Orc with AG4 meets CLAW team

[Greyhound]

crap I have 6 guard on my orcs!

Before my post get lost should I Do fire my unskilled lino down to 12 players? (Chaos has 11 players + 1 ST2 goat making it what... 11.5 or 12 players depending on the importance of a ST2 goat)
He currently has a TV of 2130 and I have 2220

denying him 50k could be nice.

[mattgslater]

crap I have 6 guard on my orcs!

Are you using it? If so, no sweat.

[Greyhound]

Are you using it? If so, no sweat.

In my division I was last season. There was an arm race for guard due to the dwarfs/Chaos and orc galore. This is not as important this season but it came handy when I faced lizardmen last game.

I think I'm one of these "doesn't have the perfect balance in positioning" type of coach.

[mattgslater]

*coming from an alternate reality where in addition to the positional advantage, SS gives +2MA,+1AV and SF gives +1MA,+2AV - it would all make sense then!

Obviously not, but uh...

If you would have been pushed away from the action and fronted-on, but instead SS towards it and to a point where you can run into the clear, SS is like +3MA, or like +2MA, Leap and VLL, with the caveat that you can use the Dodge skill on the leap. If your opponent decides to mark you instead of blitzing you because he can't open a hole, it does pretty much the same thing as AV12, Foul Appearance and Jump Up. Not that it's wort that much, but it's really easy to drive people crazy with massed positioning skills.

[mattgslater]

Are you using it? If so, no sweat.

In my division I was last season. There was an arm race for guard due to the dwarfs/Chaos and orc galore. This is not as important this season but it came handy when I faced lizardmen last game.

I think I'm one of these "doesn't have the perfect balance in positioning" type of coach.

Can you run a secondary team? Play SS-heavy elves for awhile. Same principles, other end of the stick. It'll totally make you a better Orc coach, once you come back to the glory that is ST4/AV9. I think there's a big difference between teams that are loaded up on A and S access at ST3-4 and teams that rely primarily on G-only players, players with locked-in skill tracks and/or little guys. Dwarfs are also in this vein, and to a lesser extent the undead teams and Amazons.

[Greyhound]

my other team is Lizardmen which I play with no guard.I also played SF only Orc team for a laugh,

I play others online but nowhere near as much as Lizardmen and Orcs.

[grampyseer]

I agree with Matt. Nothing wrong with Killer skills.

If you can't get 2 dice blocks off of the first 4 guard.....I'm betting the next 7 won't help either.

[narg]

I would never suggest that there's an upper limit on how much MB you want. Guard, maybe. Like 3x for elves, 4x for Chaos, 5x for Orcs or Amazons, 7x for Dwarfs.

???
How can you ever have too much guard? As Funksultan said, to win against bashy teams you have to be even more bashy. No team can ever have too much block, guard and mighty blow. I recently played against high elves with 4 guards and it never occurred to me that they had too much guard. I have six guards on my orc team and when I play against other bash teams with more guard I'm struggling; I also have four stand firm players and if anything I wish I had taken more guard and mighty blow instead of stand firm.

Before my post get lost should I Do fire my unskilled lino down to 12 players?

Why on earth would you want to fire LOS fodder just before playing against a team that has lots of claw and mighty blow??? Against a team like that I don't think that 12 players will be enough; if anything you should consider buying more linemen, not firing them.

[Ullis]

If you can't get 2 dice blocks off of the first 4 guard.....I'm betting the next 7 won't help either.

And Guard is about denying the opponent those 2d blocks too.

And I really don't see how anyone can argue that the Chaos team in question has too much Claws when facing the Orc team here. Perhaps in general terms 5 claws at that point of development is plenty but surely not in this case. When Orcs are down players on the pitch they start losing the game.

And, matt, your wish list of skills is a really long one.

[Funksultan]

Matt makes a great point about positioning skills (SS especially). He didn't quite explicitly say it, but really, you're getting 2 benefits from 1 skill up.

- The ability to SS yourself into a better position to block more, or even dodge out to score, pick up, run to assist, etc
- The ability to keep the person your bashing from pushing you away and leaving you cold and lonely.

Hard to argue the value there. Position is awesome.

However, I still kind of think of position skills as the tiebreaker. Take two equally bashy teams, and the one with some position skills sprinkled on top should come out ahead every time. The problem there is, if the other team is significantly MORE bashy (guard, MB, Claws, PO), the positioning isn't going to get you back into the game.

I see bash-flavored teams as a snowball on a hill. They are trying their hardest to remove 2 or 3 of your players. Unless you've done the same to them, the rest of this half is likely to involve them hunting you down, and pressing that advantage even further.

If you're outgunned, SF actually winds up hurting you. SS is still very nice, but it's almost used as a ghetto fend (SS next to one of my guarders to hopefully avoid more pain). Fitting, as SS is harder for bash-style teams to get.

Just my .02

[Ullis]

I don't think that anybody's arguing that positioning skills aren't any good. But the fact is that there's always an opportunity cost when you take any skill whatsoever in the form of not taking some other skill. When an elf picks Side-step, he's not taking Block or Dodge. In the same vein, when you take Stand Firm on your nurgle warrior or black orc, you're not taking MB or Guard.

And the argument in when to take a positioning skill should really center on that opportunity cost.

[Smurf]

We have an uber crumping nurgle in our league.

But that's all it does. It doesn't win often, the coach gets carried away and forgets the importance of ball movement.

[narg]

We have an uber crumping nurgle in our league.

But that's all it does. It doesn't win often, the coach gets carried away and forgets the importance of ball movement.

Well I used to know a wood elf coach who had a developed passing game but still lost most games, including a spectacular 0-8 loss with 6 casualties taken (for his defense the opponent got quite a few Blitz events and was lucky but still).

Don't blame the bad results on the team build if the coach is playing badly, bash teams usually get pretty good results.

Edit: he actually lost 1-8, not that it makes a huge difference...

[mattgslater]

What I'm saying is, if you have enough Guard and ST to ensure you get all your blocks off, any more Guard is a waste. Not so with Stand Firm: the more SF you have, the harder the other guy has to game for positioning.

I don't think it's SF vs. Guard. You get a little of both, then a little more Guard, then load up for bear on SF.

@ Ullis: I'd actually take issue with all your points.

1) Guard is a demolitions skill. Against Guard-heavy ST teams, Guard doesn't defend nearly as well as it attacks. The moving player gets to choose his order of operations, which cuts deeply against Guard on the passive end. Defensive Guard isn't irrelevant or anything, but it's really easy to neutralize most of the time. It has excellent offensive uses, but again, if you've got it where you need it, the rest is extraneous.

2) There is no such thing as too many Claws against Orcs, but unless you're expecting an unusual mix of opposition, that's not the standard of the Chaos coach building the team. Those 5x Claws that are so useful against Orcs are just wasted against Skaven or Amazons.

3) It's not that long a wish list. 3 skills on the Blitzers, 2 each between the BOBs and Troll, and you're on the road with 8x Block, 5x MB, 7x SF (okay, probably 6x and 1x SS), 3x Guard, and 4x other skills (Grab, Frenzy, Tackle, and Tackle or Guard or a stat increase). From there, it's just a matter of proportion.

[Funksultan]

3) It's not that long a wish list. 3 skills on the Blitzers, 2 each between the BOBs and Troll, and you're on the road with 8x Block, 5x MB, 7x SF (okay, probably 6x and 1x SS), 3x Guard, and 4x other skills (Grab, Frenzy, Tackle, and Tackle or Guard or a stat increase). From there, it's just a matter of proportion.

It's this part I differ on. I'd rather have 7 guard (very heavy, but work with me) and 3 SF vs the reverse.

The overlaying concept is that you are either going to be up against other bashy teams, or non-bashys. The SF helps you against the latter, helping you bash them more, and not letting them just push-position you, while guard helps you much more against the former, as it's an arms-race of guard usually.

Your previous point is well taken, defensive guard is less helpful against offensive, but depending on how much there is, it's still crucial (think about dwarf play, that's vintage guard).

Against these two archetypes, I do NOT fear the non bashy. I'm gonna pummel them, I'm gonna pummel them badly. SF is great, but I don't necessarily need it to make sure I put them on the ground consistently and often. Having a bashy team and going up against a much more guard heavy bashy team... that's damn scary. I'm more likely to lose the game, I'm more likely to lose some players, and my beloved SF that I got to help me squish elves more efficiently is now keeping me in the thick of a fight that I don't wanna be in.

If I'm bashy, and I'm gonna lose... lemme lose to a dynamite pass team, or those damn one TTD gutter runners... not to a dwarf/orc/chaos team that decided to carry a bigger stick than me, and decimates my slower-to-level monsters. (vs the passers/scorers)