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[Agamon]

I'm in a league that's in it's 9th season. I'm currently playing chaos pact, but I started out with dwarves (well, I started out with undead in a 3e league 15 years ago, but that's not the point).

I find that with dwarves, they tend to be more sturdy than destructive in the beginning. The basic dwarf strategy is to let your opponent receive first (unless he wins the toss and insists that you do). If he's a quick and/or agile team, he'll try to score fast. Unless he screws up royally and gives you a nice turnover, don't drag it out, let him score quick, and just hit, hit, hit and give him incentive to end the drive.

When he kicks off to you, build a cage (tough players surrounding the ball carrier) near the line of scrimage on your side and wait for him to try and break it. Don't move your guys right up to him, that lets him hit you on his turn, wait for him to come to you and then hit him on your turn. Move the cage forward slowly while hitting as much as possible. Make the cage nearish to a sideline to increase crowd pushes with your frenzying TS's. With a couple turns left, you should be about a third of the way to the endzone, this is when you start moving more agressively towards the endzone. Odds are you'll outnumber him by now, and moving and protecting the ball carrier should be easy. Score on the 8th turn, if possible.

Next half, he's kicking to you, do the same thing again. You win, 2-1, and should have some cas points spread out amongst the team.

This is basic strategy, and is counterable by a proficient coach, and can get dull if you play that way all the time. Once you start getting more skills with your players, other strategies open up (for example, one dwarf team in our league has 2 blitzers with 4 AG and dodge...they are not popular players...).

Skill selection is pretty straight forward. Guard and stand firm for blockers, mighty blow and tackle with the slayers, guard, strip ball and mighty blow with blitzers. The runners aren't so obvious, though kick-off return, fend, block and leader are good ones.

And enjoy the death roller. He's awesome and causes opponents much grief. If you get incentives once you have him, try for a bribe or two to keep him on the pitch as much as possible. Otherwise, just use him on the defensive drives, where he'll last longer.

Good luck.