Anybody know a good cage breaker strat?

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McTavish
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Anybody know a good cage breaker strat?

Post by McTavish »

As a Skaven player, I have problems with certain members of my league who generally care to form their most invulnerable players- one guy enjoys using his four Block/Dodge/Tackle/Thick Skulled dwarf linemen- into a difficult-to-break cage around their ball carrier. I'm running out of ideas as to what to do to get around this phenomenon.

My current strategy is to try like hell to get a pushback of any sort on one side of the cage, thus either opening a small hole or pushing the whole of the cage over a square, hopefully exposing a hole that my Thrower with Strip Ball can use to at least take the ball away from the bastard. This, unfortunately, often doesn't work, owing to its normal dependence upon a blitz for one or more of the blocks it requires; my Thrower doesn't have block or dodge, and unless I'm lucky enough to get one of my Storm Vermin with Blodge in on the first block I tend to go down a good deal myself.

We play with the On-Pitch Spellcaster rules, and my Seer with Warpfire (the target of the spell can't do anything and loses his tackle zone for the rest of my turn and my opponent's next turn) can usually keep the bastard from scoring for a single turn, but he can only cast that once a game and it often isn't long enough.

Does anyone have a good strategy or character build to counteract these cage plays? I've been thinking about trying to get a character with Leap, maybe to help break into the thing, but otherwise I'm fairly stuck. I'd look into something like Multiple Block, followed up with Prehensile Tail and Diving Tackle, but I refuse to use a Rat Ogre with Wild Animal in its current form and am rather out of other appreciable characters to attempt to arrange such a combo on...

Anybody got any advice for me? :wink:

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Post by Fronko »

Put tackle zones on the back of the cage. Thus he is either forced to block your players or dodge his longbeards out. If he DOES block you, he either can't advance the cage or he creates holes in it for you to exploit. Main problem could be that those players on the back get whacked real bad. :(

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Post by martynq »

That's one tough cage. I think the best strategy in this case is to try to stop the cage forming in the first place. Make sure you have a linerat with Kick and try to kick to places that he can't easily form the cage in immediately. Then try to use your movement to hassle where the ball is before the cage is formed. To be honest, I think you are stuffed once the cage has formed since that is one tough set of dwarves.

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Post by DoubleSkulls »

Get a GR with Dauntless, Horns and Leap. :D

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Post by Anthony_TBBF »

I find the best thing to do with people who rely on cages is to just surround them and don't let them move. Ya can't score if ya can't move the ball. The cage is a decent defensive formation but it can be hard to move if your players are in the right places. My advice would be to sit and wait it out, and chip away at it where you can.

Either that or play Welfs and knock his ass down with a Wardancer :)

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Post by Tim »

With very advanced Skaven, you could have a Gutter runner with Block, Dauntless, Horns and Leap (maybe Strip Ball on top) to break the ball free. Then you could have another Gutterrunner with Leap, Big hand and NOS to snatch the ball from tackle zones and get it to a save place.

I hand a pair of these Gutter runners on my infamous Rotten Ratscals (3rd Ed.) which looked like this:
9 2 4 7 Dodge, Block, Dauntless, Leap, Horns, Strip Ball, Sidestep
and
9 2 5 7 Dodge, Big Hand, Leap, AG+, Block, NOS

This pair was almost unstoppable in extracting the ball, even with Guard and the old Diving Tackle.

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Post by McDeth »

Anthony_TBBF wrote:I find the best thing to do with people who rely on cages is to just surround them and don't let them move. Ya can't score if ya can't move the ball. The cage is a decent defensive formation but it can be hard to move if your players are in the right places. My advice would be to sit and wait it out, and chip away at it where you can.
In a Nutshell that about it. dwarves move slow, make them Blitz you to try and gain ground, and then smack em back, you dont need to slow the cage by putting men at the back as they'll get crippled. Force him into making plays. If he comes to you you'll get the first blocks in, against his solitary blitz. Just hold a line 1 square in front of his gage, he'll already be commiting men to form the back of the cage, and therefore be unlikely to overpower you with numbers at the front

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Post by Robotorz »

Tim do you throw the ball with that NOS Gutter Runner? If not I dont understand why he has NOS...

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Post by Skummy »

Well, it's pretty easy, actually. If the gutter runner is in somebody's tackle zone, you throw him the ball and he catches it like normal, then dodges in to score.

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Post by Maniac0301 »

Thats exactly how I use it. I put NOS on a Witch Elf on my DE team. The opposing team is forced to use more than one person to mark her so that she has a harder chance to dodge out. I usually find it easier to make a hole up front for my thrower to go to to throw than to have a catcher who is completely open to pass to. I usually have another catcher down field as well forcing atleast 3 people to cover them to keep me from scoring. Many times a slow moving team will not have enough people far back to cover them. All I need now is another double so I can get that WE leap and I'll be in very good shape.

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Post by sangraal »

I play in a league of newbies, I've played about 30 games in total with my
3 teams --- my orcs are doing pretty well with the cage-based offense.

The only real trouble has come from the Wood Elf Wardancers --- leaping
into the cage.

I really dont understand why my opponents dont just stay 1 square away from the front of the cage & force me to only move 1 square, they usually
try to hit the sides, making it reasonably easy to bust a hole in the front & get a mini-cage going 4 or 5 squares down the pitch.

They should be putting a bit of pressure on the back of the cage(where the
weaker players are) but leave the rest in a line, backing away from the cage. I feel that if they kept this up for most of the half, it would force me
to do something a little risky, like TTM or trying to pass to a goblin.

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Post by Tim »

Robotorz wrote:Tim do you throw the ball with that NOS Gutter Runner? If not I dont understand why he has NOS...
The reason for NOS is that i could can leap into any place with the ball, guarded with any number of TZs and extract the ball with a 2+ 2+ 2+ (leap, pick, pass) to any of my players in short pass range.

Just make sure you score that turn, otherwise the GR will be stomped into the ground :)

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Dont break it!

Post by Arayel »

Ok first off try and stop them making a cage in the first place, or at least delay it. This should take a couple of turns. That leaves him 6 turns to rumble down the board. Basically just bring your whole team to the front of the cage and then stand 1 square off him, making him throw 1 block per turn and only advance 1 square. He will eventually have to break his own cage and give your your opportunity.

Another option of course is to find a high strenght player with frenzy and just push your way inot the cage and make a big mess of the entire centre of the pitch - I'd only suggest this for the stronger teams though as other will get mauled in this sort of ruck!!

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