Rolling Thunder Forums

This is advice that I see a lot - it seems to be accepted by all. The logic is, they are going to get hit, so you want your rubbish players to be taking the hits, not your good ones.

However I don't think it applies all the time.

1) Do you really want to be losing a few players early on and start losing the numbers game? Case in point would be my ogre team. Do I put ogres (ST5) or snotlings (ST1) on the front line? I always opt for the former

2) Some skills can help a lot on the front line. Case in point. Nurgle vs Norse yesterday. I could put unskilled rotters on the front line, but I have two with wrestle, so I put them on the front line. Odds of them facing an armour roll on a 2D block just dropped from 75% to 55.5%, or a 1D block have gone from 50% to 33.3%. And if I do lose them, it's not the end of the world, they only have one level-up. Where else would I put them? At MV5 AG3 They're not exactly going to be blitzing ball carriers (or indeed, anyone else) anytime soon. Fend can work well on the front line too.

3) "I don't have any unskilled players". Let's take the example from #2 again. Someone else might say, you want unskilled rotters, fire any with skills. I'd disagree, rotters aren't like snotlings, they can be useful and get a lot more useful with a skill (or 2). Same goes with my Wood Elves, I shove a load of block/dodge/guard/wrestle on the front line because I lack in unskilled players... and those skills are so useful. Oh, and also Treeman is there.

4) If you both put rubbish players on the front line, no-one is gaining any advantage anywhere. I think it depends if you're kicking off or not. If you get the first hit in it may be sensible to put some bashy players on the front in the hope of getting one or two players off the enemy team - even if they are weaker players. You can only blitz once per turn after all.

Some of these reasons overlap somewhat. Also I know it's a personal presence - and not necessarily optimum play - to keep all skilled players and not fire them for newbies, to keep team value down.

Thoughts?

It's not a hard and fast rule to put the cheapest players on the front line. Otherwise the Lizards would put some skinks there.

When Attacking, if your gameplan is to get numerical superiority - it's free hits, so it makes sense to put Heavy hitters there with some skillz

But the whole things depends on your team and your opponents. If your opponent has the potential to put High Str there or gang up on players on LOS it seems suicidal to put especially valuable players there when defending - I'd only do that If you have a Higher Strength team or against someone without a Big Guy.....

Kinda a different one again for your list -

5) Pitch control, even in defence. As he has stand firm, the Beast can hold the centre of the pitch for you basically all of the time. He could get KO'd or injured, but its not that likely (especially now with block). With tentacles no-one wants to go within a square of the centre. So attacking teams already have to go wide even if the Beast doesn't make any rolls. You, on the other hand, can move in the centre of the pitch with impunity.

That said, an advantage to not putting the high ST players on the front line is mobility. With my Undead, when defending I think it might not always be the best idea to put them on the LoS. Yes, they are hard to knock over. But once they get tied up then it is hard to get them free, and they're slow. Putting them just behind the LoS would allow them to go where they're needed (helped by the lack of Really stupid / Bonehead).

The reason is that you don't necessarily want your heavy hitters on the line because they'll likely get stuck there and not be able to get away.

There are obvious exceptions like stunties and orcs and lizards but as a general rule it holds water. Elves all want to put linemen in the line, same with humans of all three varieties. Skaven, dwarves, necromantic and Khemri all want to keep their big hitters free to move.

Re: big guys on the front line, they often do nothing due to nega-traits anyway, so I tend towards putting them on the front line where they will at least be in the way, should they fail nega-trait rolls. In contrast to RL3's post though, the beast is one of the few I don't put on the front line, I'd rather he stand next to & use his tentacles on more valuable players. It's not just the Beast people try to avoid, it's also all 4 nurgle warriors, which gives great capacity for pitch control, which is what the Nurgle are good at (and I haven't really mastered yet). At 0.75 they are (joint) best in terms of fewest TD's conceded per match in BBDB now (along with Saur'd of Justice).

Elves all want to put linemen in the line, same with humans of all three varieties.

Well I disagree here, the Wanderers always put the treeman on the front line. Especially so since treemen are so slow. Apart from him though I would agree. Would a human team put their ogre somewhere else? I've not managed them but I think I would do it at least some of the time.

I would say it depends not just on your team, but also on your opponent. And, what are they going to do? Do you want the front line to be your strong players vs their strong players? Or weak vs weak? Or weak vs strong? This matchup (and by extension, the players who are NOT on the LoS and free to move) usually has a bearing on how the pitch will look for the first couple of turns.