ASK THE EXPERTS appears weekly from training camp through Super Bowl with answers to a new question being posted Thursday morning. How the guest experts responded when we asked them: In your eyes, what is the perfect (type, size, lineup requirements, scoring system) fantasy football league?

ALAN SATTERLEE

The optimal number of teams is 12, hands down in my opinion. For me, it’s hard to even internalize 10 or 14-team leagues. You get scarcity at all positions with 12 teams, but at the same time there is enough coverage for every team to have depth so it makes for good strategy too. I have come to like general PPR scoring. However, my favorite league is called the “High Drama League” and it is scored radically different, and it is crazy intense (and a total points’ league). First, there are distance scoring differences, which I like, and yardage cliffs such that yardage points aren’t linear, but accelerate with performance. In terms of lineups, I prefer 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 1K, 1 DT and one flex (RB/WR/TE). I also play the High Drama League with an “offensive line” position and it’s a blast. You get points for rushing yards and rushing TDs, but lose points for sacks. The OL can score like crazy, and it can crush you too with a lot of sacks. It’s a fun, creative twist, and scoring a RB/OL hookup can really deliver fantasy pain.

Satterlee is Co-Owner and Chief Editor/COO of FantasyFootballWarehouse.com. FFW features comprehensive profiles for all the major 2013 skill-position rookies, its Trading Spaces series, the team Deep Dives, the Speed Bump competition plus draft strategies, rankings, projections and more. FFW runs in tandem with its dynasty site DynastyFootballWarehouse.com.

JAMES SELTZER

In my eyes, the perfect fantasy football league is one with your buddies. Nothing better than talking smack to all your best friends while beating them at fantasy football. With regards to league size, I believe a 12-team league is the perfect size. 8 or 10 is too few and 14+ is too many. 12 allows for the league to be deep enough where it takes some level of skill to compete, yet not so deep that you are relying on 3rd and 4th string RBs/WRs to make a significant impact. As far as scoring goes, I like to keep it somewhat simple: 1 point for every 10 yards rushing/receiving and 6 points for a TD. For QBs 1 point for every 25 passing yards and 6 points for a passing TD. I know a lot of people like to use 4, but I like to keep TDs uniform across the board. I also like to keep defensive scoring low for the most part, it's never fun when someone wins because their defense put up 40 points or something. I also like to keep it relatively simple when it comes to positional requirements. 1 QB, 2 RBs, 2 WRs, 1 Flex, 1 TE, DEF. I feel like the more positions you add, the more convoluted it gets. I think someone once said, "Simplicity is next to Godliness," and while I am not a religious person, I can get down with that statement when it comes to fantasy football. Look, the main point of fantasy football is to have fun. Obviously, there are other reasons people play fantasy football, but for me, fun should be at the top of the list. I believe the more complicated you make it, the less fun it is, at least to a large portion of players. Lastly, if you hadn't noticed, I did not include a Kicker in my ideal fantasy lineup. That's because Kickers in fantasy are stupid. Yup, I said it. I hate fantasy kickers. I will leave it at that.

James Seltzer is a Writer of NFL content for Rotowire.com. Since 1997, RotoWire.com has been one of the leading fantasy sports resources on the web. Seltzer can be found on Twitter @JamesSeltzer975.

DAVID DOREY

The perfect league – meaning that it creates the most competitive situation that allows the most strategy and skill and the least luck – works out to be a 12-team league. Ten is close but 12 works out such that each team gets four of the top 48 players and that is usually right around where a major drop-off in talent occurs. That league starts QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 flex, TE, PK with a total roster of 20. That means 240 players are taken which still leaves at least a little something to happen on the waiver wire but each team can have depth. I would expect a scoring system that is standard with 1/20 passing, 4 pts per pass TD and -1 per interception. 1/10 rush or receive yardage and six point TDs otherwise. Definitely has a reception point. In my view, the perfect league does not use team defenses and awards the standard 3 points per field goal and 1 point per extra point. All positions get 2 points per participant in a two point conversion.

Dorey is the co-founder and lead NFL analyst for The Huddle and author of Fantasy Football: The Next Level. He has projected and predicted every NFL game and player performance since 1997 and has appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers, radio and television.

MICHAEL NAZAREK

I like a standard performance PPR 12-team league with a 20-man roster. It has just the right amount of teams for most owners to be competitive, but not everyone has an All-Stud roster. In addition, there are enough free agents after the draft to make a team that suffers early-season injuries still competitive.

Nazarek is the CEO of Fantasy Football Mastermind Inc. His company offers a preseason draft guide, customizable cheat sheets, a multi-use fantasy drafting program including auction values, weekly in-season fantasy newsletters, injury reports and free NFL news (updated daily) at its web site. He has been playing fantasy football since 1988 and is a four-peat champion of the SI.com Experts Fantasy League, a nationally published writer in several fantasy magazines and a former columnist for SI.com. For more info go to www.ffmastermind.com. Nazarek can be reached via email at miken@ffmastermind.com.

BRYAN HOUGH

I prefer a 12-team league with PPR scoring. I like a 16-man roster with a starting lineup of 1QB,2RB,2WR,1TE,1flex(RB,WR,TE) 1K,1D. I also prefer no trade leagues. I like 12-team leagues because they are competitive, but you can still get a good team if you know what you're doing. The PPR is the only way to go, with standard scoring it is more luck than skill. You have to hope on scoring TDs each week. The PPR format gives you a lot of options of setting your lineups each week. I like a 16-man roster because it keeps people from hoarding players and it makes you think a lot more on managing your team. As far as starting lineups, I like 9 which includes a flex (RB,WR,TE). I like 9 starters because when you get 2-3 flex options that equal 10-11 starters it makes more of an even playing field and fantasy football is not about being fair. It separates the good players from the average ones. It rewards the guys that bust their butts 10 months out of the year more than a guy who grabs a magazine a week before the draft. The RB/WR/TE flex is great in a 12-team league, because it gives you a variety of options each week. I prefer no trades, because people will draft 8 WRs in a draft and force someone to trade them get it a WR on a lopsided trade. Another factor is cheating between 2 teams or a team out of the playoffs that gives good players away for crap players to help his buddy out.

Fantasytitan101.com is in its first year. It is a fantasy football advice site ran by Bryan Hough, a High Stakes player, along with his technical guy Tony Lee. The site offers live draft results from High Stake drafts along with draft strategies, matchups and analysis, real-time cheat sheets, late breaking news, live injury updates, start'em/sit'em, sleepers, busts, breakouts, gut-check picks, best waiver wire options, player projections and rankings and much more!

IAN ALLAN

I like 12 teams, with three divisions and a championship game in Week 16. I prefer to see players allocated by auction rather than draft. I’ve played with all three of the mainstream scoring systems — standard, PPR and TD-only — and they all have their strengths and weaknesses. I like them all. If you go down to 8-10 teams, it becomes too easy, I think, to live off the waiver wire. If you go up to 14-16 teams, then there’s not quite enough talent to go around and it’s too hard to win.

Allan is the senior writer for Fantasy Football Index. He's been in that role since 1987, generating most of the player rankings and analysis for that publication. His work can be seen in Fantasy Football Index magazine, and also at www.fantasyindex.com.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI

The first thing I recommend to good fantasy owners is that they start more players in their leagues. The more skilled you are, the better this works for you. The goal is to smooth out variance, cut down the impact of any singular outlier (good or bad). Add multiple flexes to your league; most people who try this wind up liking it. I also enjoy two quarterback leagues very much; let's penetrate the player pool at all positions, not just running back and wide receiver. If you're worried that you have too many owners to make a two-QB pool feasible, include the QB position with one of your flex spots, so that teams have the option of starting a second quarterback but aren't crushed if circumstances prevent them from doing so. I also want to give a nod to the Fantasy Index for popularizing best-ball leagues, which are now popping up all over the place. This is the idea that you get your top scoring lineup every week, after the fact; no starting-lineup decisions come into play. While I wouldn't want to run every league in this manner, sometimes it's refreshing just to sit back and let the full depth of your roster go to work, knowing you'll bear the fruits of anything that clicks.

Pianowski has been playing fantasy football for 20 years and writing about it for 17. He joined Yahoo! Sports in 2008 and has been blogging 24/7 on RotoArcade.com ever since.

MICAH JAMES

I've played in quite a few unique formats over the years, but when it comes to the perfect league I'm pretty close to plain-vanilla. 12 teams, start one quarterback, and, in today's NFL, you've got to be playing with points for receptions. I like starting three wide receivers and I definitely prefer a deep bench for some of those late-round lottery tickets. The bottom line, however, is that the perfect fantasy football league is the one where you're squaring off against your friends and family -- there's not much better than having bragging rights over them.

James, the Fantasy Football MagicMan, currently hosts the weekly FFToolbox Fantasy Football Radio Show. In 2012, the FFMagicMan won the Fantasy Sports Trade Association’s Preseason Accuracy Rankings Challenge, and followed that performance with a Runner-Up finish in 2013. James posts his in-season rankings on the FantasyPros Experts’ rankings every week, and you can find his latest musings at ffmagicman.com. Follow him on Twitter at @FFMagicMan.

SCOTT SACHS

As much as I like the Auction format as a challenging change of pace, I am an advocate of the 12 team snake draft. If there is just 10 teams, that means almost every team is stacked. That's OK, but it also allows "slacker" owners to just show up and draft a great team with not much thought. Having 12-16 team drafts encourages more studying and a lot less luck. I've done both 14- and 16-team leagues, and having that many teams really dilutes the talent level of the rosters, plus you end up relying way too heavily on the waiver wire to improve throughout the season. Generally speaking, with 12 teams, there seems to be a more evenly distributed balance of stars and hopefuls and sleepers on each roster. For scoring, I like 6 points for all TDs, 3-4 points for TD passes, yardage bonuses, no PPC, no deductions for Offensive turnovers, and Team Defenses rather than Individual Defensive players. I like the Wild Card lineup concept, but I prefer to have it be ANY position, not just RB/WR/TE.

With 2 perfect seasons to his credit, Scott Sachs runs Perfect Season Fantasy Football, featuring LIVE Talk & Text consulting, advice, and opinions. Serving as one of the "Experts" for Fantasy Football Index, was 2011 wire-to-wire winner in Mock Auction Draft League. Also, was named winner of the 2012 Fantasy Football Index Expert's Poll! In 2013 Fantasy Index Leagues, finished No. 2 in Mock Auction, No. 3 in Draft.

SAM HENDRICKS

Of course there is no perfect fantasy football league, which is what makes fantasy football so great. There are no “rules” handed down by the “Royal and Ancient” (to use a golf analogy) fantasy football society that dictates what leagues must do. If you like a league play in it, if you don’t like it, leave it-after the season of course. In my book Fantasy Football Guidebook (2nd edition) I describe my “Holy Grail” of a league. It is a 14 team league so that everyone plays H2H in a 13 week schedule. Six teams make the playoffs and all battle in a 3 week total points Championship with their average TP from the regular season carried over. Auction is a must since it is the only league “Where you can have any player, just not every player”. A 16-man starting roster would consist of 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 2 Flex (RB/WR/TE), 1 TE, 1 K, and 6 Individual Defensive Player (IDP) (1 DE, 1 DT, 2 LB, 1 S and 1 CB). Roster size would be 40 (two of which have to be rookies) with the additional IDPs. Yes that is a long draft but since lots of players are drafted, that means less on the waiver wire for pickups to compensate for poor drafting. Scoring would be just like the FFPC with active scoring and 1.5 PPR for TE. Finally, it would be a minimal keeper league where owners could keep two players if they held them the entire season. If they elected to keep a player they would pay a 2 round penalty to do so. Thus a 20th-round player this year would be an 18th-round keeper the following year.

Hendricks is the author of Fantasy Football Guidebook, Fantasy Football Tips and Fantasy Football Basics, all available at ExtraPointPress.com, at all major bookstores, and at Amazon and BN.com. He is a 20-plus year fantasy football veteran who regularly participates in the National Fantasy Football Championship (NFFC) and finished 7th and 16th overall (out of 228 competitors) in the 2008 and 2009 Fantasy Football Players Championship (FFPC). Follow him at his web site, www.ffguidebook.com.

ANDY RICHARDSON

My favorite league, and it's not close, is my 12-team, 26-player roster Dynasty league that uses best-ball scoring. I love the dynasty aspect because it is closer to running an actual NFL team; you're not just playing the year and then discarding everyone after the season and starting over. Every decision you make is both for this year but also the long-term health of the franchise. Making trades in March and April? Can't beat that. I would always want to have a year-to-year league or two, because sometimes you end up down in a dynasty league and have to undergo a lengthy rebuild, but that's the league I like most. The best-ball element takes away the strategy and difficulty of the weekly lineup decisions, and I realize there's a negative there -- that's a big part of the game. But it does cut down on the luck/frustration element in that if a player blows up some week, he's in your lineup. I might not want all my leagues like that, but I enjoy the reduced stress with no tough lineup decisions Sunday morning, just roster moves. I do like the PPR scoring, just because it increases the pool of significant players.

Richardson has been a contributor and editor to the Fantasy Football Index magazine and www.fantasyindex.com since 2002. His responsibilities include team defense and IDP projections and various site features, and he has run the magazine's annual experts draft and auction leagues since their inception. He previews all the NFL games on Saturdays and writes a wrap-up column on Mondays during the NFL season.