How should I set up my Orc team for defence and offence?

[Olaf the Stout]

Ok, I've been convinced in taking Frenzy over Strip Ball. Frenzy should narrow the field a little for teams without Side Step (with only 1 skill per player I'm not expecting to see too much beyond the Pro Elves). I'm still going to keep Tackle on the other Blitzer. That skill will be useful for taking down pesky Gutter Runners and the like in the backfield.

At the moment looks like this:

4 x Blitzers (2 x Stand Firm, 1 x Tackle, 1 x Frenzy) - 400k
4 x Black Orc Blockers (2 x Block, 2 x Stand Firm, Block or Guard) - 400k
1 x Thrower with Kick - 90k
1 x Goblin with Diving Tackle - 60k
1 x Lineorc (no skills) - 50k
1 x Troll with Guard - 130k

2 x Rerolls - 120k

Total - 1250k

The only thing I am undecided on now is what to take on the 2 Black Orcs that won't be standing on the LoS. At the moment I am leaning towards Guard. Block is always a good choice to take on a ST4 player, while I can see Stand Firm being a usefully annoying skill to have.

Thoughts?

Olaf the Stout

[mattgslater]

Guard is for LoS, when it comes to BOBs. If you're putting Block BOBs on the line, then make it Block or Stand Firm for the backers.

[DoubleSkulls]

Well I'd do it differently.

4x Blitzers - 1x Frenzy for sure, 1x tackle okay. Then I'd forget stand firm and take Mighty Blow or Guard on the other two. Probably MB since you may need the extra ability to hurt to win the numbers game. Alternatively give one tackle and one mighty blow. Two tackle really means you are expecting a lot of elves.

4x BOBs - guard on them all.
1 xTroll - guard
1 x Thrower - leader
2 x Reroll

That I think costs 1140k for 10 players. Leaving 110k for one or two more players. The options would be an unskilled thrower and and unskilled goblin, two unskilled lineorcs or a skilled thrower.

I'd probably go for the two line orcs. Goblins are just too vulnerable and every team - even the elfs - will be able to remove him from the field easily leaving you short of numbers. Also an 11 orc line up will struggle since someone will get lucky and get numbers up on you - without a reserve you'll struggle to win the short game.

[mattgslater]

4x Blitzers - 1x Frenzy for sure, 1x tackle okay. Then I'd forget stand firm and take Mighty Blow or Guard on the other two.

I'm not going to address the Mighty Blow thing, but actually I kind of agree about Guard over Stand Firm. The question between those two is really: is the skill upgrade worth the position disadvantage? As cool as Stand Firm is, you will get a bit more use out of Guard, but Guard is for the guy who's not taking the hit, so the guy who is taking the hit is the one with Frenzy or Tackle (if it's a bashy bunch, take two Frenzy perhaps), and the other such guy has the most ground to cover, which is a bummer if you want to blitz with him.

Ooh...

2x Blitzer w/Guard as outside linebackers: 20
1x Blitzer w/Frenzy as safety: 10
1x Blitzer as cornerback: 8
2x BOB w/(Guard or Block) as ends on the LOS: 20
2x BOB w/Block as outside linebackers: 20
1x Troll w/Guard as nose tackle: 13
1x Thrower w/Leader as safety: 9
1x Lineman w/Block as cornerback: 7
3x Re-Roll: 18
Total: 125

[Olaf the Stout]

Well I've decided to go for 2 x Block, 2 x Guard for my Black Orcs. That gives me the following line-up:

4 x Blitzers (2 x Stand Firm, 1 x Tackle, 1 x Frenzy) - 400k
4 x Black Orc Blockers (2 x Block, 2 x Guard) - 400k
1 x Thrower with Leader - 90k
1 x Goblin with Diving Tackle - 60k
1 x Lineorc (no skills) - 50k
1 x Troll with Guard - 130k

2 x Rerolls - 120k

Total - 1250k

The tournament is next weekend. I'll let everyone know how I go.

Olaf the Stout

[Olaf the Stout]

Well I went 4-2-0 in the tournament and won the final 1-0!

I played the following teams:

Game 1: Skaven 2-0 Win (4-0 Cas)
Game 2: Amazon 2-0 Win (4-1 Cas - from my Goblin who failed his first dodge of the game and SI'd himself!)
Game 3: Norse 2-1 Win (2-1 Cas? - not 100% sure)
Game 4: Human 1-1 Draw (3-1 Cas - including Helmut Wulf who took himself out with a Chainsaw kickback on T1! )
Game 5: Dark Elf 0-0 Draw (1-0 Cas - I think, could have been 0-0 Cas)
Final: Human (same team from Game 4) 1-0 Win (2-0 Cas - Not 100% sure as I was too busy worrying about the players on the pitch!)

Obviously I am extremely happy with the result. I had not ever played with Orcs before (I played one practice game on FUMBBL 2 weeks before the tournament). On top of that I had not played a game of tabletop Blood Bowl in about 10 years and had never played in a tournament of any kind before. Needless to say I didn't have too high expectations. I was aiming for at least 1 win and hoping to maybe finish with a positive record.

Luck played a big part in a couple of my games (Nuffle seemed to hate my opponents at critical times) but I would like to think there was a little bit of skill involved on my part.

Overall I was very happy with my team selection (both in what players I took and what skills I took). The Stand Firm Blitzers proved to be much more useful than I though they would (thanks Matt! ). They game me a very strong defensive set-up and stopped my opponents from trying to attack my flanks on the opening turn after a kick-off. They also had a bit of surprise value. A few times my opponent(s) forgot about Stand Firm, went to "Push Back" a Blitzer and I reminded them of his skill.

The Diving Tackle Goblin was awesome. I am really happy that I took him. He was relatively ineffective in the first 2 games but really good after that. In the first game he was sent off for a 6 man foul on a Gutter Runner (I couldn't resist! ). To add insult to injury, he got sent off on a double 2 and only managed to Stun that damn GR. The foul was the first real action he had in the game too. In the second game he tripped over his own feet in T1 and SI'd himself (lucky it was a Res tourney!).

For the other 4 games he was very useful for me and a constant annoyance for the opposition. There was one occasion where my opponent forgot that the Goblin had Diving Tackle (although he still passed the 5+ Dodge ). The rest of the time though the -2 to Dodge worried my opponents a lot. It forced coaches to either do nothing with a player, Block the Goblin (stopping the player from moving more than 1 square), or use their 1 Blitz action to knock the Goblin away. Any of those results I considered a win for me as it was making the opponent play on my terms.

Even when the Goblin wasn't next an opposing player, pinning him down, I think he was a real pschological threat. My opponents were constantly worried about him (rightly so I think) which probably made them forget about some of my other dangerous players.

I think I used him about as well as I could. didn't overcommit the Goblin too much and I tried to give him help to avoid 2d Blocks where possible. His armour held up pretty well for AV7. He accounted for 2 of my 3 Cas against and was knocked out once or twice, but considering how many times he was blocked I was happy with that.

Despite being able to do so, I never once threw the Goblin with the Troll. The 2 times I was scored on I still had 4 or more turns left to reply. In one of those games the Goblin had been seriously injured and wasn't available. In the other game I had enough time to run the ball down the pitch to score.

The Troll was an interesting one. There were 4 Orc teams in the tournament and I was the only one who had a Troll. Actively he wasn't a big game breaker. I didn't Block with him too often (since he had Loner and didn't have Block) but he still scored about 4 Cas.

About 90% of the time I had someone next to him and yet he still failed a number of Really Stupid rolls. In 2 games he managed to fail his rolls at least 4 or 5 times. That was a little frustrating but not totally unexpected. I managed to restrain myself and not suck myself into using a reroll on a failed Really Stupid roll even once.

Passively I think he was good value. My opponents either tried to avoid him by dodging away, sacrificed a player to try and pin him down or tried to take him out of the game. I think he made my opponents change their game plans to deal with him so I think he was useful in that regard.

That he had Guard helped me to get more 2d Blocks than I would have otherwise had gotten. As long as he wasn't Really Stupid from a previous turn I tried not to move him until the end of a turn, allowing me to use his Guard skill without risk of a Really Stupid failure.

By having him in the team it gave me a ST4 Block, ST5 Guard, ST4 Block LOS. That's pretty difficult for ST3 teams to deal with. Without the Troll I would have had to put a ST3 Lineorc on the front line, which obviously weakens the front 3 a lot.

The Human team I played in the final used 2 Guards to get a 1d Block on the Troll to good effect (as the Troll didn't have Block). The other teams either had ST4 players or just tried to move away from the LOS. I was really happy to see teams moving away from my front line. It meant 3 less blocks I had to take.

Defensively my set-up worked perfectly. I used the set-up that Matt Slater suggested with the SF Blitzers protecting the flanks, the Guard Black Orcs protecting the LOS and the Goblin and Thrower relatively safe from a Blitz. Unless my opponent had a ST4 player (only the Norse did), it left them with very few options in who to hit. On just about every occasion my Frenzy Blitzer was hit on the opening Blitz action. That didn't surprise me and I was pretty happy with that because even if he was taken down there were still no gaps for players to run through.

One big advantage I had was that there was only 1 occasion in the tournament that I started a drive with less than 11 players. In my opening game against the Skaven I had 10 players to start the second half with the Frenzy Blitzer KO'd and the Goblin sent off on a foul. That helped me a lot as I didn't have to think too much about where to place my players on defence. I could just stick with my trusty original defensive play.

Offence was a different matter. Even in the final game I was still pretty unsure of how to set up offensively. Having at least 2 players with ST4 Block made life a lot easier. It allowed me to set up to 2D Block the LOS while still covering my flanks with my Stand Firm Blitzers to keep me safe from a "Blitz" Kick-Off result. I did get "Blitz" rolled against me once in the tournament (vs Norse). Thanks to my Stand Firm Blitzers on the flanks my opponent couldn't get a clear way through and I was able to keep possession of the ball.

So, at the end of a very long post, let me just say thank you to all the people that helped contribute to my strategy and team selection. It definitely served me well!

Olaf the Stout

[mattgslater]

Well I went 4-2-0 in the tournament and won the final 1-0!

Congrats!

A few times my opponent(s) forgot about Stand Firm, went to "Push Back" a Blitzer and I reminded them of his skill.

That's one of the big advantages of Stand Firm; since it's passive, it frequently has the consequence of tricking opponents into suboptimal strategies. Guard would be like that too, except that few players forget where the Guard is.

The Diving Tackle Goblin was awesome... It forced coaches to either do nothing with a player, Block the Goblin (stopping the player from moving more than 1 square), or use their 1 Blitz action to knock the Goblin away. Any of those results I considered a win for me as it was making the opponent play on my terms.

This is how winning coaches think.

One big advantage I had was that there was only 1 occasion in the tournament that I started a drive with less than 11 players.

This is a major advantage of Orcs. AV9 and you can afford a reserve or Apoth.

Generally, it sounds like you did a good job of using this team for what it's meant for. That Troll makes a spectacular difference on the line, and is about equal in value over a lineman to the #3 Re-Roll, or maybe a little better if he starts with Guard at +20k. The ability to throw a Goblin is nifty once in awhile, and considering how much Skaven and Wood Elves give up for a 1T score (say, taking Sprint on a Catcher and hoping for a good bit of luck on a blocking chain or a Quick Snap) it's totally worth the meager price.

On offense, also remember that Stand Firm protects cages very well. Run a Stand Firm guy out on the front of your cage, and whoever takes the pass will be very hard to get a zone on. With the right combination of skills, an Orc team can start scoring an average of 3 or 3.5 times per game, dropping a 2-turner on offense and grinding out defensive scores.

[Olaf the Stout]

I forgot one other factor I thought was important in my games, clock management.

I scored 8 times in the tournament. 7 out of those 8 times I scored on either T8 or T16 (The one other time I scored on T14. My opponent would have had 3 turns to score but we ran out of time and had to call the game 2 turns early ). This meant that my opponent could not get a quick score back on me.

At no point in any of the games did I "stall". By stalling I mean safely camping next to the end zone with the ball whilst refusing to score. What I did was slowly grind my way down the field, making sure I would reach the end zone by the end of the half, whilst keeping the ball carrier safe.

That worked for me on all but 2 occasions. In the game against the Dark Elves I received in the first half. I was able to protect the ball but wasn't able to hurt the Darkies at all. Just about all of them had Dodge which made them hard to pin down and/or take down. Most of the time my opponent dodged away and I was only given 1 Blitz block per turn. When I did take them down their AV8 armour refused to break. This made moving the cage difficult. On T8 I had to make a 3+ Hand-off, 3+ Dodge, 2+ GFI to score. I had a reroll but unfortunately rolled a 1 then a 2 for the Hand-off.

The only occasion my grinding failed was in the first game against the Humans. The Humans scored in the second half to tie the game at 1-1. Thanks to a Riot moving back the clock I had 4 turns get the winning TD. After continually getting Both Down results on the block dice my grind down the field ran into a bit of a wall. On T15 I took a chance and made a hole for one of my Blitzers to run down the other side of the field (which was open). He probably would have faced a 2D Blitz but if he managed to stay standing they he would only have to dodge away to score.

Unfortunately for me, I rolled a 2 and then a 1 on the Quick Pass attempt by the Orc Thrower, dropping the ball at my feet. This game the Humans a shot at the winning TD. The Orc Thrower was 1d Blitzed but was only Pushed Back and still was over the ball. The Human Thrower managed to Dodge away (3+), pick up the ball (4+) and then tried to pass to a marked Lineman. Here my Thrower redeemed himself, rolling a 6 for the Interception attempt and keeping the game at a 1-1 draw.

Some of my TD's were walk-ins. Others required some Dodges, GFI's or both. The one that required the most effort was in the final. On T7 my Thrower got knocked over by a Human Blitzer on a 1d Block. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) the ball scattered back to the Blitzer, who caught it.

In my T8 I had to successfully knock him over and then pick up the ball to score. I had a re-roll but thankfully I managed to get a 2d Blitz and knock him over without needing to use it. My Blitzer then succeeded in picking the ball-up first time and walked it in to score. If it wasn't for

Olaf the Stout

[Aliboon]

At no point in any of the games did I "stall". By stalling I mean safely camping next to the end zone with the ball whilst refusing to score. What I did was slowly grind my way down the field, making sure I would reach the end zone by the end of the half, whilst keeping the ball carrier safe.

No shame in stalling, especially in a tournie. In effect it's no different from moving more slowly than you can-end result is the same (last turn score). It may make your opo's slightly less annoyed, but that is them being dense, if they get annoyed at you not giving their elves 2 turns to get an equaliser, then they should have broken your cage earlier.

To be honest, I'd prefer it if all of my scores were walk-ins, the less dice to roll the better (I seem to roll far too many snake eyes....) and if that means me stalling in a corner for a few turns, then so be it. It's all in the game...

(sorry didn't mean to hijack this into a stalling thread.... )

[Olaf the Stout]

At no point in any of the games did I "stall". By stalling I mean safely camping next to the end zone with the ball whilst refusing to score. What I did was slowly grind my way down the field, making sure I would reach the end zone by the end of the half, whilst keeping the ball carrier safe.

No shame in stalling, especially in a tournie. In effect it's no different from moving more slowly than you can-end result is the same (last turn score). It may make your opo's slightly less annoyed, but that is them being dense, if they get annoyed at you not giving their elves 2 turns to get an equaliser, then they should have broken your cage earlier.

To be honest, I'd prefer it if all of my scores were walk-ins, the less dice to roll the better (I seem to roll far too many snake eyes....) and if that means me stalling in a corner for a few turns, then so be it. It's all in the game...

(sorry didn't mean to hijack this into a stalling thread.... )

I don't think there is any shame in stalling either. However I think that a number of people do and I didn't want to see any bad blood over something like that. Regardless of that fact, in most of my games I couldn't have stalled if I wanted too. It simply took me that long to work my way down to the end zone. Them Orcs are slow!

Olaf the Stout

[mattgslater]

See, I think that if you can score by turn 4, you should do it. This is especially true if you've damaged your opponent's skill game early (always a priority against Skaven and Norse... plus a lot of teams you didn't play). Maybe I'd make an exception if you already have KO'ed more than one opponent, but if you've suffered any KOs, then scoring early can help a lot, as being down below 9-10 with both sides at equal numbers (8-on-8, say) is a huge boon for the speedy team and that's usually not the Orcs; when Orcs are the speedy team, that means you're more likely to hold 'em out for four turns. The main goal is to have more points than the other guy, so getting points generally helps, and in some tournaments tiebreakers encourage running it up. With 11 on defense, you've got a TD against a paper-scissors-rock game (they score, you score or nothing). This is doubly true in leagues, where scoring drives development.

But if turn 4 ends and you have no TD, stall stall stall!

[Olaf the Stout]

In my games there wasn't really any time that I was able to score by turn 4. On a couple of occasions I could have maybe scored in T6 if I was a bit more aggressive. However that would have just meant that I gave my opponent 2 or 3 turns to equalise. I felt I was better to keep moving steadily up the field. That forced my opponent to continue to commit players to attacking the ball (or trying to at least). As a result I got more blocks with which to try and injure more players. My aim was to get to the second half with as few opposition players left as possible. That way I felt I was in a good position to either stop my opponent from scoring, or to take the ball off him and win 2-0.

Olaf the Stout

[PubBowler]

See, I think that if you can score by turn 4, you should do it...

Thoroughly disagree with this in a tournie setting.

The risk of losing going from a win to a draw far outweighs the tie breaker advantage of an extra TD.
Especially when there is no development from match to match.

Exceptions are obvious but rare (opposing team reduced to 3 players etc etc).

[mattgslater]

I think a lot of it depends on how much you trust your D.

[Olaf the Stout]

Yes and no. Some teams like the various Elves and Skaven are just too hard to stop if they decide to go for it and get a couple of good rolls. If they are able to dodge 3 or more potential recievers within scoring range there is only so many you can defend.

All the defence in the world won't stop them from scoring if they make their dodge rolls (often on a 2+ with Dodge re-roll), make their pass rolls (often only 3+ or 4+ with Pass re-roll) and make their catch rolls (often on a 2+ or 3+ sometimes with a Catch re-roll). Sure, they could roll a couple of 1's or 2's but I don't really want to rely on that!

In the tournament I only gave up 2 TD's in 6 games. I think this was due to the fact that I always scored at the end of the half. If I had give my opponent 4 turns with the ball I think at least one of my wins would have been a draw instead. It might work if you have a big numbers advantage but personally I felt a lot better scoring late than in T4 or T10.

Olaf the Stout