where to kick in bash vs. bash?

[Halskov1]

In the near future I'm going to play a match with my Norse team against either an Orc or a Chaos Dwarf team.
(you can check out my team here http://www.talkbloodbowl.com/phpBB2/vie ... hp?t=25801)

Both teams outmuscle me a little bit and there is a considerable risk that their heavily armored players will outnumber my scantily clad vikings by mid/end game. My main advantage of course is speed.

My main question though is where my kick lineman should kick too?

The elf/skaven kick is fairly straight forward. Kick deep, race them to the ball. This might even be an option in this case depending on the defense setup and the body count. But it is probably not realistic in most instances since I don't have the overall mobility and/or movement the fast teams have.

The "kick deep, prevent them from scoring until the half ends" is also pretty straight forward.

But what about the first kick for instance? Do I kick deep in order split their forces even though it will give them at least one "safe" turn to secure the ball? Or do I kick shallow, close to the LOS, in order to force them to worry about securing the ball and caging up from the whistleblow? This is the strategy I currently favor even though it might just give them the opportunity to march their entire squad down to the end zone, happily dancing around the cage.

Where should I kick it?

[PubBowler]

The elf/skaven kick is fairly straight forward.

I favour a short kick when playing speed vs speed.
Makes a Blitz better and you don't want them stalling.

In bash vs bash I'm always torn (and often decide whenb I see the opposing set up.

But I believe the extra distance needed to travel for a slow team makes keeping them out easy most of the time.

[mattgslater]

It's all dependent on your opponent's MA vs. AV.

MA≥AV: Kick shallow
MA<AV: Kick deep

Against Orcs, kick deep.

[Joemanji]

General rule is kick deep against slow teams. But always be prepared to kick shallow if you spot your opponent hasn't got the MA to cover one of the sidelines with a proper cage. Remember he needs to move 5 players to the spot where the ball lands.

[mattgslater]

Depends. Can you nix his Throwers and get him below 9 or 10 men? Then you can kick shallow to great effect. Even then, though, I'd kick deep unless he started setting up deep offenses as a counter.

[DoubleSkulls]

I'd normally recommend kicking deep against another bash team because you can then gang up on his LOS whilst he is bring the ball forward - you only need to send one or two players deep to make him commit more to protecting the ball carrier or undertaking some extra ball handling.

However with Norse I'd be tempted to try kicking short. The reason for that is because you'll kick to one side or the other (rather than down the middle) which means you are more likely to get them near the sidelines where your frenzy can push them all into the crowd.

[Halskov1]

I faced the Chaos Dwarf team and kicked the ball to the far end of the pitch. He set up to use one of his Bull Centaurs as a ball carrier (in order to skill him up), which made the decision to kick deep even easier. I committed three players to chasing down the ball.

Had he actually picked up the ball on the first try it would have been pretty dissapointing as he could have moved the ball all the way to the midfield and the security of a cage before I could have interfered.

Luckily he didn't. When he got his hands on it in the second attempt he could only form a pretty rocky cage that I could take apart and place three TZ's on his Bull Centaur. This proved sufficient to eventually engineer a block on his ball carrier and capture the ball.

Unfortunately the Snow Troll decided to fail me, when he could have more or less ensured the TD. I felt that I suffered from a (somewhat) irrational fear of using him for anything important, and the odds where pretty good, so I let him attempt a 2 dice block, in order to move the ball carrier to an unassailable spot, and he promptly fell on his ass. Well, I guess I'm stuck with my my "irrational" fear for a while yet

We ended the half with a few turns of brawling, where both of us did a better job of preventing goals than actually scoring any.

In the second half I recieved and scored a TD in turn 3 with my blodging ag4 Runner. I was very lucky with a few end of turn dodges with my ag3 players that instead of being murdered got a chance to outmaneuver the little ones.

The following drive I kicked deep again. This time I committed all available players to chasing down the ball. He picked it up on first attempt, but I put enough pressure on him so he couldn't completely secure it. I didn't quite manage to capture the ball, but I did knock it loose and when he picked it up again, a partly succesful half-die block on his Bull Centaur ball carrier pushed it back and forced him to attempt the full 9 moves in order to make the TD. Luckily the Bull fell over and gave me a 1-0 victory.

The lesson from this game follows what seems to be conventional wisdom: Kick deep against slower bashing teams. Even though they are not exactly elves, my faster players were still able to move into his back field and assert preassure on the ball. Had he committed more players to babysitting the ball I would have been happy too, since that would let me dominate the LOS. As it was I was pretty lucky to only suffer one casualty and a fair amount of KO's. Had he been a little more ruthless with his injury rolls, the game could have gone very differently, so I can't really fault my opponents strategy either.