on strong points? Cage with three players surrounding the ball carrier? Don't get the terms you're using. Is there an existing post somewhere that would explain the terms / strategies that it refers to?
- In other posts you refer to "nickel and dime defense" or something like that, what does that mean exactly? It seems to be on the same topic (side step) for a pro elf set-up and same here I don't understand what it refers to, is there a post somewhere that would explain that? Went through lots of posts on this forum but couldn't find that.

[narg]

Right finally found the zig and half-zig descriptions in another thread...
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=29010

[mattgslater]

You don't even get Block as a first or second skill on two black orcs???Isn't the team more turnover-prone because of that? It's going to be easily 15 - 20 games before they both get their third skill...

BOB #4 is negotiable. By the time he goes up, league and team conditions may tell me I don't need a Grab BOB (say, if I'm the perpetual underdog and always get Ripper, or more likely, if I have a Blitzer with enough SPP to be my Grabber), or that I have enough Guard, in which case Block is next. Certainly, if one of my BOBs is close to 31 when #4 goes up (quite possible if I have a dead BOB at some point), then I'd probably think Grab for the veteran, and Block for the rookie. But having just one Grab is a big difference-maker by preventing shallow defensive set-ups, and it's best on a ST4 piece; he doesn't need Block, because usually if you're Grabbing, you'd take a push over a both-down. I don't act a lot with BOBs: an extra 1/12 shot at a TRR spent (what you get blocking 2d unskilled as opposed to with Block) translates to about a TRR counter (two re-rolls) per three unskilled blockers per match.

If you take side-step on a doubles it means that you don't take diving tackle.

Major in majors, man. Blocking and positioning skills first. If he's already got Dodge, then Diving Tackle is a nice consideration (especially if he also has Stand Firm). Otherwise, it's a Goblin skill for me. Good skill, but it doesn't compete with Dodge or (the first) Side Step.

Is side-step that more powerful than stand firm?

On the wings, yes. Juggernaut can combo with Frenzy, but Grab cannot. So it's possible to build a piece that can wash a Stand Firm winger into the sidelines. Also, without considering skills, if a Stand Firm winger goes down, a hole opens along the sidelines. But if a Side Step winger goes down, he falls to the sideline and the opponent still can't get in without dodging.

... if he has Guard and was in a good spot you want him to stay where he was.

I like Guard/Stand Firm on BOBs and on my two "Flanker" Blitzers. Stand Firm beats Side Step on the line, if your line is tough (if they're elfy, SS can prevent extra blocks). I'm just talking about one guy to play the inverted wing in a half-zig. That one guy is on the wing, and doesn't have Guard in his progression, at least not until late (after Tackle, MB and maybe something else). Stand Firm is just not as good for that one role.

Why do you take one grab as first skill with a black orc?

Backfield chains. With Orcs, I like to build two offense-monsters: one a Thrower with a passing suite, and one a BOB with Grab. Actually, beating SS is a very minor consideration with early Grab, though it's a major factor late in the season. Rather, Grab is for pulling D-linemen behind the LOS to push my Troll or whoever into the backfield for extra blocking. I've used just one Grab player to take out the whole box before (including my blitz). It's not hard to beat, but scheming to beat it generally means setting up too deep to manage any pass-rush or prevent me from caging downfield.

What do you mean by half-zig with three players on strong points?

You answered your own question about the half-zig. Orcs, and a few other teams, can actually build a line so tough that the safety on the inverted side of the interior is unaccessible by the opponent. This means that only the two wingers and the "strong-side" midfielder have to be able to soak up a T1 blitz. After T1 it gets easier, because you know where the opponent is and what he can do.

In other posts you refer to "nickel and dime defense" or something like that, what does that mean exactly?

A "nickel" defense is an American Football term for a defense with an extra D-back (five instead of four) at the expense of a linebacker, like the half-zig in Blood Bowl. A "dime" is "two nickels" or six defensive backs, with only five men in the box. In the clumsy attempt at adaptation I was using there, I was trying to say: "if you put SS in both wings of an inverted ziggurat and spam SS across the LOS, you can put six of the eight men in your backfield into free or safe positions."

[Der_Doodle]

Matt
I really LOVE your tactical analysis of defensive formations and the skills to pick.
But I have to say i suck badly at my imagination on how to use those into a game

Could you maybe be so kind to post me a few of those coded images for the setups of an Orc team with the needed skills in it for the different positionals?

You really would do me a HUGE favour with this if you can find the time for it.

Thanks
Doodle.

[mattgslater]

Workin' on it. You're in the queue behind a paid project, maybe another, and an article for Martin's site. Haven't forgotten you.

[Der_Doodle]

Workin' on it. You're in the queue behind a paid project, maybe another, and an article for Martin's site. Haven't forgotten you.

yeah with the current speed of my league at 1 game all 2-3 weeks it takes some time before i need the special positional skills anyways