Wood Elf advise needed.

[JaM]

Hello all,

I am playing Woodelves in the local league, and unfortunatly the first game didnt went as I had hoped. Poor planning and some bad dicerolls saw me 1-3 vs skaven with a -1 ST wardancer (and a -1 AG lineelf, but that's not that bad).

The wardancer will probably be fired (he has a MNG now anyway), the MNG lineelf will be put on the LOS.
I managed to buy an apothecary after the first game, so here you have it:

Wardancer
Wardancer MNG -1 ST
Lineelf MNG
Lineelf x 7
Catcher
2 RR
1 x apo

So I need 2 journey-elfs enxt game, giving me a TV of 99. Next game is vs. Dwarfs with a TV of 100 (a fresh team).

I need some advise on how to use Woodies in general. Any tips, strategies, do's and dont's are highly appreciated.

I do have a grasp of the rules, but woodelves are a new territory for me. AV 7 - MA 7 from playing skaven, but those players are in general a lot cheaper, losing one of those doesnt hurt that much.

Should I dodge, always, everytime, out of the opponent's tackle zones ? Or use leap a "lot" ? What should I and shouldnt I reroll ? Caging ? Stuff like that.

I am planning to take them to the BUBBLE-tournament also, but might change my mind and use Nurgle instead... If I keep having the same rate of success with this team.

Or is WE a typical team that need some games under their belt (and some skills on their roster) to become actually useful (like Chaos) ?

Thanks already,

JaM

[mattgslater]

Bummer about the Dancer: -ST is a firing offense; you're better off with a Journeyman and a Babe. Woodies are pretty nasty out the gate, so no, you can't plead to the development curve. But so are Skaven, so you don't have to hang your head too low.

For Dwarfs, use your speed on him: stay out of TZs and only let him hit one or two guys per turn. Use Journeymen to mark potential blitzers, or maybe the Blocker close to the play. Target Runners, Blitzers and Slayers: try to keep your Wardancer on a Runner. Get one Runner or Slayer out of the game through Blocks, and you'll see the effect it has on their mobility and defense. His line is ST3, so don't forget that. Put at least 5 guys on the offensive line (offense only... limit 3 on D, but everyone knows that, right?), and open your blocking with your center against the opponent's end. Always with Wood Elves, if you're not sure what the right player is to do something, it's the cheapest guy who needs any potential SPP from the venture and can get the job done, or just the cheapest guy if there's no SPP potential.

One general coaching tip that's doubly true if you're fast or if your opponent is slow (and trebly true in this case) is: plan your turns in advance, so you do the moves, stands that won't move, and 2d blocks before the d6 rolls and 1d hits. Turning over early is how you die. I played a guy last night who, once he started to lose, started opening his block chains on 1d blocks to try to get 3d with a ST6 player, instead of opening on 2d with ST6 to get 2d with the other guy. It worked beautifully once, but that wasn't worth it for the 3 TRRs he burned and the two short turns he suffered, and a game that could have been wide open turned into a horrifying rout, a a few die rolls away from being a team-breaker. He also threw an unnecessary foul early on, which set up his numerical disadvantage, but that's not relevant here: Wood Elves should never foul against Dwarfs (barring a card).

[Carnis]

Play conservative, despite you starting with 2 leaping players. Only try a leap-cagebreak if you have a good opportunity, or you have no other option. Just leaping to toss the ball-free is not worth the risk (of losing one of your precious 2 RRs), rather you need to have a plan how to capitalize on the loose ball, or the half must be ending, so a loose ball means the opponent won't score. Play loose, double layered defence, so a blitz won't let him advance more than 1-2 squares.

Focus your blitzes on the AV8 players (runners, trolls). Avoid staying in TZs, every 6th knockdown is a knockout/cas for your AV7 (every 3rd with mighty blow, 2/3 with mighty blow, piling on), so it's really crucial that you do not give out ANY free blocks. Try to free your players rather with 2die blitzes (1/81 chance of turnover (no block)/failure(block), 1/1296 with wrestle), than 1die dodges. Do not waste rerolls on dodges, and do the dodges at the end of the turn. Again dodging in to give assists may give you better odds of getting out of TZ.

On defence, it's a good idea to have one catcher in range of catching the ball & running out of blitz range at all times, so that if you do get an opportunity (after snakes, or after poor positioning), you can capitalize. Rookie dwarves are probably one of the worst opponents for any rookie team, but WE's do better than most (he does not have guard, so you can always get a 1die blitz on the ballcarrier, his runner does not have block, so you succeed 50% of the time).

If your league allows it, restarting the team will do you more good than swapping a WD for an apothecary and a -AG lineman. Your basic plan should be, play area defence, run out of TZs at the end of turn, if you get an opportunity then blitz -> pickup the ball -> pass & run out.

Chances are you will be outnumbered heavily on your 2nd half, if it's his offence you are probably looking at a 2-1 grind or a 1-1 draw. If it's yours can usually pretty easily outmanouver an unprepared dwarf, by running through his line and passing the ball out of pickup range.

[JaM]

Thanks for the advise, highly appreciated.

I will not restart the team, I'll suck it up and do with I have now. There are some new players in the league as well, I (as an experienced player, more or less) should use what I get, and go with it.

The skaven-match sucked quite a bit... Just "bad positioning" on my part saw 3 of my players getting crowd-surfed. He made the pushes he had to make, I (in the previous turn) just failed to score ! After that he had a numerical advantage and, them being skaven, I couldnt outrun/outmanoever them... damn shame. Ah well, such is life I guess.

I'll see what I can do about this dwarf. things SHOULD be going my way, statistically speaking...

[wesleytj]

For good "general" advice with wood elves, I might recommend my own little strategy guide I wrote up for them. You can find that here:

http://mama.indstate.edu/users/python/b ... index.html

Parts of it are (again!) in need of update, but most of the general info in there is still very accurate. There's not much I can say that wouldn't just be repeating what's in there.

[Funksultan]

You're gonna have a hard road ahead of you, but for the most part, fire the -AG lineelf as well. He's become a very expensive linerat, and those aren't exactly the most awesome models in the game to start with.

The wood elf game is all about staying away from your opponent. Using that AG 4 to step back from danger, after all your other important moves are done. Any SPPs this guy gets are gonna go down the tubes. Some (bashy) guys can live with -1 AG. Elves aint that bashy.

[JaM]

Wesley: thanks, it's under "favourites" now .

Rest: thanks also, I'll see how far it will get me in that league...

Cheers,

JaM