Slowing down play...A valid tactic.

Cooper · Post by **Cooper** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 8:23 am

Dave wrote:I think we all agree that 'stalling' 'taking your time' or in other words 'Clock Management' is NOT a problem but a valid strategy.

The point is doing this against opponents that can't do sh!t about it, and even killing them off. That ain't nice.

i kinda a agree, but if NOT doing it could realistically cost you the game, then i would...
W

Smeborg · Post by **Smeborg** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 4:06 pm

As far as I'm concerned, so called "stalling", or more properly, clock management, is a perfectly valid, non-beardy, and even polite standard tactic.

No doubt the same coaches who object to "stalling" and the beating up of their poor little players, also object to fouling.

BB is a game involving dice, luck influences the game, and extreme luck always happens at the nastiest times. If you are leading by one TD, and you score in order to be, as you think, "sporting", leaving your opponent (say) 3 turns, he will beat you (TD in 2 turns, followed by a Blitz result on the Kick-off Table, and a win on the last turn).

So if you're playing a slow and/or bashy team, if you don't "stall", you're just asking to get beaten. Anyway, defending against a "stalling" play is one of the most satisfying challenges in BB.

Cheers

Post by **Dave** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 4:28 pm

Cooper wrote:i kinda a agree, but if NOT doing it could realistically cost you the game, then i would...
W

and still you wouldn't stall and meanwhile kill off opposition for no SPP's or anything else ..

Cooper · Post by **Cooper** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 7:32 am

Dave wrote:
Cooper wrote:i kinda a agree, but if NOT doing it could realistically cost you the game, then i would...
W
and still you wouldn't stall and meanwhile kill off opposition for no SPP's or anything else ..

No, if i wouldn't gain from it i wouldn't go of killing people, no...
W

Skummy · Post by **Skummy** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 2:28 pm

Cooper wrote:No, if i wouldn't gain from it i wouldn't go of killing people, no...
W

Cooper, you do gain (get SPP's) for killing people on regular blocks.

Cooper · Post by **Cooper** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 2:43 pm

Skummy wrote:
Cooper wrote:No, if i wouldn't gain from it i wouldn't go of killing people, no...
W
Cooper, you do gain (get SPP's) for killing people on regular blocks.

true, but not for fouling...i might consider blocking to get spp's but once they stay down i won't foul...
W

crazylegs · Post by **crazylegs** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 5:45 pm

I guess for me the answer to this question has always been just "convince him to score". I had an opponent try to stall on me last week. He wanted to tie the game and go into overtime (we play a sudden death 8-turn half), instead of letting me get the ball back... so I proceded to remove any pressure from the wall around the ball carrier, picked out his most valuable player that wasn't part of that wall, knocked him down, and gave hime a little zombie boot... whammo one knocked out werewolf. The next turn he continued to stall (I guess he thought I wouldn't foul with the eye on me) so Whammo, MNG on a ghoul (at this points I also informed him I'd be going after his AG4 wight next (who was already on the ground with 3 players around him)... he scored next turn.

I understand that sometimes you get horribly outnumbered due to no fault of your own, and in those cases you've just got to protect your guys. Bad luck can ruin your game plans whenever it rears it's head, don't blame your opponent for not letting you to get back in the game.

leblanc13 · Post by **leblanc13** » Sat Apr 03, 2004 6:19 am

I agree that putting the pressure on your opponent will force his hand, but if your players are so far out of position to help or if you have taken too many injuries to do anything about it you are out of luck. Your opponent can stall over and over and over again.

One of my good friends pointed out that earlier in my BB career that I was the perpetrator of a stalling game. Apparently I stalled for a full four turns because my opponent was out of position and had no way to reach my Beastman through a wall of Chaos Warriors.

My subconscious has apparently blocked it out, but I can vaguely recall the anger of my opponent as he uselessly through himself on my wall of Chaos Warriors only to break and fall under their might.

I was not spoken kindly of that week amongst my BB friends. In my defense, If there is any team that would try such underhanded tactics, the Chaos team would be the team to accomplish it.

I suppose that is why I have not done this tactic in a long time.

It leads to bad blood amongst friends.

TuernRedvenom · Post by **TuernRedvenom** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 10:51 am

Dave wrote:I think we all agree that 'stalling' 'taking your time' or in other words 'Clock Management' is NOT a problem but a valid strategy.

The point is doing this against opponents that can't do sh!t about it, and even killing them off. That ain't nice.

Well it is bloodbowl after all. It is not a nice game (fluffwise). Stalling is 100% acceptable, so is beating the cr@p out of your opponent while doing it. It's just part of the game. Just because my opponent has bad luck doesn't mean I should go easy on him, I would be offended if my opponent would do that to me.
Last night in the final turn of the game I fouled my opponent's minotaur, I had nothing really to gain by it. But damaging your opponent is part of the game (especially when playing dark elves). Of course he had no apo left and I killed the bugger. My opponent wasn't pissed off at all because, well, that is the game after all. It is just a game, if you can't deal with that then don't play.
If you (in a general meaning) don't have fun because you are losing that says more about you then your opponent IMHO.

Heiper · Post by **Heiper** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 3:23 pm

TuernRedvenom wrote: If you (in a general meaning) don't have fun because you are losing that says more about you then your opponent IMHO.

I've met a few of those

. It's no fun winning over those guys either, as they complain thoughout the game about everything not going their way. I'm not the used be beaten here in my home league, but when I lose I hope I'm not one of those complaining too much. I should probably try some online league to get some real challenge and see how it is to get beaten bad by the "real" players and learn from the experience.

Post by **Dave** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 4:08 pm

oi I didn't write that .. tuern did

Heiper · Post by **Heiper** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 4:11 pm

Ooopsie, something went wrong in the quote department

Fixed it now.

swilhelm73 · Post by **swilhelm73** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 5:45 pm

I was playing against a passing oriented Chaos team the other day with my Orcs.

I managed to score in 4 turns, followed by him scoring in 3. I have to admit, I saw the ag4 beastman with pass, but I really didn't expect to be playing against a 4 downfield reciever set with a Chaos opponent, hence the sloppy D on my part.

Anyway, start of the second half, I'm kicking, score is 1-1.

The KO result is PI, and he gets 4 KOs and 1 BH.

I swarm the ball and by turn 3 I could easily score. Which would most likely leave him back with 11 players and 4 turns to score to tie...

So I stalled. After knocking all his players over he didn't stand them up, and I didn't bother to foul - no DPs on my orc team at this point.

Finally realizing I was going to wait to score at the end, he came after me with that ag4 beastie, dodged through 4 tzs to throw a 1 D block - POW of course

.

Well, this is my turn 7, and the ball bounces out of bounds of course. Fourtunately, the ball ended up still near his end zone, and I managed to pick it up and score on T8 anyway. Had he not left most of his players on the ground and really gone after my ball carrier, he most likely could have forced me to score sooner, or perhaps even stopped me from scoring.

Anyway, stalling is a valid aspect of defense, pure and simple. In my experience, 90% of the time a team can stall is due to soft defense on the opponent's part, and well, the other 10% is no different then any of the myriad other ways Nuffle can abuse a coach.

I go into a game expecting that my opponent will try to win, and frankly would be disappointed if he did not. I expect, given the chance, zons to dodge away, elves to huck the ball from one end of the field to another, skaven to leave my players in the dust, and power teams to play smart clock management.

leblanc13 · Post by **leblanc13** » Thu Apr 08, 2004 6:22 am

I don't quite feel as bad about stalling as I used to. It seems that pretty much everyone agrees that if your opponent is not putting pressure on you that it is their fault and not yours.

I guess there are situations where it is not sporting, but when you are facing a team that can 1 turn or 2 turn score against you it's better to hold onto the ball for as long as possible.

With some teams stalling is not a possiblility. Halflings, goblins, wood elves, or skaven would have problems with this strategy, however these teams are all capable of 1 turn/2 turn scoring so for them it is not a true problem.

Dwarves, Chaos, Nurgle, and Orcs really must manage the clock wisely or they WILL find themselves on the losing side of a game. You just can't allow equal time of possession using these teams. If you allow your opponent to hold the ball for 8 out of 16 turns they could probably outscore you 2 to 1 every time.

My point is that it all depends on who you are playing and how the game is going that is going to dictate how I try to manage the clock during the game. If most of their players are off of the pitch due to knock outs or injury then I will slow the game down as much as I can to keep control of the ball. If my opponents can't or won't put pressure on me to score, then I don't see why I should. I don't have the same ability to score with the slower bashing teams as I would with an elf team so I should do what I can do well which is to make key hits and take a slow walk up to my opponents endzone to march in for the TD. I guess the key to stalling is to try and make it look like your not stalling. Move up the field REALLY slowly and knock your opponents down on the way.

TuernRedvenom · Post by **TuernRedvenom** » Thu Apr 08, 2004 7:02 am

Even with my dark elves I always stall when possible, especially when it's the first drive of the half. It works both ways you know. If you give your dwarf opponent only 4 turns to score back at you then he'll have to rush and that gives you a good chance to score back at him and probably decide the game in your favour.
I don't see why you would make it appear you aren't stalling? I would make it obvious so he takes it into account next game/drive. Because stalling also is a strategical tool. If your opponent knows by experience that you won't stall he can set up all his players on the line of scrimmage in an effort to overpower you. If that dwarf player knows you'll stall he'll probably keep some players back to pressure you thereby giving you an easier time beating the front line up.