Orc Thrower Development

[mattgslater]

I don't like the idea of building Orcs around 2TTDs. It's okay to game for them, say, by taking a passy Thrower or a MA increase on a Blitzer or Goblin, because those sorts of things have other applications. But building around a situation that you're planning on gaming to avoid (giving up a T6-7 TD) is not in my mind consistent with a winning mentality.

Part of the problem is that without a numerical advantage, you don't have the speed to build downfield cages. You can build down-midfield, perhaps, by kicking the D-line out wide (or injuring the D-line), but even then, that's not a 2TTD strategy no matter how the game goes. So your 2TTD offense and your T1 offense are completely unrelated, unlike, say, High Elves, who can turn an early break-in into a downfield formation to split the offense. That's why you tend to see sideline-to-sideline defenses with the full spine-screen against elves, and interior defenses that focus on integrity over coverage against Orcs (except on late turns).

As far as where to fit a Thrower vs. Linos in on defense, I think it depends on how the BOBs are developing and what kind of opposition you're facing. Certainly, it's nice to have a guy you can send to snatch up the ball with SH. BOB skills add significantly to their survivability; if you're not facing ClawMB properly supported by Guard, the ability to soak up the strong hits and force the heavies to stay on the OL is very nice. Even if you are, you've usually got a less-developed BOB or Troll to throw to the wolves. Several times, I've used a cocktail of SF, Block and Guard to ruin an entire set of line-blocks, which usually leads to a lot of knockdowns on my turn.

[PorkSol]

I like one orc thrower early in Matchmaking and throughout on TT.
Early games the surehands is good vs strippers and in general, and pass can be handy with an unskilled team forced into fast td mode.
On a more developed team I like linemen plus the good 9 players so I get rid of throwers and use + stat blitzers to move the ball, one of which gets blodge surehands.
Even on early teams I like to get to 12 men asap so the thrower can sit out on defence, I don't know where you can fit him in with 4 blitzers and 4 bobs not wanting to stand on the line.

Yeah, I ran into this problem too.

What if you don't have a BOB that you're willing to sacrifice?

The defensive thrower performs well enough, but it is an awkward position against heavy teams as putting him in forces a BOB or blitzer onto the line.

I've found that much of the time I would rather bench my dodge leader thrower for an unskilled lineman, in order to keep my skilled black orcs off the LOS and thus on the pitch and free to move around. Which of course makes one question the value of the 120k thrower who only plays one way.

I'm actually wondering if it's better to ditch the troll as well, so you can just throw three line orcs up there and dodge away the ones that survive, forcing your opponent to walk up to you if he ever wants to get blocks beyond his blitz.

I certainly didn't miss the troll on this team:
http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=team& ... _id=650198

[mattgslater]

Had I known what I know now about FUMBBL, I would have gone with 3 Linos and only one Thrower until the BOBs got to about the point they'll be at soon, where I can put up enough ST/B/G and maybe SF that there's no way to win the line reliably against them. Even then, I'd imagine that in a Box-type format I'd have a hard time maintaining it, but in most LRB6 environments, it works just fine.