Do you get rid of -ag Orc Blitzers?

[Hitonagashi]

The problem is one of getting the ball forward and maximising your hitting power while maintaining options. Having a rear KOR thrower get the ball forward early makes the drive easier; having a lineorc or thrower catch it means you have all 8 S access players punching holes; having that catcher be a thrower means you have the opportunity to exploit those holes by moving the ball forward fast. Personally, I didn't find it to be a waste of TV.

You've still only got one blitz a turn. Most players will try and avoid contact with you. I almost always carry with a blitzer if I have to pass, and use the extra lino I have to mark and tie up players of theirs.

[mattgslater]

Winning with bash takes one of two things: stickiness or killstack. If you want to make your opponents bleed, you can do it by POMBing once a turn, or you can do it by blocking the opponent into a corral, so they can't prevent a boatload of hits. This causes the play to grind to a halt, as every turn you push them one square your way, they try to regroup, and you stop them from regrouping so you can hit them some more. When it doesn't work, you have to make a hole, with enough resources to protect it, and usually your opponent can at a minimum tell you where to do it. This is why MA5+QP is actually useful: all or most of your guys should be in a tight pattern, with the ball within five squares of the zero column, almost all the time. But which side of the formation the cage is on at any given moment, that's up to debate. You need to keep progressing a square or two downfield almost every turn, even before your blocks start to work: do it right, and your opponent won't be able to block you off forever. But sometimes that means redirecting. And with MA5 carriers, 2+ skilled quickies are a big deal.

With you, Hito, about two Throwers. It's fun in fun leagues, but not TV-effective.

[Smeborg]

For my part, I think the following Orc rosters all work fine:

With Troll
Without Troll
With Gobbo
Without Gobbo
2 Throwers
1 Thrower
0 Throwers

All the best.

[Hitonagashi]

Sure, all orc rosters can work.

Orcs are the "easy mode" team. It's very hard to mess an orc team up in the same way you can an elf, lizardman , or a dwarf team, with bad player picks or skill picks.

It's also true that not all builds are ideal. To a certain extent, this is environment dependent. Multiple throwers works okay if all you face is elves, as the extra mobility is probably worth slightly more than the extra point of AV. If you run into another bash team, they put you in deep trouble, as your only edge with orcs over the other bashers is your AV and your ST. Dwarves will out-guard you, and Chaos will outbash you. In both cases, you *have* to have fodder to throw at the opposing high strength players. It's the orc way...you use your linos/troll to mark high value targets, your Black Orcs/troll to tie up multiple low value targets that you can pound on (and lock the position down), and your blitzers to blitz and strike in and out. Your thrower is useful as a cheap sure hands against elves, but taking more than one means that you are taking less linemen..which means your valuable Black Orcs/Blitzers have to occupy that role.

If everyone in your league likes to pass, have a beer and laugh about the game, then yes, throwers can work well. I'd like to emphasise that this isn't intended to be derogatory. I know full well when I play, I don't drink, and I concentrate on purely winning the game. This makes me effective in tournaments, but..well...there's a reason I don't play local leagues . The "orc grind" is dull to play against and very demoralising for newer opponents.

However, imho, in competitive play, you don't throw the ball with AG 3. There are exceptions, sure, there are emergencies, but in 90% of the games, throwing the ball indicates that you didn't set up to recieve the kick off okay. Most people I see advocating passing games on Orcs are the same ones who stack the LOS with an all mens LOS on offense, and don't even consider the possibility they might get blitzed.

Basically, my long post can be summed up as: If you genuinely need to pass, you can't afford to fail the pickup or the catch. Regardless of accurate/strong arm, both the pickup and the catch are usually done on 3+. This is too risky for a move that wrecks your drive if it fails. IF you have an AG 4 reciever, and an AG 4 thrower, then you can get away with passing. For orcs, most of the time, this isn't true.

[MattDakka]

+ 1 to Hitonagashi's post.

[Shteve0]

Playing sober is, beyond doubt, cheating.

[MattDakka]

Playing sober is, beyond doubt, cheating.

And out of character too if you either play Dwarfs or Norse.

[Smeborg]

I think TV-based arguments can only be taken so far, especially when a small number of TV points is at stake. In the case of Orcs, I quite like the leanest TV roster (IMO), which is 4 Blitzers, 4 BOBs and Linos (no Troll, no Gobbo, no Throwers). Give a Blitzer S-Hands and KoR and you are off to the races with a player who is better at running the ball than a Thrower. And you have AV9 across the board.

So that is a TV-based argument for 0 Throwers being better than 1, although I accept that the roster may not be to every Orc coach's taste. Not radically different from the TV-based argument that 1 Thrower is better than 2. You pays your money and you makes your choice.

All the best.

[Darkson]

I should really be more clear...I agree with Smeborg and Dode in that a passing play can be useful for orcs.

If it's a deep kick, and you have a +AG blitzer, it's not a bad emergency alternative for the little TV you put on it.

What I do complain about is running TWO throwers. To my mind, there's 0 point in having two throwers, both with Strong Arm/Accurate. Only one can make the pass in the first place! KOR on one thrower is much better than having two players for it.

Hence why I said sack one of the throwers (not both). Fine, he likes throwing with one. You don't need a second.

This +1.

I've got no problem with running two throwers (I did in our last league, where admittedly TV-management isn't that important), both building them both the same is a waste.

[spubbbba]

I would certainly sack 1 and possibly both of those throwers. Block is a must for them, after that accurate and kick off return can both be useful and I’d consider tackle, kick or strip ball too as it frees up the blitzers to concentrate on strength skills whilst the lineorcs get LOS duty. Strong arm is a wasted skill on pretty much everyone, dodge is certainly better for the Orc thrower to lengthen his life and add mobility.

The thing about throwing skills is you need to look at how often they’d actually be used, making a 4+ target a 3+ is nice, but not pointless if you roll a 2 or a 5. 1/3 of all your dice rolls will be either a 1 or a 6 so modifiers wouldn’t matter to those as well.

Strong Arm in particular only works on 3 out of 4 pass options, and I suspect it will be pretty rare you get an Orc long bomb or long pass.

[mattgslater]

Yeah, especially since you have 14 guys. Yo Quiero is 120k dead TV. That or the Goblin is 90k dead TV, or the -AG Lineman 50k. But I'm inclined to think your team would be a lot more effective without one of those three guys. I'd drop Yo Quiero, a RR, and the AG2 lino, keep the Gob, hire a new lino: save 180k.

Actually, just thinking in terms of what wins, I'd cut the lot of them, and a RR, and hire one Orc lineman: save 270k! You don't need to do that. But in terms of cost effectiveness, it's probably the smart way. AC and CL are negotiable, but just the one of each is actually a pretty good bargain, in math terms. You could save 290k without a significant decrease in your ability to win, even before considering the handicap gulf (though with a serious cut to your playbook).

But if the lot of them are truly central to your style, ignore that. Style trumps cost-effectiveness where there's a conflict. Or try to expand your style, if you just don't know how to play without them. In the latter case, cutting all three is probably the best plan anyway, to improve your coaching skills.

Two Acc/SA Throwers isn't insane. It's not unplayable. It's even got upside. It's just suboptimal. I find I chuck it a lot more in tabletop leagues than I do on FUMBBL. 14 men on an AV9 team is, if anything, the bigger crime against Nuffle.

[Smurf]

Whoa... isn't TV bloat only true if you lose games because of it?

Seriously if the dude likes his team then fairplay to him, if he wins brilliant.

IMO the inducements are not a good equaliser for a strong TV.

I'm watching this in my WE team, 3 linos with 2 skills and hope they can get 2 more which means they could end up costing 150k per lino. I'm not rushing it I am watching it for TV bloat or not.

[spubbbba]

Whoa... isn't TV bloat only true if you lose games because of it?

Seriously if the dude likes his team then fairplay to him, if he wins brilliant.

IMO the inducements are not a good equaliser for a strong TV.

I'm watching this in my WE team, 3 linos with 2 skills and hope they can get 2 more which means they could end up costing 150k per lino. I'm not rushing it I am watching it for TV bloat or not.

Well if you have players or skill you never use then just think of the difference that would make each game. If you go the full 290K Matt suggests above that would make a massive difference since that’s a wizard and a bribe, 2 babes or apoth. If you very game you are giving that away or losing out on having it yourself that will make far more of a difference than having a 2nd thrower.

I’ve found maximising TV efficiency is more important in leagues than in TV based matchmaking. If your opponent has a 3 more guards than you due to you taking strong arm twice that is tough but not a huge disadvantage. Even if you get beaten up you’ll face an equal TV team next game anyway and unless you are in a tournament the result doesn’t matter.

In a league every game counts and you are stuck with 1 team, plus you’ll often face teams with vastly different TV’s. Once spiralling expenses kicks in you can struggle to get cash and your opponents won’t change based on your TV.

And of course if taking certain skills is fun then you should go for it, after all that’s the main reason for playing. But this is the tactics section so I think there is a responsibility to suggest and discuss the best possible skills to take.
A team that takes dirty player every skill with leap on doubles may well be unique and fun to use, but I don’t think it would do as well as one that goes for boring, boring block and guard.

[mattgslater]

Whoa... isn't TV bloat only true if you lose games because of it?

No, bloat is only unacceptable if you lose games because of it. Bloat is still bloat if it doesn't actively help you WIN games as much as what you'd have instead if you didn't have it. Bloat is never optimal, but doesn't always need fixing.

Seriously if the dude likes his team then fairplay to him, if he wins brilliant.

IMO the inducements are not a good equaliser for a strong TV.

I'm watching this in my WE team, 3 linos with 2 skills and hope they can get 2 more which means they could end up costing 150k per lino. I'm not rushing it I am watching it for TV bloat or not.

It's not skills inherently that create bloat. A lino with Block, Dodge, Side Step and Guard is going to pull his weight. I'd say "bloat" comes from three sources:
1) Investments that don't fit your strategy;
2) Suboptimal investments that do fit your strategy;
3) The extent to which your strategy is suboptimal.

If you build an Orc team with a passing offense, there's no way to avoid bloat.
1) You need a strategy that bashes and passes, and uses them to build off each other rather than conflicting. I do this with a cage-based passing game: loose cages designed as much to pin down the defense as to protect the ball. I've learned that individual tendencies are so important in this game, that whether a specific coach can find something that works or not given a menu of tools is not something anyone can really know until the team has seen a lot of action.
2) One reason this strategy is suboptimal is that Orc Throwers are POS. BOBs aren't a great value, either, even though they're indispensable. Having six guys who don't pull their TV, even if you need them for your plan, means you're not getting maximum mileage from their T1 goodness. This is, ultimately, why not all Orc teams take Throwers.
3) I know for a fact that an orc passing game is workable, 'cause I've beaten some very good teams with it, but if I didn't love it, I wouldn't try it, which makes me think it's not optimal. It's also got the worst results of all my T1 teams: only my StuntyLeeg Nurglings (.500) fare worse than my dual-threat Orcs (about .550), while I tend to hang out in the .650 range with frickin' Humans.

[dode74]

But what is "optimal"? An optimal strategy is entirely dependent on your opposition, surely?