Formations and Player Movement

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mattgslater
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Re: Formations and Player Movement

Post by mattgslater »

I tried a few years ago to create a spatial notation; it was received with enough scorn to pretty much sour me on the human race, but over the years I've kept using it and it works alright. It's based on the relationship between players' TZs, with names for the most effective ones.

One thing that really really helps is to have a good pitch notation in your head. A-Z works well for the rows, with A being the offensive endzone and Z being the defensive endzone; for columns I strongly recommend a symmetrical notation, like (L/R)0-7, with 0 being in the middle, wide zone markers being between 3 and 4, and the sideline column being 7. The reason I recommend symmetry in the columns is that notation helps best with setup.

If you're asking about an overall drive plan, that's not so hard. Like, if I'm playing a grind team and aiming for an 8-turn drive, I might envision it like this.

Turn 1: Knock down 4 guys, establish a screen from the playside sideline out into the backside wide zone (how wide the screen has to be is a function of how fast the defense is), lock the defensive line for further punishment, get control of the ball.
Turns 2-3: Get the ball secure at the line, keep lateral control, try to force defense to overcommit, or if not at least maintain security and deal some damage.
Turn 4: If defense overcommits, redirect to the backside of the play and wrap around to corral defenders. If not, establish a beachhead on the playside.
Turns 5-7: Get the ball to a safe endzone camp and pound pound pound. Foulin' time.
Turn 8: Walk it in.

If you put together a good internal vocabulary for the kinds of plays you like to see (I have a whole series of terms, too long for a post) and a good spatial notation, and a good overall drive plan, you'll see they play on each other. Being able to say to yourself something like "I'm gonna put a square screen here in the S1-column, so when I redirect next turn…" is really helpful. And it only takes a few hundred games to get it down right.

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What is Nuffle's lawn? Inches, squares, and tackle zones: Reddened blades of grass.
What is Nuffle's tree? Risk its trunk, space the branches. Touchdowns are its fruit.
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Re: Formations and Player Movement

Post by Jimmy Fantastic »

I find the most important thing is for the flankers to cover the b-gap while the wingers attack the space beside the x-column and the nickel magnet accelerator plays safety behind a e-screen.

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Re: Formations and Player Movement

Post by Joemanji »

Actually I have come around to Matt's thoughts about the need for terms to describe spatial notation. I just think it is something that needs to develop organically. For example a term in my gaming group for an advanced I cage (the Vengabus) has now spread around, including into Denmark. Also, TFF isn't the place for sensible discussion, the fun police will round us up for being too serious.

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Re: Formations and Player Movement

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Megabunker is the only notation that needs to be universal!

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Re: Formations and Player Movement

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Joemanji wrote: Also, TFF isn't the place for sensible discussion, the fun police will round us up for being too serious.
Reclaim it from the fun police!

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Re: Formations and Player Movement

Post by Smeborg »

SPECIFIC CONCEPTS FOR [EARLY] CHAOS
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Nestyr - your questions are particulary good because early Chaos is the nearest thing in BB to a "generic" or "universal" team. Unlike most other teams, the players are not highly specialised. Rather they are all much the same, although there are some things that they all do particuarly well (such as blitzing). I was in a similar position to yourself at the beginning of the year, when I started playing Chaos in tournaments for the first time, having never played them is a proper league. 2 of these tournaments started with no skills, just like starting in a league. I believe Joemanji's words:
Joemanji wrote:"...you can know what works in general and then fine tune it on case by case basis. Knowing when to snap out of that and actually play a turn from first principles is another key skill."
apply with greater force to Chaos than to most teams. Speaking to experienced coaches who have found Chaos difficult to play in tournaments, I got answers such as: "I always get both down blocks", or "I would have used a re-roll then" (after I didn't). I suspect the underlying issue for coaches who struggle with early Chaos is that they are following conventional or habitual wisdom, assuming a model for Chaos (based on other teams they have played) which does not work. In particular, Chaos do not play like Orcs. Turning to specific concepts which you might find of use for Chaos:

RE-ROLLS: Re-rolls are more precious for Chaos than for most teams, because they lack starting block and come with no re-roll skills. Thus you have to take the active decision not to use re-rolls, escpecially when it is early in the half. Examples: a failed pick-up out of range of the opponent, a failed block late in the turn. This may require an exercise of will, as with many other teams the technically correct decision may be to use the re-roll (thus you are required to break a habit).

ECONOMY OF FORCE: Because blocks are risky, you should not block more than you need to. Example: take only 3 blocks on the LoS on the first turn of offense. If you take more, you are inviting failure. This is in contrast to blocking teams such as Dwarfs, Orcs, or Norse, who (depending on the match situation) may well take more than 3 blocks on the LoS. (Of course low risk blocks late in the turn and well away from the ball do not fall into the same category).

BLITZ FIRST: It may pay to take your blitz first (before making blocks), because this will improve your field position before a failed block causes a turnover. Of course this will depend on the match situation and field position. Examples: first turn of offense, putting a receiver in scoring position, attacking the ball, putting a tackle zone or two on the opposing ball carrier. Teams with starting block have the luxury of taking the blocks first. (Of course there will be plenty of times when it is appropriate to blitz late in the turn.)

CONTACT: Conventional or habitual wisdom suggests that at the beginning of your turn, especially with a bash team, you stand up all your prone players. But with early Chaos, there may be times when it is better to avoid contact by dodging away, helped by AG3 across the board. Example: first turn of defense when facing an Orc or Dwarf team with M-Blow. Suppose you have 3 players on the LoS, 1 is stunned, 1 is prone, 1 is standing but in contact (and does not have a good block). Dodge the standing player away first, this has a 2/3 chance of sucess, if it succeeds, you then dodge the prone player away, but even if it fails, you have left nobody in contact. This can be pleasantly frustrating for your opponent. (Of course there will be plenty of times when it is correct to stand up the prone players and leave them in contact.)

STALLING: Conventional wisdom suggests that Chaos should play long grinding (caging) drives in the style of Orcs. However, doing this with a team with no Block and no Sure Hands is much more hazardous. Not only is the cage slower, clumsier and easier to break, but if the ball is popped loose, it is more difficult for Chaos to recover. My experience is that Chaos are not good at holding the ball, however, they are rather good at defense (mainly because of their raw blitz power, but also because of AG3 across the board, plus adequate MA). Thus it can often be better to score as soon as you can do so safely and trust to your defense. Some other teams behave in a similar way (weak offense, strong defense), notably Nurgle and Khorne. (Of course there will be times when it is appropriate to stall.)

LINEAR VS. AREA DEFENSE: Conventional wisdom suggests that a bash team such as Chaos should try and maintain a linear, structured defense, as Orcs, Khemri or Dwarfs might seek to do. But Chaos are especially strong when play is broken and both teams have players seemingly sprayed all over the board (again because of their raw blitz power and across the board AG3). So Chaos should not shy away from such situations, which may be to their advantage. Just because things look wild does not mean they are bad for you (it may simply be that you are used to playing a more "tidy" team).

WARRIORS AS RUNNERS: Situations where a Warrior makes the best ball carrier are common, particularly in broken play, or against opponents who specialise in direct assaults on the caged ball (e.g. Wood Elves, Slann). Chaos coaches, in my experience, may be rather too ready to use a Beastman to move the ball (out of habit), without thinking through the match situation or field position (either or which might suggest a Warrior would be better).

I hope you may find some of that of practical use.

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Re: Formations and Player Movement

Post by El_Jairo »

Thank you guys for this topic. It is just what I needed.

I have been playing DE for years but I never got into the game deep enough competitively to get the positioning an drive strategy for real. I always wanted to win and gave up positions, in the naive beleive that it was the right thing to do.
In other words I have a tendency to overcommit. Luckely elves can recover from that to gain the upperhand on portion of the pitch. I had proper risk management which made I had some succes in local competition and online.

Recently I started to play Necro's in a competitive league. I opted for 2FG instead of 2WW, not so good I know. My first match was vs humans. I chose to defend, which may have not been the wisest. I felt I was doing fine because I resisted pushing through with my few positionals but I was losing the numbers wars because I couldn't surf some target.

In the end the humans scored in T8 on the other side with their catcher. I thought it was close but reading this thread, it was his plan all along and I facilitated it.
Now I'm inclined to think that I need to pressure the ball with at least a WW and a wight ideally supported by a zombie/FG screen. Maintain somewhat a linedefense but force him to go for the quick score. So I need a good safety to threaten any break-throughs, which there are going to be because I commit 2 players to pressure the ball.

Now I get it that for more bash inclinded rosters the goal of defending isn't just to prevent to TD but forcing a fast TD with the risk of a turnover is a more viable way of doing this. Because if you fail: which means they score fast, you have decent amount of time to score back and start the second half with the ball in your half.

OMG, I feel like BB n00b, because this concept is so basic to the game. I was so cought up in the skills, tactic positioning and numbers game that I forgot about the strategy part. If you know what the opponent really wants to do (which isn't just score ASAP) you can start to gain the initiative by making his plan difficult.

It still does feel counter-intuitive to not wanting to score fast in a sports game. But this is aboard game first :)

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Re: Formations and Player Movement

Post by Smeborg »

CHAOS STRATEGY AND FLUFF
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Nestyr - an obstacle for Coaches playing Chaos for the first time is the wording of the official "fluff" in the rulebook (Team Rosters). This suggests that Chaos are good at rampaging up the middle of the pitch, killing and maiming as they go, and disregarding the ball. In reality, rookie Chaos are poor at this, and likely to lose if they attempt to play in this way. They need to take blocks with care, pay lots of attention to player positioning, and protect the ball.

Another way of looking at it is that Chaos develop (eventually) into a very strong slayer team, thanks to their universal access to Strength skills and Mutations. When they reach this point, they justify the "fluff". But at the beginning, they have none of this, so pretending that they can kill and maim at will will not help the coach.

NON-SLAYER DEVELOPMENT PATHS
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Slayer builds are very successful on this team, and I think at least 4 players should be built in this way. But once you have more than (say) 4 or 5 such players, you start to carry redundancy and TV bloat against most opponents. And in my experience, a well developed Agility team (e.g. any of the Elven teams) will tend to win matches easily against a Chaos team which has little other then slayer players (the AG4 players can avoid contact, and are ruthless when it comes to hunting the ball).

I think it is important to develop some non-slayer players to make Chaos strong against all types of opponent. Examples of such builds which I have used or seen:

- 2 or 3 ball-hunting Beastmen with Wrestle. These are outstanding on early Chaos or in tournaments. In a league you can follow Wrestle with Tackle, 2-Heads to make outstanding ball-hunters, good against any team.

- 2 Receiver Beastmen with (say) Extra-Arms, Two-Heads. Hard to defend against, they are in effect AG4 players (Elves) with Horns. Beastelves if you like.

I am not going to dictate how you should develop the non-slayer players on a Chaos team (but you need at least one ball-handler, for example). It is up to you to develop these players so that the team makes a harmonious whole, fitting with your preferrred styles of play in your environment and against the opponents that you have to face. These are just examples. But you need an over-arching development plan (including both slayers and non-slayers) to make sure a Chaos team is effective at all levels of TV (I believe it can be).

Hope that helps.

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mattgslater
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Re: Formations and Player Movement

Post by mattgslater »

Joemanji wrote:Actually I have come around to Matt's thoughts about the need for terms to describe spatial notation. I just think it is something that needs to develop organically. For example a term in my gaming group for an advanced I cage (the Vengabus) has now spread around, including into Denmark. Also, TFF isn't the place for sensible discussion, the fun police will round us up for being too serious.
Do tell me about this "Vengabus" cage. My Underworld have a major game tomorrow against bghandras and his Woodies with two AG5 Tackle Dancers, so I could use some advanced I-cage concepts….

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What is Nuffle's lawn? Inches, squares, and tackle zones: Reddened blades of grass.
What is Nuffle's tree? Risk its trunk, space the branches. Touchdowns are its fruit.
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Re: Formations and Player Movement

Post by Jimmy Fantastic »

A Wrestle Tackle Beastman is OK early, but at high TV he is comprehensively outclassed by a killer.

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Re: Formations and Player Movement

Post by swilhelm73 »

Wrestle is an interesting beastman choice.

Starting at about mid TV it is better then block for line fodder - since your opponents will have block.

Also, wrestle, tackle is a nice combo as well for knocking down blodgers with the ball - the interesting complication though is you lose tackle if you have to use wrestle.

I did end up with a wrestle instead of block killer at one point on a chaos team, something like:

Wrestle, Tackle, MB, Claw, PO

It was highly effective since I didn't have to choose between using the killer and the wrackler. This was an environment without a lot of fouling though, so results might have been different in a league where fouling was more common.

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