Setting Up For Victory
There are a lot of things to consider when setting up. I'm going to show you some example formations, but always think about the relative speed and strength of the teams in your game before using any of these. Some formations work best against strong, slow lineups, while others are best for containing elf plays. The best lineup will change from play to play as well, depending on the number of turns left in the half, the number and composition of each team's injuries, and what you predict your opponent's strategy might be. Keep your eyes open and your brain working!
One common defense is known as the column defense or the 3-4-4, so called because it places three defenders on the front line, 4 defenders on a second line, and 4 defenders on a third line. A "collapsed" 3-4-4 might look like this (shown using Norse in blue):
Obvious strengths of the 3-4-4 are that it creates a strong band of tackle zones across the field and that it's resistant to enemy blitzes. There's no spot where a single blitz can open up a TZ-free path for a ball carrier. It's not impregnable, of course; any knockdown attained on the line of scrimmage can be accompanied with a push in the opposite direction to start forming a hole, like this:
It only takes one knockdown at the LoS for this to happen. Any more than that makes a more open and defensible path for the offense. Obviously, this is less of a concern if you can prevent the enemy players from having strong blocks at the line, either through skills (lots of Guard, perhaps) or a significant ST advantage. You can defend against this to some degree by running a staggered 3-4-4 that looks like this:
This reduces the opponent's ability to run up the middle by adding some tackle zones to the middle three squares at the cost of opening up the sidelines to blitzes a little. This defense is a little worse against a frenzy blitz (as assists from the end linemen in the back 4 can be denied easily, making the second frenzy block safer) but stronger against stunties and high AG dodgers who will potentially have to make an extra dodge to get through the formation. As you can see, there are a lot of ways to adjust any formation to make little tradeoffs like this. As always, keep your head in the game and figure out the variation that works best for your situation.
A defensive option that might be slightly more effective against dodgy teams (especially stunty dodgers) is the 5-5-1 (also known more verbosely as 3-2-3-2-1), shown here in both flattened and spread variants:
This formation has an obvious weakness to a block on a corner lineman followed by a blitz on the player behind him, so I really only recommend this if you're playing against a team where you have a significant ST advantage, which fortunately will usually be the case against many stunty teams. If the enemy team is ST-disadvantaged, they'll have to spend enough players performing the initial hit and blitz that they probably won't also be able to form a defense for their ball carrier. This formation includes a significant backfield presence, which can be useful against fast teams trying to sneak through.
Offensive setups are often a little more complex, because the offense has a lot more information to work with. When you set up your offense, you need to take note of both the general shape of the enemy formation and the position of important defensive players (unusually high-ST players, guys with Strip Ball, etc.). Unfortunately, the information you don't have is where the ball will land, so you need to keep a couple of guys in the backfield no matter your formation (and against fast defenses, you need to make sure to protect them!). You can easily line up symmetrical formations and position assists to enjoy your first turn advantage without any help from me, so let's talk about some more interesting strategies.
A strong side offense like this allows you to concentrate your offensive power on fighting a smaller portion of the enemy team for a couple of turns while the weak side players try to catch up to the action. This is a particularly useful strategy if your opponent has a few well-developed players grouped up on one side, as you can avoid them for a few turns (or more, if you can get them marked before they get to the fight). It's also great for capitalizing on injuries that leave the opposing defense uneven. Your battle plan might look something like this:
If you score any knockdowns at all with your blocks, this puts you in a pretty strong position for next turn with a number of enemy players hard-pressed to contribute at all (and probably your guys on your weak side will contribute by marking them or something). This is pretty optimistic, though. If the ball falls on the weak side, you might be in some trouble if you can't reliably make a lateral pass. For this reason, I'd be pretty leery of using this kind of offense against a team with Kick. A strong side offense also loses some utility against fast players who can contribute to defense anywhere on the field quickly and can really punish a weak side kick.
Who's On The Line?
One other important thing to consider is who goes on the line of scrimmage. Three players are required to stand right in the opponent's face, and it's important to know what that means. Against some teams the line will be a killing zone festooned with ST 4 claw-wielding psychopaths, while other teams might just put up three lackluster dead guys. (The kicking team may have to do some guessing here, unfortunately.) Think carefully about what you want your line to do. If you can't fight the enemy line (or if fighting it would take up too much of your bashing ability) it might be wise to place disposable linemen (or zombies or beastmen or whatever) there just to tie up the enemy fighters as long as possible while placing your own fighters where they can contribute to moving or stealing the ball. Each team has a limited amount of murdering power, so mete it out carefully; only use as much as is actually helpful on the line and get the rest of it out there intimidating the enemy playmakers.
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