Blood Bowl Puzzle #14 – Would you take the shot? – vs AndyDavo (with response from Andy)

This puzzle is a relatively simple one in terms of solve but I thought it interesting to explore whether you would take the shot or not.

Context matters here.

This is Game 1 of Blood Bowl Open, a 6 game, 2-day, 100 player event. I’m playing Elven Union vs Andy Davo’s OWA.

The score is 1-1
It’s about to be my Turn 14 of second half
I have 2RRs remaining, Andy has 2+ Mascot

The ball is on the Human Catcher (C) with Wrestle. O = Ogre (Guard), DB = Dorf Blitzer (DT, Tackle, Guard), D1, D2, D3 = Dorf Blockers, HB = Human Blitzer (Tackle, MB), L1, 2, 3 = Human Linos. T=Thrower.

On the Union side, one Blitzer (B, M7 Blodge, SS) is far right. The other is stunned in the middle. C = Catchers (M8, Wrestle+Dodge) Rest are linos with L2 having Wrestle.

Sack Line

There’s no difficulty in finding dice on the ball carrier. For a 1D, the Blitzer can dodge out and rush to tag the pieces behind the ball carrier (red line), then the Catcher can 2+ dodge past the Ogre, 3+ dodge past the Dorf and 5+ dodge in for the 1D on the ball. That 1D is a 1/3.

Odds of getting the hit: (2)2, (235) = 32%, 44% if you are prepared to put a RR in (likely just for the final dodge).

Overall odds of getting the ball down: 11%, 22% with 1RR, 25% with both RRs.

Recovery is difficult; the blue arrowed piece can make it around the left with some 3+ dodge and could collect. They would be immediately hit from multiple angles by the tackle MB human, so realistically the humans will have a very high chance to recover next turn.

The passive line

The less aggressive option is to drop into some sort of Elf columm or chevron formation. The purple crosses below require one 2+ and one 4+ (away from DT) dodge. That Lino dodge would be to fill the position behind or in front of wherever you wanted the Blitzer (as his sidestep makes him a less attractive blitz target).

The front line here (3 squares into the half) is the minimum distance the human Catcher needs to get to by T7. However, it will be T6 for Davo, so he has 2 turns to get there.

There is a choice here – do you put the three Wrestlers and the Blitzer in the front or are they in the back with Linos in the front?

Skills in the front means it is more likely the Blitzing piece ends up on the ground via Wrestle, but at the back means they are free to act next turn. On T6, I think I’d put naked linos forward.

How would the half play out?

On his turn, Andy could choose whoever he wants to hit, he could take a side position but wouldn’t be very far past the defence as most of the faster pieces are central. More likely he would want to stay central, to give max flexibility and force the elves to defend the whole field.

On T7, the elves would be unlikely to have a dive option (Andy could easily make it 6+ through tackle for -2D). In my opinion, a T7 columns/screen would unlikely to be good enough as there aren’t enough elves to make it work. So, likely it would be an all in turn, to make Andy roll lots of dice to try and get into range.

Then on T8 (16) we would hope to have a 5+ shot again but likely no chance of counter score for the win.

My verdict – too passive, too easy for Andy

The non-sack Aggro Line

The other option is some form of trying to control the offence. In the pic below we would blitz the end Dorf, tag the human Thrower and central human Lino, while having our second line just below.

Some version of this would mean Andy had to think a bit. We would have slowed down more of his faster pieces. While there definitely would be ways to get forward, he would be making blockless blocks to get pieces free and likely wouldn’t advance far. Those blocks could be into Wrodge pieces, so perhaps he doesn’t get any pows, and we will have piece on their feet to respond on our T7.

Or maybe the elves would die.

If not, then time pressure could be more relevant the next turn and he’d be perhaps more likely to have to stretch.

This line might allow a shot at the ball on T7 and opportunity for turnover score.

Something else? Perhaps there is another option I haven’t considered… pop a comment in the comments.

So what would you do?

What I did

I went for the sack line. Got the hit on the ball carrier but got pushes. I dodged out the rest of the pieces to get to a pretty weak coverage across the line. Wrestle pieces at the back so they’d be available to have a shot next turn.

Clearly this position isn’t as good as either of the non-sack lines described above.

Andy pushed forward to my right and survived my desperation dive to score.

Full tournament report here.

I find it useful to reflect on these positions after the game. I had scored early in my drive for the chance to get the turnover score win, this naturally put me into the mind set of more aggro. However, I think I was in also in position where I was a bit affected by 0 of my 3 KO rolls returning for this drive… this meant I was more likely again to take the aggressive line.

Looking back, I don’t mind the sack attempt but I think I would like to see how the non-sack but contact line played out.

But what was Andy thinking… was this a trap to exploit my tendencies, knowing that the worst case scenario really wasn’t all that bad. He could have built a stronger position, so perhaps this was inviting me in to ensure he could move forward.

Andy’s response

I asked Andy for his thoughts on the above:

“My feelings (from memory) were that if you dived me, it would likely not work but it would pull you out of position, giving me space to roll up the field inside a cage.

If it did work, your recovery didn’t look great, so I should be able to account for it. I had 3 turns to advance and while the catcher is rapid, the Dwarves are not and the linemen are a bit shit. In this situation I’d Identified that the 3 Dwarves are level or behind the play – they are not going to be taking 4 squares in either T14 or 15 if you play passively. A future Davo problem.

Reviewing the problem now…. your own passive line solution is too passive.

The other issue my side is that while the DT is a great threat, once he’s based, thats where he’s staying – so I think that from the elf perspective, you want me to pick a side, then trade out some of my problem pieces for your linemen – the turn after I commit. The question that should be being posed by the elves is ‘go on, commit to something’”

Thanks Andy