Well, what the heck, there are some nice guides on the net too
Check the different guides at
http://www.blood-bowl.net/Tactics/BBTactics.html Btw, ignore the references to Fan Factor, FF was heavily "nerfed" for LRB5, so a starting FF of 3-4 is more than enough these days, and it usually means you'll get to buy an extra re-roll (then again, no point going over the top with rerolls, 3-4 is a good number IMO for a starting team, and more than 5 is certainly waste most of the time).
DEFENCE
Look at
http://www.blood-bowl.net/Tactics/Orc_CarlBrown_WD175.htmCheck Diagram 3. It's the "classic" 3-4-3-1 defense vs humans, high elves and orcs. Also, you should, IMO, put on LoS (Line of Scrimmage) two black-orcs and the troll (as you have them
), and as shown in the diagram put the other two black orcs to guard the wide-zones (together with blitzers), and then have blitzers (plus one lineman) and the thrower in the centre.
However, I think you Gunnarr had a very nice set-up for the defence, just that you didn't mark my catcher properly (probably bwecause you were not aware you can move after you block with a blitz) and didn't notice my thrower has AGI 4 (and he rolled doubles after the game, so he has dodge too now; ie he is even more slinky now). I thus think your defence was pretty good.
OFFENSE
Again, look at
http://www.blood-bowl.net/Tactics/Orc_CarlBrown_WD175.htmHere you honestly did have some issues. In the above article, familiriase your self with "Da Stomp" and "Da Foola". Orcs have just two offensive plays in their playbooks, and you have to use them. Personally I favour "Da Foola", because goblins (with their Stunty) are very hard to stop. You *did* a pretty good job with crunching my players to the ground, but didn't capitalise on that, leaving the ball-carrier very alone to face my mean blitzers.
Ie, here comes the CAGE. The Cage, optimally if you ask me, require five players: four players placed on the corners next to the ball-carrier. The corners are important, because else a scrupulous bllitzer will run to that empty corner and knock your thrower senseless (one dice blocks are good vs throwers as they don't have block or dodge). Now, my awesome drawing skillzzzzz:
In the above diagram the cage (the ball-carrier is the red dot, the cage holders are the red circles) holds the corners around the ball-carrier. Nobody (except a wardancer, but there are no wood-elves at this stage of the test) can get to blitz your ball carrier without first having to make dodge roll with a hefty -3. Basically your ball-carrier is safe (except vs a deathroller, but there are no dwarfs at this phase of the test). If you however go with the cage as shown in the lower diagram, anybody can blitz your ball-carrier (as shown by the leet black arrows) from the corners; incidently this is exactly what did happen yesterday.
However, DO NOT go with the suggestion in the following article:
http://www.blood-bowl.net/Tactics/offence_str.htmYou won't get anywhere, as the opposing team will each turn dodge one square back. There are 13 squares from the LoS to goal, and your thrower runs 5. It means you want make it in 8 turns (first turn you pick up the ball, second turn you run to the LoS, so you basically have just 6 turns to push through). An 8 or 9 player strong cage may sound awesome, but there really is nothing a 9 player cage can do better than a 5 player cage. Go out there and try to outflank, blitz through to get deeper, etc, while your cage slowly lumbers forwards. Then, on turn 7 or 8, you either are in a position to dash through with your ball-carrier, or able to pass (or hand-off!) to a waiting blitzer or goblin.
