Meditations on the Cult of Position: Med IV up Groundhog Day

[mattgslater]

Cult of Position Meditation the First

The Three Rs: Risk, Resource and Real Estate

Risk analysis, asset management and spatial reasoning are the skills that matter in Blood Bowl, from a coaching perspective. In order to win, you must minimize your chances of turning over prematurely, build the best possible team to do what you intend to do, and manage the best formations and call the best plays available on both sides of the ball. There are other skills, yes, such as clock management. These are not all trivial, but they are less important.

I will explain how space management is the "final frontier" of Blood Bowl, the most difficult important subject for conversation, and the one place where a coherent theory, a conceptual vocabulary, will yield more fruit. This is the first meditation on the Cult of Position, a Blood Bowl philosophy that emphasizes an awareness the relationships between objects within the game over (but not to the exclusion of) a focus on the other important elements of winning at Blood Bowl.

Risk management is largely an issue of probability calculation, personal tendencies and risk tolerance. Some of this is coachable, some is easily deduced, some is just part of that "sense" that comes with the years (and is a large part of why Blood Bowl is more popular among adults than teens). There is definitely something to be gained in discussions of turnover hazard vs. injury risk or mission failure, but those things are the exceptions rather than the rule: for the most part it's a matter of arithmetic. Okay, kind of complex arithmetic, but experience will make most of it second nature. Therefore, there's little value in philosophizing too much about risk management: it can be resolved with a few ground rules.

Asset management is already the subject of much debate on Blood Bowl forums. It has its own proper set of terminology (races, positions, characteristics, skills, Team Re-Rolls), and is the subject of quite a lot of inside jargon and shorthand. There is a lot to be learned studying Blood Bowl resource management, and this study is made easy by the huge volume of material already available. Experienced coaches still differ frequently, but the relative marginal value of the differences has been explored, and experienced coaches making suboptimal picks usually have some good reason in terms of scheme, unusual improvements, and/or team development.

The third category, the subject of this series, is managing the relationships between players on the pitch, and between players and the game itself. Current Blood Bowl space management philosophy is all about specific patterns, which tends to make it hard to discuss variations. There is no existing terminology to describe the spatial relationships between players, except for the most rudimentary defensive setup jargon. For this reason, space management is the primary differentiator between veteran coaches. Those who "get it" win games, and those who don't get it have to take bigger risks and lose more often.

While risk and resource management are both very important to winning at Blood Bowl, there is less "virgin territory" in both than there is in the study of space and positioning. Risk analysis is frequently a simple matter of math. Team construction and development is well-trod ground. But while spatial interrelations aren't exactly unexplored, there is a lot we don't see, because we haven't defined it. This is where the impetus for the Cult of Position comes from, a desire to approach the game from the relationship between the player and the physical parameters of the game itself: the board, the players, and the clock. In the coming meditations I will discuss spatial relationships between players and the pitch, between players and each other, and between players, the pitch, and the turn track.

Next up: Da Boyz In Da Bubblez.

[Anglakhel]

Looking forward to the article.

Must say though that I'm primarily interested in spatial relationships on the pitch. Curious to hear why I might need to care about the spatial relationships "between players and the game itself". I'm reading that as the actual people playing BB and not the players they are controlling on the pitch. Am I misreading?

[mattgslater]

No, those are coaches. I'm talking about relationships between:
models and models
models and the pitch
models, the pitch, and the clock

[Anglakhel]

Alright. That makes a lot more sense. I was thinking I must be misreading the distinction.

[stick_with_poo_on_the_end]

Matt, you talk of risk of turnovers beIng vital. Do you still hold with your opinion of grab on black orcs Being a crucial 1st skill? The 2 don't seem to marry to me?

[Smurf]

I thought I've already touched on this.

Nice to see someone else having a go.

I don't think you can ascribe specific skills, there are many skill groups with their own relationships on the board and players etc.

[Joemanji]

Risk analysis, asset management and spatial reasoning are the skills that matter in Blood Bowl, from a coaching perspective. In order to win, you must minimize your chances of turning over prematurely, build the best possible team to do what you intend to do, and manage the best formations and call the best plays available on both sides of the ball. ... This is where the impetus for the Cult of Position comes from, a desire to approach the game from the relationship between the player and the physical parameters of the game itself: the board, the players, and the clock.

Hi Matt,

Nice post, good points and none of your jargon. I would like to address the point Stick made above, which is key to my previous disagreements with some of your advice. I think it is very interesting that you should list the 3 areas I have marked in bold in that particular order. Because that is the exact order I would put them in myself, with positioning third. Don't get me wrong, they are all interlinked and important, and positioning is how you pressure your opponent and win games. But the most crucial aspect to positioning is getting to activate all 11 players ... i.e. not turning over. If I place 4 of my guys perfectly then turn over it doesn't matter if my opponent has positioned his players poorly. Positional advantage comes from having more players in the right place than your opponent. That's why Block is such an important positional skill. Not just because it is 1/6th of a tackle zone (or whatever you call it). If I make a block with an assist and roll a 1/9, Block is the difference between keeping my guy on his feet, knocking over the opposing player and being free to move the guy who gave the assist. That's a potential 3-player swing. That's what good players do in my experience: minimise turnovers, make sure they move all their players, maximise blocks and minimise the number of players their opponent can use effectively.

This brings us back to Stick's point. You are an exponent of skills such as Grab, SS, SF and of prioritising player development for the purposes of defensive setups. These are all useful skills and in well-developed teams can make the difference. But when you advocate Grab as the first skill on a coach's first Black Orc something has gone badly wrong. The best way for that Orc coach to control position is to have an extra player with Block. It's not subtle or clever, in fact it's boring. But it is optimal. Guard is another option perhaps, as it helps control space and force turnovers from your opponent. But Grab is an entirely positional skill ... it has no effect on turnovers. But as your own list implies, position is subservient to risk management.

Cheers
Joe

[nick_nameless]

This is going to be an interesting discussion. I am looking forward to the article for certain.

I see the Cult of Positioning mentality, when applied as the top strategic priority, to be akin to playing a positional chess game. Albeit with dice, and so there is an element of luck.

In chess there are numerous ways to gain an advantage. Position. Development. Tempo. Material. Traps. There is no risk of a "turnover", and each side moves one piece at a time of course.

These concepts are not isolated in any way, although sometimes one might sacrifice material for position, material for tempo, position for material if the material is good enough, material to set a trap, etc.

In order to understand any of these aspects well and what advantages you can gain through targeting the particular strategic advantage, you must first be able to discuss each one separately to understand it. Once understood as a thing itself, a strategic concept can be discussed in relation to it's situational value versus other strategic concepts.

I am hoping to gain a little bit better understanding of the positional game in Blood Bowl. Understanding premature turnover risk is fairly easy. Understanding material advantage is a little more complex because GP value of a piece does not necessarily make it more or less effective in a game situation (although being up/down a body is fairly clear...I am more speaking towards what players are fielded and how they are developed). Activating all of your pieces/tempo is an easy concept to understand, but challenging to practice in the most effective manner. Good position is often the toughest to see in any game. IMO that makes the philosophy worthwhile. If you understand the toughest part of the game, then learning the other parts will come more swiftly, and always with respect to how they apply to gaining the most difficult type of advantage a coach can achieve.

[mattgslater]

But when you advocate Grab as the first skill on a coach's first Black Orc something has gone badly wrong.

I generally wouldn't advocate such a thing on somebody's first or second Blocker unless they just wanted to be gimmicky. I did suggest Grab as a first skill on a Black Orc once as one of a menu of possible skill options, and in fact might do that if I had advanced all four BOBs faster than I'd anticipated (we were discussing a tournament roster with assigned skills at the time). If you'll notice, I've made about 5,500 posts, and that was in one of them.

I do believe you don't always have to take Block first on all your BOBs, but rather can act with a non-Block player on a 1/9 to turn over when you have a RR (and it's 1/81) or when you've done the safer things. So yeah, first skill on the last Blocker, because by then I have tons of Block (four Blitzers, three Blockers, a Thrower, a Lino, maybe a Troll) and all the other Blockers have development tracks with no room for toolbox skills. That one guy sticking his butt out on the added 1/12 of a TRR burn isn't so scary anymore by that point. FWIW, I still maintain that Grab is underrated.

I think it is very interesting that you should list the 3 areas I have marked in bold in that particular order. Because that is the exact order I would put them in myself, with positioning third.

Ah. I think of positioning as being second only to risk management, with resource development an easily discussed addendum to the other two. I think that turn prioritization is more important than player skills, when it comes to risk. The difference in safety between a free action and a die roll, or between a 2d block and any 1d roll (1d block or AG roll) trumps the difference between a skilled block and an unskilled block, especially when you have a TRR. I certainly don't think position is "subservient" to risk management, or that you must slavishly work only for risk reduction until you've guaranteed 35/36 on every roll. And no, I don't turn over very often.

In chess there are numerous ways to gain an advantage. Position. Development. Tempo. Material. Traps. There is no risk of a "turnover", and each side moves one piece at a time of course.

In Chess, there is no true risk management, and while there is in-game resource management, there is obviously no resource development. You have fixed assets and spatial reasoning. There is a "tempo" to the game, but there is no "clock management" in the BB (or WFB) sense.

[nick_nameless]

In chess there are numerous ways to gain an advantage. Position. Development. Tempo. Material. Traps. There is no risk of a "turnover", and each side moves one piece at a time of course.

In Chess, there is no true risk management, and while there is in-game resource management, there is obviously no resource development. You have fixed assets and spatial reasoning. There is a "tempo" to the game, but there is no "clock management" in the BB (or WFB) sense.

That's probably a debate for elsewhere. It's a different kind of clock management (with tempo and/or when playing with a clock), and a different kind of risk management (do I gambit here with material to try and gain advantageous position, etc.). It's all about weighing the trade-offs and strategic implications of each choice.

The point I was making is that the most difficult aspect of the understanding is the positional/spacial aspect of the game. Material is a relatively easy concept.

[mattgslater]

Matt, you talk of risk of turnovers beIng vital. Do you still hold with your opinion of grab on black orcs Being a crucial 1st skill? The 2 don't seem to marry to me?

Crucial? Naw. Such a nice gimmick that it's worth risking an RR burn to make it work at some point? Yeah, especially as it combos so poorly with Block and as a Block BOB has so much else to take that's more valuable in a conventional context.

That's probably a debate for elsewhere. It's a different kind of clock management (with tempo and/or when playing with a clock), and a different kind of risk management (do I gambit here with material to try and gain advantageous position, etc.). It's all about weighing the trade-offs and strategic implications of each choice.

The point I was making is that the most difficult aspect of the understanding is the positional/spacial aspect of the game. Material is a relatively easy concept.

Oh, agreed. I just think they're very different games all around, so the analogies and disanalogies start blending into each other.

[sunnyside]

Alright, I think this is a good area to discuss, primarily because, as Matt pointed out, most of the other stuff has been discussed at great length already.

Although one issue with blood bowl is that aside from rolling some snake eyes there is another way to effectively have a turnover; running out of time to complete your turn.

Which means, to be honest, that my positioning is often a bit sub par of where it could be in order to be rugged. For example I sometimes "cage up" even when I know that one of the rear corners won't matter to my opponent.

However this means my next turn will fit better within my mental heuristics, and it reduces the chances I "miss" something. I've knocked down a fair number of ball carriers because my opponent thought they were safe, but had actually made some mistake regarding routes I could use(especially true if a chain push opens up something), how far players could move, and I think occasionally overlooking a +1 MA stat increase.

So discussions of being able to do good positioning fast might be useful (and skills like grab, and stand firm are doubly helpful in that sense).

Beyond that, something I'm working on is the idea of trying to maximize "engaged" players when non-AG4 teams are playing each other. By engaged I mean involved in the process of keeping the opposing players lying down on the pitch. Both sides have a reason to have players unengaged. The offensive player needs to protect the ball carrier, and may wish to advance players without contact to enable cage motion, while the defensive player may wish to deny avenues of motion and have "safeties" so their opponent cannot run past them for the easy score.

While details are hard to describe, I find it has fast and general applications. Sort of like how in chess a generally good strategy is to control the center.

[CopiousDude]

I really look forward to this, because I feel like this is part of my game where I make subtle mistakes that cost me. Positioning in Blood Bowl can be such a complicated process once the half starts and your pretty defensive formation or cage collapses.

[mattgslater]

FWIW, I think it's about 45/35/20 risk/space/resource, in terms of what's important. That is, I think resource management is the least important area for focus.

Really bad risk management will kill you dead, every time. Really bad space management will kill you dead unless your opponent's risk management is really bad, partly because it makes risk management almost impossible. Really bad resource management (tons of stupid doubles or something) will condemn you to losing against good coaches perhaps (perhaps), but is probably indicative of a problem with risk or space. Even if you're so bad that your improvements and purchases average out at inducement value (hard to fathom), you'd still be expected to have a .300+ record, all else being equal. I guess you could play a Dark Elf team with two Assassins, two Runners, no Blitzers, no RRs and FF9, and make sure never to give the Witches Block. Or you could run an all-Snotling Ogre team.

Below average risk management will condemn you to losing against good coaches. Below average space management will make you prone to "improbable" defeats, and will occasionally get you blown out (say, if you can't protect your ball-carrier). Below average resource management is sometimes hard to detect, and generally means selecting too many or too few "toolbox" or "vanity" skills, or taking the wrong ones. It doesn't usually hurt as much as taking a somewhat inferior team. That is, well-played but off-track Orcs may have their prospects reduced after five games, but not to the level of a well-played on-track Nurgle team.

Above average risk management will generally mean you win the games you're supposed to win, because you'll almost never turn over with your butt in the air, the bugaboo of the newbie coach. Above average space management will help you disproportionately against good teams (especially with a time limit), making sure you have the guys you need to do the job all in the right place, and helping your risk management. Above average resource management will help you always have the right guy in place, and may manifest as better risk or resource management.

There really is no such thing as great risk management. The best you can be is consistently good. You can keep a cool head in the worst of times, always gauge the proper order of operations given your odds, priorities, re-rolls and all. You'll seldom turnover, and you'll rarely lose games not decided by injury rolls, freak plays, or getting badly outpositioned. Yes, this is very hard. No, it can't really be trained except by playing the game, though you can start out about two steps below that without ever spending any time on BB-specific skills, because most of the important stuff has parallels in backgammon and craps, and gets covered ad-nauseam in any freshman statistics class. The difference between good and great is small, and amounts to so few turnovers that it probably means an action per game and maybe a win per ten games.

There is also no such thing as great team management: good coaches almost always pick some variant on the "right" selection of players and skills, and to the extent that one set of reasonable picks is better than another, it's usually pretty arguable and/or style-dependent. "How much Tackle?" is a function of league composition, team structure, and other Dodge-defeating improvements like positioning skills or Frenzy. One team may take two, one may take four, and it may never be apparent which one is doing it right.

But there is such a thing as great real-estate gaming. You can turn two B2B contacts into nine blocks, or arrange a 1TTD off a near-rookie High Elf team, or generate a formation your opponent just has no chance of beating without crazy die rolls that probably yield wasted actions, prioritization headaches and early turnovers. These are gamebreakers when you pull them off, and if you understand formations properly, you have the best chance of engineering it. Beyond "not screwing up," the gimmicks that win all involve an understanding of the relationships between the objects in the game.

[Joemanji]

Excellent. Let's have some concrete examples rather than a list of truisms. Honestly, I'd love to have that kind of discussion.