Some help on DE offence

[El_Jairo]

Hi there,

I have some questions about how you make the best of DE offence plays. It is especially difficult if people cover the widezones with SF players.

What do you do than? Try to run through the middle and see your reciever group flooded by defence players... Or try to run the ball in a loose cage?

I don't have AG upgrades in my team, thus against strength teams it is not easy for me. I woul like some advice of you expierenced coaches

my team

Also was doubting if the second double on a liner is best to be dauntless or jump-up. Probably jump-up as DE can use more mobility, especially on guard players...

thanx for sharing your wisdom and experience!

[wesleytj]

your asnwer to those stand firm guys in wide zones: witch elves. especially that good one, aretha franklin.

you want to blitz the guy on the corner with her. you'll usually get 2 good shots to knock them down, pushback result means you get to hit them again. and the stand firm helps keep him in bounds, but at the same time it means you only have to set up one assist for both hits whereas sometimes you have more trouble getting 2 blocks depending on the defensive setup.

once they're down, you can still run by with blitzers and such.

alternatively you may wish to develop some leapers. they cause real headaches to opposing defenses.

also yes, i'd use the second doubles on a DE for jump up as opposed to dauntless. guard is a skil you give the guy who assists blocks, not the guy who perpetrates them. dauntless is a skill that goes to the guys who make the block. it's one or the other.

[El_Jairo]

thx Wez, but the problem is behind this one SF guy (most of the time he has guard too) is one more player in the wide zone.... wait, I'll try to draw it

Code: Select all

  x  g
----------             Legend:
                         x: no SF player
  s  x                   s: SF player
__________               g: guard player
                         ---: wide zone marking
                         ___: edge of pitch marking

So I can see I can get the s (most of the time orc blitzer) player down, but this doesn't clear the path toward the end zonde.
So I have to mark the other player in to prevent them of samping op my witch. This does give them some easy blocks.
But idd I could try to do this as a diversion. Hope that he will put too much effort in this one flank and leave the other one open. Then next turn move the ball to the other flank and screen it with elves that dodge away from the LoS.

Indeed I need a leaper but I've been waiting for an +Ag that doesn't want to come

Maybe I can just give it to my new witch, or a bodlge blitzer anyway. I assume than leaping over the line is only good if u can score, one player alone in a recieving position is just asking to get fouled to hell.

[Cramy]

I find that it is sometimes easier to knock-over the guy on one side of the LoS to create a hole, but that depends on the defensive setup. Putting the hole there makes it easier to swamp his back-field as you can setup your players real-close to the LoS. When creating the whole in the wide-zone, because you are only allowed to setup two players in the wide-zone, it is more difficult to swamp his backfield.

To prevent his guys from swamping you, but TZs on his players. Yes you are elves, but DE have AV8 which is not too bad. I tend to stay away from his players to avoid getting blocked. But once I am ready to make the killer play to move the ball deep into his zone I put as many TZs as possible on his players such that he has trouble swamping my players in his back-field.

And try to get as many blodgers as possible. That way, you don't need a big hole to squeeze through as you can always dodge player in his backfield (if you get a push-back instead of a pow for example). And you can put TZs on oppozing players when you need to with low risk of him making you fall over in his turn, and then dodge away in your next turn if you chose to. Obviously this does not work that well against tackle-heavy teams.

This seems to work OK for me for now.

[Cloggy]

Remember, there is no law that says elves HAVE to score in 2 turns. Especially darkies can easliy get away with taking their time to score. I even do it with my woodies.
Mostly opponents are so focussed on setting up in such a way that they are able to put cover on your potential recievers that they don't have the right players in position to put pressure on your back field. If they want the ball, they will have to move from their defensive line in order to get to you.
At that point they will almost inevitably leave gaps in their defenses you can use. You are faster than them after all, and once to manage to spread their players around a little your elves will run rings around them.

[El_Jairo]

thx for the advice!

Cloggy: what to do when they are focussing on outbashing you? I guess I should split up in two groups: One protecting the ball (and maybe passing it to eachother to gain SPP) while the other one is trying to punch the hole and get into scoring position?

To make them chase the ball the ball group should be quite little: like 2-3 players, right?

[Cloggy]

Well, they will always focus on outbashing you, whether you score in 2 turns or delay. The thing about playing elves is that a basher needs two players to have any chance of stopping a single elf from dodging away. If you spread your players into 3 groups, 1 group around the ball, 1 group in midfield and some deep recievers this will become practically impossible, and you should have some players free at all times.

In the end you will need to do the run/hand-off/run/pass/run thingie to actualy score off course, which carries it's own risks. But I still prefer this slower style of offense and scoring in about 5 turns (scoring in 8 is always better of course, but can't always be done). This means the basher will have to hurry in his drive to equalise, which increases your chances of stealing the ball away since cage-and-crawl is not a viable option.

[El_Jairo]

thx Cloggy for the solid advice. I use to play with several possible recievers and made it so that they were 2 squares away from each other. Spread the elves because they can dodge through anyway.

So to sumerize: it is not that necessary to knock down that SF guy. Just punch a hole to put players in scoreable positions (best 3) and tie up some of their best blitzers and other threats to my recievers.

Hope that not too much armour breaks on his turn. See if he pressures the ball or not. If not, stall some and try to blitz somebody off the pitch, this will make him worry some. Maybe throw a nasty DP foul in
Free the recievers and minimize the usefull blocks they can throw at you.

I would also like to see some matches of DE vs strength team. I can win against Chaos without tackle: that was even more easy because the coahc played bad

[SolomonKane]

Try this page: http://www.midgardbb.com/Tactics/offence.html

Look for the 'Offense with an agility team' section. Don't pay attention so much to the specific formation as to the ideas behind it:

1) Attempt to punch a hole in the defense so you can flood one side of the opponent's half with 3-4 players. Notice how the initial blocks do NOT attack the widezone players, but rather those just to the side of the center of the pitch. Notice also that only one of the three opposing LOS players gets blocked initially.

2) Notice the two central players which begin the drive one space away from the center of the opposing LOS. These two are intended to be bodyguards for the ball handler in the backfield. However, given the right situation in which the defense is very spread out trying to cover possible receivers, you might have a running score up the middle of the pitch.

3) This offense assumes you try to flood the opponent's half in two different areas, again with the idea of spreading out the defense and leaving you holes through which to run-handoff-run-pass-catch-run-TD.

[El_Jairo]

I can remeber reading these strategy tips. But I do have some doubts. I never have seen the type of defense set-up and dodging through three TZ square requires a 3+ 3+ 2+ (ok with dodge there is a fair chance of something like 40% but still 60% chance of failure)

And I don't get it why only one of the three LoS guys are blocked, ok it is enough to have one hole and than run through, but it is usefull to get them down, as they other wise can pressure the ball.

But indeed there are some usefull concepts behind this: why use two player to get one oponent down? If you can place a reciever deep he will need two players to cover him propperly.

Thx for the tips.

[Cramy]

Why not knock-over the other two players on the LoS? Because you could fail.

If you really want to knock them over, then you would want two dice blocks. And with DEs, you probably don't have any guards handy, so you need to get a bunch of players in there to help-out. That leaves less players to protect the ball handler and to flood the other side of the field. You can also try to do one-on-one blocks, but unless you have block and your opponent doesn't, I would not want to do that too often. And if you fail the block, then you just opened a hole for the potentially dangerous guy on the LoS to threaten your backfield.

And by just leaving your guys there, they put a TZ on the other players, hence they can't go running after your more important players. Do you want this Rat Ogre to blitz smack in the middle of your future ball receivers, or do you want him to flail at your linelf? If you have a linelf with -AG or -MV, this is a great spot for him. If he dies or gets injured, oh well. Better him than you start Witch Elf.

Having said that, don't leave your Elves in TZs for no reason. Once you feel that you don't need to have a TZ on the opponent, then dodge out. I often dodge out, run around, then stand between that same original player and the potential receivers. This means that my player does not get blocked, and my opponent can't get to my other players. Works pretty good.