For a long time, it’s been OK to not understand tactics in FM – you could still win with the help of good signings and a downloaded tactic. That’s still true to a certain extent, but the times are a-changing; tactics are becoming a key element of playing, as they should, and reacting to in-game situations is something that is becoming more of a necessity than an optional luxury. And as people rush to try and work out where they’re going wrong, they’re finding a lot of incorrect information at one place and a lot of verbose and complicated information at another.
We don’t plan to dilute down our articles – it’s what we love to write and clearly you guys enjoy it – but we do want to cater to those who want to get stuck in to tactics for the first time and have nowhere they can go to find it.
This pack of resources is intended as a sort of gateway to the world of FM tactics. It’s our way of nudging beginners along, so they can enjoy FM more and get their teeth into some great, advanced posts, of which there are many.
We wanted to prioritise accessibility and ease of use for these resources so even the most experienced player could use them. As one of the people we asked to review the pack said, resources that “can be stuffed in a pocket, pinned to a wall or kept in a drawer instead of having to remember a URL is brilliant.” URLs – bah! Bookmarks – pssh! Hell, you don’t even need the internet; we believe that some things are better on paper, especially important information. Hopefully this helps.
The pack contains 6 print-out style which aim to explain the basics of tactics and a further two troubleshooters which can be used to react to in-game situations. It can be seen as a ‘Things you need to know’ but we’ve heard from many experienced FM players who have said that it has helped them too.
This pack is brought to you in a “pay-if-you-want” basis. If you feel that this is worth anything at all then just click the button below which will take you to a secure Paypal payment; we promise we will use it only for good and not for doughnuts. Probably.
Download from here.
Download from mirror #1 here.
Download from mirror #2 here.
UPDATE 03.02.2013: there is now a more aesthetically pleasing version of the Resource Pack courtesy of Birdace from the very welcoming French FM forum FMEra. These sheets have a much nicer look to them and are perfect if you plan to use the Pack on your PC, tablet or phone rather than as print-outs.
Download the alternative version from here.
Download the alternative version from mirror #1 here.
Download the alternative version from mirror #2 here.
Push Them Wide 
Reblogged this on Lonley Hat and commented:
This is an interesting item. Well done you boys at PTW!
Really great resource. Been playing CM/FM for 15+ years, thinking heavily about tactics for at least a few of those years, and still sure that I’ll get something out of them.
One thing though, in the spirit of constructive criticism, is that it would be great to actually say what it is. The post just says its some resources. No clue if it’s articles, tactics, FAQs, links etc. I now know from waiting 30 seconds for a download link, going through Captcha, downloading, unzipping and then opening, but until going through those steps I could have been downloading anything from screen grabs of role descriptions from the game to 10,000 word theses on the pros and cons of Defender Collect.
Obviously it’s another update and a little more work, but I think the more people can find out about it the more likely they are to download (and donate!)
Cheers for the comment, Ian, we’re glad it’s been of some help to you!
As for the lack of description, that can be put down to me not knowing how to describe it. I will try and sort out a few sentences that explain it better.
Thanks for taking the time to comment. 🙂
This is a great guide for more experienced players also to open their eyes and not to make the game too complicated. I don’t count myself as a beginner or a great tactician but something between and this helped me a lot to see that when it gets hard just come to the basic things which I somehow just skipped in my mind thinking that those are just basic things and I need more complicated approach which is stupid really.