Timing Discussion...

djed · Post by **djed** » Sun Feb 23, 2003 8:13 pm

What do you think about timing when playing against Orks..?

I play a HighElves team and when i m facing an Ork team this is a classical scenario:

*if i choose to kick first (so i attack first), i score turn 2 or 3
then orks score turn 8...
And they keep the whole second half to score, so it s a 1-2 turn 8 second half or 1-1 if they dont succeed...

*if i receive first, they keep the whole first half to score, i score turn 2 or3 second half and it s the same way for them....1-2 or 1-1 end of game...

What can i do!!!

longfang · Post by **longfang** » Sun Feb 23, 2003 8:16 pm

Simple.......dont let them score and turn them over in their drive!

If it's the same orc coach and he likes to use the clock then do the same to him.

zeroalpha · Post by **zeroalpha** » Mon Feb 24, 2003 7:25 am

This is a favoured tactic of the orc and dwarf teams against the elves. Having your opposition hold the ball for 8 turns does give you several chances to blitz and block them. If they are using several players to form their cage that should give you a numerical advantage to hit his other players outside thr cage.
Skills like strip ball, tackle and leap can also help you turn the ball over, bounding into the cage and hitting the ball carrier.
hope that helps a little

Tapek · Post by **Tapek** » Mon Feb 24, 2003 11:51 pm

I've played a HE team once or twice in my time...

and one of the best things you can do in your situation is to recieve the ball. You think to score ASAP, right? No, spread the field, putting an ELF everywhere, but trying not to concentrate. I try to field one thrower and the rest linemen in this situation. Basically scatter and stay away from tackle zones. Best case scenario, he must only blitz with one person each turn, going for the ball carrier or the weakest link. With all linemen, you don't give him much choice on the target. He goes for the ball carrier. This is where your scattering and agility come into play. Start working your medium range passing game, cause he's going to come charging with everything short of the kitchen sink for the first turn or two. Pitch the ball out of his charge range, and then scatter some more. Run chaotically, with no apparent pattern. Your pattern should be A.Staying scattered, and B.Where possible, keep the ball towards either, his endzone, or the middle third of the field. Why? Most of the time, when you get close to scoring, he'll mass around one guy and pound him to hell. Run into the corner of the endzone, and dance your guys away from him. Then, when he comes for the runner, ditch the ball backwards. All this lateral movement will drive him nuts, and then, when he's ready to throttle you around turn 5-6, score. There's no way his groundpounders can run into the EZ in that time, so throw the fodder on the field and amuse yourself with dodge rolls. When the second half comes around, you should still have a good portion of your team and a small lead. Put your Defensive Specialists on to the field. Convince him of how quick he needs to score or you'll bust his cage, and his jaw. Run circles around him, showing no static front. Bring all your leverage to the point of attack, and then vanish. Use skill-less linemen to get assists, and run a guy up to blitz(with block and dodge), knock some dude silly, and then run away. Run in your dirty player lineman, and knock the fool out of it. After two or three men down on his part while he can't get to you with breaking the cage, your good defensive personnel can get to the ball carrier. Get a guy in there, strip the ball, and get the ball out. Don't be suprised when that fool gets killed. Its risky business. But when the end comes, you'll have locked up a lot of SPP's and few injuries to the good scorers.

Things to watch out for:

If it looks like he's herding you, he is. Score NOW, before the serious pounding starts when you have the peons on the field.

Don't bomb the ball. These are linemen. No passes worse than a 4+.

Use those TRR's. You paid for them. Use them. Keep the ball alive. Ball control is key to winning, and your doing it finesse-style. While there are more riskes, there are more rewards, big time SPP's from 6-7 completions, a pair of TD's, and a few casualties. Elf teams need to be tooled for a defensive game. Y'all already have all the offensive power you'll ever need.

Marcus · Post by **Marcus** » Tue Feb 25, 2003 12:36 am

Er, no offence mate, but bring that tactic to my house and I'll screen off the ball carrier and isolate him from the rest of the play. Want to pass it? sure, you'd better nail it or I take the ball and take your team out 1 at a time while you're fragmented.

Your best bet for breaking the 2-1 game is to not let them settle. Rush the backfield off the kick and isolate the fullbacks from the line. Make them risk rolls to move the ball up. If they don't fail you've probably burnt their rerolls and can start pounding on the back of the cage.

Tapek · Post by **Tapek** » Tue Feb 25, 2003 12:39 am

Obviously, this tactic doesn't always work, but what does. The objective here is not to let the player concentrate on a ballcarrier. If they start to, you score.

Marcus · Post by **Marcus** » Tue Feb 25, 2003 12:43 am

What I don't like about it is it's high risk, low reward. If you get on the back foot it's hard to recover cos your team is fragmented. Plus you're not playing to their weaknesses. You're keeping the pace of the game slow, how they like it. Better to put them under direct pressure - keep kicking, keep turning them over. Make them chase a scoreline, pull them out of their comfort zone.

Tapek · Post by **Tapek** » Tue Feb 25, 2003 12:54 am

I play elf teams high in linemen and TRR's, I roll too bad and die you quick to pay for those Position players, linemen are almost expendable.

Zombie · Post by **Zombie** » Tue Feb 25, 2003 7:27 am

Marcus is right, your strategy sucks big time. If you've ever won with this, it must have been against either complete newbies or total retards. Who in their right mind bunch up all their guys on defense instead of covering the field?

Before you give advice, you should first learn to play. I'm sorry, but that's how it is.

Mestari · Post by **Mestari** » Tue Feb 25, 2003 7:36 am

And Tapek: don't worry about the style Zombie writes with. It's not personal: he talks the same way to everyone. He can't help it

High elves are fast (MA6!!! I've been a dwarf coach recently), well armoured (AV8!!! I've been a wood elf coach earlier) and agile. Take them on! On offence, score fast. On defence, grab the ball and score fast. Put your boot where their eye is! I've played only 5 games with high elves, but they can do it.
Challenge the slow offence drive of the orcs. Make the opponent feel that they'll lose the ball and they get desperate and they will.

If they're too good to take on directly, slow them down so they'll start worrying if they ever make it to the EZ - they'll panic and lose the ball after trying something stupid.

Try that.

zeroalpha · Post by **zeroalpha** » Tue Feb 25, 2003 7:53 am

Marcus has already pointed this out, but backside pressure is key to forcing a mistake from a slow moving cage team. Getting in behind and then all around a slow moving team will hopefully streach his defence to a point where a weakness can be exploited, its doesn't sound like much but its a start

Redfang · Post by **Redfang** » Tue Feb 25, 2003 9:51 am

I played against a High Elf player with my Dwarfs at the Dutch Open

I did manage a 2-1 win but one 2+ to many in his last turn would have meant a 2-2 draw.

This is because he managed to blitz my cage holding the ball carrier near the end zone once to often and he got too many players in positions from where he could blitz my ball carrier. Therefore he pushed me into scoring in the 7th turn of the 2nd half. After that he had 2 turns to score back, but he failed (just) as described above.

What I meant to tell about him, however, is that what he also did is (after he had finished all his moves into contact with my cage) just dodge into my cage (through the side, on a series of high dodge rolls!!!) and blitz my ball carrier one-on-one. He tried and succeeded in this twice!!! That can be a major problem for slow Dwarves with low agility!!!

R

Oxinotl · Post by **Oxinotl** » Wed Feb 26, 2003 10:31 am

Yeah, from my experience all a elf coach need is a agi 5 player with strip ball, dodge and a reroll to get the ball.. leap helps too. just put TZs on the back part of the cage, put linemen one square away from the front of the cage and start breaking it up. Either the dwarf coach will break the cage up to keep moving or he will have to sit tight to keep it together.

Mortalman · Post by **Mortalman** » Wed Feb 26, 2003 3:19 pm

All elves need to play hard ball on defence, and must learn to like it! With such accurate passing it doesn't make a lot of sense trying to run down the clock on offence - it'll likely only cost you TDs. Instead you have to take the fight to him on defence.

1. Try to pressure the cage. If you keep a line of men 1-2 squares in front of the cage you slow up his forward progression. Do this from the outset and with any luck he won't have time to score. If he does break out he'll run like hell for the endzone, and then either you take the ball off him (ever seen an orc try to outrun an elf?) or he scores and you get to receive again.

Other ways of pressuring it are to dodge people round behind and use your leap/dodgers to get into the cage to force him to leave some players behind blocking you away from his ballcarrier - trust me he WON'T dodge away if he can block!

Just creating this feeling of pressure will prevent him spending ages beating you up and running out the clock, seriously it's a lot more hair raising than you think running a cage.

2. Pressure the rest of his team. Often once the cage is rolling you can't stop it, but he'll have left a few stragglers behind who couldn't get into position. Destroy them! If you really can't take the cage apart and he's timewasting start to batter the one or two players that have been seperated from the pack. The risk of part of his team being beaten up by elves will speed him up.

3. Use your agility. Often it's an easier hit to fail a dodge roll than to be hit by some strength players, so dodge/leap/go for it. Also your agility is your strength - never assume if the ball is loose that you can't get to it because it's too risky. If you try to shield the ball chances are he can bulldoze through to it, but if you go for dodging into it and chucking it out of the pack you'll make it more often than you think. Basically you need to be ruthless and to capitalise on your opportunities because you can't afford to play the long game. Once you're ahead and the Orcs are throwing to try to catch up you know you're doing well!

djed · Post by **djed** » Thu Feb 27, 2003 4:08 pm

Thanks all for your advices, i ll play them tomorrow evening and i ll tell how did my defense work..

Thanks Mortalman