Thanks for the replies and this is straying a bit from Dark Elves specifically, but I certainly find the discussion interesting.mattgslater wrote:No. The gain in the inverted ziggurat is:
1) The flanker is protected, and can't be marked.
2) The benefit in blitzing wide is lost to the Side Step winger (you are correct that it is lost also in the Ziggurat), driving the action to the inside. It's not the lost benefit of blitzing wide that the inverted Zig pulls off. It's the added protection on the interior positions. Having the inverted formation means you can maintain your reinforced screens and still protect your "strong" (interior) players on the inside by putting them at the safety position. In a conventional Zig, the midfielder has to defend an "island" and is vulnerable to blitzing. In an inverted Zig, the midfielder isn't actually defending valuable territory: if you want to partition the midfield, you have to get through the safety. If the defender has Side Step on the LOS, you pretty much have to knock guys out if you want to open a hole.
1) All right, .. the flanker can't be directly marked without any Blitz actions, that's not in contention, but as a side-note marking the end player in the regular Zig puts the marker(s) in a nice position for a crowd push.
Marking position are 1 (sub-optimal, but possible) and 2 below
Zig
- - - -|
- - - -|
1 2 x -|
- x - -|
Not necessarily a bad situation to find yourself in on the sideline as long as you have players to detach from the other side. The opponent could mark thus and attack on the other wing of course, but the more agile and mobile team benefits more from this maneuver.
2) So it's more protection against attacks which don't start by blitzing the wings? In these cases, the Zig potentially better protects from assists on Blitzes targeting the midfielder, whereas the Invert gives an easy position for an assist (of course, if the LoS players are moved aside, neither allows any protection from assists).
Zig
- - - -|- - x x x - -|- - - -
- - - -|B - - - - - -|- - - -
- - x -|- x - - - x -|- x - -
- x - -|x - - - - - x|- - x -
Inv
- - - -|- - x x x - -|- - - -
- - - A|B - - - - - -|- - - -
- x - -|x - - - - - x|- - x -
- - x -|- x - - - x -|- x- -
Partitioning the midfield, if this means dividing the team in two, seems as difficult in both formations.
Let's look at the situation with the LoS moved (with one side stepper manning the center, because if this hasn't at least happened the situation is wildly different and the defense has already partly failed) and the midfielder succesfully Blitzed (assuming that player doesn't have Side-Step):
o = Standing players
x = Downed players
B = Blitzer (without the follow-up move)
Zig
- - - -|- - - - - - -|- - - -
- - - -|B - - o x x -|- - - -
- - o -|- - - - - o -|- o - -
- o - -|o x - - - - o|- - o -
Inv
- - - -|- - - - - - -|- - - -
- - - -|B - - o x x -|- - - -
- o - -|- - - - - - o|- - o -
- - o -|x o - - - o -|- o- -
Neither situation allows for the offense to slip by, but neither guarantees that any of the three players exposed won't be marked either.
Below there's the same situation after Blitzes targeting the wingers, instead of the midfielders:
Zig
- - - -|- - - - - - -|- - - -
- - - -|- - - o x x -|- - - -
B - o -|- o - - - o -|- o - -
x - - -|o - - - - - o|- - o -
Inv
- - - -|- - - - - - -|- - - -
- B - -|- - - o x x -|- - - -
- - - -|o - - - - - o|- - o -
x - o -|- o - - - o -|- o - -
In case of Blitzes targeting the wingers, both formations protect players in the safety position from marking equally well, but allow the two other players to be marked with similar ease for both formations. As a plus, if the Side-Stepper holding the center has been taken down, the Zig requires a longer movement from markers to reach the safety than the Inverted Zig (6 vs 4, counting from behind the LoS).
Apologies for the diagram spam! Hopefully you won't mind, but getting into the nitty-gritty in this topic is difficult otherwise.