Stalling, What if...

[Corvidius]

Some people like the competitive aspect of BB and find it very dull if their opponent doesn’t play to win. Stalling and trying to stop the stall can make for a very interesting and challenging game. It is very hard to stop an agile team scoring in 2 turns whilst some bashers will struggle to do it in 3 turns even facing minimal opposition.

I know that the dullest games I’ve played have been when my opponent doesn’t care about the result and just hands me an easy win.

Yea cos stalling is the only way to play competitive huh

I guess your wins are all 2-1. yawn. Can't brag about a game if you consider your opponent handed you a win I suppose. In reality they probably fell asleep through boredom while your turns over ran while you ran the clock down too.

While stalling (or the slow game) isn't the only way to play competitively, it is one of the more reliable methods of winning. Now bear in mind that I'm someone who used to find "stallbowl" infuriating as it seemed to creep in from the tournament scene into my local league where we'd been playing more varied styles of play. Stalling just seemed wrong and downright snide and borderline disrespectful. But, and this is a major one, the more I played against it the better I got at stopping it and the less I saw it as an inherently bad thing. I'm not a top ranked coach and i'm not someone who takes the game overly seriously but ultimately the reason i was annoyed at stalling at first was because the opponent was just flat out better at playing the game than me. They knew how to control not only the ball but the entire flow of the game. They were minimizing the risk and were just as infuriated when I tried "silly" high risk plays that paid off. High risk, high reward is doable but risky whereas stalling is low risk but reliable.

Unfortunately if your enjoyment of the game is reliant on the opponent playing a risky game then you're likely to be disappointed but if you learn to enjoy the game for all it's variety then you'll enjoy it all the more.

[swilhelm73]

I guess your wins are all 2-1. yawn. Can't brag about a game if you consider your opponent handed you a win I suppose. In reality they probably fell asleep through boredom while your turns over ran while you ran the clock down too.

Controlling the clock is a core part of BB strategy and has been for a long time now. In fact many teams can't win unless they do so. Consider a Khemri v WE game. The WE can reliably score in 2 or 3 turns, the Khemri are going to need 5-6. So, no stall and you likely get a boring 2-1 WE win handed to them by the Khemri coach.

Anyway, a good agile team coach has a reasonable chance to stop a cage - Blodge/SS. Leap, etc... But that means they have to take some risk and potentially lose players. Well, if you don't want to lose players go play dwarves.

In fact, I just played one of the most exciting games I've had some time last night. My bashy/cagey Necro team vs a Pro Elf team that I have a bit of a history with. I ended up winning in OT 3-2 because he popped my cage on my first possession, BUT I managed the clock well to even the score at the end of the half and T16.

Overall, I think too many coaches focus solely on offense and seem to find defense boring. I'm the exact opposite.

[DoubleSkulls]

There is a difference between stalling and a slow drive though isn't there? Is anyone saying Dwarves should be going for 2 turn TDs every offence?

[swilhelm73]

There is a difference between stalling and a slow drive though isn't there? Is anyone saying Dwarves should be going for 2 turn TDs every offence?

Not really. A stall in this case is just a more successful slow drive.

And to expand upon this, while it depends on my pre-game strategy, I generally have a goal to try and score on T8/16 when I have the ball. That means I am in no hurry to move down the field, but if I am very successful in my blocks, positioning, or CAS I can at times find myself caged near the opponent's endzone with time to kill.

To again look at the same game I mentioned above, when I got the ball on T5, I didn't have time to stall and he pressured me heavily making me score on T7 and giving him a chance to score.

When I got the ball on T10, I had plenty of time, and more success with the blocking game, so I was able to stall on T14-16.

Both drives my goal was the same, but the outcome depended on my opponent's strategy and the roll of the dice.

[Smurf]

The defence's difficulty lies in keeping the ball out of running distance from the TDZ.

Probing attacks, take out positions (thrower) for the next drive and generally harrassing the offence to protect and avoid moving the ball forward. It's when it goes all wrong the problem starts.

Taking out the corner of the cage and putting a good player next to the ball handler and trying to peg the rest of the cage. to avoid movement.

The only problem is the other six players that need to be watched. There are ways to get at the cage and give the offence some tough choices.

[RogueThirteen]

As an elf or skaven player, the opponent's cage should only be moving forward one square a turn on average, assuming the agile team is making columns of two players (with two spaces between each column) one square in front of the opponent's cage and screen. The opponent should be limited to blitzing one player a turn, so at most you should only have one player down a turn (after the LOS pounding - but that's what linemen are for). Of course, dodges away may occassionally turn you over and leave a few more guys to get hit, but it shouldn't be the whole team down. Oftentimes, this kind of passive interference can be enough to potentially prevent your opponent from getting all the way downfield.

Of course, if I'm playing high elves or a team with some blodgers or wreslters, I'm going to mark the heck out of the opponent's cage corners and try to screen off or mark the other players. It increases the chances one of his or her blocks fails or that s/he either can't move the cage or can't reform a full new cage. Things like blodging sidesteppers are great for this. Then, if things work out well, you'll create a chance to steal the ball at best or will prevent them from getting to the end zone in time.

I mean, if the opponent's entire team is Block / Tackle / Mighty Blow / Piling On this might be an ill-advised strategy, but I can't imagine outside of perpetual online leagues you'd ever run into a team like that.


Plus, it's easy peasy for elf/skaven teams to score. It's much more difficult for Dwarves or Nurgle or Chaos or Khemri or a host of other teams to score. Forbidding a grind strategy basically means only AG4 teams with an average MA of 7 would be competitive.

I think there might be a misconception that a Grind strategy will always beat an agile team. Pulling off the 2-1 Grind is really rater difficult, and I've seen it fail a lot more times than I've seen it work (either because the opponent steals possession or a failure to get to the end zone on one of the pushes).

[Smeborg]

RogueThirteen - in my experience, a cage moves at an average of about one and a half squares per turn. This is still rather slow. A double screen defense by the agile team is good, but is not a complete answer, IMO. Sometimes you need to pick your moment and mark the cage, and/or attack it directly.

All the best.

[mattgslater]

One square many turns, no squares some turns, 2-5 squares some turns. Sometimes there's one turn of radical repositioning after the defense fails a key roll, where there's a lot of drama, and then a new stall-out downfield somewhat.

[SillySod]

Yea cos stalling is the only way to play competitive huh

Yes, it is.

More than 90% of the time in the current ruleset at any rate. Assuming that you are able to stall. If you reached the point where you can stall safely then you are already half way to winning and you have already outplayed/outlucked your opponent to get to that stage. Its true that alot of games between top players dont involve stalling but this is because top players deliberately play to prevent their opponent from stalling (it still happens a fair bit even there though - sometimes the defence gets outplayed, sometimes the offence got lucky).

[mattgslater]

Yes, it is.

Game-for-game this is true. In some formats, there's variance. I used to play a lot of resetting scheduled leagues, where there was a big premium on SPP farming. In those environments, stalling is a good fallback, and a primary strategy for teams that can't do anything but grind. For many teams in those environments, even bash teams, the preferred route is to kick first, turn over, and try to set the stage for a 3-0, 2-0, or 2-1. But if it doesn't work, there's probably going to be a stall, even in those environments. After all, winning is Job One.

Also, what constitutes "stalling" may depend on the opposition. If you're playing against Dwarfs and you take out a Runner and a Blitzer, the difference between T5 and T6 for an offensive score is huge. You don't have to hang on until T8. If you're playing against Skaven, then stalling is a damage thing, and on the receiving half you really have no choice but to give them a shot.

[dode74]

Chaos League (Cyanide's original attempt at creating their own BB, which I actually really enjoyed, which got them into this version in the first place) had an anti-stall thing where the crowd would get irate and throw stuff at the BC if he didn't move.

[MattDakka]

Chaos League (Cyanide's original attempt at creating their own BB, which I actually really enjoyed, which got them into this version in the first place) had an anti-stall thing where the crowd would get irate and throw stuff at the BC if he didn't move.

That would be a nice idea for BB! Stalling should have some risk.
Stalling is necessary but sometimes makes the match dull and boring (I stall because my opponent would do the same, but I don't like it very much).

[MKL]

Game-for-game this is true. In some formats, there's variance. I used to play a lot of resetting scheduled leagues, where there was a big premium on SPP farming. In those environments, stalling is a good fallback, and a primary strategy for teams that can't do anything but grind.
(...)

Interesting: can you explain me how a "resetting scheduled league" works?

[dines]

Game-for-game this is true. In some formats, there's variance. I used to play a lot of resetting scheduled leagues, where there was a big premium on SPP farming. In those environments, stalling is a good fallback, and a primary strategy for teams that can't do anything but grind.
(...)

Interesting: can you explain me how a "resetting scheduled league" works?

My guess is after each season, people has to start a new team and the league has scheduled matches...

[MKL]

Game-for-game this is true. In some formats, there's variance. I used to play a lot of resetting scheduled leagues, where there was a big premium on SPP farming. In those environments, stalling is a good fallback, and a primary strategy for teams that can't do anything but grind.
(...)

Interesting: can you explain me how a "resetting scheduled league" works?

My guess is after each season, people has to start a new team and the league has scheduled matches...

mmm... where is the "big premium on SPP farming"?

Matt wrote too "even bash teams, the preferred route is to kick first, turn over, and try to set the stage for a 3-0, 2-0, or 2-1"

Such a format puzzle me