Elfball Tactics - A Downloadable Guide (WIP!!!)

[The Painted Goblin]

Over the last weekend I was tinkering with strategies and tactics and came up with some ideas to help with the upcoming tournament.

I started to put together a bit of a guide then realised it could turn into a bit of a monster document, so I decided to leave it until after Swindon II (due to my lack of personal free time).

This morning I thought I would share what I started, as I'd really like this to be a community led project - partly to reduce the time needed from me to write it all down, but mainly because I'm still a newcomer myself, and others have far more experience (and devious strategies!) to share. I'm also a bit hesitant to stick all my genius tactical ideas in a down loadable guide just before a tournament

Anyway - the link to download part 1 can be found at the bottom of this post - it was thrown together very hastily on Sunday within an hour or two, so it's likely to be full of mistakes and/or innacuracies.

Feel free to let me know if you spot any

For those of you too lazy to click on the link, I'll also post a less pretty version below (adding to it as it develops) so you can just read at your leisure.

Like I said, it's my intention for this project to be community led - much of the information in it will have been collated from previous discussions that have been made in various other posts, and on the Impact! forum. (All authors will be credited!)

I'd also like to invite anyone to feel free to add their own ideas and thoughts, so they can be included in the final version (Obviously I'll understand if you want to leave them til after the tournament too!)

Note: The downloadable file is likely to be already out of date!
For latest version, visit the Elfball Wiki, here:-

http://elfball.wikispaces.com/Elfball+Tactics+Guide

[The Painted Goblin]

THE BASICS OF ELFBALL: AN INTRODUCTION

This guide was written to help total newcomers to the game of Elfball by teaching them some basic pointers that will make them better Elfball players. The 2nd edition rulebook covers everything you need to know to play the game correctly, but it doesn’t necessarily give up much in telling you how to play the game well.

The secondary reason for this guide is to try and draw more people into the world of Elfball, particularly those of you who regularly play Blood Bowl. If you are of this category, the first thing to realise is that they are completely different games – tactics and strategies that work in one game will not work in the other!

Right, now we’ve cleared that up, where do we start? To learn how to play well at Elfball, you need to understand three key things: - the challenge dice system, use of momentum, and player positioning.

Throughout these guides it is assumed that (as new players or tournament players) the optional rules for the face-off challenge and "star = 2 successes on the challenge dice" are being used. See the rulebook for more information, downloadable for free at:-

http://www.impactminiatures.net/Elfball ... lkyrie.pdf

[The Painted Goblin]

SECTION 1: UNDERSTANDING THE CHALLENGE DICE SYSTEM

Any action taken during a game of Elfball (other than movement) requires you to pass a dice roll, called a Challenge. There are several different challenges, and each one is tied in to a particular player attribute as summarised in the table below.

I found it useful when learning the game to break down the challenges into three categories: Active challenges, Passive challenges and Special Challenges.

- Active challenges are the ones that you can choose to take as part of your action
- Passive challenges are ones that you are forced to take as a result of something else
- Special challenges are ones that take part out of your turn.


*the Dash challenge is the only one not tied into a player attribute – this (and the effective use of momentum) will be discussed later.

To take a challenge, you roll a number of special dice – the number of dice rolled is equal to the related attribute - and the results of the roll dictate if you succeed, fail or flop. For example, a player with SKILL 4 trying to pick up the ball will roll 4 challenge dice. A player with MIGHT 3 shoving another player will roll 3 challenge dice, on so on.

Each challenge dice has six sides, broken down like this:-
One side has a cross, and represents a flop, which equates to -1 success
Two sides are blank and do not add or subtract to the number of successes.
Two sides have a bulls eye symbol, which represents 1 success.
One side has a star symbol, which represents 2 successes.

The main rulebook lists the star as a conditional success, but this rule is only recommended for advanced players. For the purposes of learning the game, or playing in tournaments, most people stick to the star = 2 successes rule.

Each challenge is rated in difficulty by how many total successes are required from the dice roll. If you achieve the required amount, the challenge is passed and your player takes the relevant action. A flop occurs when your total successes are -1 or worse, and results in something bad happening and play shifting over to your opponent. Any other result is a failure, and usually (but not always) means you continue with your turn. The key to a winning strategy is to reduce number of successes required in any given challenge to 1 whenever possible. The table below shows the probability of achieving 1 success on 1 to 6 challenge dice (and also the possibility of rolling a flop).



From this we can see that even a one-dice challenge roll has a 50% chance to pass when only 1 success is needed. So, how do we manage our play to reduce the number of successes needed in each challenge?

Picking up the Ball (SKILL challenge):-
Picking up the ball only needs 1 success unless the ball is faced by opposing players. In this situation, you can:-
a. Shove them away from the ball (viable if the shove challenge only needs 1 success)
b. Shove them onto the ball and hope the ball bounces favourably
c. Tackle them (provided the odds of the impact/tackle challenges are in your favour)
d. Have an equal amount of your own supporting players face the ball too.

Throwing The Ball (SKILL challenge):-
Any throw at less than half maximum range only requires 1 success, unless the thrower is faced by opposing players.
a. Shove them away from you (viable if the shove challenge only needs 1 success)
b. Have an equal amount of your own supporting players face you too

A throw at half maximum range (or greater) is more difficult and requires 3 successes before any negative effects of opposing players are taken into account – the only way to reduce this is to have two supporting players facing the thrower to bring it down to a one-success challenge.

Something else to consider when throwing is that if you beat the number of successes needed by 1 or more, the ball is automatically caught by the receiver, with no Catch challenge required – engineer the chances of this whenever possible. Even a Monster with a SKILL of 1 can be an effective receiver if the throw is done well!

Shove (MIGHT challenge):-
The number of challenges needed for a Shove are calculated as opposing players MIGHT less 2, so the number of successes needed will only be 1 when shoving players of MIGHT 3 and less. However, if you are up against a MIGHT of 4, 5 or 6, you are going to need help.
- Shoving a MIGHT 4 player from their rear facing will make it a 1 success challenge. Even a weedy imp with a MIGHT of 2 has 63.9% chance to successfully shove a MIGHT 4 dwarf from their rear facing.
- Each team mate facing your opponent also reduces number of successes by 1 – this is vital knowledge when shoving the Monster players (MIGHT 5 & 6).

Many people don’t fully appreciate the tactical aspect of the shoving side of the game, as it isn’t seen in any other fantasy football games at all – however it can be very effective, and certain teams specialise in it. More on this later.

Tackle (TACKLE challenge):-
Tackling isn’t easy. Three things to take into account are:-
- Base number of successes needed are calculated as opponents DODGE less 2.
- You need to beat this score by 2 or more if you want to cause an injury.
- If your opponent has higher MIGHT than you, you will need to pass an Impact challenge first.
So, is it worth it? Of course it is! Sending your opponents to the infirmary is always fun and to be highly recommended and encouraged. So....basic ways to improve your odds:-
1. Always Tackle from behind – needs 1 less success. If you need to pass an Impact challenge prior to the tackle, this also needs 1 less success from behind (not to mention the chance to build momentum – more on that later).
2. Consider shoving the opponent first if you can push them into a space where your team mates can lend support (each supporting team mate reduces successes needed by 1).
3. Tackling an opponent who does NOT have the ball increases number of successes needed by 1 (to represent them having two free hands to fend you off, I assume). Not really something you can do much about, but you need to take it into consideration.

Although a high number of successes are needed to make a BIG injurious tackle, only a flop can really hurt you so the risk involved is low. Any other result than a flop can easily be shrugged off and you can continue with your turn if you have enough JOG points left to do so.

Disengage/Catch/Impact
With the passive challenges there isn’t much you can do to reduce successes needed other than having supporting team mates facing your active player.
- When wanting to Disengage, sometimes it might be easier to shove your opponent away from you, if their TACKLE attribute is high, or your MIGHT is better than your DODGE attribute. If you have high DODGE, and their TACKLE is 3 or less – go for the disengage!
- If you follow the guidelines above for your Throw challenges, you should hopefully be able to eliminate, or at least seriously reduce the number of Catch challenges needed during a game.
- Impact challenges are covered in the Tackle section above.

The remaining challenges (Intercept and Injury) are very situational, and so you can’t really do much to improve your odds on these.

Taking Riskier Challenge Rolls
Sometimes, you simply cannot reduce the number of successes needed to 1. The table below shows the percentage chances of achieving a certain number of successes for those situations.

Tables courtesy of GrumpyGrizzly and Antipixi

[The Painted Goblin]

SECTION 2: POSITIONING & MOVEMENT

Positioning is mentioned here because it is a very important factor to consider when looking at attrition

a) Player Facing
This critical part of Elfball and can mean a big difference as an opponent gets -1 to the number of successes needed if they are shoving or tackling you from the rear 3 hexes. At the end of your turn always position your players to minimise the risks of being hit from this direction. On the reverse side when Shoving or Tackling a player, you should be on the lookout to exploit any facing problems that your opponent has.
b) Player Support
In general, you need to ensure your players are in a position to support and protect each other. If you have a player exposed, your opponent will try to take him out. Having players close by gives you more opportunities to use player facing to reduce the number of successes needed for challenges.
c) Player Spacing & Zone Control
In the attrition game it’s critical to know how many hexes opponents players are away from your players. Space control is another key aspect to this game and you should use your high MIGHT and TACKLE players to control areas of the board and allow your ball handlers freedom to move.

[The Painted Goblin]

SECTION 3: THE EFFECTIVE USE OF MOMENTUM

Every time you take a challenge and exceed the number of successes required to pass, those extra successes are “stored” as Momentum. A point of Momentum can be used to re-roll a single challenge dice in any subsequent challenge rolls taken during the same turn, potentially turning a failed challenge into a success. This is all clearly stated in the rulebook, but knowing how to exploit this, and use it effectively is a fine art.

Momentum Point “Farming”
Before any high-risk challenge is attempted, it is good practice to try and generate momentum by performing low risk challenges earlier in your turn. Rolling 4 or 5 dice in challenges that only need 1 success can build momentum very quickly.
- For players with high DODGE attributes, try running past a couple of opponents with TACKLE 3 or less.
- For players with high MIGHT attributes, shove an opponent one or two times.
- For players with high SKILL, just picking up the ball can generate good momentum. (You can also throw the ball to generate momentum, but always consider that a failed throw (as well as a flop) means that play passes to your opponent.)
- It is very difficult to generate momentum in a tackle due to the naturally high number of successes usually required, but it is relatively easy to gain momentum through an Impact challenge.

The best situation you can achieve is that you gain as many momentum points as dice you need to throw in the risky challenge. Obviously this will let you re-roll EVERY dice, should the challenge fail. The flip side of this is that every time you take a seemingly easy challenge in order to generate momentum, you are taking a risk - any flop will end your turn immediately. This balance is a delicate one, and it’s easy to be lulled into a false sense of security when the momentum track sits at 3 or more points. Any challenge that results in a flop (ie the net number of successes is -1 or less) ends your turn immediately, and you cannot re-roll the result.

Before you roll any dice, consider your position and the effect it will have on your game if the challenge roll fails. Even a 6 dice challenge roll needing 1 success can end up with your player down on the floor (although the chance is small) – if this will leave your opponent an easy gap to run through and take the win, it may not be worth the risk.

Assuming you have generated a point or two of momentum, the next decision is do you try and generate more? Or go straight for the risky challenge? A common mistake I made in my early games was to get caught up in a Momentum addiction, and found myself trying to gain as much as possible without much thought. Always keep in mind what your aim was when you activated the player, and never do any more dice rolling than necessary.

As a very rough guideline, take the number of challenge dice you will be rolling in the risky challenge, half it and round down. If you can generate that many points of momentum, it’s probably time to go for the risky challenge.
If you’ve taken a couple of challenges and you’ve failed to gain ANY momentum, it may be better to forget it completely and opt for a good defensive position with your player instead.

Decisions start to get trickier when you already have momentum and you go for another easy challenge to generate more and the challenge fails. The difficult choice is whether or not to use some momentum points to re-roll the offending dice and turn it into a success.
Re-rolling a single X into a bulls-eye gains you 2 net successes, re-rolling into a star gains you 3 net successes, and will probably regain you the spent momentum point............note the careful use of the word “probably”!

However, if you still have enough points of JOG left in your turn to achieve what you set out to do in the first place, it’s probably better to shrug your shoulders, spend the penalty point of JOG and continue with your turn.

When choosing which dice to re-roll, the easy choice is any dice with X results. You may also be tempted to re-roll a blank dice in order to turn it into more successes, but this is risky, as rolling another X could result in you flopping the overall challenge roll. Re-rolling several dice at once puts a large amount of chance into the whole thing - not highly recommended!

To Dash or Not to Dash
So your turn is over, you’ve done what you wanted to do but you have 4 momentum points sitting on the track, and they’re saying to you in a low seductive voice:- ”.....use me.....use me”.

Unless it is vital to your game-plan.....DON’T DO IT!!!!!

The dash challenge (in my opinion) is one of the riskiest things you can do. The chance to do another tackle, or another shove is very very tempting, but the consequences of failing are pretty rough.
- A failed dash puts your player down on the floor.
- A flopped dash puts your player on the floor in a dazed state.
Put another way, even using the maximum 6 momentum points to roll a dash challenge still has 14.5% chance to put your player down on the floor or worse.
As another twist of the knife, both results count as a Shift in Momentum, so any points you saved to re-roll that final dashed challenge go to your opponent for their use.

All this sounds like I am totally against using Dash......trust me, I’m not. At the end of it all, a dash challenge only ever needs 1 success to work, and if you have several points of momentum, the chances of success are pretty high. What I’m trying to get across is don’t do it unless the benefit outweighs the risk!!!!


Good examples when to use it:-
1. You have used up all your shoves for the turn and only need one more in order to push an opponent onto the sideline or goal area (and therefore getting them ejected by the referee). By far the best use in my opinion.
2. You are one space away from scoring – bit of a no-brainer – worth doing with only 1 momentum point!
3. You are one space away from an opponent who will score next turn.
4. Your move ends next to a very vulnerable opponent and you’ve already tackled once this turn. Only viable if you have a decent chance of injuring the opponent, or that opposing player moved on their last turn.

There are others, but this gives a general idea.

The worst use by far is to try and move an extra space when there’s no good reason to do so other than “because I can”. (I hold my hand up to being guilty of this in the past).

To summarise:-

- Good careful use of Momentum is strongly tied in to a successful game, but mainly in the ability to re-roll dice during your normal turn.
- Dash as a last resort, or to take advantage of a too-good-to-miss situation, but don’t use it arbitrarily.

[The Painted Goblin]

SECTION 4: UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENT PLAYER TYPES

reserved

[The Painted Goblin]

SECTION 5: TACKLING & THE BATTLE OF ATTRITION

This section aims to identify tactics and strategies to help clear the field of opposition and also reduce the likelihood of your opponent taking out your players.

The key to winning with attrition is to always work out strategies to reduce your tackle & shove challenges to 1 success where possible, and try to generate momentum to improve your result.


1) Impact Challenges
These challenges must be passed to allow you to take down the higher might players like Monsters and Defenders. Commonly, high MIGHT players have a low DODGE attribute, which means that you generally need only 1 success on the Tackle challenge, so have decent chances of forcing an injury challenge.
a) The Bane of Defenders & Dwarves
Against MIGHT 4 players, the Impact challenge requires only 1 success if tackled from the rear or you have a friendly assist. This means a MIGHT 3 player has a 72% chance of passing the challenge, and also a 50% chance of actually getting momentum from it! If using any MIGHT 4 players you need to be very aware of this vulnerability
b) Tackle Tag
Once a monster has moved, He's unable to move again next turn. If he's unsupported, it's easy to place a friendly player with facing on the monster before hitting him with a tackle from another player in your next turn. With a helper, and hitting from the rear you can take the Impact Challenge down to just 1 success needed against the MIGHT 5 beasts.
c) Pick on a smaller guy first
Before working up to take out the other guy's monster, generate momentum by shoving one of their weedier players around first. You really don't want to fail the impact challenge and be left stood next to them if you can help it - flopping the Impact challenge can actually be safer

2) The Tackle
OK, we’re finally at the important bit – the Tackle. Maybe it’s a hangover from other games I play, but I find it tempting just to run in and hit the opponents at every available opportunity without a massive amount of thought. – this is not a great tactic.

a) Tackling is not a no-brainer action
You need to think about whether it makes sense to hit a player with a Tackle this turn. If you need multiple successes, it may be worth waiting until you have an assist in place. A slide tackle might be just the job on the ball carrier, but for attrition purposes you need to wait until the time is right.
b) Get Momentum!
It’s worth saying it again, to make the Tackle stick, you really need to get some Momentum first. If your player has high DODGE, dodge him around your target, then hit him from the rear. If your player has high or medium MIGHT, consider a shove or 2 to get some extra Momentum.
c) The Magic 3 Successes
If you’re able to hit a Tackle with only 1 success needed, you’re actually going to need to roll 3 successes or better to stand a chance of injuring the opponent! With a TACKLE 4 player, you should be doing this 40% of the time without momentum.
If you need 2 successes on the tackle challenge, the chances of injury go to 22% and with 3 successes needed you’re looking at only a 10% chance of injuring your opponent!
This shows that you really need to look for and engineer the 1 success Tackle challenges to have any decent chance of injuring opponents. It’s seldom worth tackling opponents if you need more than 1 success
d) Re-rolling the Tackle
If you have Momentum – you did generate some, right?, and roll less than 2 more successes than needed in the Tackle challenge, feel free to re-roll any flops or blanks to get the best chance of getting an injury. If you have already rolled 2 more successes than needed, I wouldn’t bother with re-rolling any of the dice.
e) Re-rolling Injuries
It’s hard to generate additional Momentum on a Tackle challenge, but if you have any left over, you can use it to make your opponent re-roll successes on his Injury Challenge! This is a great way of increasing the odds that the player is out of the game!

[The Painted Goblin]

SECTION 6: THE THROWING GAME

reserved

[The Painted Goblin]

SECTION 7: THE SHOVING GAME

The key to winning with attrition is to always work out strategies to reduce your tackle & shove challenges to 1 success where possible, and try to generate momentum to improve your result.

Shoving
The shove itself can be easily overlooked as it doesn’t directly impact the health of an opposing player, however you can use shoving as an aggressive tactic to help reduce the number of opposition on the pitch.
The main advantage of shoving is because it’s a relatively safe action – a failed shove doesn’t cause a SiM or cause your player to fall over, and in many cases you can shove again if you pay a hex of JOG to do so. It’s still a Shift in Momentum if you flop a shove though!
Players are limited on the amount of shoves they can do (Half the player’s JOG attribute rounding up) which means most players can shove about 3 times a turn.
The best players for shoving have high MIGHT and average to high JOG. Dervishes and Dryads excel in it, although Strikers and Safeties can make pretty decent shove specialists.

Below are some common strategies to get the most out of the shove game:
a) Out of bounds.
Players too near the sidelines can easily fall prey to being shoved off the pitch. Players pushed out of bounds are permanently out of the test, so for tournament play especially this is more effective than tackling as there’s no injury roll, and no chance of the player coming back in from a potion.
So, with that in mind, it’s quite easy for your opponent’s players to stay 3 or 4 hexes away from the sidelines, right?
Well, there are several things that you can try to get opponents into the danger zone!
1) If your target moved last, you have 2 turns to shove the player before he is able to move again. Players like dryads and dervishes can effectively work in tandem to shove players long distances
2) You can set up a target for a tackle near the boundary, close to the maximum jog limit of your opponent’s player. You can have another player supporting them from towards the centre of the pitch. If the opponent takes the bait, you can use the supporting player to shove the opponent out
3) You can elect to throw the ball near to the boundary, this is especially good if the opponent player has enough jog to reach the ball but not enough to get it to safety again, and you have a supporting player close enough for the shove.

b) Into goal circle
There is a reason that the defender circle isn’t in a straight hex line to the goal circle! Be aware of your proximity to the goal circle when placing defensive players. It’s bad to be scored against, but even worse when your would-be safety is shoved into the goal circle en-route to the score.
The same notes apply to the goal circle as to the boundary line, but throwing the ball into an empty square between the goal circle and the boundary can make things very challenging for the defence, especially if they only have low skill players.

c) Guarding entrance areas
Reserves come on from the 2 entrance steps on their half of the pitch, up to a maximum of 3 hexes. If you can get a forward player hanging around one or both of your opponent’s entry areas, this will cause them massive problems when they need to bring in reserves, as you can simply shove them back the way they came!
This tactic can give you numerical advantage on one side of the pitch as players will have to make their way across from the other side.

d) Shove to get momentum
This is easily the most common use of Shoving – if you are using a medium to high might player, simply identify some shoves where you only need 1 success that you can do before doing your critical action.
1) You could shove the target of an intended tackle, if they are low might and you have enough JOG a shove is a low risk way to generate some momentum for the Tackle challenge
2) If you are looking to make an Impact challenge against a higher might player, you can shove a lower might opponent player first to generate momentum before attempting the Impact challenge

d) Shove to get assists
This tactic ties in with Tackles – a high dodge player in the open field is seldom worth the trouble tackling unaided, although if you have a team mate close by, you should aim is to shove the opponent into a square covered by at least 1 forward facing friendly player. This can generate momentum and reduce the number of successes needed for the Tackle

f) Dash challenge for an extra shove
Players can attempt a dash challenge for an extra shove attempt providing they have spare momentum. If you’re performing 3 shoves with a high might player, it’s likely that you can get enough momentum to perform the dash at the end of your turn. This can be effective when pushing players out of bounds or into the goal circle

[The Painted Goblin]

SECTION 8: SKILLS AND SUPPORT PIECES (TEAM DEVELOPMENT)

reserved

[Spiky]

Hi Painted Goblin,

I like the idea and this is a great start! It's looking good so far

I've just had a go at section 5!

SECTION 5: TACKLING & THE BATTLE OF ATTRITION

This section aims to identify tactics and strategies to help clear the field of opposition and also reduce the likelihood of your opponent taking out your players.

The key to winning with attrition is to always work out strategies to reduce your tackle & shove challenges to 1 success where possible, and try to generate momentum to improve your result.


1) Positioning.
Positioning is mentioned here because it is a very important factor to consider when looking at attrition
a) Player Facing
This critical part of Elfball and can mean a big difference as an opponent gets -1 to the number of successes needed if they are shoving or tackling you from the rear 3 hexes. At the end of your turn always position your players to minimise the risks of being hit from this direction. On the reverse side when Shoving or Tackling a player, you should be on the lookout to exploit any facing problems that your opponent has.
b) Player Support
In general, you need to ensure your players are in a position to support and protect each other. If you have a player exposed, your opponent will try to take him out. Having players close by gives you more opportunities to use player facing to reduce the number of successes needed for challenges.
c) Player Spacing & Zone Control
In the attrition game it’s critical to know how many hexes opponents players are away from your players. Space control is another key aspect to this game and you should use your high MIGHT and TACKLE players to control areas of the board and allow your ball handlers freedom to move.


2) Shoving
The shove itself can be easily overlooked as it doesn’t directly impact the health of an opposing player, however you can use shoving as an aggressive tactic to help reduce the number of opposition on the pitch.
The main advantage of shoving is because it’s a relatively safe action – a failed shove doesn’t cause a SiM or cause your player to fall over, and in many cases you can shove again if you pay a hex of JOG to do so. It’s still a Shift in Momentum if you flop a shove though!
Players are limited on the amount of shoves they can do (Half the player’s JOG attribute rounding up) which means most players can shove about 3 times a turn.
The best players for shoving have high MIGHT and average to high JOG. Dervishes and Dryads excel in it, although Strikers and Safeties can make pretty decent shove specialists.

Below are some common strategies to get the most out of the shove game:
a) Out of bounds.
Players too near the sidelines can easily fall prey to being shoved off the pitch. Players pushed out of bounds are permanently out of the test, so for tournament play especially this is more effective than tackling as there’s no injury roll, and no chance of the player coming back in from a potion.
So, with that in mind, it’s quite easy for your opponent’s players to stay 3 or 4 hexes away from the sidelines, right?
Well, there are several things that you can try to get opponents into the danger zone!
1) If your target moved last, you have 2 turns to shove the player before he is able to move again. Players like dryads and dervishes can effectively work in tandem to shove players long distances
2) You can set up a target for a tackle near the boundary, close to the maximum jog limit of your opponent’s player. You can have another player supporting them from towards the centre of the pitch. If the opponent takes the bait, you can use the supporting player to shove the opponent out
3) You can elect to throw the ball near to the boundary, this is especially good if the opponent player has enough jog to reach the ball but not enough to get it to safety again, and you have a supporting player close enough for the shove.

b) Into goal circle
There is a reason that the defender circle isn’t in a straight hex line to the goal circle! Be aware of your proximity to the goal circle when placing defensive players. It’s bad to be scored against, but even worse when your would-be safety is shoved into the goal circle en-route to the score.
The same notes apply to the goal circle as to the boundary line, but throwing the ball into an empty square between the goal circle and the boundary can make things very challenging for the defence, especially if they only have low skill players.

c) Guarding entrance areas
Reserves come on from the 2 entrance steps on their half of the pitch, up to a maximum of 3 hexes. If you can get a forward player hanging around one or both of your opponent’s entry areas, this will cause them massive problems when they need to bring in reserves, as you can simply shove them back the way they came!
This tactic can give you numerical advantage on one side of the pitch as players will have to make their way across from the other side.

d) Shove to get momentum
This is easily the most common use of Shoving – if you are using a medium to high might player, simply identify some shoves where you only need 1 success that you can do before doing your critical action.
1) You could shove the target of an intended tackle, if they are low might and you have enough JOG a shove is a low risk way to generate some momentum for the Tackle challenge
2) If you are looking to make an Impact challenge against a higher might player, you can shove a lower might opponent player first to generate momentum before attempting the Impact challenge



d) Shove to get assists
This tactic ties in with Tackles – a high dodge player in the open field is seldom worth the trouble tackling unaided, although if you have a team mate close by, you should aim is to shove the opponent into a square covered by at least 1 forward facing friendly player. This can generate momentum and reduce the number of successes needed for the Tackle



f) Dash challenge for an extra shove
Players can attempt a dash challenge for an extra shove attempt providing they have spare momentum. If you’re performing 3 shoves with a high might player, it’s likely that you can get enough momentum to perform the dash at the end of your turn. This can be effective when pushing players out of bounds or into the goal circle

3) Impact Challenges
These challenges must be passed to allow you to take down the higher might players like Monsters and Defenders. Commonly, high MIGHT players have a low DODGE attribute, which means that you generally need only 1 success on the Tackle challenge, so have decent chances of forcing an injury challenge.
a) The Bane of Defenders & Dwarves
Against MIGHT 4 players, the Impact challenge requires only 1 success if tackled from the rear or you have a friendly assist. This means a MIGHT 3 player has a 72% chance of passing the challenge, and also a 50% chance of actually getting momentum from it! If using any MIGHT 4 players you need to be very aware of this vulnerability
b) Tackle Tag
Once a monster has moved, He's unable to move again next turn. If he's unsupported, it's easy to place a friendly player with facing on the monster before hitting him with a tackle from another player in your next turn. With a helper, and hitting from the rear you can take the Impact Challenge down to just 1 success needed against the MIGHT 5 beasts.
c) Pick on a smaller guy first
Before working up to take out the other guy's monster, generate momentum by shoving one of their weedier players around first. You really don't want to fail the impact challenge and be left stood next to them if you can help it - flopping the Impact challenge can actually be safer

4) The Tackle
OK, we’re finally at the important bit – the Tackle. Maybe it’s a hangover from other games I play, but I find it tempting just to run in and hit the opponents at every available opportunity without a massive amount of thought. – this is not a great tactic.

a) Tackling is not a no-brainer action
You need to think about whether it makes sense to hit a player with a Tackle this turn. If you need multiple successes, it may be worth waiting until you have an assist in place. A slide tackle might be just the job on the ball carrier, but for attrition purposes you need to wait until the time is right.
b) Get Momentum!
It’s worth saying it again, to make the Tackle stick, you really need to get some Momentum first. If your player has high DODGE, dodge him around your target, then hit him from the rear. If your player has high or medium MIGHT, consider a shove or 2 to get some extra Momentum.



c) The Magic 3 Successes
If you’re able to hit a Tackle with only 1 success needed, you’re actually going to need to roll 3 successes or better to stand a chance of injuring the opponent! With a TACKLE 4 player, you should be doing this 40% of the time without momentum.
If you need 2 successes on the tackle challenge, the chances of injury go to 22% and with 3 successes needed you’re looking at only a 10% chance of injuring your opponent!
This shows that you really need to look for and engineer the 1 success Tackle challenges to have any decent chance of injuring opponents. It’s seldom worth tackling opponents if you need more than 1 success
d) Re-rolling the Tackle
If you have Momentum – you did generate some, right?, and roll less than 2 more successes than needed in the Tackle challenge, feel free to re-roll any flops or blanks to get the best chance of getting an injury. If you have already rolled 2 more successes than needed, I wouldn’t bother with re-rolling any of the dice.
e) Re-rolling Injuries
It’s hard to generate additional Momentum on a Tackle challenge, but if you have any left over, you can use it to make your opponent re-roll successes on his Injury Challenge! This is a great way of increasing the odds that the player is out of the game!

Comments appreciated

Cheers,
Spiky

[The Painted Goblin]

Fantastic - this is the kind of stuff I'm after. I don't have time to read through it all now, but it's looking good at first glance!

[GalakStarscraper]

All this stuff so far is awesome guys.

When done I'll get it all into a PDF and host it on the site.

Tom

[sann0638]

Superb. One quick one to add to the Impact, because a player can only move alternate turns, if a big guy moves you can move in an assist and then tackle him on the second turn - this can work nicely to reduce the number of successes needed on the impact.

More to come, I expect...

[Spiky]

Thanks Mike - I've updated the Impact section, and thought of something else to add there...

Edit - and now added a few diagrams. The last diagram is the sneaky move you employed against me several times with the Gnomes last night.