Nufflenomics: On the Ball at Kick-Off

 I’m looking at taking Amazons to a tournament soon and have been thinking about the best way to utilise the throwers’ innate On the Ball skill. Assuming I remember that they have it, that is. When I played Lizardmen recently I had to write a post it note and put it in my dugout to remind me.

The first thing to think about is what the skill allows you to do. On a kick-off, a player may move three squares prior to the ball landing as long as there wasn’t a touchback, and it doesn’t allow a player to cross into the opposition’s half.

There are then really two primary uses of this skill on the kick off.

1.       To reposition 1 player slightly

2.       To attempt to get nearer to – ideally underneath – the ball.

Simple repositioning doesn’t need to be looked at in any great depth. It might allow you to do things such as screen where the ball is landing, or offer an assist for a key block without having to decide where to position the player beforehand.

What I’m mostly interested in is the best spot to place a player for ball recovery. There are then two goals with this.

1.       Try to catch the ball (a free attempt at gaining possession)

2.       Be in a position to most easily move into a protected square after picking the ball up

The below diagram shows the possible squares that the ball can deviate to if your opponent kicks to the “Sweet Spot” – that where the ball is least likely to be end up out of bounds for a touchback. This is indicated by the dark green square.

Let’s start by considering the best square to be in if you want to be underneath the ball when it lands. This will be the square that can reach the largest number of peach coloured squares within three movement points.

The sweet spot will allow you to reach the first three squares of any direction that the ball deviates in. This will be a total 24 squares – 50% of the possible squares that the ball could end up in. Moving just one square from this spot reduces the number and so this is the obvious spot for placing your On The Ball player. It will give you a 50% chance of being under the ball, and for an AG 3+ player they will have a 50% chance of catching the ball, meaning you have a 25% chance of having the ball in your hands at the kick off – barring any events such as changing weather, blitz or pitch invasion – which will be ignored for these purposes.

What about if you have two players with On The Ball. How can you maximise your coverage? You want to place them such that between the two of them they will cover the largest possible number of squares.

The below configuration allows you to cover 30 of the possible 48 squares the ball can deviate to, giving you 62.5% coverage, or a 31.25% chance of catching the ball. The yellow player on the left is 3 squares out and can cover the light blue squares, the orange player on the right is 4 squares out and can cover the dark blue squares. Note that they don’t need to be 4 squares across – three would have the same impact, but there would be overlap In some of the squares they can cover.

However, the below setup, whilst it might seem illogical as you’re abandoning both the lower left side and upper right side almost completely, actually gives you a bit more coverage. It covers 34 of the possible squares (71%) giving you a 35.4% chance of catching the ball.

There is no point moving either player one square in any direction, even though they are both covering some of the same squares in the middle row. If you move just one square left or right, or up or down, or diagonally, you would lose more in coverage than you would gain.

This seems to me the most logical approach, although if your opponent has kick then the ball is almost certainly going down the bottom left corner, and so the first approach might be more sensible.

If you want to catch the ball, this is the best strategy.  However, if you want to be able to move the ball to a more protected place, you are most likely wanting to regroup with your players nearer to, or on the line of scrimmage.

In this instance, you probably want to cover as many squares at the back of the field as possible, with the range to move to pick up the ball higher up the field as possible. Therefore, with an Amazon Thrower, you want to effectively be within 9 squares of wherever the ball lands – your 3 On The Ball bonus squares, plus your 6 squares of regular movement (ignoring taking the risk on Rushes).

Starting further back gives you the option of getting the ball further forward. You will want to cover as many of the possible squares in the backfield the ball could deviate to, ideally all of them.

The below setup covers 30 squares (62.5% coverage, the same as the first diagram), giving a 31.25% chance of getting the ball. However, it means that if the ball goes deep, you can use the 6 points of movement to get further up the field, rather than dropping back to pick up the ball. It also means that no matter where the ball goes, you can use the three points of On The Ball movement plus your regular 6 movement to at least have a shot at picking up the ball.

For a similar approach but with only one On The Ball player, you would probably want to place them 3 squares back from the Sweet Spot. They will only be able to cover 18 squares (37.5% of the deviation squares) and only has an 18.75% chance of getting the ball from the kick off, but potentially allows for stronger positioning.

This approach is probably more sensible when your opposition is potentially able to flood through to your backfield and put a lot of pressure on – e.g. skaven, elves.

With all of these, there is also a chance that the ball could go to a square next to where you position and then bounce to the square you are in. For each possible square you can get to, if it goes to that square there is a 6.25% chance of catching it. I didn’t think it was worth thinking about that at the moment  All of the strategies can get next to somewhere between 3 and 5 squares, so it is not mathematically significant due to the unlikelihood of the ball then bouncing into your square.

I’ve been writing this whilst doing some boring admin work, so do let me know if there is anything obvious that I have missed.