high elves amd stat boosted throwers

[Bullroarer4]

http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=team& ... _id=725948

For reference, this is the team being discussed.
The question is this: was taking both st+ on the throwers a mistake (I considered strong arm on the second double)
are st+ less valuable on an elf team in general?

[Jimmy Fantastic]

+ST is amazing for elves, just forget that they are called throwers.

[spubbbba]

I’d say +ST has more potential on ST3 elves than many other players. With AG4 and average to high MA they can use their mobility to get where their strength will do the most good. Slow and low AG players with +ST risk getting tied up by fodder, but they can benefit from combining it with Break Tackle.

I’m firmly in the camp of never taking strong arm, you already have safe throw, AG4 and pass which is all you’ll need for the few passes you will actually make. Get them dodge and block and you’ll have awesome runners combined with a very real passing threat. One of the reasons the 4 elven teams are so good is that every player (ok not the tree) can pick up the ball, pass and dodge better than many team’s positionals. So pretty much all the time you can hand off or do a quick/short pass to someone who can then move again and score or do a hand off quick/short pass.

If you get more doubles then either guard (elves always need this) or possibly MB.

[Heff]

Got strong arm on an elf thrower. Then +ag. Was astounding sit in the backfield and then pass across half the pitch. Scoring became effortless

[Hitonagashi]

Scoring became even more effortless than it already was

Corrected that for you .

[Smurf]

With the expert thrower the ball can be out of harms way. Then the move and lob. Strictly speaking it only ever throws long bombs.

They can help with stalling.

[Hitonagashi]

With the expert thrower the ball can be out of harms way. Then the move and lob. Strictly speaking it only ever throws long bombs.

They can help with stalling.

Sure, for 2 turns.

The problem with that approach (having played it for 100 games) is that once you split your team into two parts, each part is individually easier to swamp...and they only need to swamp one of them!

Let's say you are actually interested in stalling. You move your thrower into the backfield, and charge your team up the pitch, forming a shell around the catcher + cage.

They then swamp your cage with 10 players and run one dude into the backfield after your thrower. Suddenly, you can't afford to keep the stall going, because you cannot afford to take the risk of him putting you down on a 1d and running it in (especially if you haven't got blodge yet), which means you need to do the pass next turn.

Maybe you protect your cage with 2-3 players. In which case, he just runs 2-3 into the backfield, again, forcing you to pass. This relationship stays constant, until you hit the point where you cannot afford to protect your catchers (due to defending your thrower), at which point, he marks one catcher, smashes up another one, and then the turn after repeats the trick.

As the offense, you have a clear disadvantage in that you *always* have one less player than the offense (while numbers stay even), because you have a ball carrier. You usually have more than one less effective player, due to the need to shut off every possible offensive route to your carrier. To counteract this, you have to keep your team as a cohesive unit. Your only advantage is that the defense needs to shut off every route for you to score, so they have to divide their team up, which allows you to apply your (less) pressure in a concentrated manner.

If you split your team up, you are playing directly into the hands of the defence, because they can afford to split their team up, it's part of a normal offense. You are making your own offense weaker for no loss of pressure on the defence. That's why people don't pass at higher levels, it's nothing to do with the riskiness of the pass.

[mattgslater]

If you can maintain your positional control and keep the breadth of the pitch under a screen, dropping back with just the Thrower is okay. Then when your other ten establish a beachhead, you chuck the ball to safety. But... you absolutely must maintain your power to redirect, or you won't have anywhere to put the ball.

Dropping back with half your men is a loser's gambit. Use three if your opponent is super zippy, but you want the action to mostly be on the other guy's half of the pitch. One unreachable player is really the best. The key to that passing-score game is to pass when one of three things happens:

1) You planned to score this turn
2) It gets too hot for your Thrower
3) Your men really start dropping and you can't keep your formations intact

2 is really the aim. If your Thrower draws the other guy's best blitzer and one more man off your cage, he's had a big effect on the game, defining the cage-as-cage wherever the opponent allows an opening and more than accounting for himself in terms of personnel.

But yeah, I could have drafted such a player in NBFL, and I went for a hard-hitting blitzer instead. So maybe that tells ya somethin'.

[spubbbba]

I think hanging the ball carrier back can work well for elves against slower teams. This is especially true if you have plenty of dodge and they lack tackle.

By spreading your own team out you not only do you limit the effectiveness of guard but you can pick and choose your fights. The opposition may well send a player or 2 after your ball carrier (it will need to be at least 2 if he’s ST4 blodge unless they have skills or stats to counter that) but that spreads them out still further. You can then switch direction and use your mobility to put most of your team against a fraction of your opposition. Against players with MA4 you can effectively take them out of the game for 2 turns using this method.

Unless my opponent is really slow or stays in his own half I won’t leave the thrower on his own but will keep a player or 2 back as screen. Their job is to hold up ball hunters or be ready to receive a pass/hand off to move and potentially hand off/pass again, catchers are ideal for this. But these will be short/quick passes so that’s why dodge and block are preferred since it makes the thrower harder to sack, a better runner and useful on defence too.

It’s hard to describe this tactic in definitive terms as it relies on flexibility to exploit weaknesses in your opponents’ defence. But a lot of coaches assume elves are soft so will man mark and you can beat up many bash teams if they give away a lot of hits on their AV 7/8 players.

[Smurf]

My idea is the thrower passes the ball to a reciever who can score that turn.

It may allow a turn 3-4 score but that means there is less grind on the way back.

If the player has great movement then yeah ST4 is nice but slow movement, he maybe better punting th ball where it needs to be to make it safe.

[mattgslater]

I think hanging the ball carrier back can work well for elves against slower teams. This is especially true if you have plenty of dodge and they lack tackle.

By spreading your own team out you not only do you limit the effectiveness of guard but you can pick and choose your fights. The opposition may well send a player or 2 after your ball carrier (it will need to be at least 2 if he’s ST4 blodge unless they have skills or stats to counter that) but that spreads them out still further. You can then switch direction and use your mobility to put most of your team against a fraction of your opposition. Against players with MA4 you can effectively take them out of the game for 2 turns using this method.

Unless my opponent is really slow or stays in his own half I won’t leave the thrower on his own but will keep a player or 2 back as screen. Their job is to hold up ball hunters or be ready to receive a pass/hand off to move and potentially hand off/pass again, catchers are ideal for this. But these will be short/quick passes so that’s why dodge and block are preferred since it makes the thrower harder to sack, a better runner and useful on defence too.

It’s hard to describe this tactic in definitive terms as it relies on flexibility to exploit weaknesses in your opponents’ defence. But a lot of coaches assume elves are soft so will man mark and you can beat up many bash teams if they give away a lot of hits on their AV 7/8 players.

You did this to me about 18 months ago, and it worked. I held you down for six turns, but didn't do any damage, and at the last minute I made the tiniest positioning error and you got a guy free, let you force OT, where you took it to T24 before finally coughing it up on a chainpush and pass. Still, I'm suspicious of committing much effort back there: a couple bad AV rolls near the ball, or a pickup on my part when I forced a scrum, neither of those is hard to imagine, and there would have been no overtime. Even stuns are a big deal in that situation, where stuns that happen in the screen area are often much more manageable, because they don't imply free defenders on the carrier.

[spubbbba]

You did this to me about 18 months ago, and it worked. I held you down for six turns, but didn't do any damage, and at the last minute I made the tiniest positioning error and you got a guy free, let you force OT, where you took it to T24 before finally coughing it up on a chainpush and pass. Still, I'm suspicious of committing much effort back there: a couple bad AV rolls near the ball, or a pickup on my part when I forced a scrum, neither of those is hard to imagine, and there would have been no overtime. Even stuns are a big deal in that situation, where stuns that happen in the screen area are often much more manageable, because they don't imply free defenders on the carrier.

That’s where the adaptability part has to come in. The idea is to minimise blocks taken and preserve re-rolls whilst running down the clock. If you start losing players then more risky moves need to be taken, but probably still less risky than scoring in T4 and giving the other side loads of free hits and a chance to equalise.
Ironically it was my Strong Arm Thrower (a leftover from an old Faction lrb4 team) who almost cost me the game in normal time. He just needed to make a 2+ pass for a 2+catch with re-rolls but fumbled it. Luckily I had a few defenders round him so was able to recover and score in T8.

Turns 9-16 I was on defence and played far more aggressively than I normally would when 1-0 up a full elf team. I didn’t expect my armour to continue to hold up so went for the defensive TD rather than focusing on the shut out. In OT I was again on defence so had to keep up the aggressive play. On my T23 I chose to leave a player in scoring range rather use him to strengthen my defence as I didn’t want to leave it to a coin toss.

I came close to stealing the ball a couple of times but couldn’t quite manage it. If I had the chance to rebuild that team I’d have taken Guard on that thrower. In that game I threw all of 1 pass and Strong Arm was no use, whilst an extra guard may have made all the difference on defence.

[Bullroarer4]

So...summarily st + basic combat skills makes elves a more capable and well rounded team. Ag 4 +pass is sufficient in say 90% of instances where passing is the better play. In contrast block, dodge, (basically any skill which modifies the block action) is used far more and will give greater returns more of the time.

[Hitonagashi]

So...summarily st + basic combat skills makes elves a more capable and well rounded team. Ag 4 +pass is sufficient in say 90% of instances where passing is the better play. In contrast block, dodge, (basically any skill which modifies the block action) is used far more and will give greater returns more of the time.

Basically, you nailed it .