A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold

[Louisiana Jones]

This past weekend S.W.A.T. 1806 Competed in the Oklahoma regional where on one occasion during quals and then continuously during elims we had an alliance partner play defense. We also experienced defense played against us on several occasions often to the opposing alliance’s detriment as the penalties were often costly. I’ve put together some video evidence that should give teams some insight into playing defense successfully.
During qualifications we were ranked #2 and in our second to last match had the opportunity to face off against the #1 ranked 4587 Jersey Voltage who was also undefeated at that point. We knew that we had a pretty tough matchup ahead of us, and there was a good chance that 4587 would both breach and capture as they had already achieved this feat a couple of times in previous matches. They were paired up with 3592 who also had a couple of previous breach and captures running low goal, and we knew this combination would be difficult to outscore. Luckily for us our alliance partner 2461 was setup as a defensive specialist.

Video of 4587 without defense being played on them
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26ZHR1d4c8Y

Video of 4587 being defended by 2461
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saIZtxHu_W0

After this match 4587 went on to add a mechanism that allowed them to low goal, and went on to win the regional never really seeing defense this tough played against them again. 2461 despite the great defensive showing wasn’t selected as teams must have been looking at different strategies for playing the game.

For elimination rounds S.W.A.T. 1806 selected team 5098 as our final alliance partner and they assumed the defensive roll for our alliance.
The following videos shows 5098 defending against the 5th seeded alliance who had breached and captured in both their QF matches to move into the semifinal matches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMiPcmWgq0Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhNJeK35lHs

Unfortunately in the finals 4522 had connection issues that were never resolved so the following videos show 5098 defending against the #2 seeded robot 3507 who had an OPR of 51 for this event, and their alliance partner 1448. I’ve included a video (first one) of 3507 without defense being played against them for comparison.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFrS4XMi1uo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mzojBMaMq8

Last, but not least here is a video of defense being played against us while we were parked in the outerworks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koa7Ur0hogQ