ianwilliams wrote:I wish I knew the answers, but all too often Guiness clouds my judgement.
Perhaps that's another reason PBEM games tend to appear higher quality than tabletop...I don't usually have a beer in my hand when I take my PBEM turn.
martynq wrote:
How do you prioritize necessity vs. risk?
How do you decide where the right place to put your players are?
For me, the important question is usually what's the cost of failure at this point? Sometimes, it's better to leave a free player where he is in case you fail. And then, if you succeed, he's in a position to now move to a better location, whether that's defending your new ballcarrier or putting tz's on the opponent's ball carrier that your blitz just opened up. But generally, I'll move at least a few players into a location that is purely the 'Uh-oh' positions of where they need to be should I fail my important action.
I also generally like a passive-agressive strategy, which is especially good if your opponent has fewer rerolls than you. The idea is basically, make you opponent come to you.
Your defenders between your endzone and their players(@5 players):
If the opening isn't there, be content to hang back and put together a nice screen of tz's that keeps the action in front of you. Their job is in case you fail something, the opponent has to do some work to blow by you.
Your ruckers in the middle of the action(@4 players):
Make a nuisance of yourself. Take any 2-die blocks you can get without opening a gap in your formation. If you get a knockdown, this means the opponent will likely just have to stand up next turn if you leave a tz there.
If you've got a string of defenders behind you, be content to leave a ST3/AV8 player in another's tz, especially if it's away from the ball and especially if he lacks block. This means he'll either be throwing one die or have to move another player there, away from the ball and out of position, to throw a generally unimportant 2-die block.
The end-arounders(@2 players):
With this stalemate in place, send a guy or two the long way around the opponent to put some pressure on their backside to move it upfield prematurely. This puts the opponent in the position of forcing some things he doesn't want to do, which should mean he's burning through rerolls faster than you, which really helps come the end of a half.
They're also there in case you opponent fails an action. Now you have someone back there to who can try to pick up that fumbled ball and move it toward your endzone. Generally, I'll try to leave one of those end arounders as a trailer, staying 3 or 4 squares behind the action. Scares the opponent since I can blitz if need be, but in a position to take a hand off and run out of reach should the opponent fail..which if you've been making him burn rerolls he will do at some point.
But by all means, if he fails a roll, attack the gap mercilessly!!
But sometimes, the dice just don't go your way and the opponent's rolling all 5's and 6's. In that case, no strategy is going to help..other than reaching for another beer.
