Tackle (General) #
Opposing players who are standing in any of this player’s tackle zones are not allowed to use their Dodge skill if they attempt to dodge out of any of the player’s tackle zones, nor may they use their Dodge skill if the player throws a block at them and uses the Tackle skill.
Overview: #
Tackle is one of the staple skills in the game and it will be rare to find a developed team that doesn’t have at least one player with this skill. The main reason to this is because of the usefulness of Dodge and it is the best way to counter it. The make up of your league can increase or decrease the importance that you take it. If your league has lots of teams likely to have Dodge, such as Amazons, Elven teams, Skaven, Humans any teams with Stunty players etc. Then you will want to perhaps get Tackle as soon as you can and also get more than one player with it as well. If your league is mostly made up of bashing teams, then they are less likely to have much Dodge, so you can hold off on getting it and not take it on so many players.
Tackle is great for when you are hitting players who have Dodge as well as placing them in an area a player with Dodge may want to be moving through. Because of this duel aspect players who perform one or both of those roles are going to look towards getting Tackle at some point in their development.
Benefits: #
- Increases Knock downs on Dodge players.
- Makes Dodges higher risk
- Can force opponent to make more rolls
Useful to: #
Typically Dodge is a skill that players will try and get on their ball carriers, to both make them harder to knock over and to help should they need to dodge away at some point. So any player on your team that you are looking to hit the opposing ball carrier with is a good candidate for Tackle. It combines well with Wrestle, for the best chance of a knockdown against any player, so any player you have given Wrestle to with this role in mind could make great use of Tackle. Even if you don’t knock them over and just push them back for example, if they do have Dodge, then Tackle will negate that if they Dodge away, or the opposing team will look to blitz you off. That can either mean them possibly having to use a reroll or them not blitzing you somewhere else. If you don’t have a player with Wrestle for this role then a player with Block doing the same role should take Tackle. Even though Block won’t knock down an opponent who has Block, it will also keep you on your feet more if you have to hit using one die.
The other player type are those you use to block paths off or mark receivers. This may typically be Linemen, though your players who usually hit the ball carrier can do this as well. Especially if you have more than one, or you can’t get a hit on the ball carrier. The third type are the specialists built into this role who may have skills like Side Step, Diving Tackle and perhaps Shadowing as well.
Even if you aren’t marking a receiver directly you put these players in the squares they are probably going to be looking to dodge through. If you have a few players with Tackle you also need to take care not to overlap them all onto the same tackle zones. The more tackle zones you can cover the more of a hindrance it will be to the opposing team. By the same token when you set your team up for the kick off, try and make sure if possible that you have one that can cover either side of the pitch. If you only have one then this is more tricky, you can either put them in the middle of the pitch, or on one side in the aim to force the opposition into the other side of the pitch which you may have set up slightly stronger. This doesn’t mean you should weaken a set up in other ways though just to accommodate this, set up best which works for your team overall.
