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NerdBird

Joined: Apr 08, 2014

Posted: Feb 18, 2016 - 05:57

No, I am not say O-fensive. I am say OFF-ensive!

The One turn defense post really had me thinking about my setups so I thought I would start one on offensive set-ups.I have a pretty plain Jane setup when it comes to my teams. 6-7 on the line to maximize blocks, 1 guarding each wing and then 2 or 3 in the back field. This is pretty standard for me whether it is Dwarves or Elves. Depending on the opposition I may subtract or add to the line but when they set 3 on the line this is the norm for me.

---x|x-x-x-x|x---
-x--|---x---|--x-
----|-------|----
----|-------|----
----|---x---|----
----|-------|----
----|---x---|----
----|-------|----
----|-------|----
----|-------|----
----|-------|----
----|-------|----
----|-------|----

Lately, I have had some trouble with the blitz really hosing me.

What are others thoughts on their setup? SHould I put more back and then move them up to get the 2-die blocks? But if a Perfect D is rolled I am equally screwed in that scenario as they will probably overload the line (all men LOS, rowdiest play in BB). I see other setups, some of them totally try and optimize the blocks but really leave them open to blitz. Some others seem to go to conservatively in that they actually fear your 3 guys.

Obviously if the opponent has frenzy or a leaping bastard it changes your setup where you may position the ball carrier further back so they can't blitz you. But this is relatively generic.

Other questions I have:
Is it always best to go all men LOS?
Has fumbbl just become so complacent, setups just are not thought out anymore?

Really, I am just curious to know others thoughts and see if we can improve our overall setups with some sound reasoning. You can't kill an AV 10 tree unless you line up the block to take him down!

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bghandras

Joined: Feb 06, 2011

Posted: Feb 18, 2016 - 07:13

I do very similarly as you do. The thing i would like to add is i like having a str4 and or a guard just behind the los, just in case. That gives huge advantage in case of a perfect defense, and little advantage in a blitz. (Basicall opponent cant convert blitz into perfect defense as efficiently.)

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ArrestedDevelopment

Joined: Sep 14, 2015

Posted: Feb 18, 2016 - 11:34

The problem with a lot of offensive setups are that they are purely reactive.

Bloodbowl, before kick-off, in my opinion, the defence has momentum - the positioning of the defence is setup to protect key players, prepare for the 1st turn recovery and blitz, but also to shape where the attacker has to go.

Your offensive formation has to look at the defensive lineup first - has he left a flank weaker, or are you forced to go through the middle? Has he quick players near the LOS? Is he vulnerable to quick snap (and if so, how confident are you that he won't roll PD/Blitz! if you setup to take advantage of this)? After all that, you start making decisions like how many men to commit to the LOS, how many should be one off of it, how many to hold back.

But it is important to not allow the defence to completely dictate all of that - you want to setup in a manner that allows a preset screen in the area of your choosing most times, and allows you to have an element of positional gain/control in turn 2 even if all your LOS blocks and your blitz are pushes or both/down.

Now as to the question whether we are getting lazy at Fumbbl? I can only answer for box, but not so sure at low-mid TV, where there's plenty of variation in skills and races which leads to more potential. At high tv though, the predominance of protect 5, or asymmetric protect 5 amongst even bash teams as a defence leads to lazy offensive setups, because there is little variation in what the defence shows.

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Endzone

Joined: Apr 01, 2008

Posted: Feb 18, 2016 - 11:53

Typically I would set up something similar to the original post on T1, however, there are a number of considerations e.g.

How may players do we both have?
Can I take their LOS? (sometimes I don't have the muscle to take on the LOS - e.g. woodelves with no treeman v Khemri with Tomb Guardians on LOS)
How quickly do I want to score?
How well could my opponent exploit a blitz?
Is there a juicy target I want to blitz?
etc.

Chainsaw

Joined: Aug 31, 2005

Posted: Feb 18, 2016 - 13:05

I always try to make sure that each square (excluding the side lines) is covered by at least 2 players, to make a blitz less potentially damaging. If you have 11 players and set up so they can knock down 1 guy then pour through your line, it's a bad setup.

Also I try to factor in perfect defense. Don't be too greedy. Being a square or two back or planning to run an assist in instead of having it there from kick off can make PD a lot less painful.

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Endzone

Joined: Apr 01, 2008

Posted: Feb 18, 2016 - 13:42

If you want to improve offensive setups it is more about learning what to consider than learning a 'best' set up because the 'best' set is dependent on so may different factors.`

JellyBelly

Joined: Jul 08, 2009

Posted: Feb 18, 2016 - 14:03

I agree with ArrestedDevelopment: my offensive setup for my High Elves is pretty reactive to my opponent's defense. I usually set up the minimum on the LOS to ensure I get three 2dbs (or just 3 players that can dodge away if they're too heavy). Usually, I'm looking to punch a hole and run some players through into scoring positions, so I base my setup on that. I don't really plan for blitzes, although maybe I should think about that more?

Personally, if I was playing Dwarf or a (relatively) slow bash team, I would have more players deeper in my half than your diagram, NerdBird - your retriever looks pretty far forward to me. From an elf point-of-view, I would love to send the ball into one of the back corners there with my kicker and watch the little legs pump as they try to get the egg into a cage before my catchers hit them Wink

Maybe that might also be partly why you are getting hosed on blitzes?

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JackassRampant

Joined: Feb 26, 2011

Posted: Feb 18, 2016 - 14:40

If I'm playing the heavy and have a fair amount of Block and a reroll, I like to set up so I can line-block diagonally; if I get pushes I can push laterally, so as to block them with more guys. My blockers on the LOS are already mostly in position for the drive anyway, throwing blocks doesn't interfere with their doing their job (unless they skull out, which is why I don't do this without a reroll and plenty of Block).

My turn 1 objective on offense is usuallly to contrrol the width of the pitch from the play-side sideline to the back-side wide zone marker, still leaving enough men back to get the ball safely. This way, I can redirect the ball to the back side of the play if the action gets too hot. I'll often redirect over and over on turns 2-5 or so, trying to stretch my opponent thin and reveal (or make) a hole.

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delusional

Joined: Jan 18, 2013

Posted: Feb 18, 2016 - 15:29

How can you have the same setup for Dwarfs and elves?

With the heavy bash teams (lizards, orks, dwarfs, chaos, etc) it makes sense to capitalize on the first turn bash advantage but block out interceptors (ie a wood elf grabbing the ball if your sure hands guy fails to pick it up).

While with elves and other speed teams I would imagine that you want to skew your opponent to 1 side. i.e. that you want their men to waste a turn or two moving across the field. (am I wrong).

licker

Joined: Jul 10, 2009

Posted: Feb 18, 2016 - 16:45

Offensive set up completely depends on what the defensive set up is, and if you care about a blitz. Sometimes you need to set up offense more as defense since you've already 'won' unless it's a blitz, and so you need to protect against it.

Otherwise I tend to just ignore the effects of a blitz and set my offense accordingly to what I want/need to do. Clearly though some teams set up offensively better to naturally counter a blitz than others. Partially this is slow teams who also need to just protect against an early turn over on a deep kick vs. fast teams, so they can't afford to all menz los as readily because of the effects of bad/disastourus blocks and a failed pick up.

PaddyMick

Joined: Jan 03, 2012

Posted: Feb 18, 2016 - 21:25

All mens LOS is very effective defensivly and oftn overlooked.

NerdBird

Joined: Apr 08, 2014

Posted: Feb 18, 2016 - 22:26

bghandras wrote:

I do very similarly as you do. The thing i would like to add is i like having a str4 and or a guard just behind the los, just in case. That gives huge advantage in case of a perfect defense, and little advantage in a blitz. (Basicall opponent cant convert blitz into perfect defense as efficiently.)

Yes. Having a Str 4 or a really good blitzer back there in the middle is key.

chainsaw wrote:

Also I try to factor in perfect defense. Don't be too greedy. Being a square or two back or planning to run an assist in instead of having it there from kick off can make PD a lot less painful.

This is why I usually go for a balanced offensive setup because I am usually expecting blitz or PD. I am finding these are still hosing me.

delusional wrote:

How can you have the same setup for Dwarfs and elves?

This is my basic setup but may be positioned a little differently depending on the skills my players have and the team I am facing. With my Dwarves; If I set up too deep, Elves kick it short. If I set up too shallow, elves kick it long. SO I put my runner dead center so I can make sure I at least attempt to pick up the rock. A good kick against my Dwarves is always a dilemma.

With my Elves I set up this way so I can decide (for the most part) which way I will go after the kick-off has occurred. I find the best offense is to stall, especially in the box and this requires a lot of dancing around the pitch, posturing, changing sides and baiting your opponent as to who you really want to score with.... If you press it with Elves and you have 11 of them, 2-3 turn scores are going to happen 90% of the time. But how often do we do this on FUMBBL? I remember the days when I thought this was basic common sense playing TT. OMG, I Scored!!! WOO. Fumbbl has made this initial observation completely baseless.

JellyBelly wrote:

I agree with ArrestedDevelopment: my offensive setup for my High Elves is pretty reactive to my opponent's defense. I usually set up the minimum on the LOS to ensure I get three 2dbs (or just 3 players that can dodge away if they're too heavy). Usually, I'm looking to punch a hole and run some players through into scoring positions, so I base my setup on that. I don't really plan for blitzes, although maybe I should think about that more?

If we set up in reaction to the opponent there are 2 results on the kick off that can potentially bone us; Perfect D and Blitz. There really is not a result that puts the defense on their heels and I am not sure this is a good balance to the game but that's another topic (nerfblitz2016)

Endzone wrote:

Typically I would set up something similar to the original post on T1, however, there are a number of considerations e.g.

How may players do we both have?
Can I take their LOS? (sometimes I don't have the muscle to take on the LOS - e.g. woodelves with no treeman v Khemri with Tomb Guardians on LOS)
How quickly do I want to score?
How well could my opponent exploit a blitz?
Is there a juicy target I want to blitz?
etc.

Those are good points, I was throwing out my "base Offensive setup" I am just wondering if I should go a little differently expecting a bad kickoff result! Overall I find offense to be the most difficult. The defense has their entire team at their disposal where-as the offense only has 7-9 of them because 3-4 will be dedicated to handling and protecting the ball. I am with AD on this one as I think the game gives the defense a lot of momentum. Especially when you look at the kick-off results. QS is OK, High Kick is OK. What if there was a blitz for the offense? Imagine getting a guy into scoring position that defense can't even stop? Everyone would be moving to the spread or Chevron defense rather than the protect 5.

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Snimm

Joined: Jan 29, 2016

Posted: Feb 20, 2016 - 07:51

I play bashy, and I tend to have a very unbalanced offensive setup if I can help it, generally something like this which I purloined from an old BB tactics website which URL I don't know anymore. I'll bet somebody will know where I found this, though.

The general setup looks like this:

|-12-|34-B5-6|7---|

|----|C------|--W-|

This is a left-side attack, and there are no holes through the line without hitting somebody. Not too hard to flip it for a right-side attack. Usually you decide based on the defensive layout.

The B is the Big Guy which is the central post. He isn't likely to move much and probably has Guard. Alternatively, a ST3 player with guard.

The C is ideally the player who will catch the ball and score a touchdown if all goes well. It could be any player type, depending on who is your current SPP feeder.

The W is a wing player who is likely to be the highest MA player on the team and should be set up so there is no hole to the outside of him. His purpose is to swing towards the attacking side and eventually seal off the cage from behind on turn 2. In the event of a blitz, well, he's the sole cork on this side.

Player 1 will be a hitter type who likely will blitz on turn 1. Player 2 would be an assister, probably with guard. Players 3 and 4 would be the remaining strength/Guard/Tackle on the team. 5, 6, and 7 will be your typical lineman/assisters who will build a cage, and the initial ball retriever is obviously deep in the half and not depicted here.

The idea is to securely cage the ball by turn 2 and advance down one wing but not get squeezed all the way to the sideline. You may, however, encourage the defense to put a player too close to the sideline...

As usual, no plan survives contact with the enemy, and a blitz still hurts if the ball lands anywhere near the W player on a kick off. In that case, you could really be scrambling to hold the fort with players 5, 6, 7, and C while 1-4 hopefully are able to swing over there eventually and form the cage.

mrt1212

Joined: Feb 26, 2013

Posted: Feb 20, 2016 - 08:03

PaddyMick wrote:

All mens LOS is very effective defensivly and oftn overlooked.

Lizards with a Krox vs. ST3 with no guard is a PITA.

Snimm

Joined: Jan 29, 2016

Posted: Feb 20, 2016 - 08:21

True, but just loading up the defensive line and having no depth is asking for trouble against a team with even moderate mobility. You don't have to beat the whole line; you just have to be able to punch a hole through it and send some receivers or the bulk of a cage through it.