How to beat Imperial Nobility (Fend)?

[jawCross]

I have hard time playing against Fend skill. In this league I'm playing with Shambling Undead. I just beat Wood Elfs 3-1 (Casualties 7-0). But I have so far played 1-1 and 0-0 against Imperial Nobility, mostly because of Fend.

Juggernaut skill cancels Fend, but it only works when Blitzing. And if player already have Block skill (Wights) half of the Juggernaut skill is wasted. Most of the time Mummies are not Blitzing.
-> Idea 1: Mummy with Juggernaut and he will Blitz.

More ideas? Tactical or strategic.

[El_Jairo]

Hi jawCross,

I'm a little late to the party, but I'm going to give my two cents.

Fend is a great skill for a ball carrier as it becomes so much more difficult to base the ball when he is surrounded by team mates.

On linemen, Fend is less of an issue if you plan ahead: push the player diagonally into contact with more of your players. That way he will still be marked when he goes down or can simply be blocked again.

To do this you will sometimes need to blitz from the right angle to make this possible.
F is the player with Fend, X are players of yours.
Note that the Blitz can also be made from the South-West square from the Fend player, or it can even be a simple Block if you already have a player standing there.
[PLAY-CREATOR]
--------------------
Blitz-> F---------
--------X-X

[/PLAY-CREATOR]

It can we frustrating for Undead, as you don't get the square forward movement from the blocks with the Mummies. To counter this you just need to mark out the Fend linemen with Zombies or Skeletons of your own.

I have played myself a bit with Brettonians (the team from which Nobility was developed from) and I found that the team gets in trouble when the linemen are gone. They have poor armor, so hitting them with MB is the best way to get rid of them.

The combination of Fend en Wrestle-Stand Firm makes the Nobility pretty good at defense, yet they lack any real power on offense typically, where Wrestle can also work to your detriment and they now only have two blitzers available so they lost some speed.

PS: The Juggernaut skill has two different portions to it and it is sadly poorly worded.
The first part always works: disabling, Fend, Stand Firm and Wrestle.
The second part is optional: you may turn a Both Down into a Push.
So if your wight has Juggernaut and he blitzes a Wrestle guy, on a Both Down you can use your block skill but the opponent can't use their Wrestle sill, so you knock them prone.

And yes, since Juggernaut only works on a Blitz action, you typically give it to the killers of the team, who to the most blitzing. The blockers of your team rather pick Grab as a skill after Block-Guard-Stand Firm.

[Dave]

3D blocks with the mummies - just kill them

[jawCross]

If one player has Block and other has Wrestle, then the Wrestler can choose to put both prone.

[Wrestle] regardless of any other Skills either player may possess, both players are Placed Prone.

Regarding my original question: I encountered Brettonians five times and games were:
TIE: 1-1
TIE: 0-0
TIE: 1-1
WIN: 2-0
WIN: 1-0
(As excepted with Tier 1 VS Tier 2)

Maybe the success was combination of just kill them and "smart" placement of my players: [caricaturing] I moved eight players to base contact of four opponent. With AG 4+ they won't dodge away. They must make crappy blocks or bring all the team to the mayhem (or leave them). And when almost all players from both teams are in the same pile Fend is not issue anymore.

Skillset of my team was very classic: blocks and guards. And little bit of Grab which works against Fend, the same point than blitzing opponent to make another block with another player.