Grab (Strength)
A player with this skill uses his great strength and prowess to grab his opponent and throw him around. To represent this, only while making a Block Action, if his block results in a push back he may choose any empty square adjacent to his opponent to push back his opponent. When making a Block or Blitz Action, Grab and Side Step will cancel each other out and the standard pushback rules apply. Grab will not work if there are no empty adjacent squares. A player with the Grab skill can never learn or gain the Frenzy skill through any means. Likewise, a player with the Frenzy skill can never learn or gain the Grab skill through any means.
Overview:
Grab is an interesting new addition to the game in LRB5. I doubt that many will take it as the first choice on players but it can be a great third or fourth skill choice on a number of players. The obvious benefit of Grab is that you can dictate more of the movement on the pitch. As it is a strength skill the main candidates to take it are going to be players who have normal access to strength skills. This in turn narrows it down to the bashing teams who are most likely to use a grinding cage offence. The added ability of being able to have greater choice of where to move opponents when you hit them, will make caging easier, as you can open up more space to move your players through without needing to dodge.
Grab will also provide your players with more available blocks if you so wished. You can now push players back into base contact of your team mates in situations where before you would not have been able to. These extra blocks may clear opponents off the pitch quicker and also aid in the development of your own players as well. This is especially useful if you have a rather potent blocker who you want to keep feeding opposing players to, or perhaps a very strong player of yours who is equipped with tentacles. Pushing players back towards your team mates with skills like Diving Tackle, Tackle and Prehensile Tail also has merit.
A similar great benefit I can see is greater control around the sidelines for setting up crowd pushes. With Grab equipped players, you can set up crowd pushes from further away from the sideline, even if your own player is in fact nearer the sideline than the opponent in the first place. With greater threat of this happening it can make defending near the sideline rather tricky for the opposing team and perhaps aid you with moving a cage and the ball down the side of the pitch.
The last and perhaps most obvious benefit is that it cancels out the opposing players Side Step. Obviously this benefit is mostly dependant on your opposition as to if it is any help, other bashing teams with no Side Step and this fact is redundant. It is invaluable against teams that do have it though, especially if they are around or near your ball carrier and cage. It is also key if you want to blitz any opposing players who are sat on the sideline with Side Step thinking they are safe. Now while you can’t use Grab on a Blitz action to decide which square to push players back to, it does however still cancel out Side Step, meaning you can run up and shove that player into the crowd. Do be careful about leaving yourself standing there next turn for them to retaliate though!
Benefits:
- Cancels Side Step
- Greater Control of Pushbacks
- Easier to Create Space for Cage progression
- Easier and Greater Crowd Push Threat
- Keep More Opponents in Base Contact
- Feed Opponents to your Killers
Useful to:
As I mentioned earlier it is really only a skill that strength accessible players are going to take. Everyone else needs a doubles roll to select it and they will probably have higher priority skills to select instead. This narrows it down to pretty much any blocker or blitzer type player. Big Guys are fairly likely to take it after their first few skills, they don’t have normal access to any other skill group and are great for keeping opponents tied up, combine with Stand Firm so they also can’t be pushed away to free up the opponents. You can also include Mummies in this group as well.
Other blockers would be Chaos and Nurgle Warriors and Black Orc Blockers. As these players don’t start with any blocking skills to start with I can see Block, Guard and Mighty Blow taken first and then even Stand Firm, though Grab can be put in the mix. Especially for Nurgle who will want to feed opponents to their Tentacle equipped Beast.
Dwarf Blockers are probably one of the more likely players to see taking this skill. With their slow movement and agility they can really use the extra control and space creating abilities of Grab. Also around the sidelines they can be a real threat for crowd pushes with their Troll Slayers nearby who have Frenzy. The fact they also start with Block and Tackle as well means you don’t need to take them when you skill up. After Guard and Mighty Blow, Grab can be a fantastic choice.
Moving onto blitzing players, Beastmen, Pestigors, any Blitzer with strength access as well, I would only really consider it on someone you are building for crowd pushing ability. Unfortunately you can’t take Grab on Players who have Frenzy though and as Frenzy is a greater threat for this, Grab perhaps doesn’t really get a look in. It may be worth taking it on one of them though as perhaps their fourth skill, just so you have this weapon on your team sheet, even if you don’t use it a great deal. Before that there are probably more useful skill selections for both the player and the team. You are more likely to do it on teams with more than two Blitzers as well (so not teams like Skaven for example). Humans have four Blitzers so can perhaps consider it and teams like Chaos where everyone on the team can take strength skills.
While on first appearance Grab may seem like quite a mundane skill, it can really maximise your blocking opportunities and bog opponents down keeping them in your tackle zones. I would give it a bit more consideration if you are also playing in an agility heavy league. You will face more players with sidestep, more players you want to tie up and also weaker players who you can hit easier and therefore don’t mind them being able to block back.
I got grab on a skaven blitzer as the first skill. The idea was to use it to help set up 1 turn scores since I then did not need to use my blitz to get someone on the other side to start the pushing. Have not actually used it for that but have used it a couple of times to place opponents where I want them to really open up holes in lines. Probably would have been better off the standard guard.
Grab can only be used to push players back into empty squares, if there aren’t any then it can’t be used. So for one turners (I assume you meant using chain pushes) it isn’t really much help. Side Step on the Gutter Runners is a better choice for this application, they will also make better use of it during general game play. Guess you found out the hard way instead, though perhaps that is the best way to learn. Could still be good for feeding opponents to the rat ogre to minimise the affects of Wild Animal though, it isn’t all bad.
The grab does help some for 1 turners since it allows you to take an LOS opponent from his side of the pitch to your side without using your blitz. You then start the chain pushing. If it goes wrong you can then try to do the standard blitz method on someone else. It does require an extra push to get through though I think.
Fair point, getting to grips with all the new skills on every team takes it time, thanks for pointing it out!
Keep up the good work though coach. I enjoy the site as it is really about the current rules compared to many of the old tactics I see.
While Grab does make it easier to set up a crowd push it does mean that it is almost impossible to push someone into the crowd with a Grabber though as they will almost always have an empty square to push someone into instead 🙁
That isn’t true as every skill is optional to use, so you would just elect to not use your Grab skill and do a normal push back. Happy Crowd Pushing!
I’ve found it very useful on a lineman (double roll) in my Norse team. Immensely facilitates the one turn touchdown and as I like to build my offence in a sideline, he is a real threat when used in concert with the 5 frenzy guys.
Of course I forgot that Coach, but then I do mostly play the Cyanide Game nowadays and they haven’t implemented optional skills. So you can never choose to not use them (except for somethings like Wrestle)
Just for anyone who doesn’t know, you can make your skills optional under the Extra Settings menu of the game. Any coach worth his salt has already done this 🙂
Skills that are usually set for optional are:
Wrestle (for times an opponent without block gets both down, wrestle will save them from getting a turnover)
Hail Mary (You have to declare nonuse of Hail Mary before the pass action or else the game will launch it using hail mary instead of a regular pass)
Stand Firm (for times you want to be pushed)
Grab (this example, though I’ve never done it personally)
Unfortunately you can’t do it on tackle or dodge.
I’m actually not that upset about the lack of optional skill use.
While it set up some interesting tactics, it was, to an extent, needlessly complicated. Particularly for the video game where you’d have to do the same screen they do for piling on….EVERY time you used a skill so I can see why they didnt go that path.
I’d also add that it combines really well with multiple block on a big guy as you can still keep opponents close to you
I know it is a long time ago that this article was written but I think it should be emphasised how much Grab changes the one turn touch down attempt.
The ability to pull a player from their half to your half without using your Blitz makes performing 1TTDs so much easier and makes attempts with far fewer players possible. If you are setting up to defend against a 1TTD you have to be aware of your opponent having Grab otherwise you’ll look a right burk as your “perfect” 1ttd defense suddenly has an enormous hole in it.
As far as I can tell, without copious stand firm or lots of tentacles the line of 8 men is the optimal defence against a Grab equipped side attempting a 1TTD.
I know it’s been a while since the last post in this thread; but something came up during a match and I’d really appreciate some clarification. This might sound like a newb question, but there’s a really stubborn coach in our play group. One of his Mummies had Grab and rolled a defender down result; then he proceeded to place the player on the square of his choosing. The other coach argued that Grab may only be used on a push back result, as per the text on the skill “To represent this, only while making a Block Action, if his block results in a push back he may choose any empty square adjacent to his opponent to push back his opponent.”. The stubborn coach then argued that it should work on knock down results just as it does for Side Step and Stand Firm. He then threw a tantrum at us and demanded official proof. We tried to explain that the rules are the clear and the only official source needed, but he is rather stubborn. Our player base is not that large, and it would be a shame to lose a player (even a stubborn one). So I offered to provide “official evidence”. He agreed on accepting the word of a seasoned coach from this website. So, can anyone please bring light into the matter? I mean, he actually made me rethink things up a bit. Thanks in advance.
Went over the rules again, and got an answer in the Chat from @Ging. We owe our stubborn player an appology for getting lost in translation. Thanks to everyone in this wonderful website; it’s a great community 🙂 🙂 🙂 .
For anyone else who is reading this and wants clarification, when you roll defender down, you push back the player and then knock them over. So yes Grab does work on defender down and defender stumbles results as well as ordinary push backs. The rule could have been made clearer though!
Yes, I must admit we were wrong all along.
I guess the confusion stemmed from the fact that the Side Step rules states “Note that the coach may choose which square the player is moved to even if the player is Knocked Down after the push back.” and the Stand Firm rules also specify “He may choose to ignore being pushed by ‘Pushed’ results, and to have ‘Knock-down’ results knock the player down in the square where he started.” both explicitly mentioning knock downs; whereas the Grab rules only mention “To represent this, only while making a Block Action, if his block results in a push back he may choose any empty square adjacent to his opponent to push back his opponent.”, in which there’s only an explicit reference to push back.
However, after going over the basic rules it became clear that “Unless the defender uses the Dodge skill he is pushed back and then Knocked Down.” in the case of Defender Stumbles and “The defending player is pushed back and then Knocked Down in the square they are moved to.” in the case of Defender down. So, as Coach explained, both Defender Stumbles and Defender Down imply a Push back.
Had to acknowledge our honest mistake.
I know this is for the old ruleset, but with the new Khorne roster for 2020, I really want to try out grab on the Khornigors to set up frenzy blocks into crowd surfs. With the bloodseekers, you have pretty good odds of taking any S3 player within 4 squares of the sideline out of the game if they end their turn in base contact of your ghor or if you can blitz the character with the ghor and position it into base contact of the seeker.
I can see your thinking but I’d personally want skills that will probably come into play more frequently. Especially as your team doesn’t start with anything to help with movement or ball handling. I can also see the Khorngors being the prime target for opposing teams to try and hit, so taking some skills for protection is also desirable. I feel that Khorne teams will already have a big sideline threat, which comes naturally from having so many players with Frenzy.
Hi. I was wondering if Stand Firm has any affect on Grab?
Hi Jason, Stand Firm prevents the player being pushed, so Grab will not have any affect on a Stand Firm player as Grab relies on the target player being pushed.