Skaven...to kick or receive

[mrinprophet]

I've decided to give a Skaven team a whirl in a league that is a bit punchy. Everyone else has elected to receive first, but I decided to Kick. Now I'm questioning my widsom. My thought was that I'd need more of the little buggers to defend, so I'd start on defense. I could probably start out down one or two and still be able to score. Any thoughts? Thanks.

[Zombie]

I agree, you should kick, for the exact reason you've given. My general plan is:

agility vs agility - receive
bashing vs bashing - receive
agility vs bashing - kick
bashing vs agility - kick

There are other threads about this, just do a search.

[Marcus]

Breaking it down:

Do you find it easier to score on offence or defence.
Do you have key players that you rely on for either offence (dedicated scorers) or defence (turnover specialists)

The most important thing with Skaven against a power team is to score first. Always take your best option for scoring and put your opponent under pressure. Power teams do not like to chase scorelines, if you go 2-0 against Dwarves or Orcs you've pretty much got the game in the bag because you're forcing them to play a faster game to catch up, which means they're playing your style of game, not theirs.

When coaching Skaven you want to ensure that the players who will become targets get the first run out on to the pitch so you can make full use of their talents before they get stretchered off.

I frequently find it easier to score on D than on O because I structure my Skaven team so heavily around turning the ball over, so often I will elect to kick to Power teams. This is also because most power teams themselves like to kick in order to let you score quickly and grind out the rest of the half.

The exception is if I'm confident I can score quickly on O and still have a fresh team to turn my opponent over with. Risky or slow O and I'll go D first.

[neoliminal]

If you recieve with skaven, you can often score in just two turns... it's like kicking to them only you start the game 1-0


So with skaven, I often think of offense as an accelerated defense... Does that make sense?

[Munkey]

Heh. My Orcs certainly are getting good at playing accelerated offense at the moment.

[Grumbledook]

You could just lose the toss nearly every time like i do then not have to worry about it.

[mrinprophet]

Thanks for your feedback. I've found that I focus on defense and actually prefer to play defense. In general, I probably score more often on defense. My offensive drives need some help as they are fragmented and I tend to rely too much on one or two players, which is something I need to work on. That's another topic!

[Heiper]

You could just lose the toss nearly every time like i do then not have to worry about it.

Hehe, we seem to be in the same box Grumbledook