Slann development question

[Hitonagashi]

I'd agree with you -- if this wasn't Slann. I don't know about anyone else, but I go with 5 TRRs to start. And after playing them a full season, I have to say I wouldn't do a passing game and would basically move the box/cage past the defence by leaping the ones that couldn't dodge/hit their way out. Doing this, I wouldn't run receivers far from the cage. This has two reasons:

1) a screen around the cage means it's harder to break through and tag players, allowing the cage to march up
2) having the receivers very close to the cage allowed rearranging (for lack of a better term) of players to rotate the cage and move it slowly

I can see where I'd take Pass over Safe Throw on a team that sent out receivers. But, I play Slann like an Amazon team that has less hitting skills to start (supplemented by the high amount of TRRs), so a shorter pass over opponents usually is about the same as leaping and handing off. All comes down to style.

Fair enough.

I admit, I'm purely theorybowling here, I have only played 2 games of Slann (but a lot of High Elf games).

I wasn't anticipating using receivers. I'm a firm believer that passing as a primary tactic is a losing strategy. For me...it's the fact that I usually don't have the reroll to pass . My passes (with elves) tend to be of the nature that I've just stripped the ball, and I need to get the ball out of the enemy hands and at least on the other side of the pitch.

This usually involves a dodge, a leap, a pickup before you even get to the passing stage...and almost always one of those will burn the RR. In this situation, holding onto the ball is not necessarily the best idea (yay, I get to hold onto the ball in the middle of the enemy cage surrounded by all those friendly chaos warriors), so it's purely about interception odds vs fumble odds.

[huff]

Pass and Safe Throw would both be great on an AG5 catcher, but where do you find the room for it? Dodge and AG at 16, then at 31 you would take one these passing skills instead of Sure Hands? Sure hands we get way more use so I couldn't do it. You could take a skill off of the P chart at 51, but then you'd have to wait until 76 to take Block. That's a long ways to go without block though.

[Smeborg]

Hitogonashi - my style of play is to pass with Slann. My team is 5 wins, 2 draws, no losses so far. At least one of the draws was caused by an interception. TDs are 21 for, 7 against. I trust the defense, I need to beef up the offense.

huff - I'll take the risk without Block. He is not normally exposed on my offense. If the opponent wants to go for him on my defense, this will likely cost him a TD.

Sandwich - a fellow coach tried NoS and found it rather poor.

All the best.

[Hitonagashi]

Hitogonashi - my style of play is to pass with Slann. My team is 5 wins, 2 draws, no losses so far. At least one of the draws was caused by an interception. TDs are 21 for, 7 against. I trust the defense, I need to beef up the offense.
.

Makes sense . I struggled with offense in my 2 games as well.

I have Slann in a bucket of precisely two races (the other being Vamps) who are better on defence than offense consistently, pretty much regardless of build. I pass with Vamps, so I think it could work with Slann. Just for consideration; the point I said about Pass allowing you take a longer range band to avoid interceptions.

[Ullis]

I'm really struggling with this. Smeborg, is your league full of elf catchers with Pass Block or something? Leaping also helps a lot with getting over interceptors. If your opponent is screening potential catchers a lot, then that should open up the running game.

Since there's no Catch on the slann catchers (and no way anyone should give it to them), the chance of messing up a pass is too much to rely on it.

Kikurasis, if you always have rerolls to spare, then maybe you should consider dropping one. Slann are a reroll heavy team mainly because they don't have any starting skills, not because of Leap.

[Kikurasis]

The thing is, if you have the TRRs available, it allows you to do things that are what the team is supposed to do. I'd go no lower than 5, and suggest that 6 is even good. They are cheap and don't add much, but let you attempt box-breaking manuveurs.

Even if you have them left, it doesn't mean you didn't need them -- just that you didn't use them on the crazy crap you just pulled.

[mattgslater]

I find this is true with Squig Hunters in StuntyLeeg (the only team I have that rolls a lot of d6). At low TV I need the re-rolls to cope with badness, but then I get to a point where I can lose a few guys to Bloodlust or go stupid on a couple blocks and whatever, who cares, but I can use TRRs for removal and silly Leap/dodge-into-zone blitzes.

In fact, I'm starting to enjoy having 4 TRRs on elf teams. I'm not sure it's worth it in matching with Tier 1, but even then 3 and a Leader is not terrible, and my High Elf teams these days are 3RR jobs. I picked up a new Thrower for the Expats: gonna give him Dodge, Block, Leader, use him as a primary passer only to skill him up to 16 (got a Blodge/+AG guy who will be my SH player).

[Smeborg]

I have 5 RRs, that's the main point of my low TV strategy. And there are few teams against whom I don't enjoy scoring quickly, as my team is built to excel on defense against all comers.

All the best.

[spubbbba]

I don’t see the point of taking safe throw unless your league is full of AG4 catchers with passblock. But if that’s the case it should be easy sailing since they are wasting TV on rubbish skills.

Interceptions are so rare that I don’t think it’s worth using a skill, much less a double on Safe Throw. An AG5 slann catcher has lots of great normal skills, (some of which will help keep him alive) which would be far more use.

[Smeborg]

I don’t see the point of taking safe throw unless your league is full of AG4 catchers with passblock. But if that’s the case it should be easy sailing since they are wasting TV on rubbish skills.

Interceptions are so rare that I don’t think it’s worth using a skill, much less a double on Safe Throw. An AG5 slann catcher has lots of great normal skills, (some of which will help keep him alive) which would be far more use.

I find that the 1/6 chance of an interception is quite common for Slann, especially on offense, but also on defense when you are desperate to fling the spilled ball away. There are so few ways to close down the Slann offense that opponents often try to screen off the Catchers to give an intercept chance. While the intercept chance can often be avoided, doing so typically costs more risk than a pass with Safe Throw. This is how it works out when I play in our league, anyway.

All the best.

[Shteve0]

Hail Mary Pass would guarantee that you don't get intercepted and also that you don't fumble the pass. It's inaccurate, yes; but three scatters gives you ~47% chance of being able to catch on a 2+ with a diving catch AG4 receiver without the ball bouncing. That's 39% of going hand to hand without a turnover from anywhere on the pitch.

Of course, that same ~47% applies to getting an attempt to catch an inaccurate pass thrown with Safe Throw too. I started working out the "success", "intercept" and "hold" probabilities of an AG5 thrower chucking with safe throw over an intercepting player with an (4+, 5+ or 6+) intercept attempts to a diving catch receiver with AG4 over all throwing distances and with the throwing player standing in a given value of (x) tackle zones, but then my head started to hurt so I had to stop. Sorry.

[spubbbba]

I don’t see the point of taking safe throw unless your league is full of AG4 catchers with passblock. But if that’s the case it should be easy sailing since they are wasting TV on rubbish skills.

Interceptions are so rare that I don’t think it’s worth using a skill, much less a double on Safe Throw. An AG5 slann catcher has lots of great normal skills, (some of which will help keep him alive) which would be far more use.

I find that the 1/6 chance of an interception is quite common for Slann, especially on offense, but also on defense when you are desperate to fling the spilled ball away. There are so few ways to close down the Slann offense that opponents often try to screen off the Catchers to give an intercept chance. While the intercept chance can often be avoided, doing so typically costs more risk than a pass with Safe Throw. This is how it works out when I play in our league, anyway.

All the best.

Well in my experience of 1000+ games using a wide variety of team an interception happens about once every 20 games (for either side). A few of those were pointless T8 or 16 passes as well.

So I just can’t see the benefit of something that happens so rarely and still requires an agility test to stop. The non-fumble ability is probably a better reason to take it on a high AG player with no other passing skills I suppose.

[mattgslater]

A lot of it is driven by play-style.

I have 493 FUMBBL games logged, with 537 completions. I've been intercepted 5 times. But I mostly don't throw pick attempts, you know? I play a good mix of bash, speed, and midrange, mostly with some aerial option (Orcs, Humans, Chaos Pact, and High Elves are my favorites): most of my teams tend to pass either in garbage time, in desperation (often a punt, so not scored here), or to finish off the cage and get the ball to the intended carrier.

Probably a more average number, in those 493 games I've allowed 361 Comps and picked up 14 interceptions. This seems to go hand-in-hand with a much larger per-square average: mine is 1.74 (738 squares on 537 Comps), my opponents average 2.224 (803/361). This mostly represents a random sampling of Ranked teams (or at least of the ranked teams that greenlight me or take my greenlights).

I play in the NBFL. Ten games in, there are two teams which have allowed five or more interceptions this season. They're not bad teams: they're just hardcore elfy basketball-on-grass types that in particular like that particular kind of risk (uncovered 2+ that can't get you hurt). A Slann team with an AG5 Catcher may have a similar concern: not hard to imagine.

Ints usually lose you drives, and sometimes get your guys hurt. They tend to happen only at critical moments. But they never actually lead to injuries, and usually you don't risk an int until you're ready for a turnover. Teams that are more likely to throw them are also more likely to either be desperate, or to position for pressure should the pick occur, and then to manage tempo by replying to a forced score. Slann most emphatically fall into that category.

[Overhamsteren]

My offence with slann usually goes
turn1, pick up ball, get ball to catcher, sideline cage
turn2, score

I could imagine safe throw helping when the kick doesn't allow for a sideline cage with the ball in the 1st turn. Or well maybe if some sort of slower offence is employed.

Passing to catcher with 1 tackle zone on him is still a 2+ catch so ignoring an interception also seems helpful there.

Score, score, score, play defense.

[Smeborg]

My offence with slann usually goes
turn1, pick up ball, get ball to catcher, sideline cage
turn2, score

I could imagine safe throw helping when the kick doesn't allow for a sideline cage with the ball in the 1st turn. Or well maybe if some sort of slower offence is employed.

Passing to catcher with 1 tackle zone on him is still a 2+ catch so ignoring an interception also seems helpful there.

Score, score, score, play defense.

I agree with the "score, score, score, play defefnse" idea. Note that I do not have any Sidestep on the team yet, so I am not into sideline cages yet.

All the best.