[Tactics] BBTactics Community Anti-Team Guide: Norse

[DamanArress]

Good afternoon,

After being inspired (and guided) by a post earlier, I am deciding on leading a project known as CAT guides. Coach's guides are amazing on the strength and weaknesses of teams, but I want to take each a bit further, and hopefully they might be included in the Strategy Pages.

So I'd like you all to take a second and answer a few questions. Be thinking 1000TV first, and if this goes well, we may expand it to "normal" 1300, 1500, etc...

Primary Offensive Style: Including the primary ball carrier, how does this race aim to score touchdowns?
How to Counter: How can a person on defense hope to stop this method?
Positionals to Focus (and hopefully remove from the match): A player type that if taken out really hinders the plans for the rest of the team)

Primary Defensive Style: How does this race aim to stop you from scoring touchdowns?
How to Counter: How can you minimize this tactic and get points.
Positionals to Avoid (or mark so they cannot be as effective): With this player type on the pitch, they can really slow your scoring plans down.

Anything you have to add, you don't have to write a whole essay if you don't want, and I'll try to compile them and post a finished product.

DA

[Stryke]

Norse more than any other side in Blood Bowl are glass cannons, they can dish it out but they sure can't take it. So while it's going to hurt with universal block but piling in and stomping them flat with any side with a reasonable amount of Bash even Humans, Dark Elves and Zons is probably going to be worth it. Target their Blitzers for fouling as if they've not got piling on they probably will do soon.

[Narly Bird]

I think it is a laudable attempt at creating a strat guide, but IMO it is too dependent on the team that you are playing as, regarding the tactics to take. For example a High elf team will play against them a lot different than an Orc team. The Norse also would play a different gamestyle vs each one… so I’m not sure its easily doable.

Regarding Stryke’s comment on fouling the Berserker, just keep in mind that if it fails to break armour, he can use Jump up skill to get in a free block. So you would want to be fouling with a couple of assists to increase chances of breaking armour.

Against Norse generally you have to try and get in as many hits as possible, whilst limiting the number of hits suffered by your own team. A couple of other points to remember:
- You have to be careful of the sidelines as Norse are adept crowd surfers
- Careful positioning can get the Norse into trouble with 1 dice or -2dice on frenzy hits, assuming they don’t knock down first hit.

[Lebe666]

This could get quite extensive... there are so many team and you could separate defense based on the team your playing... so that is like 15 teams x 3 types of team (bash/semi-bash/agile) = 45 "guides".

Some like Vampires require specific guides because caging against them is of little use. It might be better to try and complement Coach's guides with differences in teams.

[Lebe666]

Sorry... only now did I see its a anti-Norse and not general.

With Norse you have to setup with more care to avoid crowdsurfing. Keep as many 2 die blocks as you can... its a matter of time before they start falling.

I always have a safety in back to crowdsurf norse frenzy guys that end up near sideline...

Also I feel that jumbled up fights with plenty of guard are really dangerous to Norse.

[Valokiloren]

Ah - an anti-Norse guide. I have two answers, a short one and a long one.

Short Answer: Try not to play any Norse teams, and whine about your abysmal ability to defeat them. ^^

I use this particular method myself, and to such an extent that I've only faced a couple of Norse teams via bbtactics.

Long Answer: Norse teams are an ungodly sight, from my POV. They have enough Block to actually consider what skills to pick up on pieces which, if on a Human team, would instantly go Block on a singles roll. This puts them on par with Dwarfs, but the fact they are effectively a Human-variant team gives them enough speed to score easier.

Do not underestimate the power of all that Block coupled with their average speed. It isn't as big an advantage as the inherent Dodge every Amazon gets, due to Block being a singles for them, but that's tough to beat. With all that Block, you are forced to bring to bear as many 2D blocks as possible, preferably with Block/ Wrestle whenever possible.

It isn't even a case of avoiding them either - unless you have a dodge-heavy team either due to high agility, Dodge skills galore or both - you aren't going to be given the chance to run away from them.
When kicking or receiving, this forces you to play a game of hitting first. A risky thing when, without Block or Wrestle, your opponent knocks you down on average 1/3 blocks you yourself make if it relies on one dice. You can somewhat minimize this by clever positioning and allowing them only the Blitz each turn, though this also means you may not have the chance to punch through their lines to reach the back, or may leave you woefully exposed to that one hit in a weak part of your positioning.

Annoyingly, most teams don't run Frenzy. This is generally a good thing until you come across the Werewolves on both Norse and Necro teams, as well as the "Killer" players on the bash-heavy teams. Why? You are never truly prepared for Frenzy and therefore - a lot of your positional plays become less than useless. For players such as myself, I find that I am very much at ease with my formation and playing against unusual teams, but Frenzy will always keep me off guard because I want to close down the wings as a method of running past my defence. And many a game I've seen Frenzy knock off one of my key defensive pieces, all because he was in the "normal" safe zone - one column inside from the side-line, needing two pushes to knock him off the pitch. Simply put - I forget about Frenzy in the heat of the moment - the entire difficulty with playing against the Norse team. 4 starting pieces w/ Frenzy is a very difficult affair.

Lots of Block + lots of Frenzy make for a potentially-costly game. Worse still - Norse aren't bad at anything, other than losing some starting skills for Block on (almost) every player, and on average, a point of armour for most players. Hardly a con worse than the pro. They are certainly kitted out to start as a bashy team, but they have the same, albeit lessened, inherent nature that Human teams have - the ability to switch up their playstyle depending on their opponents. I've seen Norse passing games, Norse bashing games, Norse running cage games and even a Norse dodging game. All dependent on my race and their skills.

Overall - I have found that without some judicious amounts of luck, most of my games against Norse have been less about winning and more about team survival, because without it being a critical game to qualify to the next round, it's never worth losing your star runner to get the necessary result. Treating the game as a survival run for your team often prepares you better for the game from turn 1 to 16, as you actively think about what happens if this goes wrong far more often than normal.

[DamanArress]

I had to look up "laudable" in the dictionary!

I'll compile what has been said and I'll present it here. It can be refined afterwards!

[Kaz]

Simple anti-norse. PLAY BASHY TEAMS! Norse get crushed by orcs, chaos and nurgle if properly positioned. The key is to position players to that the Norse Werewolves can only make one 2D blitz (or even no 2d blitz!) so that a failed down leads to a 1d follow up. A good coach would be hesitant to put themselves in that situation. At tv1000 the wolves don't have block and it makes them ineffective. Spread out ST4 (and ST5) players make it difficult for norse to get through. And after 4-5 turns of keeping them back, you should have injured at LEAST two by then! A tv1000 undead team is also a nightmare for norse as those MB mummies can take out a bunch of linemen.

Without a bashy team, I consider receiving first just to get 2D blocks against four of their players (three blocks, one blitz) without any follow ups if possible. I learned this the hard way in a league game in which I chose to kick off with my d'elves and he proceeded to injure some unskilled linemen and swarm the rest of my players. Norse strategy is to hurt you before you hurt them, but if you can use that strategy against them, their AV7 makes it pretty effective. Even elves can bash these guys to some degree, especially on the first turn. You can then go back to the usual 'only give them one blitz per turn' strategy. My next game with my d'elves against a different norse team, I received first and played a grind and scored on turn 8. By then, I had put three linemen in the injured box and 2-3 in ko'd. He then was short players for the rest of the game and I was able to score again in the second half by swarming HIM. This is all at 1000-1200 TV, which I think applies to your original post.

[Lebe666]

Well said Kaz... against Norse receiving first is well worthwhile... but you have to be aggressive to hurt more Norse...

[Ice]

Don't hurt my precious norse!

but i disagree with playing orcs against norse, in 7 out of 8 recent games that i have played (always norse never orcs) or spectated norse win with 2 or more td's above the orcs score and the orcs take heavy casulties.

I'm not saying that that is something that should happen but norse seem to get 10 av and chainsaws against orcs