“Okay, so

1) Undead Development:

1a) Hire a Zombie. You will occasionally get free ones, but the money's not that important. The bench, on the other hand, is invaluable. Ultimately you want 14 players, but not until you have some skills. I agree with you in starting 2 Skeletons, but don't hire any more: Zombies are better fodder, you always want three or four you can stick on the line. Any time you get 3-5 SPP on a rookie Skeleton or Zombie, take a random General skill and fire the player if you roll Sure Hands, Shadowing, or Strip Ball, and maybe Frenzy. If you get 6+ SPP on a Skeleton or Zombie, roll a Strength skill, or maybe an Agility skill if it's a Skeleton (judgment call, Strength is probably better but I do have a Side Step Skellie on one of my teams and he's hilarious).

1b) Get Block on one or both Ghouls, then hire a third Ghoul. If you skill him up, get him Wrestle. One Block Ghoul can follow with Sure Hands and then stats, while the other can get Side Step, it's a great combo on a ST3 Dodge player. Fend to follow if so lucky, but Blodgestep Ghouls die a lot. If you do get a second skill on Wrestle guy, give him Tackle: your team is vulnerable to elves, and you really want a Wrackler to go along with a couple MB/T Wights.

1c) Mighty Blow next on both Wights. You really should take Mighty Blow first, tbh: since you start with two MB on the roster, that don't have Loner, adding more can cause the damage to snowball. Also, Wights have General access, and Block/Tackle/MB is one of the game's key combos. One Wight should go for Mighty Blow and Guard, so having Guard first is fine, I suppose. The other one should take Tackle second. You need redundancy for oh so many reasons, so if your MB/G guy goes up he takes Tackle and if your MB/T guy goes up he gets Guard.

1d) If you are running a team for quite some time, save up for Block on your Mummies. If you plan on cycling the team quickly, get them Guard. Some bigs are good with random General skills because Pro is good on a Loner with negatraits, but Mummies are neither, and are too low MA to use Wrestle or Fend effectively, so don't.

2) Undead Tactics

Preface: in all of my tactical discussions, I will reference my pitch notation system. If you look at the FUMBBL pitch, you will see the length denoted with the number of squares to the end zone. The Halfway Line is between the 12 rows. The offense's side of the pitch is positive, the defense's side is negative. So the D-line is on the -12 row, the O-line on the +12. The width of the pitch, I start with the 0 column in the center; the columns on either side of that are N1 and S1, then N2 and S2 outside of those. The Wide Zone markers are between the 3 and 4 columns, the sidelines are outside of the 7s.

Okay, so ...

2a) The offensive setup is based on the defensive setup, but in general you want to set up for diagonal blocking, rather than blocking straight-on, unless you are at a big manpower disadvantage or are badly out-Strengthed on the line. Put at least 5 players on the line of scrimmage. Against a bunched-up line, open with the player opposite the middle of the defense, against the end in the direction you want to push. Because you open your blocks with this player, it's best if they have the Block skill.

Example:
- - - -|- E D A B C -|- - - -
- - - -|- - X Y Z - -|- - - -
A blocks X, pushing laterally if you don't pow, so D can keep pushing him down the chain. Then B blocks Y, pushing the same way. Then C blocks Z.

You can get yet another bite at the apple with a sixth player on the line in the direction you're pushing, so you can save D's block in case B or C pushes. In this case, blocking with F is probably stronger than with E, unless you know better.

- - - -|F E D A B C -|- - - -
- - - -|- - X Y Z - -|- - - -

One reason I use a 123 line bunched up on one side against slow teams is to get their big slow players all off on one side of the pitch. There's not a ton you can do about this, but if you push the defensive line into the wide zone and then play to the center with the rest of your team, at least you can give me a taste of my own medicine.

2b) Mummies are best in the 2 column or otherwise positioned so that a Mummy can easily get 2 assists, at least against a ST3 player. With a Guard Wight, putting him at D and a Mummy at A works nicely, as you can open with a 3d block. Always with Mummies, if you can get a third die, by having a ST after assists that's more than double your opponent's, that's optimal.

2c) It's really really super-duper important to maintain a screen across most of the width of the pitch. It doesn't have to go all the way all the time, but any place that's important needs to be connected to the center by means of a screen. The most important skill in the game is screening, whether it's a single screen (players with no more than two empty squares between) or a double screen, which is a reinforce screen. There are three types of double-screen:

Line:
- x x - x x - x x -
Column:
- x - - x - - x -
- x - - x - - x -
Trap:
- - x - - x - - x -
- x - - x - - x - -

Using the right screen at the right time is often the difference between success and failure. Line screens are the best for fighting, columns are better for holding out, and traps are kind of a compromise, in addition to being a good way to "frenzy-proof" the 6 column with a "beveled edge" effect.

"56 Trap" formation to protect sidelines vs Frenzy:
- - x -| - x
- x - -| x -

Lines enable your players to support each other, while columns and traps are better for protecting valuable or fragile players. Traps are a little vulnerable around the edges, but a trap formation is always one square wider than the same players would be in a columns formation.

The new Jump rules favor box columns or box traps (with an empty row between the front and back) if you're trying to stop a breakthrough score, as if your front player gets blitzed down, the enemy can jump over him with AG at -1, which is too hard for some teams but elves and Gutter Runners and other AG2+ players will zip on by.

Box Column:
- x - - x - - x -
- - - - - - - - -
- x - - x - - x -

You don't need a double-screen if you think your opponent won't or shouldn't try to blitz a hole open: if you just want to deny peripheral space, a single-screen is fine.

That should be a good start, I don't want to overwhelm you.”