intersting question

[mattgslater]

I play in a moderately bashy league with rules that favor a very bloody game, and my PEs are consistently right in the middle with regard to body count on both sides: half the teams take more Cas, and half the teams deal more Cas (and I tend to dish out about as much as I take or maybe a tad less). I find Nerves of Steel to be meaningful (not huge) on defense: people think of it as an offensive skill, but there's no point of thinking that way with an elf team. Having four (or even two) guys with NoS makes it very hard to protect the ball with TZs, as you can afford to spend your RR on the pickup because you don't have to dodge and can throw to a guy who's already covered: after all, MA8/ST3 is great for providing pressure. In a league it's even better, as you've got all those freaky skill combos that work with NoS/AG4. If you have the Dodge skill, you can take a risk while stepping in and still be fairly comfortable that you're not wasting your time. If you have SH, you can try it without a TRR.

I'm not sure where this talk of four skills comes from, Ian. What I'm saying is that in many tournaments one is offered a single skill on each of several players, and frequently a team is held to one or two instances of any given skill. If a PE team can take two Side Steppers, that makes four total, making it ridiculously hard to punch through on them (esp. if there aren't so many skills that you're seeing any Grab). If they can have four skills, well now they have two ST3 Catchers with Dodge.

Note also, Ian, that all those 110 rosters I showed were 12-man. I think 8x Lino, 2x Blitzer, 2x Catcher, 1x Apo, 3x RR or 6x Lino, 2x Blitzer, 3x Catcher, 1x Thrower, 1x Apo, 2x RR is best in a serious tourney, but if you like flashy, 4x Catcher, 2x Thrower, 2x Blitzer, 4x Lino, 2x RR is great when it works, but I'd only do it if I were in a 110 league, or a tourney where I had enough skill selections that I could get funky with a couple.

[DoubleSkulls]

I was thinking about standard, 1 skill per game, resurrection style tournaments.

So for 4 skills from a wood elf team you could give both war dancers sidestep and 2 catchers sidestep. The PE team could give both blitzers dodge and 2 catchers sidestep. So 4 sidesteppers each for 4 skills. Giving both teams 2 blodge sidestep players. The PEs two S3 sidesteppers and the WE two S2 dodge sidesteppers.

In a tournament (not a league) Woodies are statistically better which supports my personal view.

League play I've a lot less experience.

[mattgslater]

I was thinking about standard, 1 skill per game, resurrection style tournaments.

So for 4 skills from a wood elf team you could give both war dancers sidestep and 2 catchers sidestep. The PE team could give both blitzers dodge and 2 catchers sidestep. So 4 sidesteppers each for 4 skills. Giving both teams 2 blodge sidestep players. The PEs two S3 sidesteppers and the WE two S2 dodge sidesteppers.

In a tournament (not a league) Woodies are statistically better which supports my personal view.

League play I've a lot less experience.

I'm not speaking from a great deal of tournament experience (I'm a league guy), so there is a bit of a peanut-gallery element to what I'm about to say. I'm also not speaking to any given tournament format: I've seen so many that I don't think that's helpful unless someone's got a particular tournament in mind.

One-skill-per-game progression seems like it would seriously discourage the SS strategy on a Catcher-heavy Wood Elf team (also, note that a 90k ST2 Catcher with SS is a risky option as a blitz-absorber, as by the time you have him your opponent certainly has a Tackler). One guy with SS will get use out of it, but it's kind of just cool. Two guys with SS is rather neat, as you can shunt an opponent inside. But the real advantage comes with 3 or 4, when you know you can lock 'em out on the first turn of the drive, all-but completely killing one- and two-turn games, and forcing cages to set up in a vulnerable spot with little chance to recover should you crack the ball out.

In the format Ian described, the PE team gets this in round 2. Maybe they wouldn't develop exactly the way described (I might want a Leap Catcher to help break cages or a Tackle Blitzer if I'm worried about Wood Elves), but getting one guy with SS first means that the only time the ball ends up in your half is once when you receive. Nothing else matters. Woodies get no such guarantee until round 4 at the earliest, when all the chaff have been culled, and even if they do, they have no other improvements and no ability to select specific skills with coming opponents in mind.

Some of the tournaments I've seen and heard of (esp. 110 tournaments) give a smattering of skills at the beginning and none as the tourney progresses. That's where PEs seem like they'd really excel. Those formats often have funky limits on how much of what you can take, and there I think the two-starters-with-SS edge is at its most meaningful (not to mention all the great options out there for an ST3/AG4/NOS Catcher).

However, a lot of the edge that any Elf team has in a league is lost in a tournament. A really good Elf team (any sort) in a league can consistently get 2-4 improvement rolls every game, and you start overwhelming the opposition with player quality very quickly. Woodies have it best from about games 5-15 (after they've got a Tree, but before the four PE Catchers have gotten out of hand), and I think Pro Elves are better before and after that. After a certain point, A PE team's got too many ST3 positionals with too many starting skills for a fair comparison to anybody except Dark Elves (HEs would seem to benefit from lineman longevity over PEs, but you can't take that to the bank like you can the skill edge and extra TRR). Oh, and none of this stuff about not investing in a Thrower: it's not much of an investment at all! Take Leader first on a Thrower, and he's just like a Lino with a doubles roll, except that gets Pass and P access as a free bonus (at least in TV terms). Wood Elves pay a premium to do the same thing.